Smash & Grab

by Amy Christine Parker

“Who’s in here?”

  At nearly the same time my phone starts to vibrate.

  I don’t have time to check the text, but there’s no need. It’s the security guard. Somehow he figured out we were here. The light is close, flicking over the props and costumes one aisle over. We have mere seconds to either move or be seen. But we still don’t have all the masks. I lunge forward and grab up the remaining five masks with one hand, yanking the bar they were hanging on clean off the wall. It clatters to the floor, and the sound is metallic and echoing. God-awful. I grab Lexi’s arm with my free hand and drag her down the aisle. Benny and Leo will have to make their own way back.

  “Hey!” the guard hollers.

  We run, taking the first turn we get to and then the next, purposely following a roundabout route to the back of the warehouse to throw him off course.

  “He’s right behind us,” Lexi breathes as the flashlight beam swings down our aisle.

  “Stop right there!” the guard shouts.

  We dart down another aisle and head in the opposite direction—or at least I think it is. This place is starting to feel like a giant maze. I’m not so sure we’ll ever find our way out. And the guard is getting closer. Too close. When I feel like we’ve put enough distance between us and him, I pull Lexi into a shadowy area behind one of those giant red phone booths—the kind they have over in Europe. England, maybe? Right now I can’t remember. I’m breathing hard and my head is pounding. We crouch together behind it, our shoulders and knees touching. I shove all the masks in my pack and then take out the fireworks I brought.

  “What are you going to do?” Lexi mouths.

  Instead of answering, I take out a lighter, ignite the fuse on one, and toss it over the top of some boxes into the next aisle over.

  Lexi stares at me, and then her eyes go wide.

  “Come on,” I say, grabbing her hand. Our fingers lace together and she holds tight. I pull her along and try to focus on where the exit might be from here.

  There’s a loud bang, and the guard makes a surprised noise before taking off, feet pounding, in the direction of the sound.

  We run to the end of the aisle and round the corner. Lexi’s grip on my hand gets tighter. By some miracle the door is up ahead. We’re almost there.

  Suddenly Benny and Leo appear, practically leaping out at us from around an enormous fake pine tree. The branches rattle as Leo trips over the tree base. He slams into it as he fights to stay upright. The tree rocks violently back and forth.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I whisper-yell.

  We leap forward and the tree topples behind us, crashing to the floor with a concussive boom. A pinecone rolls past my feet, and then we are at the door, through it, and out in the parking lot. I don’t look back. The hole we cut in the fence is there, two yards to the right. We adjust our course and dive through it one by one. My back scrapes against the snipped metal ends of the fence, and my skin burns, but I keep going, fully expecting the guard to grab my shoulder and haul me backward. But when I turn around, the parking lot is empty. Dark. Silent.

  “What about Elena and Oliver?” Leo says breathlessly. “Think they’re still inside?”

  We stare at the warehouse.

  “We can’t leave them in there,” Lexi says, panic in her voice.

  Our phones go off again and I dig mine out. It’s a text from Elena.

  We r ok

  She’s added a smiley face emoji and, inexplicably, a party hat.

  Lexi takes out her own phone and texts her back.

  R u outside?

  The answer comes in a split second.

  Now we r.

  I scroll up to see the text they sent us when the guard nearly caught us.

  Leave now!

  I shove my phone back into my pocket. They had one job and they pretty much flubbed it.

  I almost laugh, but it’s not actually funny. These are the people I’m counting on to get us out of the bank? I thought I could get them ready fast, but now I’m thinking we’ll need more time. Lots more time. Time we don’t actually have. I could kick myself for letting Lexi avoid me for the past few days. I should’ve insisted we start holding nightly drills. I will now, that’s for sure. One week. That’s all we have to get this right.

  “Well, not perfect, but a success,” Lexi says. “We got the masks.”

  “Barely,” I say. “You guys need to clear your schedules. ’Cause we got a whole lotta work to do.”

  There are LAPD patrol cars parked in front of the bank when I show up. It’s Thursday morning—my last day as an intern and the final workday before the bank closes for the long Fourth of July weekend. Do I go in? No way this is about the masks….It can’t be, can it?

  “Angela. Angela. Angela!” Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and Harrison is standing there. “I’ve been calling to you for the better part of a block.” He looks at me funny.

  I try to swallow the panic welling up inside me. I didn’t turn around because I forgot for a minute that I’m supposed to answer to Angela. I’m so tired I can barely see straight. After our near-capture at the costume warehouse, Christian had us spend the last four nights rehearsing for the heist at Leo’s beach house, where we could draw a rough layout of the bank’s main floor in the sand. Over and over and over again. It’s gotten so that I’m hearing “Everybody get down on the floor!” on a loop in my head.

  I blink at him. “Sorry. Late night last night.”

  “Hot date?” He grins his pervy, leering, toothy smile that makes me want to barf.

  “Actually? Yes,” I say. Which is a lie. There’s been nothing datelike about the last four nights. Christian’s been all business since that kiss on the street. He seems keyed up and worried about how the job will go, which has me keyed up, too. As much as I want to nail Harrison, I don’t want to go to jail myself in the process. But I have to admit, it’s been a relief to have the distance there between us. I thought I could play like I liked him, but it turns out that I’m not really playing. And that is more terrifying than the looming bank job. Turns out the vault I’ve built around my heart isn’t as impregnable as I thought.

  “The alarm went off last night. Five times.” Harrison blows on his cup of coffee and takes a sip. “Must’ve gone off again this morning.”

  “Did someone try to break in?” I ask as casually as I can, but my heart is racing. So that’s why the cops are here. Christian’s tunnels. The guys must be digging right now, just under our feet. The thought gives me chills. We are four days away from Monday’s heist.

  “No. False alarms. Started about four. Poor Leslie, the bank manager, had to get out of bed twice and come all the way down here. Each time the bank was totally secure. It’s probably the construction. The alarms on the vault are so sensitive that all the banging inside the building, coupled with the digging for the parking-garage extension, knocked it out of whack.”

  He walks me to the bank door and flashes his security badge to the guard standing just inside. The bank’s not officially open just yet, so the door is still locked. Once he lets us in, I see Detective Martin near the customer counter, chatting with Leslie and some of the tellers.

  “Leslie, how are you holding up?” Harrison says. He seems to know every woman in the building, but the guard at the door? He barely acknowledged him.

  “I’ve had better nights.” She sighs.

  “Mitch,” Detective Martin says, and there’s something in the tone of his voice. He’s not rude, exactly, but I don’t think he likes Harrison much. I knew this guy was smart. “And…”

  “Angela Dunbar. I was at the presentation you gave. For the interns. I’m an intern.” I’m babbling. Stop talking now, Lexi.

  “That’s it. Nice to see you again, Angela.” He turns back to Leslie. “What time can the vault be opened?”

  She consults her watch. “In about ten minutes. I hate to make you wait, but…”

  “No, no. That’s why we’re here.” Detective Martin leans against the counter and
stares at Harrison. “How are things upstairs?”

  Harrison sips his coffee, shrugs. “Good, good. Same. Looking forward to the weekend. The wife’s planned a little getaway. A couple of days in Vegas. She’s on a mission to see that Beatles show. I forget the name. And I’m happy to take her so long as I can steal a few minutes at the blackjack tables.”

  “So you’re a gambler, then?” Martin asks, only half listening, his eyes scanning the teller counters.

  Harrison keeps blathering on, and like Martin, I only half hear it all. What is he doing down here anyway? And why does he seem all keyed up?

  “Okay, ready to go downstairs?” Leslie asks Martin.

  “Mind if Angela and I tag along? I think she might find this interesting. Have you seen the inside of the vault yet?” Harrison asks me.

  “I saw the safe-deposit boxes,” I say. “The day I saw you last. Inside the bank. I helped that girl, the one who went to your daughter’s school, get a box.” I look mildly at Harrison, as if I’m just making conversation. He pales instantly, and a little thrill of satisfaction goes through me. Four days from now I’ll have what I need. He’s going down and he has no idea. Have fun on that Vegas trip because it’ll be your last, I think.

  Leslie nods. “Why not.”

  “You’ll have to wait behind me until I can clear it,” Martin says, frowning.

  “Oh, she will. But really, Detective Martin, I’m sure it’s a false alarm. We’ve had a handful of them on and off since they started renovating the building.”

  The detective nods, but I can tell he’s not convinced.

  Leslie and one of the tellers whose name I can’t remember lead the way through the safe-deposit room to the vault door. They each take their turn inputting their individual codes precisely at eight-thirty. I can hear the lock disengage, and then Martin is right there, hand resting on his sidearm as the door swings open. I don’t know exactly what I expected the vault to look like—on some level I had these visions of stacked gold bars and whole pallets full of cash—but it is disappointingly straightforward. There’s nothing blingy about it. It’s just a gray-walled square room with industrial-style shelves. There is cash in shrink-wrapped bundles and a cart with all of the teller trays on it—more cash, but it lacks the same punch as, say, the vault in the Bellagio in Ocean’s Eleven.

  Martin walks around the vault, peering at corners and staring down at his feet. The whole room is solid, quiet, tomblike. I stamp my foot and it barely makes a sound. Did they hear that down below in the tunnel?

  “The floors are reinforced steel on top of concrete,” Leslie explains. “It really absorbs the sound, doesn’t it?”

  I nod. Harrison didn’t come into the vault at all. I step out to see where he went. I find him almost immediately, staring at a row of safe-deposit boxes. So that’s why he wanted to come down. He was nervous that there actually might’ve been a break-in. He needed to check on his stuff.

  “So what did you think of the vault?” he asks, still staring at the numbered boxes.

  “I thought it wasn’t nearly as exciting as this room.”

  He looks at me.

  “You know, anything could be in here. Every box hides a secret, right? Jewelry. Important documents. Family photos. Rare coins. Doesn’t it make you curious?” I run a hand along a row of boxes, the one Stephanie’s is on. He flinches when my fingers land on it, but it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it thing.

  “I never actually thought much about it,” he says.

  “Everything appears to be fine.” Detective Martin walks out of the vault with Leslie. “Seems as if it might be the construction, but if it keeps happening, I’d like to put someone down here in a surveillance capacity. Maybe beef up security upstairs.”

  “Do you think it could be something more sinister?” Harrison asks.

  “Call it a hunch, but yeah, I think it’s possible.” Martin looks back at the vault and frowns.

  “Do you get those often? The hunches, I mean?” I ask. I clasp my hands together to keep them still. Suddenly I’m all shaky. If he suspects, what’s to keep him from catching us? A guy like this? I feel certain that he could.

  “I don’t know. Often enough,” he says.

  “And are they always right?” I ask. Please say no, I think at him.

  He looks down at the ground a minute before training his laser blue eyes on me. “Almost every single time.”

  “Well, this place couldn’t be any creepier,” Lexi says, her nose wrinkling up at the dank smell.

  “You were the one who insisted on coming down here,” I tell her.

  The tunnel work is done. Benny found out from Soldado earlier today. They finished later than expected, but the diggers have finally packed up, so it’s the perfect time to investigate. Until now someone’s been underground 24/7. Doesn’t leave me much time to figure out how to trap Soldado underground without burying his ass. Not that I’m not tempted, after what he had done to Gabriel.

  “I’m here because you need me. Like I said, part of what my club did was build houses for charity. It’s not the same as constructing tunnels, but I’m very sure I have a handle on the concept of load-bearing beams. I can show you exactly where to compromise the support system.”

  God help me, I’m putting this job in the hands of an architect-club president. This is screwed up. Except she’s right. She is my only hope.

  We make it to the spot where the dig site is, but at first it’s hard to tell, because the entrance has been blocked off with a concrete-covered board meant to mimic the tunnel wall. The concrete is still wet, and so it’s darker than the surrounding tunnel wall, easy to pick out under the flashlight beam, but unless you needed to come down this tunnel and were shining a light on the whole thing, you would probably miss it. I muscle the board out of the way and set it aside. The dig tunnel is completely dark. Quiet. Empty. I knew it would be, and yet I’ve got this creeping feeling that there are Florencia thugs inside, crouched in the dark, guarding the place. I take a breath to calm down and shine my light into the first chamber. No one’s here. I duck inside. Lexi follows.

  “This is amazing,” she says, awed. She runs a hand along the wooden beams at the entryway.

  We walk all the way to the end, to the last chamber. There is some serious equipment inside. A concrete saw up on a platform, an empty wheelbarrow, and a long row of shovels and pickaxes, as well as the boxes of explosives I saw the last time I was here. Some of it must be for the vault floor. Seeing it all somehow makes the job more real. My heart starts accelerating in my chest, hammering hard core. I want to be on the other side of this. I want to know it turns out okay. I look over at Lexi and watch as she runs her hands over the dirt walls like she can determine where the tunnel is weakest by feeling it.

  “You should attach the rope here,” she says, pointing to one corner of the beamed entrance to the space. “Tie it around this beam. Then we can bury the rope inside the dirt. You’ll have to wait down here for Soldado to show during the job. Hide behind this wall. When he does come, you and Benny pull the beam out as fast as you can, and all this dirt will come crashing down. My team hides in the tunnel system here. Once Soldado passes by and once we hear the collapse on your end, we’ll bury the front end of this thing and he’ll be trapped. The tunnel should remain intact at the center, so he’ll have plenty of oxygen until the cops discover him. Less if he has anyone with him.”

  I want to tell her that she and her team can’t do this part of the job. It’s way too dangerous. But I can’t. There’s no one else. Thinking about her down here, watching Soldado walk by, being close enough to him that he might discover her…it makes my gut clench.

  Very carefully I dig around the beam where she pointed and slip the rope around the thick wood. Together we bury the rest just above the beam, packing the dirt in tight.

  “So how exactly did Soldado get you to do the bank jobs?”

  I throw her a look, and she holds up her hands surrender-style. “You don’t have to t
ell me, but what does it hurt if you do? You read classic lit and have a full scholarship to UCLA.”

  How does she know? I frown at her and she laughs.

  “I have a hacker for a brother, remember? If it’s online somewhere, he’ll find it. You graduated with a four-point-one GPA. Impressive. That smart, and the only way any of the jobs you’ve done makes sense is if you were forced.”

  I shouldn’t tell her, but standing here in front of her, so close together, I want to. I want her to know the real me. And I can’t seem to stop myself from confessing.

  “How much do you know about gangs?”

  “Only what I’ve seen on TV. And from seeing them on the streets. I guess the first things that come to mind are graffiti, tattoos, and drive-bys.”

  “Okay, so next to nothing. Basically, every inch of LA is counted as some gang’s territory, right? All of them vary in terms of power and connections. Some are upstarts trying to make a name for themselves. Some are offshoots of larger powerful gangs, and even though they have their own lead dude, usually if they’re connected, that lead dude answers to other higher, more powerful dudes. That’s how it is with Soldado. He’s Florencia Heights, and so he is under the Eme. The Mexican Mafia. The Eme is ruled from jail, but they have emissaries on the streets. Soldado is one. He runs our neighborhood, collects taxes from all the businesses for the Eme, and supervises drug dealings for his territory. If someone owes money to the Eme, he collects. Forcibly. Soldado was supposed to do that with my dad when he gambled away the money the Eme loaned him. But because Soldado and me were tight”—I nearly choke on the word—“he offered me a way to make good on the debt and keep my family safe.”

  She stares at me wide-eyed, as if she’s really seeing me for the first time.

  I don’t know what to say, so I walk toward the front of the tunnel and get busy rigging the beams there, too.

  After a moment she comes up behind me and puts her hand on my back. The heat from her palm warms up my shoulder blade and sends a tremor through my chest.