Nine Lives (29 page)

As he spoke, the man and woman in the back seat lifted white surgical masks over the lower half of their faces, right up to their eyes, and pulled scrub hats over the top, concealing the upper half of their heads. All four of them were already wearing large aviator sunglasses, covering their eyes, the defining characteristic that would leave them identifiable to a witness and CCTV. Not wasting a second, the three thieves pushed open the doors and moved swiftly out of the car, the driver remaining behind the wheel, checking his watch.

From his seat he watched the rear-view mirror and saw a commotion in the traffic behind them, right on cue.

Police cars were streaming into the street from a building four blocks north, speeding east and north, their lights flashing, responding to the distress call. He smiled.

The NYPD’s 19
th
Precinct, New York City’s finest.

Every car and officer heading the opposite way.

And at that same moment, the three thieves entered the bank.

The second they passed through the front doors, the trio moved fast. The first task was to subdue everyone inside, most importantly the two guards. That had to happen before anything else. The man and woman from the back seat each pulled out a weapon hanging from a black strap looped around their right shoulders, hidden under the doctor’s coats. They were two Ithaca 37 12-gauge shotguns, police issue, the stocks sawn off so the weapons could be concealed under the coats. Clyde Barrow of
Bonnie and Clyde
fame had come up with the idea of removing the stock and hiding a shotgun under a coat when pulling a heist. The weapons possessed brutal power and with the stocks gone they were a cinch to conceal, unlike machine guns which were too bulky and wide to hide effectively. Clyde had called the sawn-off shotgun a
whippit
. The Sicilians, who were fond of the weapon themselves, called it a
lupara
. With seven shells locked and loaded inside the weapons, the three thieves robbing this bank called it instant crowd control.

They ran forward, each racking a shell by pulling the brown slide on the barrel of the weapon back and forth with their left hand, the weapons crunching as a shell was loaded into each chamber. Across the bank floor, customers turned and saw the sudden commotion. It took a split second for what they were seeing to fully register in their brains.

Then they reacted, some of them covering their mouths as others started to scream.

There were two guards in the bank, Walter Pick and Peter Willis, both retired NYPD, both sporting a paunch that middle age and the promise of an imminent pension brought. Both men also had a Glock 17 on their hip, like the two guys in the truck, but neither had a moment to reach for it as the three thieves ran forward, two of them brandishing the sawn-off shotguns, shoving them in people’s faces.

‘Down! Everybody down! Down!’
they shouted.

Meanwhile, the big guy who’d been in the front passenger seat of the taxi had already vaulted the counter. He was the point man, the guy who would control the room, but his first job was to get to the tellers. He knew the button for the silent alarm and the direct line to the 19
th
Precinct four blocks away was by the third teller’s foot. Before the woman had time to react and push it with her toe, he was already too close, pulling his own shotgun from under his coat, racking a round and pointing the weapon an inch from her face.

‘Up! Get up!’
he shouted. ‘
UP
!’

He grabbed the woman by her hair and hauled her from her seat, dragging her around the counter and throwing her to the floor to join the others. He turned, the shotgun aimed at the other tellers, and they all rose and rushed out to the main bank floor quickly, joining everyone else face down on the polished marble, trembling.

The point man grabbed a civilian who was cowering on the floor, pulling him to his feet. The guy was young, in his late twenties and dressed for the summer in t-shirt and shorts, sunglasses and a backwards cap on his head. The point man took his shotgun and put it against the man’s jaw, who started shaking with fear in the man’s grip as the barrel of the weapon nestled in under his chin.

‘If anyone makes a sound, tries to do something stupid, I blow this guy’s head off!’
the man shouted.
‘I want this place as quiet as a church! Clear?’

No one replied. Everyone was face down on the marble, no one daring to speak or move.

‘
Everybody, get your phones out,
’ the point man shouted, quickly.
‘Out! Slide them across the floor. If any of you don’t and I find out, this guy’s brains will be sprayed in the air like confetti!’

The people on the floor all complied and the sound of scores of cell phones sliding across the floor echoed off the silent bank’s walls. Across the room, the other two thieves finished plasti-cuffing the two guards, pushing them face-down to the marble floor, each guard landing with an
oomph
as the air was knocked out of them. The bank robbers reached over and pulled each guard’s Glock pistol from their holsters and threw them over the teller counter, out of reach, the guns clattering against the wood and marble as they hit the floor. 

That done, the pair ran forward to their next tasks. The man vaulted the counter and slammed open the door to the security room, rushing inside. A series of monitors were in the room, the place humming, each small screen showing a different view inside the bank and on the street. He yanked out a small white bag from the inside pocket of his doctor’s coat and started pulling out all the tapes from the monitors, dumping them in the bag one-by-one, checking the time on his wrist-watch as he did so.

Fifty seconds down.

2:10 to go.

Back inside the main floor, the woman spotted the manager cowering on the floor across the room. She moved towards him swiftly, the shotgun aimed at his head, her gloved hands around the sawn-off pistol grip.

‘Up,’ she ordered, standing over him.

He hesitated then rose, unsure.

He had good reason to be. In the same moment, she smashed the barrel of the shotgun into his face hard, breaking his nose. People started to scream, shocked at the violence.

‘
Shut up! Shut the hell up’
the point man shouted, his shotgun against the hostage’s neck. ‘
Or I’ll kill this man and you can decide who takes his place!
’

That got them quiet. The manager had fallen to the floor, moaning and gasping with pain, blood pouring from his nose, leaking all over the clean white marble. The woman grabbed him and pulled him back to his feet with brutal strength for her size. She dragged him around the counter and towards the vault as he clutched his face, blood staining his hands and fingers and slammed him against the steel with a
thud
.

She put the shotgun against his groin, her finger on the trigger, her face hidden behind the surgical masks and sunglasses.

‘Open it,’ she ordered.

Two words. One shotgun.

All she needed.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the man reached for the lock with his right hand, clutching his smashed nose with his left, blood pouring out and staining the sleeve of his white shirt. He twisted the dial, trying to keep his shaking hand steady, and paused three times on the combination then paused again. It clicked. He had a key looped on a chain attached to his top pocket. She grabbed it and yanked it off violently, then hit him in the face again with the Ithaca, dropping him like a stone. He fell to the ground, covering his nose, whimpering from the second blow. He wasn’t going to be any trouble.

The woman grabbed the handle on the vault, twisted it, and pulled open the steel door. It led into a room holding a second vault, but this one had no spin-dial, just a normal lock. Rushing forward, she pushed the key inside the lock and twisted. It clicked, and she pulled the handle, opening the door to the second vault.

Inside were a series of metallic shelves, like four large filing cabinets pushed against the walls. Each shelf was packed with stacks of hundred dollar bills, bricked and banded.

She moved inside quickly. Dropping the shotgun and letting it swing back under her coat on its strap, she unzipped the front of her medic’s overalls and pulled out two large empty black bags.

Back outside on the bank floor, the point man tilted his wrist so the shotgun nestled against the hostage’s neck, and checked his watch.

‘
Forty seconds
!’ he called.

Inside the vault, the woman worked fast. She swept the bill stacks from the shelves straight into the bags. Once loaded, she zipped them both shut. The third man had just finished taking the tapes in the security room and rushed inside to join her, taking one of the bags and looping it over his shoulder, keeping his shotgun in his right hand and the white bag of security tapes in the other. She took the other bag and followed him, and they moved outside, pulling the vault doors shut behind them, twisting the handles, then heading towards the front door.

They paused by the exit, tucking their shotguns away under the coats, then pushing their way through the doors, left the building.

The point man checked his watch and started backing away to the door, dragging the terrified hostage with him, his gun still jammed in the guy’s neck.

‘This guy is coming with us,’ he shouted. ‘If any of you move, or we see anyone on the street in the next two minutes, he dies.
DO NOT MOVE!
’

He turned his back and shouldered his way through the doors, taking the hostage with him.

And suddenly, the bank was eerily quiet.

They were gone.

In the silence, everyone stayed face down, too terrified to look up or even speak. The large hand on a large clock mounted on the wall ticked forward.

9:10 am.

And across the bank, the lock on the vault clicked shut.

****