… 9:40 a.m.
– Aaron removed his hands from his ears and glanced around the room. It was as if a bomb had gone off: teller windows shattered; desks and chairs overturned and riddled with bullet holes; two dozen hostages flat on their stomachs, covered with debris.
He stood, bones buzzing with adrenaline, and had to fight the urge to laugh. Here he was, in the middle of a bizarre, violent, life threatening situation, and he was getting into it. For a few precious moments nothing else in his turbulent adolescent world existed.
Souther and Needles reloaded and surveyed the hostages.
"Okay, listen up!" Souther said. "Which one of you idiots knows the combination to the vault?"
Silence.
"I didn't bring a damn can-opener, people!" Souther shouted. "Who has the combination to the fucking safe?"
The hostages glanced at one another, but no one dared speak.
Souther grit his teeth and fired, flipping a random hostage violently onto his back where he lay dead. The other hostages screamed and recoiled in horror.
Aaron's lungs seized up, as if a cement truck had backed up over his chest. He sank to his knees as his brain, succumbing to a neuron overload, switched off.
Needles held his position.
"You'd better hope the combination didn't die with that guy," Souther yelled.
Amidst the chaos, a lone hostage cried out. "I have it! I know the combination! God, please… I'm the one…"
The others continued to scream and moan.
Souther fired another three-round burst into the ceiling. "Would you shut the hell up?" he shouted, and a heavy hush lay over the room.
A frail, middle-aged man with wire-rimmed glasses got cautiously to his feet and raised his hands, trembling inside his three-piece suit. On his name tag: BANK MANAGER.
"And who are you?" Souther asked.
"I–I'm the manager," the man said.
"I got that, you idiot. What's your name? "
"Oh, uh — it's Walden… J-Jim Walden."
"And how long have you been manager here, Jim?"
"I-uh — seventeen… yes… s-seventeen years next month."
"Okay, Jim," Souther said. "Go with him." He gestured toward Needles.
Needles patted Jim down and had him gather up the empty duffel bags. Then he took him at gunpoint and headed for the basement vault.
"Okay, everyone!" Souther said. "My young friend here will accept your donations, now." He indicated Aaron.
Still short of breath and barely lucid, Aaron struggled to his feet and pulled the plastic trash bag out of his jumpsuit pocket. He held it open and stared out at his audience. The abject terror in their eyes mirrored his.
"Everything goes in the bag." Souther said. "That includes cell phones, people!"
Aaron moved from hostage to hostage like a battery-powered Halloween robot playing a sick game of trick-or-treat. Ladies surrendered their jewelry and purses, men their watches and wallets, their tortured souls reaching out to Aaron like diseased prisoners clawing the dungeon turnkey.
– The massive stainless-steel vault door was circular and about eight feet in diameter. It was polished to a mirror finish, with a large brass-spoked handle in its center.
Jim was hunched over the fluted dial, betting his life on completing his assigned task. His hands shook, and he dripped with sweat. He peeled his glasses from his face and wiped them dry with his handkerchief.
Needles prodded him in the back with his rifle barrel. "Let's go," he said. "I could've opened the damn thing myself, by now."
"I'm trying," Jim said. "God in heaven…" He replaced his glasses and continued to tickle the sensitive dial. "I–I just need the last… lousy…"
He stood and proudly spun the handle, then pulled hard against the weight and swung the massive door aside.
"Okay, let's move, " Needles said, gesturing with the barrel of his gun. Then he followed Jim into the vault.
– Aaron's trash bag was getting heavy; he pictured it ripping wide open and wondered what he would do if it did.
He came upon the dead hostage — the frozen expression of death by surprise. Aaron tried to lift the bulky bag over the sizable pool of blood that had spread into the surrounding carpet, but the thin black plastic just stretched and dragged through the blood, leaving a crimson trail as he passed.
The blue smoke effect was rapidly dissipating as Souther paced the floor in the center of the lobby, his rifle hanging in one hand, his eyes and teeth flashing through the holes in his ski mask.
"Let's be generous, shall we?" he said. "A wedding ring is not worth your fucking life."
Jim Walden appeared from the back dragging four heavy duffel bags; he was soaked to the skin with sweat and looked to have aged ten years. Needles followed, a stride behind, the barrel of his rifle making a dent in Jim's back.
Souther was openly pleased. "I'll take those," he said. Jim slid the straps off of his narrow shoulders and the money slumped to the floor at Souther's feet.
"Go join the others," Souther said.
Jim nodded and did as he was told. As he passed the dead hostage, he paused to spread his suit jacket over the victim's face.
Souther saw that Aaron was finishing up as well. He pulled the little kitchen timer out of his jumpsuit pocket, set the dial to five minutes, and placed it on the carpet between the empty smoke canisters. Then he stepped back and looked around at the hostages.
"Listen up!" he shouted. "When that bell rings you are free to go about your business." He indicated the timer. "Until then, stay where you are and no one else gets hurt."
He and Needles gathered up their loot and headed for the door. Aaron brought up the rear, dragging his bag behind him.
Suddenly he stopped, let go of the bag, and pulled the gun out of his pocket.
" I QUIT! " he screamed, and a deafening silence absorbed his words like a padded coffin.
Souther turned to see the barrel of his 9mm pointing straight at him. He recalled having left the gun on the floor of the van and kicked himself for being an idiot.
"Nice move, kid," he said calmly. "What's going on?"
The enormity of Aaron's predicament burst upon him like a thunderclap and his heart dropped into his shoes.
This monster would just as soon kill me right now as wipe his nose, he thought. But I can't just shoot him — can I? Oh, God… what have I done…
His thoughts trailed off. Time slowed and the pistol grew heavy in his hands. For a brief torturous moment he considered turning the gun on himself. Then he began to cry.
"I can't do this any more," he said. "I can't do this to these people."
"It's just stuff, kid," Souther said, sounding coldly imperious. "They'll get over it."
Aaron held the gun steady. "That's bullshit! " he shouted. "They won't get over it! One of them is dead because of you! You murdered him!" He quickly wiped his eyes with the arm of his jumpsuit, knocking his ski mask slightly askew. "Do you know what I think? I think you're nothing but a big bully! You act tough all the time to cover up the fact that inside you're a coward — a blood-thirsty psycho who kills people because he can't think of a better way to get things done!"
Souther took a slow, deep breath, removed his hat, and held out his hand. "Hand over the gun, kid," he said.
"No! I won't!" Aaron cried. "Give it back! Give all the money back!" He tried to kick his trash bag away, but it was too heavy and his shoe simply crunched into the contents.
A crackle over the radios made him jump.
" Time to rock, motherfuckers! " Beeks said in a distorted walkie-talkie voice.
"Copy that," Needles replied, keeping his rifle on the hostages.
"Come on, kid," Souther said. "The cops will be — "
"Give it back!" Aaron cried. He took aim at Souther's forehead with a deadly two-handed grip. "ALL OF IT!"
"Okay, kid… take it easy," Souther said. "I'm giving it back." He slowly lowered his duffel bags to the floor. "Look… Here's the money… I'm giving it back." One of the bags fell open and a few stacks of $100 bills spilled out onto the carpet.
"You, too, Needles!" Aaron said with a wave of his pistol.
Needles eased the bags off of his shoulder.
"Okay, now get the hell out of here!" Aaron said.
"No problem, kid," Souther said. "You can put away the gun. We're leaving…" He took a couple of steps back, then turned to leave. "Let's go," he said to Needles.
Needles gave Aaron a look that said, I hope you know, kid, you're digging a hole you can't easily un-dig, here. Then he stepped over the empty smoke canisters and followed Souther across the trashed lobby toward the door.
– Aaron lowered his weapon and looked at the hostages. His ski mask was soaked with tears. They looked at him like he had just descended from heaven.
He found himself oddly amused by the hellish absurdity of his situation and nearly laughed out loud. Then a morbid chill ran through him and he thought, Is this what it feels like to go insane?
Suddenly the little timer bell went DING!
Souther swung around in the doorway and fired a single shot.
Aaron staggered back, dropped the gun, and gripped his chest. He looked at Souther, at Needles, at the hostages, blinking through his eye holes like a World War I recruit who's discovered that his gas mask has a leak. He looked down and sucked a quick breath in through his teeth. A heavy flow of dark red blood oozed from between his black-leather knuckles and dripped on the rolled-up cuffs of his white jumpsuit. Oh, god, he thought; then his eyesight flooded red, then black, and he lost consciousness before hitting the floor.
Needles ran and knelt at Aaron's side, screaming at Souther. "You fucking son-of-bitch! You shot him! You shot the goddamn kid!"
The hostages were hysterical.
Souther fired a quick burst over their heads. "Anyone else want to be part of the show?" he shouted, trying to maintain control.
Needles laid down his rifle and checked Aaron's pulse.
Souther shouldered the duffel bags and rifles. "Let's get the fuck out of here, man!" he yelled. Panic teased at him and the walls of the bank started to close in on him.
Needles unzipped his white jumpsuit, stripped to his undershirt, and packed Aaron's wound with his shirt. He lifted Aaron enough to see that the bullet had passed cleanly through the shoulder. Then he packed the exit wound as well. Finally he yanked off his undershirt and wrapped it tightly around Aaron's chest, completing the makeshift bandage.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! Jim Walden had triggered the bank's alarm.
"Leave the kid, damn it!" Souther shouted over the din. "We gotta fucking bounce, man!"
Needles looked up at Souther. "Aaron is right. You are a fucking coward." He gathered the boy up in his arms. "And we aren't leavin' him…"
– Thunder and drenching rain pounded the robbers as they exited the bank — Souther with the money bags and assault rifles, Needles naked to the waist with the dying boy in his arms. Beeks was ready with the engine running; he spotted them and sped forward to pick them up. Everyone loaded into the van and Beeks spun the tires on the wet pavement as they swerved off down the street.
In the distance, sirens…