Ep. I - "A Surprise for Mr. DeLeon"

A new stethoscope protruded from the left jacket pocket of Luis DeLeon as he shuffled across the deserted crosswalk on the corner of Yakima Ave and 1st Street. Moseying into the alley without a single furtive glance or nervous pause, Luis turned his collar up against the chilling wind.

Displaying an attitude of bored nonchalance he stooped to pick up the ladder he had deposited six hours earlier, at the height of the Ave’s traffic. After positioning it against the brick wall directly beneath the manager’s private bathroom window, he shivered and stamped his feet.

The window stood fifteen feet in the air, but the ladder was long enough, and he ascended quickly. He had no issues with the glass cutter. Reaching through the freshly cut hole, he flicked the lock, then slipped in the window, pulling the ladder behind him. He left the window open, checked his watch, and adjusted the ladder. It was so long, it couldn’t be completely pulled into the spacious bathroom, leaving at least four feet left poking out over the alley. Luis moved through the manager’s tidy office and cracked the outer door. He could just see over the lip of the rail to the foyer below.

The watchman with the limp was sitting near the front entrance nursing a steaming cup of coffee and watching the street, his thermos on the floor next to his beat up lunchbox.

Luis slid out of the door with perfect – almost surreal – silence, slipping around the corner of the back staircase. He emerged behind the distracted sentinel and waited. The watchmen stood up, lurched to the door, and peered out, preoccupied with a car that had sped by. As soon as he left the chair, Luis slipped across the exposed hallway and behind the tellers countertop. He then turned a corner to the back of a paneled screen and into the room which housed the massive vault door.

Slipping the lock picks through the vault’s single keyhole, he struggled for nearly ten minutes with - the massive, heavy mechanism. It clunked quietly into place. Pausing for a moment, he listened for approaching footsteps. Satisfied, Luis slipped a stethoscope into his ears. His fingers carefully spun the dial, easing it through a succession of numbers.

“Hands up and turn around, or I’ll shoot.”

Luis froze as the feminine voice echoed through the long room. Automatically, he spread his arms wide, pulling the stethoscope free as he did so, and lifting it slowly over his head, considering his options. He turned. A woman stood twenty paces away and did indeed have a handgun leveled at him. Make that one option, then.

Resisting the urge to grimace, he began his well-rehearsed cover story. “Um, I can explain- ”

A gunshot resounded, and Luis jumped as a bullet ricocheted off the steel safe beside his left temple, “Hey!”

“Shut up and stand still, or the next one goes through your head,” the woman growled, shifting her stance slightly.

Luis snapped his jaw shut.

“Good,” she raised her voice and tilted her chin. “We are at the Wells Fargo Bank on Yakima Avenue. I can’t hear you, but I’ll be holding the thief at gunpoint until you arrive.”

Only now did Luis notice the corded telephone on the floor beside her, wires trailing haphazardly behind it and around the corner. The phone was unseated from its cradle. Luis scowled in earnest and openly regarded his assailant.

She was a trim, athletically built woman sporting medium-length blond hair pulled back into a pony tail. Her patterned cream blouse was tucked into a red, high-waisted skirt that nearly reached the floor. An ID badge hung from her neck.

She must be the only bank teller Luis had not managed a visual of, back a week early from her vacation. He was more embarrassed than anything – this was not the kind of girl he’d expect to be taken unawares by. Then again, her confidence with that handgun was a clear warning not to assume anything at face value.

The woman shouted to the limping watchman, “Hey, Chuck! It’s OK! I got him!”

Chuck came into the room with an old revolver in a trembling hand, but only made it a few steps before being ordered by the dame in the dress to unlock the front door as the police were on their way and would likely be impatient to get inside.

The minutes stretched on. Luis ignored his aching shoulders, determined to out-freeze his opponent, who seemed to have turned into a statue. This stalemate was broken when the distant thud of a closing door was heard.

“Over here!” called the woman, visibly relaxing. She did not lower the gun until a gaggle of police officers had surrounded her and convinced her to surrender it.

“Keep your hands up,” the captain instructed Luis. "Are you carrying any weapons?”

“No, sir,” Luis smiled wryly to himself. He wouldn’t know what to do with one.

The captain nodded to two of his men and covered them as they approached Luis to thoroughly frisk him, while another gave a verbal description for a fourth cadet to jot down. Frankly, Luis found the latter to be the more uncomfortable. His whole job relied on his ability to remain invisible to the public eye.

“Short, broad-shouldered Caucasian male.”

“Hispanic,” Luis corrected.

The cadet squinted at him, “For real man?”

“Yes.” Luis did not elaborate. He knew his skin was paler than typical.

The cadet shrugged, “Curly, blond hair, trimmed beard, and mustache. Black peacoat. Black newsie cap-”

“He’s clean,” one of Luis’ friskers announced, interrupting the cadet.

The captain nodded, “We called Mr. Wilson to inform him of a possible break-in, and he had an…interesting…response. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

“Absolutely, sir!” Luis was relieved to be given an opening. There would be much less hassle this way. “I’m in his employ, and here by his permission. The contract is in my jacket pocket. May I?”

The captain nodded his assent. Luis slowly pulled back on his left lapel and reached a thumb and forefinger into the inner pocket, groping around until they closed on the corner of his ‘get out of jail free’ card. He made every employer sign one before a gig, but this was the first time he’d had to use it.

“Here...h...here it is,” Luis stammered, awkwardly holding onto the paper just a second too long as a cadet swept it from his grasp. It was handed through a ridiculously long chain of seniority down the hallway until it reached the captain, who hemmed and hawed periodically as he regarded it.

“My word,” he paused to polish his spectacles, “a hands-on security consultant. What a gig.”

He replaced the glasses and peered closely at the closing signatures.

“That does seem to be in order,” he nodded to himself. “If we could have you come this way to offer an official statement, that should be sufficient – oh, and you can put your hands down now.”

Luis rolled his shoulders several times and followed the policemen around the corner to a desk where an officer stood poised to fill out paperwork. The bank teller had already been seated here. She stared blankly at the ground as a detective inspected her permit and emptied her magazine. As Luis took the seat beside her, she seemed to wilt. Her grip on the armrest tightened, and she murmured something in a voice too low to hear.

“Beg pardon?” Luis asked, polite but confused.

All bravado gone, she seemed to be a different woman entirely.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered in a voice that was just a little belligerent.

“I didn’t- I didn’t know it was a fake robbery,” she finished, apparently deflated.

Luis was taken aback. “Of course…” he agreed, re stating the obvious “you know, that’s actually how it’s supposed to work.”

“But,” she looked up at him, “I could have killed you.”

Her hazel eyes were angry, and her voice gained back the flinty tone she’d used earlier, “How could you do something like this? I was terrified!” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You should at least let some people know.”

Mr. Wilson had known, but this girl obviously thought she should have been included, too. Luis didn’t try to press the point.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I did try to tell you…”

Her glare deepened, and Luis held up a placating hand, “But, to be fair, I usually don’t get caught. You really startled me there.”

“Hmph.”

Whatever reply the teller would have made, it was interrupted by an officer returning her permit and gun. Luis gestured as she checked the chamber and holstered the weapon.

“You certainly are handy with that thing. At least I can tell Mr. Wilson that, while his night watchman is absolutely useless, his tellers more than make up for it.”

The flattery had its intended effect. She ducked her head and flushed, mollified.

“Where did you learn to use that thing, anyway?”

At this, she rolled her eyes and sat up tall, “It’s Yakima.”

She jerked a thumb in the direction of the window, “That convenience store across the street has gone through three armed robberies since I first started working here. You better believe I train at the range regularly, just in case anything ever happens.”

Her voice dropped again, musing, “I’ve always wondered what I would do…” Her glance toward him was now half-curious, half-triumphant.

The Captain asked for Luis’s statement first. He described again the contract made with Mr. Wilson, summarized his surveillance of the building, and explained step-by-step how he had broken in.

“I was just jimmying the safe when I heard some one tell me to put my hands up and turn around,” he gestured to the bank teller and frowned.

The captain turned to Luis’ companion, and she shifted in her chair uncomfortably.

“Well…” she began sheepishly. “I told my boss I’d be out of town for two weeks, to help arrange a family funeral. There was a funeral, but I was only out of town a week.”

She shrugged “I wanted the extra time. But I’d forgotten my favorite lipstick at work –"

“Your lipstick?” Luis demanded, exasperated.

This was the reason he had been caught?

She shrugged again “It’s my favorite shade. Any way, I didn’t want to use any of the main doors, because they take so long to unlock–“

“So you used the janitorial entrance” Luis realized.

She nodded, “For some reason, it shares the same key as interior office doors.”

“It’s simpler to have one key for all the cleaning staff...” Luis murmured.

An oversight, probably – one that he himself could have exploited to get in. She must have arrived just after him. For her lipstick. He groaned.

She flashed a smile at him, “I guess it was all bad luck, huh?”

He smiled weakly back, “I guess so.”

The captain asked a few more questions, then there were handshakes all around as the statements were packed away. Luis helped the bank teller - whose name, he had learned, was Tierra – reassemble the phone and returned it to its proper station. It seemed like the thing to do.

She watched as he gathered up and pocketed his items before observing, “Seems like an exciting job, provided one doesn’t get shot on accident.”

“I do find it thrilling,” he admitted, snapping his briefcase shut and standing to full height. He had to tilt his head back to meet her eyes, “though today was more exciting than I’d like to admit.”

He held the door open for her, and they exited the building.

Tierra apologized again. “I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. I am glad that there are people like you, keeping our businesses safe. I suppose that you could easily have robbed the bank for real – imagine how rich you would be!”

Luis grinned, “The thought has occurred to me, but I think the guilt would be unbearable.”

Tierra shook her head. “I’m sure it would. Well,” she held out a hand “nice knowing ya’.”

“Yes, a pleasure.” Luis accepted her handshake. “May we meet under better circumstances next time.”

The bank teller laughed, withdrawing her hand, “Oh, let’s not jinx it!”

As they parted ways, Luis smirked. Tonight, he will deliver his report to Mr. Wilson. Tomorrow, he will rob another bank – but this time, for real.