On the Brinks

by Sam Millar

  Fuck! It was Tom. I felt like shit, because I knew he was frightened. I could do nothing to reassure him, so I said nothing, wondering if he suspected that it was me?

  A few seconds later, we were in like Flynn, entering through the door, which was now ajar. Somewhere in the dark, voices spoke as if from a great distance, thinning themselves out into hums.

  I glanced at my watch. We had less than eight minutes to secure the building and disarm the rest of the guards, and for me to return to the van and drive it in, all nice and casual.

  I placed my finger to my mouth. Someone was approaching. A door opened. In my mind, I could picture the guard staring down into the dark where we stood, smelling something wrong, his hand on his gun. Would he fire first, ask questions later? Was this the one who was trigger-happy, as reported laughingly by Tom one night, over a couple of beers? The one who boasted of hoping some motherfucker would be stupid enough to rob the place while he was on duty? “Ha! I’d shoot that mother in the balls first, watch him scream in agony. Then – kabbam! Right in the fuckin’ head.”

  My hand went unconsciously from my balls to my face. I tried not to think about it, fearing it would cloud my judgement. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t erase the picture of my face, a bloody pulp, splattered all over the walls.

  The footsteps echoed back from whence they came. I exhaled through my mouth and arse as Marco tapped on my shoulder, indicating it was time to move.

  Two minutes gone, and Tom was secure. We placed him in the back, away from the rest, before making the perilous journey up the stairs.

  One flight of stairs later, and the light from the room stung our eyes. We’d made it to the most sensitive part of the plan: ‘The Trap’.

  The Trap was the command centre where all the cameras festooned throughout the building were monitored. One of the many locked cabinets in The Trap housed video recorders, recording all activity in and around the vaults where the cash is handled: cash-counting machines, offices and garage.

  On their own TV monitors, I sat and watched as the guards went about their duty, guns on their hips. One was in a vault. I could just about make him out. Another was stacking money bags.

  I scanned the room with the remote, a voyeur, zooming in and out, familiarising myself as best I could with the little time left. An empty Coke can lay squashed beneath a counting table; a newspaper sat on top like table-covering, as if they were expecting someone for supper.

  Mustn’t disappoint, I thought.

  Then my eyes caught the open cupboard with its family of evil-looking shotguns lurking inside, waiting and hoping.

  Bastards. Bet you’d love to shoot the arse off me.

  The guns stared back. Helpless. For now …

  I could even see the irregular sepia rings from the guards’ coffee cups staining yesterday’s newspapers. I had suddenly become an editor. This time tomorrow they would all be reading about themselves. We all would. Hopefully.

  Marco leaned over my shoulder, pointing at the guard in the vault. “I’ll take him,” I whispered. I knew in my heart it was dodgy, because it would be Trigger Happy. Just my luck, I thought, knowing that any noise would trigger the alarms.

  For a second, the dread of the automatic door shutting, trapping me, entered my mind. Worse, old Trigger Happy getting the draw on me, shooting me in the balls, laughing his own off, shouting: “Motherfucker! Got ya! Kafuckinbam!”

  I shivered, then quickly pulled the balaclava over my face. It was Showtime. Or shit time, depending on the outcome.

  Within seconds, I was behind the guard in the vault. I had been so slyly successful, it was necessary for me to cough, just to make my presence felt. Initially, he turned to me smiling, believing it a prank, then staggered back in disbelief as I pointed my replica gun at him. His hand hovered menacingly over his own, real gun.

  I covered my heavy Belfast accent with the worst Russian one ever heard. “Don’t even think about it, comrade,” I hissed, my nerves racing.

  But he was thinking about it. All those fucking John Wayne and Gary Cooper movies raced around old Trigger Happy’s head. We’d all be dead in a minute because of the Duke and High Noon.

  A single bead of sweat rested on his left eyebrow, like a rabbit’s head peering nervously over a hedge, searching for the hound. Slowly it trickled down his face, leaving a transparent trail behind.

  He was going to do it. The crazy bastard was going to go out in a blaze of fucking glory, taking me and everyone else with him.

  I pulled the trigger back on my own shitty replica gun, and it sounded like someone opening a rusted can of beer. I expected the plastic trigger to fall off and land at my feet. But it was that sound that snapped Trigger Happy back to the real world; a sound I’d be eternally grateful to.

  “Get fucking down!” I screamed, seeing him waver.

  He did, and I quickly removed his gun and frisked him, in case he was the type who concealed a gun between his cheeks. With the plastic ’cuffs used by cops for crowd control, I secured his wrists.

  Marco’s guard had more sense, dropping his gun and belt to the floor immediately. Everyone – the other guards included, it seemed – was relieved when Trigger Happy was secure. It wasn’t his money, anyway. Brinks Inc. paid these men the minimum wage, expecting them to lay down their lives to safeguard their stock. What a fucking joke.

  Three minutes. That’s all it took. It was frightening, the ease of it. As I left the building to bring the van in, a feeling crept over me. I was disappointed. It was all so anti-climactic. Three years in the planning, and it was all over in three minutes. For some reason, I was the one who felt robbed.

  Now, with adrenaline coursing through us, we became supermen. Mountains of money disappeared in front of our eyes, as we heaved it into sacks. Every now and then we stopped and grinned at each other. I was so happy I wanted to hug myself, give myself a big kiss.

  It would transpire that we had lifted almost 1,200lbs of paper weight in less than fifteen minutes. An Olympic record. Each 100lb of paper represented, roughly, $1,000,000. I don’t care what anyone says, there’s a hell of a lot to be said for a solid monetary incentive.

  Just as things were going so well, the sound of someone banging on the front door made us freeze. We both stopped breathing. Perhaps it had just been the winter wind playing havoc with our nerves, winding us up? When it banged again we both knew the truth.

  I placed my finger to my mouth and quickly, but quietly, took the stairs to the security room two by two. In a second, I had the cameras scanning the exterior of the building.

  I couldn’t believe it. Outside, a lone black man stood, banging on the steel door. Every now and then, he seemed to glance over his shoulder at someone, waiting in the dark. Had someone seen something suspicious? What if more than one was out there, waiting to rush us? Could it be an off-duty cop, coming to check? Could it be fucking robbers, coming to rob us? The irony of that! All was possible in that moment of madness.

  Whatever was racing through our minds, we knew we would have to go down and find out what he wanted. The longer we stalled, the more suspicious he – they? – would become.

  As Marco walked slowly to the door, I stood in the shadows, directly behind, a guard’s automatic shotgun ready in my hands.

  Marco took a deep breath before speaking through the security vent. “What’s the problem, pal?”

  The man seemed as nervous as us. “I’m very sorry … but we’re lost. We’re trying to get back on the highway …”

  It turned out to be nothing more sinister than a black man lost in a strange town. His wife and kids sat in a car at the side of the road, terror on their faces, probably thinking about some KKK nutcase coming along in the dead of night.

  As the man’s car disappeared down 490, we sat down against the wall, not saying a word, both knowing each other’s thoughts. I laughed. So did he. We couldn’t stop, giggling and biting our lips, tears rolling down our guilty faces.

  With the van n
ow packed to capacity, I jumped in, started the engine. Thunderbirds are go! It sputtered, sending dark smoke into the air, then shook like a spacecraft ready for takeoff.

  It shook and it shook, but it refused to move. We had put too much money in. The engine was burning up and the building was black with smoke. Everyone was coughing.

  That’s when the van conked out.

  Marco was upstairs, removing the videotapes, to hinder the cops as much as possible.

  I tried the ignition key again. Nothing. Just as I was about to get out, Marco jumped in beside me, not wanting to say a word, in case that word caused panic. A phone call could come in at any minute. Perhaps someone had seen all the smoke, or something else suspicious.

  He was first to move, opening up the engine, checking if it could be fixed.

  Something told me it couldn’t.

  “Get some of the bags out,” he hissed.

  In less than a minute, we removed about one third of the bags. The adrenaline was fading fast, and my muscles began to ache.

  “Try it again.”

  I wanted to remove the mask. The sweat and smoke were stinging my eyes, making it difficult to see. Instead, I tried the engine, pumping the gas pedal, praying to God, knowing He wouldn’t approve of this.

  The van sounded a splutter of relief, coughed, then roared.

  I was drained and sagging with exhaustion. If it stalled now, that would be the end.

  The massive doors of the garage slowly – too slowly – opened, introducing the night sky. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. It made little difference that we were forced to remove $3,000,000, and leave the stack with the rest of the millions still in the vault. I was simply glad to be out of there, taking in that cold night air. The mask was off and I was breathing again.

  In the back of the van lay $5,500,000 in twenties and the rest in mixed bills, bringing the grand total to almost $8,000,000 dollars. Not bad for an hour’s work for a kid from Belfast. Unfortunately for Tom, he was sitting on top of the bags. Marco had insisted on taking him with us, to encourage the rest of the guards not to do anything stupid. I felt bad. He lay there like a piece of meat at the abattoir. I justified all of it by telling myself that I would take care of him later, financially. He would no longer have to work for Brinks. Besides, we would drop him off in an hour, none the worse for wear.

  Less than twenty minutes later, the van – minus Tom – pulled into the garage of a prominent New York State lawyer, a cousin of Marco. Quickly and quietly, we unloaded the sacks, placing them behind a false wall that blended perfectly with props scattered about.

  The temptation to keep just a little of my cut for the journey home was overwhelming, but thankfully the cooler head of Marco prevailed.

  “Don’t be stupid, Sam. What if you’re stopped by cops?”

  Before departing into the night’s darkness, I glanced at the lit-up dining room, where the lawyer was entertaining some friends. I swear he winked at me, raising his glass in a toast, with a smile so innocent it was believable.

  Marco departed in a car – his cousin’s, presumably – and I took command of the van. We would meet in about a month, all going well. And as I drove the eight-hour journey back to New York, a billboard greeted me, asking if I had enjoyed my stay in Rochester and would I be coming back? I smiled at the woman and winked. Hell, you betcha I enjoyed it, but don’t be offended if ya don’t all see me again.

  It had all gone according to plan. Beautiful in its simplicity. A pity the van had been so small, but that’s the way it goes. Couldn’t complain. No one hurt. No one caught. Perfect.

  Perfect, my arse! Twenty minutes later I turned on the radio, and soon I realised the perfect crime had been perfect only for about twenty minutes. One of the guards had managed to wriggle free and raise the alarm. Police helicopters were now in the air, searching. The radio mentioned a van. They even knew the colour! Fuck!

  Had it not been raining, perhaps I wouldn’t have left the tyre mark behind that stuck out like a black, sore thumbprint on the pale floor of the Brinks depot. But that was all in hindsight. Spilt milk. As the New York State thruway started to congest with police cars, something in my stomach told me I wouldn’t be making it home after all. The thruway would be cordoned off at each exit, guarded by trigger-happy police, only too willing to burn the barrel off their guns as they used me for target practice.

  Each time the headlights of a car came up behind me, my stomach heaved. I tried to listen to the news and for the helicopters overhead, all at the same time, all the while trying to keep my speed at exactly 55mph. A couple of times I thought I heard someone in the back of the van.

  The robbery was now headlines on every radio station I tuned to. A van, grey in colour, was the culprit. Two, possibly three men inside. All armed. All extremely dangerous. Proceed with extreme caution. Repeat: all armed and extremely dangerous.

  The fuckers were setting me up to be shot dead. I could picture the steroid-bloated cops, grinning, lurking behind their cars, lights and sirens all turned off, smelling me coming a mile away. “Fox News” or even “Hard Copy” would interview them all afterwards, each claiming to have fired the fatal shots that left half my brains scattered across the New York State Line. They’d be heroes, and get a few spoken lines on “Cops”. They had it made.

  Twice I had to stop at a filling station for petrol, and each time I knew this was where it would end. Would I burst into flames, or would they wait until I was about to re-enter the van? No. It would be the flames. Give me a taste of what was waiting for me at the end of the Big Journey.

  Seven hours later, as I slowly came to a halt at the tollbooth, ticket in my hand, I knew that here was definitely where it would all end. The bastards probably wouldn’t even give me a chance to surrender.

  “You have a nice day,” said the smiling lady at the booth, as she handed me change from a twenty.

  It was then – looking at her beautiful but dead smile – that I knew everything was going to be just fine. “Thank you. I’ll do my best,” I replied as the van lurched forward, towards the early morning sun just coming into view over Manhattan.

  With a bit of luck, I’ll be home in twenty minutes. Perfect.

  You simply can’t beat the perfect plan. It works every time. Until you discover it wasn’t so perfect, after all …

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Room for Heroes

  JUNE 1993

  An elegant sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books.

  James Thomson, Scottish poet

  Money doesn’t talk, it swears.

  Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”

  I had noticed the store with its “For Rent or Sale” sign on a couple of occasions as I drove by, dropping my kids off at school. It was a perfect location for what I had in mind, situated in an idyllic middle-class neighbourhood of Greeks, Italians and Irish, a community of hard-working people who had tremendous pride in where they lived.

  However, some negative points could be drawn from the exterior of the store: it looked quite small and had enormous rusted locks – four in number, each the size of a coconut – studded to its metallic skin. I wondered if this was a gauge of crime in the area, or simply an over-cautious owner? A swathe of dry vegetation led straight up the building’s side, like a five o’clock shadow.

  “I’ve seen you a couple of times, looking at the store. Are you interested in it?” The man asking the question was of slim build, tall with red hair. There was no doubt about the Irish in his freckled face, dotted like rusty nail-heads.

  I was caught off-guard by his sudden appearance. “I’m just looking, at the minute. I’m thinking about opening a store in the neighbourhood, but –”

  Before I could finish, he had my elbow and was fumbling for his keys. Within a minute, the locks fell to the ground and the shutters clanged open. I was quickly ushered inside.

  “Terry McLaughlin.” He put out his hand and I shook it. “H
as every little thing you would need. Bathroom in the back, plenty of storage in the next room – and there’s a great restaurant down the street.”

  “Yes, but –”

  “What kind of store are you opening? You can even see the Empire State Building lit up at night, all red, white and blue. It’s great to look at.”

  “Yes, I know. I see it every night from my own apartment,” I said, deflating his swelling pride-filled face.

  “Oh …”

  It all sounded rather cosy, but the truth was being stretched, slightly. It was a bare, skeletal box, devoid of even a single redeeming factor, wounded from a sad history of abuse and neglect. Odds and ends, snarled in a confused state of disarray, were scattered haphazardly across the floor. It looked completely uninviting. Granny paint was wrinkling, and wires hung nervously from exposed lights turned gangrene-yellow from the layers of rotting insect carcasses attached to them. The dust looked menacing. It reeked of strangled cigarettes. I thought about my allergies and asthma. The air conditioning wasn’t functioning properly either.

  Terry read the reluctance on my face perfectly. The store’s ten months of emptiness had started to eat at him – and at his bank balance. There was no way he could countenance further reductions brought about by this ugly duckling. Outside, vast slabs of trees circled the back of the shop, suffocating in their closeness.

  “We could chop them down,” said Terry, worried, watching my body language. “It would bring in better light, expose – reveal – the store’s hidden vastness. To be totally honest, I was just saying to my wife, the other day, that those trees seem to –”

  “No, I think they’re great.”

  “… do wonders for the store,” he smiled, not missing a beat.

  “My father had a tree, just like that one, in his back garden.” I pointed to the tree in question, its bark splintered by squirrel teeth. “He was great at stuff like that. Won prizes and got himself on the front page of The Irish News – our local newspaper in Belfast.” I was blabbering like a fool. “But they made him leave his trees and garden behind when we moved. Said they wanted to build a ring-road …”