Smash & Grab

by Amy Christine Parker

  Gabriel looks down at his phone and nods. “Usual time, usual way. The shipments come in at nine-thirty. The hopper gets out of the truck with the delivery almost on the dot. In and out in maybe five, tops. You figure that they probably start breakin’ up and spreadin’ out the bills right after; we need to hit it the moment the truck pulls out again. Nine-thirty-five.”

  “And if they got the money put away already?” I ask. “We walk without it, right? Right?”

  “Yeah,” Gabriel says with a shrug, his fingers jabbing his phone too hard. He’s playing some kind of game on it. “Son of a—it got me. Look, about the next job. It’s gonna be sick.”

  “How big?” Benny asks, suspicious. “I thought we agreed to do only small stuff, that big jobs are too risky. What about rule number three? Don’t get greedy, remember?”

  “Soldado’s got good reasons for us to rethink that. Fifty million of ’em, to be exact,” Gabriel says, his voice getting low as several churchgoers known for spreading gossip walk by. “Got the go-ahead from his higher-ups already, right? They think it’s solid.”

  I work a finger under the collar of my dress shirt. The sun feels too hot on my back.

  Eddie whistles. “That’s insane, bro.”

  “Only if it isn’t thought through. Soldado’s already worked it out. He’s got some concrete guys who are real good at drillin’ and stuff. They’ll tunnel under the vault and get us into the bank so we can do the interior work once the digging’s done. These guys take care of getting us in, we get the money, no one even knows we were there.”

  “You don’t think all that drilling’s gonna attract some attention?” Eddie asks.

  “LA’s sittin’ on a bunch of sandy ground that’s mad easy to tunnel through, dude. We do the job once the vault’s cracked. Then Soldado arranges the fence and the laundering. That’s eight of us with a hand in. We get twenty-four million. That split is sick! Our families would be living large.”

  Eddie whistles again.

  I wait for Benny to raise another objection so I don’t have to. Gabriel will take it better from him, but Benny doesn’t; he just stares at Gabriel, a slight look of awe on his face, and I know I’m losing him.

  “We agreed. No jobs bigger than a hundred thousand.” I shake my head. “Greed gets you caught. Your dad is proof, man.” It’s not cool of me to mention his dad this way, but I don’t care. Homeboy is out of his mind.

  Gabriel’s dad, my uncle, has been doing a stretch for grand larceny ever since Gabriel was three, which is probably why the Eme wanted Soldado to get Gabriel, and then us, for these jobs in the first place. They’re convinced we’ve got some kind of natural robbing ability or trade secrets or something. Plus, Soldado’s personally vouched for each of us. Gabriel’s dad was good. But then he started hitting more banks, trying for bigger takes, and ended up on the FBI’s radar. Agents dogged him down and took him in. The lesson I get from this? The key to surviving in a city that held the title Bank Robbery Capital of the World for more than a decade is to keep a low profile. With bank robberies happening all the time, the police have to cherry-pick who to focus on: robbers who score big and robbers who hurt people. And God help you if you shoot at a cop or something. You will get caught. And you will do a stretch in jail. Like Gabriel’s dad. A long, long stretch. The gun charges alone will jack you up good. I know because I researched it.

  I’ll be a thief if I have to, but no way I’m going to be a stupid one. “We can’t do it. Come on, you guys gotta see it. Fifty million? We’ll have the LAPD and the FBI on our asses.”

  Benny nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, it’s too big.”

  Eddie looks torn but ultimately nods. “You gotta tell Soldado we can’t.”

  A look of pure rage flashes across Gabriel’s face. “We’ve done six jobs so far. And what have we got to show for it? After the split, we’ve each cleared what? Two to six thousand apiece for each job? Max. This is a different deal. How can you not get that? Think of it as freedom money. You think the Eme’ll ever let us stop if we keep doin’ small-time jobs? But if we do one big one, they’ll agree we’re too hot. No more jobs. We can take care of our families and get on with our lives. Think about it.”

  I look over at Soldado and we lock eyes. He gives me another small nod. It can’t be this easy. One more job and we’re free? The Eme just lets us go? It’s all I want. To leave all this behind and get on with my life. But the thing is, whether I believe they will doesn’t change the bottom line: if the Eme wants us to do it, we don’t really have a choice.

  I watch as the US Bank Tower comes into view, my face pressed to the car window even though the sun is shining right on me, heating me up and making me sweat. It’s been a little more than twenty-four hours since the jump, and instead of going to school, we’re headed back downtown, this time because my mother is dragging us to my father’s bank, LL National, to talk to the people there about our accounts. When she went online to get money for Dad’s bail, all of our funds were frozen.

  We pass the spot where I landed. I half smile, remembering. Crashing on top of that van was nothing short of epic. The two guys inside were thoroughly freaked out. I wish I could bottle the rush of happiness I felt. I could use it this morning.

  “There’s no way it’s all frozen. He can’t have left us with nothing,” Mom says, her voice on the edge of hysteria, her hands gripping the wheel so hard her knuckles are white.

  She looks wild this morning, not her usual polished self. Little pieces of hair stick out around her temples, and her hastily-scraped-together bun is already coming undone at the nape of her neck. She put on makeup but somehow forgot eyeliner. I don’t tell her, because she’s already so upset. She never even knew we were gone Saturday night. I waited for her to ask me about it, but she was too preoccupied with this errand. A perk of having your father arrested, I guess, is that you don’t get questioned about where you’ve been or why you were out so late.

  Quinn is sprawled in the backseat, snoring away; sleep is his way of avoiding uncomfortable situations. I envy him. I can’t shut down like that when things get weird. I get itchy and restless instead. If I could jump out of the car and run the rest of the way, I would.

  “He can’t have left us this way. He can’t. He can’t.” She half laughs and her fingers flex, strangling the steering wheel the way she’d probably like to strangle my father. “How in the hell did I get here? This cannot be my life.” A sob chokes off her laughter, and then she’s crying in a way that’s both violent and ugly and so full of rage that it scares me. “How did I get here?” she asks again, softer. She’s not really talking to me or Quinn.

  “If you already know the accounts are frozen, then why are we going to the bank?” I ask, my voice harder than it probably should be. I guess I should feel sorry for her, but I don’t. I’m angry. She had to have known that he was doing something wrong, that this might be coming.

  “Because I have to try something. And I want those bloodsuckers to see us face to face and understand what they’ve done.”

  “I thought Dad was the criminal,” I say.

  She looks over at me like I’m crazy, and I shrink back against the seat. My mother has the coldest eyes sometimes.

  “Do you really think that your father could’ve pulled off a multimillion-dollar mortgage scam all on his own?” The way she says “your father” makes me think that she’s hinting that I might be just as stupid as she thinks he is.

  “How am I supposed to know? I only found out about this on Saturday. For all I know, you were in on it,” I fire back, stung.

  “At the very least there’s one other person involved. Possibly Colin Freed, but I’d bet anything that the real mastermind here is Mitch Harrison.”

  Mr. Harrison. Dad’s old college frat buddy. The guy who got him his job twenty years ago. I go to school with his daughter, Bianca, but we haven’t been friends since sixth grade, when she morphed into a mean girl and I decided I had better things to do than make fun of people. Quinn
lost his mind and dated Bianca for half a second last year, so he knows the family a little better, but I’ve only seen Harrison on and off over the years, mostly at parties or school functions, from a distance. He’s a typical finance type, always in a suit, giving off an air of superiority. He doesn’t look like a criminal, but then again, neither does my dad.

  Within minutes we are out of the car and walking down Figueroa toward Dad’s building. I haven’t been here since I was ten and he brought me for some take-your-kid-to-work thing that I only wanted to do because it meant a whole day away from school. I passed the place last night, after I jumped, but I didn’t stop and reminisce. Last night was about forgetting.

  We walk through the glass doors that lead into the lobby. Mom’s heels tap on the marble floor, making each step sound like a gunshot. She heads straight for the security desk.

  “Hello, Luther,” she says to the guard behind the desk, an older black man with salt-and-pepper hair and a solemn face. “I’m going up to twelve to see Mr. Harrison.” She stares Luther down like she’s daring him to tell her no. It’s unnerving to watch her do it, even for me. I’d be intimidated for him except that I can see her hands trembling at her sides.

  Luther looks over his glasses at her. “He knows you’re coming?”

  She busies herself with signing in on the little clipboard on the counter. “No, but he’ll let me up,” she says. “Go ahead. Call and ask him.”

  Luther stares at her a moment and then picks up the phone. I can hear a man’s voice on the other end. Brisk and businesslike.

  “Mr. Harrison’s coming down to meet you,” Luther says. “He said to give him five minutes.”

  My mother taps the pen she signed in with against the clipboard and hesitates. “We can’t meet him upstairs? Where it’s more…private?”

  Luther shakes his head, and she purses her lips but doesn’t argue. Quinn and I follow her as she stalks away from the security desk without another word. She heads straight for the ATM in the vestibule that separates the outside world from the lobby. Quinn and I hang back as she goes to use it.

  When the machine spits her card out a moment later and there isn’t any money accompanying it, I start to really worry. The account information was right. Of course it was. But I think all of us were hoping there was some sort of mix-up all the same. She bites her lip and tries again. And again.

  “Mom, it’s not going to work.” Quinn grabs her shoulders and gently steers her away. All the bluster and confidence she mustered coming in here is disappearing. I can see it leaving her in a whoosh, like helium from a balloon. Her shoulders slump, and she sinks onto the marble planter behind her, dropping her purse at her feet.

  “We have nothing. We have nothing. We have nothing,” she says over and over, staring all the while at the ATM. “My god. What are we going to do?” If I wasn’t scared before, I am now. Is she being dramatic or is this for real? We really have nothing we can touch? How are we supposed to live? How do we get groceries or pay bills or get gas or a hundred other things?

  “Elizabeth,” a man says.

  We look up in time to see Harrison striding toward us. He’s good-looking for an older dude. Sort of George Clooney–esque, but the air he gives off is not quite as charming. He straightens the cuffs of his bright white shirt.

  “Mitch,” my mother says, holding out her hand to him.

  He shakes it firmly and gives her a sad, pitying little smile. “I’m sorry about what’s happening. I know it must be hard on you and the kids.” He looks up at Quinn and then at me. His eyes flicker over my body. I don’t like being here, having him pity us. I can’t even imagine what my mother wants from him. It isn’t like he can unfreeze our accounts or anything. Right?

  “Thank you,” my mother says. “It is.”

  Harrison—I can’t think of him as Mitch—scans the lobby and then pulls my mother over to an area that isn’t so exposed to the comings and goings at the front door. “So why are you here, Elizabeth?” he asks.

  She frowns. “I’m here because we need help. The bank’s frozen our accounts….”

  “No, the FBI has frozen your accounts,” he says, his voice soft, as if he’s speaking to a small child.

  “What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to live? Warren worked here for over twenty years. Surely that counts for something.”

  Harrison stares at her. “He committed a crime. And he used the bank to do it. This scandal hurts us, too. Disparages our reputation. You can’t seriously think we owe him?”

  My mother grabs his arms, her fingers digging into his suit coat. “Please, Mitch. I don’t work. I haven’t worked in ten years. How am I supposed to find something in time to cover expenses and bail Warren out? We had all our money in those accounts. Now I have maybe fifty dollars to my name.”

  He takes a step back, shrugs out of her grip, and I can see the distaste, the revulsion in his eyes. I feel sick, like I might throw up. People are watching us now, stopping midstep to see what will happen next.

  “Mom,” Quinn says, and when she doesn’t answer, a little louder: “Mom!”

  She ignores him. “I need some money. And you’re going to help me, Mitch. You can’t pin everything on Warren and let us all twist in the wind while you walk away scot-free.”

  Harrison’s face goes stony. “Elizabeth, that’s enough. Accusing me isn’t going to clear Warren, and you know it.”

  “You had to have been involved! Warren told me as much,” my mother shouts, her voice ringing out in the cavernous space. “You let him take the fall, but you’re the one. You’re the one!” She’s not exactly making sense anymore. Quinn and I look at each other. What do we do?

  “Elizabeth, that’s enough.” Harrison’s voice is low, almost a growl. “Luther.” He looks over at the security guard, and Luther grabs his phone and starts talking into it. He’s calling for backup.

  “I am not asking you for a handout here. Even if I think you owe it to us. Call it a loan against what you know we already have in our accounts. We just need enough to get by until we sort this mess out.” Obviously angry and way past caring, my mother is begging now. “I don’t know what to do. Can’t someone tell me what to do?” She looks around the lobby at each person in turn. They scatter, making beelines for the lobby door or the elevators, carefully avoiding eye contact with my mother, who is about as unglued as I’ve ever seen her. Her voice cracks and she dissolves into noisy tears.

  Harrison shakes his head. “You’re handling this poorly, Elizabeth. This isn’t going to help Warren’s case. And it won’t help your children, either.” He glances over at us, and something about his expression makes me want to punch him. Was he in on whatever it is that my father was doing? The idea that he might have been and is walking free while our entire life implodes, it’s just…it’s too much.

  Three security guards enter the lobby and head straight for my mother. “Time to go now, miss,” the tallest one says, a look of grim determination on his face. He puts a hand on my mother’s elbow, but she jerks her arm away.

  “Don’t touch me!” she shouts. “How could you?” she says, this time to Mitch. “You and Warren were friends.” The guard goes for her again and this time grabs hold and doesn’t let go.

  “You can’t come back here, Elizabeth. It’s not good for Warren or the bank, understand?” Mitch says as the security guards start dragging my mother toward the door. There is a thin layer of sweat along his forehead. As cool as he’s trying to be, I think maybe my mother’s managed to make him nervous. And why should he be nervous unless he’s got something to hide?

  “Let’s go,” Quinn says to me, glaring at Harrison. “Now.”

  He’s trembling, actually shaking from head to toe, he’s so angry. I watch him clench his fists together so tightly that I’m sure he’s leaving nail marks in his palms. He heads for the lobby doors and doesn’t look back.

  I start to follow him until I notice that Mom’s purse is still next to the planter, turned on it
s side, the contents spilling out onto the marble. I stoop down to gather them up, my face hot and uncomfortable.

  “Let me help you.” Harrison is back beside me. He crouches down, picks up my mother’s compact, and hands it to me.

  “Don’t put yourself out,” I snap.

  He takes in a breath and then picks up a pen and the gum my mother always has in her purse and thrusts them toward me. “Look. I know you don’t believe this, but I had nothing to do with what happened to your father.”

  I look into his eyes and he smiles sadly at me, and I start to think that maybe he really means it, that maybe he had no idea that my dad was doing something wrong and was caught off guard just as much as we were. Can you tell if someone is guilty just by looking into his eyes? Either I’m not experienced enough to know exactly what to look for or Harrison is a pretty good liar, because I can’t tell. “Sorry. I just…Things are bad. Obviously we’re just…”

  “Scared,” he says. He slips the last item into the purse and helps me up. He’s so close to me that I can see the pores on his chin, the tiny black whiskers that are just under the surface. “I guess you would be. Listen. I can’t officially help. But I was your father’s friend. I do care about your family. Let me think about it. There might be something I can do….” His hand is on my shoulder. I can feel the light pressure of his fingers through my shirt. His thumb rubs the ridge of my bra strap. At first I think he’s doing it by accident, but then he keeps stroking that spot, and I get the oddest feeling that he’s trying to hint at something. I look up, and when I see the way he’s looking at me, it isn’t hard to figure out. Oh my god. And ew, gross!

  I back away, holding Mom’s purse in front of me like a shield. Mr. Harrison is hitting on me! I think, so shocked that I can’t quite believe that it’s real. Am I so upset that somehow I’m imagining it? But I can still feel the lingering heat of his fingers on my shoulder, and my stomach turns.