“Well, since I just gained myself an hour, I can take it.” She took off her lab coat, pulled the hairband out of her hair, and used her fingers to massage her head.
“That would be awesome,” Steph said. “I was just trying to figure out how to get it there. The bank closes by the time I’m off, and I don’t like the idea of sitting on all the weekend cash overnight.”
“No problem. Let me get my stuff together, and I’ll head over there,” she called, heading to the back of the store.
Ten minutes later, she had a hand on the door and was saying goodbye when Steph held up the bank bag and gave it a wiggle.
“Ah, yes, that.” Maggie laughed and went back for it. “Apparently, it’s easy to forget.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Mags,” Steph said. “And don’t think I don’t know you’re running out of here to avoid a grilling about what’s going on with you and Officer Hot Stuff.”
“Nothing to tell. See you tomorrow,” she hollered, already halfway out the door.
It’d been a while since Maggie had come to the bank. She’d purposely opened the account at the same bank where Jimmy was killed, thinking it would be a way to honor his memory and give her a reason to think of him each time she came. She sent up a silent prayer for him as she entered.
Since she’d forgotten to use the restroom at the store, she cut between some empty desks and stopped there first. Coming out, she noticed her shoe was untied. Knowing she was clumsy enough without adding straggling laces, she bent to tie it. Just as she knelt, the front door whooshed open, and four men wearing full-face ski masks entered, waving guns and shouting.
“Get down! Everyone, on the ground!” One man stood near the door, shouting commands while the other three surrounded the lobby and forced all the bank patrons toward the center into a group. Maggie was near the back of the building and scampered behind a large column. They hadn’t seen her—yet.
Staying low, she quickly made her way to a nearby empty desk. She was small enough to curl up under the desk and still have room to pull the chair in halfway. Unless they came around the back and pulled the chair out, she should stay hidden.
She felt like a coward, hiding while everyone else was being pushed around and threatened, but there was nothing she could do for them, so she stayed where she was.
The screaming and crying coming from the other patrons gave her the chills, and she willed herself to stay calm and breathe. One of the men came back to where she was hiding and ordered two employees who were at their desks to join the other hostages. He stopped right next to the desk Maggie was hiding under, and she heard him order them to “Hurry up, or he would put a bullet in their fucking heads.”
She didn’t think they would come back once they thought the area clear, so she snuck a look around the desk. One by one, the robbers were taking cell phones and stomping them to pieces. There were only about a dozen customers, so it didn’t take long. Clearly, they didn’t want anyone calling for help or taking pictures or videos or any of the other things a cell phone could do that might jeopardize their anonymity.
Scooting back under the desk, she noticed a narrow gap between the back and the top. She curled up and watched the nightmare unfold. Her phone was in her purse, which she’d left behind the column she’d initially been hiding behind. She couldn’t risk going back for it.
By now, two of the bad guys were filling small duffel bags with cash from each teller’s register. Two tellers lay unconscious behind their stations. The robbers took one atgunpoint to open the vault and the others to the lobby to be guarded with the other patrons.
No shots had been fired, so the tellers on the floor probably weren’t dead. At least she hoped to God they weren’t.
She took a deep breath, willed her heart to slow down, and then began taking in all the information she could. She might not be street smart, but shewassmart. She began memorizing as many details as possible about the robbers. Hair color was impossible to tell because of the masks, but they all had brown eyes and dark eyebrows, which indicated black or dark hair as well. Only three spoke, but they all had Spanish accents.
None of them called each other by name, and her frustration mounted as she realized she was gathering, for all practical purposes, useless information. The police would have a hard time finding anyone if the only description she could give was four Hispanic males of average height and heavy-ish build. There were only a million people in the city who fit that description.
From her vantage point, she could no longer see the lobby, but she had a perfect view of the tellers’ stations and a partial view of the front door. She searched for any labels or unique markings on their clothes and noted what types of shoes they were wearing. Finally, she got lucky.
Maggie had already noticed that the man guarding the door kept scratching at his face. By the way he barked orders, he appeared to be the one in charge, so she nicknamed him Boss Man.
“Get over here,” he demanded of one of the other men. The shortest of the four, whom she dubbed Shorty, reluctantly, but obediently took up watch at the door, as the boss strode purposefully over to the column Maggie had just been hiding behind.
Her heart jumped into her throat, and she swallowed the scream she felt coming. Had he seen her?
Boss Man stopped behind the column, and Maggie let out a sigh of relief. With his back to all the witnesses, or so he thought, he pulled his mask up to his forehead.
Maggie fought to stay calm as she memorized every inch of his face. She wasn’t certain, but it looked like some kind of putty-type substance that was covering a birthmark next to his right eye had fallen off. He was attempting to replace it. When it wouldn’t stick properly, he gave up, put it in his pocket, and pulled his mask back down, making sure it covered what he was trying to hide.
She understood instantly why he didn’t want anyone to see the mark. It was a very distinct and permanent feature that would make him easily identifiable. This would definitely help the police!
Though it seemed like an eternity to everyone in the bank, the whole ordeal went down in less than five minutes. The robbers, obviously having done this before, knew what they were doing. They’d gone straight for the tellers first to avoid any silent alarms and had taken all means of communication from the bystanders. Then they’d loaded up their bags with cash and been out the door and into an awaiting car before anyone could summon the police.
The aftermath was like a dream. Maggie assumed someone else would call the police and ran straight to the two unconscious tellers. She wasn’t a people doctor, but in this case, close enough. Thankfully, they were already coming to, groggy, but alive. She heaved a sigh of relief. At least everyone would live through this bank robbery.
***
“Well, every once in a while, it will scream ‘shut your dirty mouth’ in Maggie’s voice, but mostly it’s the sex stuff.”
