Duke City Split (6 page)

“You
say
that,” Johnny said, “but there’s nothing to stop you from taking it all. You’ve got the keys, you know the combination to that lock.”

“You’ll just have to trust us, Johnny.”

“Trust you? I don’t even know your real names!”

Mick looked at Johnny in the rearview and said, “This is the way it is. Are we gonna have a problem with you?”

“No problem. It’s just hard with all that money sitting there. Not to worry, you know?”

“Stop worrying,” Mick said. “You’ll get yours.”

FBI Special Agents Pam Willis and Hector Aragon arrived forty minutes after the first alarm sounded at the First State Bank of Albuquerque branch. They’d only been at work a few minutes when word of the robbery arrived. They’d taken time to drive through a Starbucks on their way to the scene, and they carried their paper cups of coffee into the bank with them.

Pam and Hector were such a matched set that other folks in the Bureau’s Albuquerque office called them “the Twins.” Both had black hair—his cut short over oversized ears, hers pulled back in a ponytail—and they were both in their mid-thirties. Both stood a few inches south of six feet tall, and their bodies were compact and fit. Pam wore pantsuits to work every day, and it was uncanny how often she and Hector showed up in the same colors. Today they both wore navy blue suits with black shoes and black belts and matching black Glocks on their hips.

The local cops had done a good job securing the scene, keeping the employees herded together, quiet and calm. Pam recognized the sergeant in charge.

“Hey, Sarge, you tell everybody not to touch anything?”

The grizzled sergeant cocked an eyebrow at her. “We know the drill. Not that it’ll do you any good. The manager says the robbers wore gloves. She says they were in and out in under three minutes.”

She thanked him for the info and crossed the bank to join Hector, who’d cut the manager out of the herd. She was a buxom woman in a rumpled suit. She wore her blond hair piled high, so she appeared taller than Hector. Pam knew how much he must hate that. Tough enough to be paired with her all day, and she wore flats, then along comes this Miss Stiletto Heels. Pam shook hands with the shaken woman, who introduced herself as Jean Hutchins.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she said. “I looked right down the barrel of that shotgun.”

“A shotgun?”

“A short one, what do you call it, a sawed-off. One of the robbers kept it pointed at us the whole time, while the other two cleaned out the vault.”

“Big haul?” Hector asked.

“The biggest. We’d just taken delivery of the weekend receipts from Tewa Casino. I’d only begun to count it, but it looked as huge as it usually is on Mondays.”

The FBI agents swapped a look.

“How huge?” Pam asked.

The manager leaned closer and said, “Along with the other cash in the vault, I’d guess they got away with nearly three million dollars.”

Hector’s dark eyes widened. Pam knew what he was thinking: That was way bigger than the average bank stickup, which netted five thousand bucks. This case was a career-maker.

“How would they have known that much was in the vault?”

“I don’t know,” the manager said. “Unless they followed the truck from the casino or something. It left just a minute or two before the robbers showed up. They went right to the vault, didn’t even bother with the teller windows.”

Hector clasped her elbow and gently led the women farther away from the other employees.

“Did anyone here in the bank seem to recognize them?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“I thought, maybe a leak, someone who told these guys the money was there.”

Jean Hutchins looked over her shoulder at her employees.

“They’re trustworthy,” she said. “They’ve all been with the bank a long time.”

“Including the guard?”

“Diego? Oh, yes. He’s worked for First State for years. He seemed just as surprised as the rest of us.”

“I notice his holster is empty,” Pam said.

“They took his gun. Then they forced all of us to lie down on the floor.”

“And he didn’t resist?”

“Diego? No. He did what he was told, just like the rest of us. But listen, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s old Albuquerque, you know? His family’s been here for generations.”

Hector smiled. “Mine, too. Pam’s bounced all around the country, working in different cities. But I’ve always been a hometown boy.”

“Then you know what I mean.”

Pam sighed. She’d heard the “hometown boy” bit before.

“Were the robbers wearing masks?” Pam asked.

“That was the strange part,” the manager said. “Only one wore a mask. And he was the last one to come into the bank.”

“What about the other two?” Pam asked.

“They wore sunglasses and ball caps. They seemed to be older, both with gray mustaches.”

“White guys?”

“They looked dark, like maybe they were Hispanic or Indian or something.”

“Maybe just tanned?”

“Maybe. It could’ve even been makeup, now that I think about it. I remember thinking they both had smooth skin to be so old and gray-haired. Do bank robbers ever use cosmetics?”

“It’s been known to happen,” Hector said. “Maybe the mustaches were fake, too.”

She shrugged. “It all happened so fast. You can probably get a better look on our security video.”

“They did a number on your cameras,” Pam said.

“Yes, but not immediately. There should be something on the video before the paint blacks it out.”

“Okay, we’ll check that out,” Pam said. “Our technicians are on their way. If there’s anything there, they can make the most of it.”

They peppered Jean Hutchins with more questions. Pam kept coming back to the masked man.

“He didn’t come in until the other two had everything secured?”

The manager nodded.

“And he wasn’t carrying a gun?”

“Not that I saw. Maybe he had one in his pocket or something. But I got the impression he was only here to help carry the money.”

“Sounds like a couple of pros,” Hector said. “Picked up an apprentice.”

“Could be,” Pam said. “Let’s see what the others say.”

They interviewed the tellers but got nothing more than what Hutchins had told them. One of the tellers leaked tears the whole time. Pam could just imagine the dithering woman on the witness stand. Worthless.

They saved the guard for last. Sat him down across the bank from the others, Pam and Hector in chairs facing him.

Diego Ramirez had macho coming off him in waves, and Pam let Hector take the lead. In response to Hector’s questions, the guard told them he’d worked for the bank for six years but this was his first robbery.

“You’ve been lucky,” Hector said.

“I like to think it’s because I scare off the robbers,” Ramirez said. “But that sure as shit didn’t work today.”

“How did they get the drop on you?”

“The one with the shotgun under his coat walked right past me. He looked suspicious, in that long coat, but before I could say anything, his partner stepped through the door behind him and jabbed a pistol in my neck.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, as if the gun had left a chilly spot there.

“He took my gun and ordered me to the floor. While he was doing that, the other guy brought out the shotgun and told everyone else to get on the floor, too.”

“Must’ve been a frightening moment,” Pam said.

The guard raised his chin, the machismo kicking in again.

“I knew they only wanted the money. As long as everyone did what they were told, it would turn out fine. And it did.”

Pam couldn’t help herself. “Except for the money taken from the vault.”

Ramirez shrugged. “No loss of life. That’s what they always tell us. That’s what comes first.”

The FBI agents nodded. Hector asked the guard to describe the robbers, and he rattled off a description similar to what everyone else had said. When he got to the robber with the mask, he hesitated a second.

“Something else come to mind?” Pam prodded.

A sly look went across the guard’s face, but then he said, “Blue eyes. The man in the mask had blue eyes.”

“You’re sure?” No one else had mentioned that.

“I got a good look at him.”

“Okay.” Hector jotted in his notebook. “That’s good. That helps.”

“Anything else?” Pam said.

“No, that’s it. Oh, except one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“They kept my gun. The big guy who disarmed me, he stuck it in his pocket and took it with him.”

“Makes sense,” Hector said. “He didn’t want you shooting at them as they were driving away.”

“I was cuffed! I used my feet and got to the alarm, but there was no way I could shoot with my hands behind me.”

The agents nodded.

“So, when you catch these guys,” Ramirez said. “See if you can get that gun. I’d like it back.”

Three million bucks gone, Pam thought, and this guy’s worried about his four hundred dollar pistol.

Bud Knox normally never kept guns in the house because of the girls, but he brought home the little revolver he’d put in his coat pocket before the heist. He didn’t expect to need the gun, but having it nearby helped him settle down.

He was practically bursting over the big haul. They hadn’t taken time to count the money, but the radio news had quoted bank officials as saying it was “more than two million dollars,” which meant it was closer to three. Banks always downplayed their losses. The FBI refused to reveal amounts at all. Nobody wanted to encourage bank robbery, as if the shitty economy weren’t encouragement enough.

Bud called Linda as soon as he got home, but couldn’t give her details over the phone. He’d stuck to their coded message, saying everything was fine “at school,” so she would know there was no need to worry.

It took an hour to scrub off the makeup and mustache glue. By lunchtime he was back to his old self, eating a bowl of leftover soup he couldn’t even taste because he was so occupied with the TV news, the excited reporters in front of the bank, squad cars flashing in the background.

In the afternoon, Bud kept the pistol in his pocket when he picked up his daughters from school. Once he got them home, he set the girls up with snacks and homework, then told them he needed to work in his office. His daughters believed he was a day trader, buying and selling stocks on his home computer while they were at school. Bud did dabble in the market, but just enough to keep familiar with it, ready with a quick answer whenever a neighbor asked for a stock tip.

He kept his office door open so he could hear the girls chattering down the hall. Along with all the standard gear—desk, chair, computer, file cabinet—his office came with one extra: a safe he’d picked up at an estate sale. It was a massive steel cube, three feet tall, black with gold scrollwork on the door. He knelt and spun the tumblers until it opened. It was mostly empty inside, just a few important papers and twenty grand in cash he kept on hand for emergencies. He set the revolver on the top shelf and locked the steel door. His daughters knew better than to prowl through Daddy’s office, but he wouldn’t take a chance. Too many kids died every year in this country, playing with loaded guns.

Bud sat at his desk and powered up the computer. Stock market charts flickered on the screen before him, but he didn’t see them. His eyes were unfocused, his brain busy with other math. What his share of the loot might turn out to be, and how to invest it to make it last for years, maybe even allow him to finally get out of crime, as he’d pledged to Linda time and again.

He and Mick had enjoyed a hugely successful run. Thirty bank robberies all over the West, and they’d never been arrested. Oh, they’d had a couple of close calls. That time in L.A. when they’d driven out of the bank parking lot, right into a motorcade for some dignitary, motorcycle cops and Secret Service everywhere. Or that holdup in Tucson, where they’d been forced to flee on foot after their getaway car threw a rod. But they’d never been injured, and never had to suffer the indignity of being cuffed and stuffed into the back of some lucky cop’s patrol car.

Bud always told Linda he didn’t believe in luck, but he knew that all the careful planning in the world didn’t guarantee success. They’d been lucky, and he knew it. They’d pushed that luck, doing this heist so close to home, and it worried him.

Hearing a car pull up outside, he got up from his desk and went over to the window. Lifted the curtains aside so he could peek out at the driveway. Linda’s silver Volvo. Bud whewed in relief, then went to meet her at the front door.

“You’re home early,” he said as he gave her a hug.

“I couldn’t stand it anymore,” she whispered. “I had to get home and hear all about it.”

“Mommy! Mommy!” The girls came galloping down the hall from their bedrooms. Bud took Linda’s briefcase and handbag so she could kneel and gather them up in her arms.

“How are my girls today?”

Bud stood there like a hat rack, holding her bags, while Linda got the quick reports about school and the latest playground gossip. Amy, the older girl, ten going on twenty, looked more like Linda every day, slender and poised, her sand-colored hair long and straight. Angela, three years younger, still had baby fat and blond ringlets and eyes as bright blue as a New Mexico sky. Watching the girls with their mother, Bud felt so much love, he sometimes feared his heart would burst.

As soon as she could extricate herself, Linda shooed the girls back toward their rooms to finish their homework. She and Bud went to the kitchen, where Linda opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine they’d uncorked the night before.

“Want one?” she asked.

“Sure. I nearly had a drink earlier, to take the edge off, but I decided to wait for you.”

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the girls hadn’t returned.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I was so worried.”

“I know, hon. But it all went fine. Nothing to worry about now.”

They clinked glasses and took sips of the chardonnay. Then Linda leaned closer and said, “I heard about it on the radio. Is it true what they say? Millions?”