As the sound of sirens grew louder, I felt the weight of the last hour slip from my shoulders. I had spent the last 10 minutes hoping to all hell that one of the employees had pressed the silent alarm under their teller’s desk. The sweat moistening my palm was making this unloaded .45 difficult to grasp. For christ’s sake, I’d even turned my back on the tellers for a full minute to give them the chance to press the alarm without fear of being caught by me.
These hostages must think I’m the worst bank robber of all time.
Who in their right mind holds up a bank in the middle of the day by themselves?
Who in their right mind takes money from only one of the available tellers?
Clearly, someone who didn’t plan this whole thing out very well. If only they knew I didn’t want the money. In all honesty, it’s a little concerning to see how quickly a bank employee will give away someone else’s money to a mad man with an unloaded gun.
Do I look scary? I certainly don’t feel scary. I just feel hungry. And tired. I hope to God the police get in here soon.
“This is the NYPD. Come out with your hands up!”
It’s almost as if they heard my prayers. Now, this is the easy part. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
Without a second thought, I slid the .45 between my belt loop and my dirty, ripped jeans. The things barely even fit me. At least in prison I’ll get some new clothes. As I approached the doors of the bank, the hostages began to murmur.
“That’s it?” they whispered. It’s almost as if they had hoped for something. Folks will do anything to be recognized these days.
Turning around, I forced the front door open with my backside, making sure not to move my hands from my head. So close, I thought. No point in getting shot now.
A sense of calming settled on me as the sunlight hit my face. No more cold nights. No more days spent scrounging for a bite to eat. No more worrying I’ll be jumped in the middle of the night. No more dirty-
A shot rang out from the street behind me, violently pulling me out of my reverie.
No! I’m not resisting! Why are they firing?
When the impact didn’t come, my confusion was fought off by relief. Still alive.
More shots sounded. Multiple shooters. The street had turned into a warzone.
A body slammed into mine, dragging me to the ground.
“Don’t move. We’re getting you out of here.”
“Thank god. I have a pistol on my belt. I don’t want a lawyer. Just take me in.” I whispered.
“I’m not the police, buddy.” The man turned me over and his dark, brooding eyes met mine. “We could use someone like you, though.”
Before I could even register what was happening, I was on my feet, being pulled to a van parked at the side of the bank. Bullets flew by and the sound of the NYPD’s yells echoed in my ears. As we reached the van, the man threw me forward and I found myself face first in the back. My knee was pretty knocked up from the impact.
“Look, I’m not sure what you were trying to pull back there”, the man said. “But, finding a decent criminal in this city is getting harder and harder each year. My crew and I were about to hit that bank before you blundered in there and drew the entire police force down around us.”
The man looked tired and angry, but cracked a smile as he began to speak again.
“I’m Falco Meroni. You may have heard of me. They like to call me the Falcon on the News.” He snickered. “Fuckin’ nicknames, man. Once some asshole on the 5 o’clock news decides your name isn’t good enough, everyone and their mother is calling you by some pansy alias and making you sound like a massive douchebag.”
I hadn’t spoken yet. I still wasn’t sure what was happening.
“You’re sticking with us from now on. We could use someone with balls like you.”
Three Months Later…
I’d been with Falco’s crew for a few months now. They’d “trained” me in their protocol for a perfect bank robbery. I’ll admit, they knew their stuff. I’d nodded, smiled, and listened...tried to blend in as best I could. Even though I had food and somewhere to sleep, this wasn’t the life I wanted. Rival crews picked off a few of our members each month. Last week, Robby O’Halleran’s crew had thrown a molotov into our warehouse in the middle of the night. If being woken up by a drunk on the street was bad, waking up to a burning building is my nightmare.
This wasn’t the life I wanted. I needed out.
Today was the first heist Falco was taking me on. It was perfectly planned. In and out, no casualties. So far, things had gone according to plan. The money was in the bags and we were preparing for extraction. The two other guys on our crew, Donnie and George, were waiting around back for our driver. The sound of sirens blared from the street outside the front of the bank.
This was it.
This was my chance.
I walked slowly towards Falco, my finger twitching on the trigger of the .45 in my sweaty palms. Falco had his back to me while he dealt with a distraught hostage.
This was it.
I can do this.
I raised the pistol, feeling the weight of it pull on my arm as it gravitated away from my hip and toward the back of Falco’s head.
The muzzle came to rest at the top of his neck.
“Trev?”
I didn’t answer.
He started to turn and I pushed the pistol harder against his skin.
“Don’t move.” I broke my silence
“What the fuck are you doing, man?! This is almost ov-”
I pulled the trigger and everything happened all at once.
The quick, sharp sound of the shot was replaced with a ringing in my ears.
Blood and brains shot from the front of Falco’s head, propelled forward by the force of the bullet that had pierced his skull and continued on through the other side.
The vibrant reds and pinks splattered onto the floor, creating a pattern that could have easily passed as part of a Rorscach test.
I stood, dumbfounded, staring at the interior of Falco’s head as his body fell.
The sound of Donnie and George screaming brought me out of my stupor.
The two men ran from the back of the store, lifting their guns to fire at me.
I didn’t need to think twice. I ran for the door at the front of the bank and flung myself into the street. The yells of the cops rose to a cacophony as guns and spotlights all aimed themselves on my body, lying prone on the ground with my hands clasped tight behind my head. My pistol lay a few feet in front of me.
I had done it.
They’d surely take me now.
Donnie and Georgie burst through the door behind me, guns drawn and pointed at the street. Before they could even holster their weapons, two bullets took each of them in the head, fired from the sniper across the street.
I’d finally made it.
The cops surrounded me and my face was forcefully pushed against the cold concrete.
It’s about time.
Pain surged through my arm as the cuffs were placed on my wrists, closed much too tightly.
The next few moments passed in a blur. Sitting in the back of the cruiser, I finally felt myself smile for the first time in as long as I could remember.
I was going to someplace better.
No more cold nights. No more days spent scrounging for a bite to eat. No more worrying I’ll be jumped in the middle of the night. No more killing. No more robbery.
“You’re pretty notorious in this city, you know?” The cop in the front seat turned his head back towards me in the way that most drivers do when speaking to someone in the back seat: not far enough to make eye contact, but far enough to not be looking at the road.
I didn’t answer him.
“You’ve been on the most wanted list for months now. A successful robbery ending in a bloodbath in the streets.” He glanced back to the road, and then back towards me.
“A lot of cops died that day.” There was a hint of resentment in his voice.
The officer looked back towards the road in time to see a pedestrian run out in front of the cruiser. He swore, swerved, and pointed our vehicle towards the railing of the bridge we’d been crossing at that moment.
There was a moment of weightlessness before we hit the ground below. My head snapped towards the seat in front of me. There was a brief instant of excruciating pain and everything went dark.
I awoke to biting cold on my face. The ramblings of a drunk man down the street. An aching in my stomach.
“You’re awake!” An unfamiliar voice spoke out in the darkness. “Jesus. I thought you’d never wake up. I pulled you from that car down there. The cop was dead, but you were still breathing. I’m sure you’ve done something wrong, and that’s why you deserved to be in that car, but I ain’t the law and it ain’t my problem. I couldn’t let you die down there.”
He stopped speaking for a moment and my eyes began to adjust.
“Now that you’re awake, I want you to leave.”
It was night. I could barely make out his silhouette against the stairwell he sat in.
“I’ve let you stay here for a day or so, but now that you’re awake, I don’t want no trouble.”
I pushed myself up from the ground, my body voicing its complaints with aches and pains.
When I got to my feet, I didn’t say anything to the man who had rescued me. He wanted me to leave, and the least I could do was respect his wishes. I left slowly, limping towards the light at the end of the alleyway he had made home.
I walked for what seemed like miles. The cold air and the hunger in my stomach dominated any thoughts that crept into my mind. The events of the past few months flitted in and out of my brain, constantly battling with the insatiable cravings my body put forth.
As I reached the street corner, something on the ground caught my eye. It was today’s newspaper, and my face was on the cover
FALCO MERONI KILLED IN HEIST
UNIDENTIFIED MAN WANTED FOR MURDER AND THEFT ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
I slumped against the wall, using the paper as a blanket.
All I wanted was a bite to eat.