Lisa Black - Takeover

“Bank officers. Do they have vaults up there?”

Brad snorted, envy overcoming fear, if only for a moment. “Hardly. More like Oriental rugs and Ming vases.”

“Really?”

His head bobbed in his desperation to please. “The vice president for general counsel even has an original Picasso.”

“Uh-huh. Where does this hallway go, this one behind y’all here?”

“The employee lobby-it opens onto Superior. There’s also the elevator to the parking garage and the one to the loading dock, where that shipment is coming in at two.”

Lucas came closer to the boy. “You’re all pushing me toward this two o’clock shipment, aren’t you? Why is that?”

“I’m not pushing anything.”

“You just want to go home, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” Fear etched crow’s-feet into his face as Brad screwed his eyes shut, trying to blot out the image of the M4’s barrel, a yard from his nose. “Yes.”

Paul kept gazing at Lucas, trying to remember every detail, just in case the guy got away. In case Paul lived to see him get away.

“If it makes you feel better, Brad, I may change my mind about that shipment. Hell, at this point what’s another few hours?” Without warning he walked away from Brad, disappearing behind the reception desk to return with a box of Kleenex.

“Here.” He handed it to the receptionist, seated next to Paul, who hadn’t stopped crying since the first shot rang out. “Clean yourself up. Missy, isn’t it?”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“That’s okay. You hang in there, because I need someone to answer the phones.”

She wiped her eyes, which did not stop filling up. “Please let me go. You have to let me go.”

Lucas had begun to walk away, but her speaking up seemed to surprise him. “Why is that?”

“My little girl. She’s three years old, and she needs her mommy. She’s so precious-”

The sobs that accompanied this appeal would have softened the heart of Genghis Khan, but Lucas showed no signs of sympathy or even interest. Instead he moved over to the woman who had brought her baby along, one of the two women who’d been hiding behind the teller cages. Mark Ludlow’s wife, now his widow, though Paul figured she did not know of her recent change in status. “What’s his name?”

The woman’s eyes were huge and sea blue under untidy lengths of dishwater-blond hair. She clutched the child to her, his head resting against her shoulder. He seemed to be dozing, the skin around his nose slightly reddened, but he kept his grip on a tiny stuffed dog wearing a Browns football helmet. Mother and son appeared well fed and neatly attired. “His name is Ethan.”

“That’s nice. You name him after his daddy?”

“N-n-no. I just liked it.”

“Uh-huh. So why ain’t Ethan in school- What’s your name?”

The woman next to her spoke up, tossing auburn curls from her eyes. “She’s Jessica. Can’t you let them go? He’s just a little boy.”

Lucas considered her. “It’s not polite to jump the line. And I’m sure Jessie here can speak for herself.”

“He’s only two,” Jessica Ludlow said with a delicate southern accent, so softly Paul could barely hear her. “I found a nice daycare lady, but he wasn’t feeling well this morning, and she wouldn’t take him.”

“So you brought him to work?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I was just going to tell my boss that I’d have to take the day off.” Her lips crinkled, and she gulped in a breath. “Then I was going to leave.”

“Take it easy. Follow your son’s example and just chill out,” Lucas told her before moving on. “You, Talking Tina. What do you do here?”

“My name’s Cherise.” About thirty years of age, the slender woman eyed Lucas with more anger than fear. Paul felt that this could not be wise.

“Thanks for sharing, but I don’t recall asking your name. I asked what it is you do here.”

Bobby had been pacing along the teller cages like a hyena before feeding time, but now he stopped, perhaps sensing something in his partner’s voice. They’re too far apart, Paul thought- I can’t hit them both, not before one gets me.

“I’m a savings-bond teller.”

“What are those?”

“Savings bonds? They’re a promissory note guaranteed by the government. They’re also tax-exempt, so they’re a secure way to save. The bonds are bought and cashed in at those windows.” She ducked her head to indicate the teller cages behind him, on the East Sixth side of the lobby. “The ones you tied these guys to are empty, just there for show.”

“So there’s cash money in those cages? How much?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

The M4 carbine came up slowly, as if this were only a random movement and not connected to the sudden tension in his frame. “I’m beginning to not like you, Cherise. I’m beginning to doubt your concern for your coworkers. Jessie, you might want to block your baby’s ears.”

The young mother gasped.

“So how much, Cherise?”

“Three to five hundred thousand.”

“Hmm.” Lucas lowered the submachine gun, reached into his oversize duffel, and pulled out a red nylon backpack. He tossed it to her. “Fill this up.”

Cherise didn’t move. “What?”

“You work in those teller cages, right? You must know where the money is.”

“Well, yeah-but I only have keys to my drawers, the ones assigned to me. I’ll have about-”

Before she could complete her mental calculations, Lucas reached into the duffel bag again and pulled out an eight-inch-long Craftsman screwdriver. “That’s all right. I have this. It might screw up the locks a little, but then again, I don’t really care.”

She still did not move.

“Do you want to sit in this lobby until two this afternoon?”

She stood up slowly, never taking her eyes off the barrel of his gun.

“Good job, Cherise. We’re going to walk a wide path around these friends of yours from security and their puppy. Don’t forget I have twenty-nine rounds of.223 shells pointed at your back, and all it would take is one twitch of my finger to let them all f ly into you. Keep an eye on the rest of them, Bobby.” He had to shout over the K-9 unit’s dog, barking at their passage.

“I’ve got ’em,” his partner said, raising his own carbine to his shoulder. He sighted down the barrel in Paul’s direction, and Paul felt the ooze of sweat along his spine grow to a trickle. Lucas’s words made him think the robber had military training. A civilian would probably call the rounds “.22s.”

Lucas and his captive dipped past Bobby and disappeared, only to reappear behind the antique grillwork of the first teller window.

The conversation, if it could be so called, between Lucas and the querulous Cherise bounced off the eighty-six-year-old marble walls and curved along the elaborate ceiling frescoes. Paul could make out most of it, once the dog piped down, as they moved in and out of sight behind the wall.

“How much is that?”

“Thirty-eight thousand, four hundred.”

“Okay. Next drawer. Fit the screwdriver into the lock.”

“It won’t move.”

“Pry it. Get the tip into the crack there and twist.”

“Tell you what.” Paul heard Cherise’s words as clearly as if she stood next to him, though he could not see either of them. “Why don’t you try it? I’ll hold your gun.”

“She’s always like that,” Thompkins muttered, and shook his head.

“Quiet,” Bobby told him, including the rest of the row in his glance. “And stop fidgeting.”

From the stress in his voice, it seemed that some of Lucas’s cool had evaporated. “Do it!”

Cherise said a few words Paul couldn’t make out. Then “No!”