Smash & Grab

by Amy Christine Parker

  “We can still make it out of this,” I tell Benny and Gabriel. “All of us. We’ll do whatever it takes.”

  It’s nearly noon on Sunday. Quinn is in his room playing video games with Oliver, and I’m in my room with Leo, Whitney, and Elena, the four of us sprawled out on my bed watching heist movies because, after our meeting at the zoo yesterday, Whitney insisted that we get together to watch Ocean’s Eleven and The Thomas Crown Affair. Neither has anything to do with bank robberies—they’re about more glamorous casino and art heists—but according to Whitney, they’re both required watching anyway.

  I think she just wants an excuse to eat popcorn and deconstruct why both movies continue to be popular with people so long after their releases. If she doesn’t follow in her dad’s footsteps someday and become a director, I’ll be shocked. When the phone rings, we’re forty-five minutes into The Thomas Crown Affair, and the twins have convinced themselves that Christian is my Thomas Crown and I’m his Catherine Banning—the younger, considerably less refined versions, anyway. It’s ridiculous. I’m not in love with Christian. In another world, maybe I’d let myself be in serious lust with him, but love? No way. I don’t do love. In that way, Catherine Banning and I have a lot in common, except unlike her, I intend to stick to my guns.

  I stare at the caller ID, at Christian’s name in bold block letters, and debate answering.

  I shake my head and turn away from the screen. I press talk and put the phone up to my ear. Great. Thanks to the movie, now I’m picturing Christian and me dirty dancing. So much for sticking to my no-lust guns. Nice willpower, Catherine….I get up off the bed to go talk in the bathroom, where I might be able to hear him better over the TV and so no one notices that I’m blushing.

  “You ready to start your training?” he asks. His voice is gravelly, like he just woke up. I picture him lying on his bed now, the phone to his ear, his hair sleep-twisted, the hand not holding the phone resting on his bare chest.

  “If you’re ready, I’m ready,” I say, blushing harder.

  Behind me, Whitney and Elena start to giggle.

  “You should bring your friends along. I’ll bring one of my boys, too. There is a lot to go over between now and the job. What do you say we meet somewhere near you? Somewhere we can talk and not worry about being overheard?”

  I cover the phone’s speaker.

  “What does he want?” Elena whispers, a handful of popcorn halfway to her lips.

  “To start training us to rob the bank,” I say. “Where do you want to meet him?”

  “The beach house would probably be best,” Leo says. “My parents will be with their friends at the club all day. And my brothers are away on some surf overnight thing. We’d have the whole place to ourselves.”

  “You sure you want him to know where you live?”

  “Why not? He obviously knows where you live, which means he could find out on his own easily enough. And it is our usual spot for plotting mischief.”

  “So?” Christian asks. “You have a place yet?”

  I give him Leo’s address.

  “See you in an hour, okay?” Christian asks. There is a click and a sudden flood of silence as he hangs up before I can answer. After yesterday I’d expected him to flirt more, but this morning he’s all business. Good. Fine. Excellent. The job is the priority. I walk over and turn off the movie.

  Less than an hour later we’re sitting out on Leo’s deck, waiting for Christian and his friend to show up. Leo’s gone all Martha Stewart and prepared a couple of pitchers of lemonade and some chocolate chip cookies. They’re smack in the center of the table, artfully arranged on a wicker tray. I keep staring at them and cracking up. Only my bestie would bring snacks to a heist-plotting session.

  When the doorbell finally rings, I leap out of my chair and run to get it.

  “Nice place,” Christian says, his gaze drifting over the entry hall. He steps inside. “This is my cousin Benny.” It’s the guy from the Mary Kay van. Benny is shorter than Christian, but it’s easy to see that they’re related. They both have the same cleft chin and thick dark eyelashes.

  Benny slips inside and shakes my hand as he gives me an appraising look. “It’s good to finally meet you.” His eyes cut over to Christian as he presses his lips together to keep from smiling. Obviously they’ve had a conversation or two about me. Cue the roller-coaster plummet sensation in my stomach.

  I lead them straight out to the deck and introduce them to everybody. Whitney and Elena nearly explode out of their chairs to shake Christian’s hand. “Hey there, Thomas,” Whitney says, looking sidelong at me.

  Christian looks down at his hand, which is still firmly in Whitney’s grip. “No. Christian.”

  The girls dissolve into giggles.

  “What’s so funny?” Christian asks, frowning.

  “She’s referencing an old movie,” I explain. “About a thief.” I don’t elaborate, because the whole plot of the film is basically a seduction and Christian might get the wrong idea.

  “Okay, a couple of things right up front.” Christian settles into a chair. “My team goes in to start the job two weeks from yesterday. Between now and then we need to familiarize you with how my boys and I rob a bank, get you identical disguises and equipment, and steal your getaway car and ours. We need to do all of it without leaving any kind of trail for the cops to follow.”

  “That’s all? And here I thought this was going to be hard,” Quinn jokes.

  Christian’s expression is granite—hard and unyielding. “This isn’t like the stunts you guys usually do. We get caught and we do serious time. If you’re going to treat it as a joke, you shouldn’t be a part of it.”

  There’s something up with him. I didn’t notice at first, but now I see it—the shadowed hollows around his eyes, the way he and Benny keep exchanging glances. At the zoo he was almost playful, but now he’s all business.

  “Be careful,” Quinn warns him.

  There is a tense moment, and then Leo clears his throat. “So do we start with getting the disguises or…”

  Christian rubs the back of his neck. “That would be a good idea, since we have to track down a place that carries our particular brand of mask.”

  “Wait, we have to steal the masks, too? How many robberies are we going to commit here?” Oliver asks.

  “If you buy the masks online or in a store, the cops can track you. All they have to do is figure out which stores carry them, go through every receipt created around the time of the bank robbery for sales of that particular mask, and then check up on the customers who bought them. Even if you use cash, they can go back through the security-camera feed to the time the sale occurred, and get a visual image of you.”

  I stare at him openmouthed. The boy has definitely done his homework.

  “What do the masks look like?” Whitney asks. “Do they have a specific name?”

  “Radioactive zombie,” Benny says.

  “Okay, cool.” She whips out her phone and starts tapping it. “There’s a good chance that at least one of the costume-supply warehouses my dad uses has them. The inventory in those things is so huge, it’s pretty likely we could sneak some out and then put them right back after the heist without anyone even realizing they’re gone.” She swipes the screen and squints. “This it?”

  Christian and Benny get closer so they can peer at the screen.

  “That’s it,” Christian says. “How secure are these warehouses?”

  “They have cameras and security guards—an alarm system for sure. Looks like they have over…fifty. Must’ve been used in a zombie horde scene or something. So it’s perfect, right?”

  “I can hack the system,” Quinn tells him. “Wipe out the alarm and intercept the camera feed.”

  “So can I leave the planning to you?” Christian asks.

  Quinn nods. “Whitney, give me the address on that warehouse.” Quinn and Oliver hunch over Quinn’s laptop and scroll through the warehouse’s website.

  Down on
the beach someone squeals, and Christian jumps as if he’s just heard a gunshot. He and Benny stand up, eyeballing the door. I don’t like how jittery they are.

  “Hey. Can I steal you for a walk down there?” I ask him, gesturing toward the long stretch of sand that constitutes Leo’s backyard. “We have a couple more things to discuss.”

  He shrugs, which I decide is a yes. I grab hold of his hand and pull him down the weatherworn stairway.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Nothing’s up.”

  “You’re acting weird. Why?” I lead him to the wet sand, where it’ll be easier to walk and wait for him to answer me. Shining nearly directly above us, the sun is unrelenting, beating on my head and back until I feel like I’m igniting. I edge closer to the water and walk through the surf, stooping briefly to cup some and pour it over the back of my neck.

  He watches me silently, the serious expression on his face unchanged and worrisome.

  “Come on, what is it?”

  He avoids looking at me and starts walking down the beach, kicking up clumps of wet sand. His shirt ripples in the breeze, crackles like a sail. “Nothing I want to talk about.”

  He walks and I keep pace, neither of us speaking. It’s a strangely somber moment, given all the banter we’ve exchanged back and forth the past few times we’ve met. I don’t know what to do or say, but I feel like he’s waiting for me to say something, to find the perfect combination of words that might get him to release whatever he’s bottled up inside. Except unlike BAMs or bank robberies, this isn’t a challenge I feel confident I can tackle, so I do what I do best: ignore and deflect.

  “I want to see the tunnels under the bank.”

  He snorts. “No.”

  “I’m not asking permission,” I say. “If we’re going to do this job with you, I want to see what your half of the plan looks like. For example: how are you going to collapse the tunnels?”

  He whirls on me. “I said no! This isn’t a game, all right? You aren’t getting anywhere near the tunnels. They’re dangerous. And besides, what does it matter? They won’t be a viable way out for any of us after the job. We leave the bank through the front door. The only thing you have to concern yourself with is getting us out of the vault. You don’t trust me. Good. You shouldn’t. But the tunnels aren’t your concern.”

  I glare at him, blood roaring in my ears, my heart beating hard. “Every part of this job is my concern. You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do. We’re in a stalemate, remember? Equally compromised.”

  He laughs bitterly. “No. We aren’t. You’re looking to expose Harrison and get some thrills. Things don’t work out and all of us get caught, you’re not looking at life in jail once all the charges come down. They’ll probably cut you a deal if you testify against my team. You fail and you lose stuff. I fail and not only do I go to jail, I lose people I care about. The men I do the jobs for kill my family. Benny’s family. Carlos’s, Eddie’s, Gabriel’s.” His nostrils flare. “So don’t tell me we’re the same. You have zero idea of what you’re talking about.”

  He turns abruptly and takes off down the beach without a backward glance, and I’m so shocked by his outburst that I don’t know what to do or say. So I stand, my feet swallowed up in wet sand, hands fisted at my sides, and watch him go.

  I stomp on the gas pedal and roar away from the beach house—and Lexi. My skin feels coated in ants, crawling and uncomfortable. I can’t sit still.

  “What the hell happened back there?” Benny asks, turned halfway around in his seat so he can stare at me.

  “Nothing. It’s just…how are we supposed to rely on them to help us? You see that house? They aren’t invested in this like we are. They walk away now and what happens? Nothing much. Lexi’s dad stays in jail and his boss doesn’t get exposed, but so what? They survive. Maybe with less money, but people like that find a way to get it back. They have choices here. We don’t.”

  I grip the steering wheel hard enough that my fingers ache. I knew Lexi was rich. I saw her house that day I took the pictures of her. But seeing her with her friends just now, all of them lounging around that deck in designer clothes and radiating privilege, while Gabriel’s laid up in the hospital and Benny, Carlos, Eddie, and me are facing the same, I couldn’t deny how different our situations are. And I definitely couldn’t listen to her stupid brother make patronizing comments and pretend like it was cool.

  “We can make this work, bro,” Benny says quietly. “But only if you get your head straight. We need them to get us out of the vault. Period. So we have to make sure we keep them committed. That means dealing with their jokes, promising to get them that safe-deposit box, and putting up with them.”

  I stare at the stream of cars in front of us and force myself to breathe. He’s right. I know he’s right. I shouldn’t get so worked up, but standing on the beach with Lexi while she asked me what was wrong, all the swagger she normally has gone—for a minute I felt like she cared about me, and I couldn’t…I don’t know. I just felt the weight of everything that’s happening crash down on me.

  “And you’re wrong that they don’t have a lot to lose. If Soldado were to find out about what we’ve got planned, he’d go after them, too. They just don’t realize the stakes, vato.”

  And that’s really what’s gnawing at my gut, if I’m being honest with myself. I’m putting Lexi and her friends in danger. Deciding to put my boys’ and families’ lives ahead of theirs. It’s a terrible choice to make, and being near her, looking into her eyes and pretending that I’m not, is only making it harder. I don’t think I will be able to live with myself if this job goes bad and something happens to her.

  “We gotta pull it off, that’s all,” Benny says. “We pull it off and everybody lives happily ever after. You can’t think about it going bad. It won’t. The closer you get to that girl, the better the chances that we come out okay. What’s that saying? The means justify the ends? Something like that?” He lowers the window and lets in a blast of hot summer air. “The more this girl likes you and thinks she has a chance at getting what she wants, the safer we’ll all be. So man up and play the game, bro. It’s the only way to keep her safe in the end.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I say. I have to get Lexi and her friends to see the job through. I’m not really putting them in danger or hurting her if I make sure nothing goes wrong…right?

  It’s the last full week of June, and the temperature has spiked to one hundred degrees, record heat this early in the summer. I walk out of the air-conditioned cool of the bank to go grab some lunch, dreading the wall of humid, breath-stealing air.

  Three days have passed since Christian stormed out of the beach house without an explanation, and I haven’t heard from him since. Everything suddenly feels tentative: the job, exposing Harrison. We can’t do the job without Christian. It would take too long to break into the safe-deposit box on the morning of the robbery. The tellers and employees show up just before opening. That leaves us minutes to storm the bank, get inside the vault, and pry open a box so secure we’d have to take a crowbar to it just to get it out. How long could that take? More than five or ten minutes, for sure. The bank wouldn’t open on time, and the cops would show up before we could get anywhere.

  I cross the street and walk the block to where the food truck is parked, careful to keep enough distance so I won’t be spotted. The girl, Rosie, is there, but Christian’s not. I take out my phone and try calling him again. I’ve left four messages so far.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I say.

  “Hi, me.”

  I whirl around and there he is, standing right next to me, his COCINA DE MI CORAZÓN cap pulled low over his eyes, making them look even darker.

  “Where have you been?” I say, hating how upset I sound. He needs you just as much as you need him, I remind myself. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call this whole thing off.” There. That’s better.

  “I will, I swear, but not here.” He glances over at the
taco truck. “I know you’re mad, but give me a chance to explain. You’re on break, right? Listen to what I have to say, and lunch is on me.” He grabs my hand in his and pulls me closer. “Come on, please.” Eyes flashing with mischief, he begins walking backward, leading me.

  “Okay, fine. But I’m getting my lunch to go, so talk fast.” I give in, but only because we can’t afford to keep wasting time. There’s too much to do.

  “I’m sorry for Sunday. I was dealing with some stuff, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. One of my guys, my cousin Gabriel, got hurt over the weekend. He does construction and there was an accident.” He looks straight ahead. “He was crushed under a backhoe. He’ll make it, but for a while we weren’t sure….”

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. But why didn’t you tell me on Sunday?” No wonder he was so shook up. Now I feel like a huge jerk for being so flippant a second ago.

  “Because we agreed not to get too close, right? I didn’t want to get into it. I was too upset. And because he was supposed to be on the job and I knew it complicated things. I didn’t want to talk about it until I was sure he’d be okay and that we could move forward without him.”

  He takes me into a little sandwich shop with a movie star–inspired menu. I order the Meryl Streep’s Complication, which is a croque monsieur (basically the French version of a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich), a nod to one of her movies, It’s Complicated. It’s a fitting choice, considering the movie title perfectly sums up this whole heist and Christian. I feel like I’m constantly scrambling to stay one step ahead, and the last few days have made me feel as if I’ve failed.

  He pays and we find a place off to the side to wait for our order.

  “So, you still a go?” he asks.

  I was planning on making him sweat it a little, but given his explanation, I don’t want to. Playing games now feels cruel. “Yeah. We’re in.”

  We don’t talk again until we’re back outside. “We’ve been working on the masks. We can hit the costume warehouse this weekend. Quinn’s almost got the security stuff worked out, and there’ll only be one guard on duty.”