Broken Souls (Broken Realms, #2)

CHAPTER 21-2

Five hours later, the shopping center parking lot was abuzz with cars and shoppers hauling packages, bags and food to and fro. As he watched the armored car pull away from the bank, Prado had no concerns with this kind of suburban camouflage around. Struggling to put on his newly purchased tie, Merv grunted in frustration from the passenger seat.

“I can’t seem to get the hang of this. Can you give me a hand?” He looked over to Prado, who stared out the windshield toward the bank’s main entrance.

Without looking at Merv, Prado said, “Hand me the tie.”

Merv yanked one end of the tie, slipped it from beneath his collar and held it up in front of Prado’s face. Taking the tie, but still not looking away from the bank, Prado wound the tie around his own neck over his collar, methodically flipping and tucking it into a neat Windsor knot. He loosened the knot and removed the looped tie over his head. “Here, slip it on.

“Got it.” Merv turned up his collar, positioned the tie and tightened it around his neck. He then adjusted the webcam in his shirt pocket. “Are you ready to test the camera?”

“There’s no need for the camera if I’m going to follow you into the bank, now is there?” Prado said.

“I guess not.”

“Make sure you take the briefcase with you. And remember not to get too greedy. Only put as much money in the briefcase as would look natural when you walk out of the secured area. You don’t want to walk out with dollar bills bulging out the seams or look like you’re hauling a pile of bricks. The goal is to walk away with no one being the wiser. Understand?”

“Got it.”

Prado straightened in his seat. “Okay, there’s our bank manager, heading to lunch. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.” Merv reached for the door handle.

Prado grabbed Merv’s shoulder. “Hold on. Let’s allow Mr. Bartolucci to get to where he’s going. Remember, you don’t need to bump into him this time.”

Merv bobbed his head up and down. “Right, right.” He sat back in his seat and watched the bank manager walk into the sub sandwich shop. After a moment, he glanced at Prado, asking with a look for permission to continue.

Prado replied by releasing his grip on Merv’s shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you,” Prado said.

Merv nodded and stepped out of the car carrying the brown leather briefcase. He glanced over at the sandwich shop to make sure Bartolucci wasn’t backtracking for some reason, then turned toward the bank. Before he reached the entrance, Prado got out of the car and followed.

Inside the bank, a security guard, a different man from the chatty one Merv had encountered during his practice run, simply nodded his head and made no attempt to talk or ask why the bank manager had returned so soon. Taking this as a good omen, Merv paused to look back, through the tinted glass doors, to see Prado casually strolling toward him. Another good sign. Merv smiled, began to feel confident. This thing felt like it was going to go off without a hitch.

He turned toward the door leading into the secured area, and, as before, a buzzer sounded at his approach, followed by a click. He pulled open the door and stepped out of the bank lobby. A blonde teller to his right caught his eye, and he gave her a slight dip of the head without saying anything. He turned to the left toward the bank manager’s office.

“Mr. Bartolucci?” It was the blonde teller calling after him.

His heart raced. As he turned, she approached him in the hall. “Yes, um—” He glanced down and saw a gold name tag on her blouse. “Um, Rose. What can I do for you?”

“The day off? You said you would think about it and let me know when you got back from lunch.” She blushed a little. “I hate to be a nag, but my husband needs to make the reservations.”

“Oh, no problem. Of course go ahead. You can take the day off.”

“Did you figure out who would fill in for me?”

“Let me worry about that. You just enjoy yourself.” Merv turned and headed toward the office. Once he got there, he closed the door and sat behind the desk with the briefcase in his lap. A moment later, there was a knock at the door.

Merv rolled his eyes and said, “Yes?”

Another woman—this one older, with gray hair tied into a severe bun on the back of her head, wearing a matronly navy dress adorned with little white daisies—stepped into the office. Her face was scrunched up into what Merv could only estimate was a snarl. She lifted her hand to her lace collar as if she were trying to hold herself back from saying something inappropriate.

“I thought we agreed that Rose could not have that day off. She has not worked here long enough to accumulate a vacation day, and there is no one to fill in for her.”

Merv leaned forward to get a look at the woman’s name tag, but the light was putting a glare on it, forcing him to twist his head to the left to get a readable angle on it. “Well, I, um, I changed my mind, I suppose, Mildred.” He looked blankly at her.

“So what are we going to do? Are you going to be a teller for a day? Because at this point that may be our only option.”

Merv stood, inadvertently dropping the briefcase on the desk with a clatter. “Look,” he said, “we can worry about this later. I promise I will figure something out. Can you please excuse me for a few minutes?”

Looking as if she had swallowed something sour, Mildred turned and stomped out of the office.

Merv scurried around the desk, picked up the briefcase and walked back down the hallway toward the tellers. Studiously avoiding making eye contact with anyone, he walked behind the row of teller windows and turned left, where he found the metal door of the safe ajar, as it had been during his previous visit.

Glancing around, determining that Mildred had not followed him and that no one else seemed interested, he used a finger to push open the heavy door, enough for him to slip into the safe. As he’d seen during the practice run, the courier bags of cash were on the metal table in the middle of the narrow bunkerlike room. He placed the briefcase next to the bags, unclasped it and pulled open the top so that it looked like a baby bird waiting to be fed. Next he untied the closest courier bag, reached inside and pulled out a bundle of bills. One-hundred-dollar bills. Perfect.

It took only about two minutes to transfer enough bundles to fill the briefcase. There were bundles of twenties as well, but Merv only packed away a couple of those. Since he had limited space, he wasn’t going to waste very much of it on twenties.