Contengencies

It was quiet. The kind of quiet only the rain brings. On days like this, everyone talks in hushed tones as if the whole city was a library. Nobody wants to disrupt the calming sound of the rain outside or the fragrant smells of the moistened blossoms. It’s better to just sit by a window and let the clouds whisper secrets as they pass overhead. It was the first rain of the season; soon, what was once a pleasant experience will become a nuisance. What was liberating becomes a cage.

There was another reason for the silence. My crew and I were mentally preparing ourselves the way I imagine Evel Knievel walked through every aspect of a plan before he got on his motorcycle. The cadence of raindrops on the eaves rain provided a venue for inner contemplation.

Besides myself, I had employed two close friends I had worked with before. Brett was a skinny guy who kept to himself mostly. Jeremy was unassuming, and had one of those faces that reminds everyone of someone they know.

I’ve heard some criticism of television and movie crime dramas in the media. They always say it promotes crime by giving people like me ideas on how to pull off crimes. I think that’s ridiculous. As a professional, these dramatizations are overly complicated, and if anyone tried to pull off a heist like those, they would spend more money on the operation than they would get from the score. Keep it simple, stupid. Just a few guys on the team means there are less loose ends, and of course the keep is greater without having to share it. There is no need for specialized education on safes and alarm systems, you just have to be fast. And don’t go to the county clerk to get a copy of the target building’s floor plans. That’s just careless and unnecessary.

There is a romance about robbing banks. It seems like a big score, and that may have been true when John Dillinger did it, but today’s technology requires too much time to get not much more than what you could get from a common grocery store. Deposits are immediately placed in safes, and even cash withdrawals are mechanically handled. Plus, robbing a bank brings the FBI on the case because deposits are federally insured.

We prefer hitting check cashing businesses. They have cash on hand, they’re not federally insured, and I think they’re a drain on society. They’re one step above loan sharks. The only problem is they’re usually operated by the owner, who has a lot at stake, so they’re heavily fortified and the owner is usually armed.

So how do we get through their defenses? The same way a confused grandma drives through a nail salon while trying to park. Brett will jack a car from a nearby neighborhood and drive it through the store and right through the bulletproof Plexiglas, which is supported with the same building materials as any other wall. Meanwhile, Jeremy waits down the street in an idling car watching out for police, with an emergency-band scanner. I would be just outside the building, and would immediately run into the business after the car demolished the wall. Brett and I would use the confusion to our advantage to take our bounty and run right out into Jeremy’s waiting car.

That’s the plan, anyway. It’s basic. It’s simple.

“Alright guys, let’s go,” I said.

Brett got up and headed toward the car he jacked. He found a decent sized pick-up truck. Nothing too big, nothing too small. The key is having enough torque to push through the wall at a low speed. Jeremy had a compact sedan waiting for him. Something with a low profile that can get lost in traffic.

I walked to the nearest corner to cross the street. No need to draw attention to myself by jaywalking. The target was a storefront along a row of private shops; on one side was a convenience store, and the other side was a low-priced garment store. I casually walked along the sidewalk, pausing briefly to look in the shops as a window-shopper might do.

The rain made the regular foot traffic lighter than usual. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Less eyes on us and what we’re doing is good, but then the few eyes that remain have more time to focus on us; especially me, standing out here alone.

Here he comes. I take out my cell phone and call Jeremy. “Are you good?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he answers. Everyone is in place.

I signal Brett to go. He pulls into a parking spot facing the front entrance slowly. My heart starts racing. CRASH! Stepping hard on the accelerator, the truck lurches forward into the window. The steel beams groan under the pressure before giving way, the whole storefront wall lifting from the floor and laying on the roof of the truck.

This isn’t going to work. The tires spin on the linoleum floor, the truck wedged between the wreckage of the storefront and the ground. With momentum lost, the truck won’t be able to smash through the second wall in the back. Time to call it off.

I call Jeremy again and break the news: Brett will meet him and they need to go, I’ll just walk away.

Brett scrambles out of the truck and down the street to the waiting car, and they leave.

The sound a car makes on wet roads is like turning the dial on an analogue radio.