Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured: ...someone robbed another bank
374
Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured: ...someone robbed another bank
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781477232682 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 08/22/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 374 |
| File size: | 545 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured
... someone robbed another bankBy Salvatore A. Joseph
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Salvatore A. JosephAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-3269-9
Chapter One
Current Weather or current METAR: KLEX1203KT 1/4SM–RA OVC02 20/19 A29.89 or in plain language:
Winds are 120 degrees at 3KTS, only ¼ SM (Statute Mile) of visibility, light rain, overcast sky at only 200 feet above the ground, temperature is 20C, dew point 19, and the area altimeter setting is 29.89
Lexington, Kentucky
A cool mist greets the early morning fog which has settled into the area of the upper Midwest across Kentucky and Tennessee. The outside visibility can't be more than a few hundred feet in some spots and no more than a quarter mile at its best. The morning dew sticks to the front windows of this particular small local branch bank which just opened at 10 a.m. local time. Inside the lobby area is a tall man in a US Army full dress uniform including the standard issue hat, standing at a bank teller's window conducting some type of transaction. He sports a big bushy mustache, a goatee and mirrored sunglasses ... a good disguise, a clever disguise.
Because it is right after 10 am, he happens to be the first and only customer to pass through the door this morning. This is a quaint little bank in a quiet and peaceful town.
Being number one, the first customer in the doors today was not an accident. This was planned out and by choice. Behind the teller we can plainly see the name of the bank, First Union Bank, Westside Branch, Lexington, Kentucky. These two people are having some sort of conversation ... or so it seems.
In a soft voice the man speaks, "Come on, come on, come oonnn! Please, hurry up, hurry up ... good girl." Ms. Smith, the lone teller, sniffling, almost crying, pleads, "I'm trying ... I'm scared, damn it!"
This tall man, Tom, speaks in a soothing voice, "It'll be all right. Please do as I say and no one will get" ... he catches himself, making sure not to say the wrong word, some threatening word or phrase.
The clerk, Ms. Smith, generally an extremely calm lady, fumbles the money a bit, but somehow starts to hand over the lots of wrapped cash. As the last bundle of the cash is exchanged, Tom says, "OK, now this is good."
He caresses her hands in his and in doing the deed–in a flash–produces a strip of duct tape and a small green 4"x4" little gift box; he soothingly tapes her hands around the top of the box and down to the counter top.
Next in a peaceful soft voice he continues. "Now, now ... if you stay calm and keep this little box pinned down to the counter for the next five minutes you can lift up your hands" ... looking out through his sunglasses ... "if you want to," he said.
Spinning smartly on his heels, he turns back ... smiles, completes his turn, and exits the bank where he simply vanishes, almost absorbed into the thick, incredibly thick fog filled morning air.
* * *
Later in the afternoon, in the middle of downtown Las Vegas, a group of people are having a splendid time at a casino known as Binion's Horseshoe. The casino is in the heart of downtown across the street from the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino. Both casinos are located on world famous Freemont Street. Freemont Street is four covered blocks of beautiful lights. Some twelve million tiny bulbs are switched on and off by computer software creating the most fabulous light show on the planet. Some folks are playing slot machines while others try their hands at video poker or real life poker. Still others, many others, are playing a fun little game called craps, A.K.A. dice.
Two red spinning dice fly through the air as the sound of a raging dice game comes up to full volume. All around the area you can hear yelling, cheering, and hollering, as 25 or so people are crammed around one of the ten felt covered craps tables having a wonderful time. The overhead music is by crooner Dean Martin singing something about ...
"How lucky can one guy can be I kissed her and she kissed me Like the fellow once said, Ain't that a kick in the head?"
People are winning and winning big this evening. Looking around the table are hundreds and even thousands of dollars in play on the pass line; people are betting the six, the eight, nine, and ten. This day, this particular game, the House doesn't have the edge. The gamers on the outside of the rail are being shined on by a lady–Lady Luck.
If you look closely, you can almost tell who it is–Mr. Tom smoking a big cigar ... he's rolling the bones without his army officer's disguise. At a bit over six feet tall, he still has a mustache, but the stache is a carefully trimmed one, not the big bushy Italian looping ends kind of facial hair. His left hand is resting on the wooden chip rail, and the rail is full of green, black, and red chips. Here and there are several sets of yellow and purple ones mixed in; they represent 500 and 1,000 dollars each. The green ones are 25 dollar chips, the black ones are worth 100, and the red represent 5 American dollars.
The next morning, in Binion's coffee shop, two men are seated on the upper level by the counter and the fresh baked pie carousel. Tom is sitting in a booth talking to someone, another man, but it is hard to tell who the other person is. They both have on long sleeve white dress shirts and simple black ties.
John, his partner in crime, asks, "Well ... How did you do?"
"I'd rather not say," comes back the response.
"Lost a little or all?"
In a soft, almost ashamed voice, he says, "Damn near."
"Well OK, did you get any sleep?"
"Uh ..."
"Well, huh? I was up close to $25,000, then the table went cold, I mean ice cold."
"Hell, I've never seen so many seven-outs in my life ... I mean, it was like someone turned off the winner switch and turned on the loser one."
John answers, "That's fine ... We'll be in Arkansas by midnight and you can set something up when we get off of the plane.
* * *
Forty-one days later, as the sun rises in the east, we see another damp dreary day. A light rain, in reality more of a thick mist, fills the morning air. In another town at another small branch bank once again, we witness a tall man, the same tall man as before, standing at a bank teller's window in what appears to be a fireman's dress uniform, complete with a hat, sunglasses, mustache–the entire disguise–conducting another transaction. Behind the teller, we can barely distinguish a clock indicating the current time, right after 10:00 am, and the name of the bank. On the wall is a sign, Citizens Bank & Trust, Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
Tom speaks softly, but in a firm voice, "Come on, come on, little lady. Hurry up little one and no one ... nothing will happen, I promise you."
As the Teller is handing over the cash, the sweet mid-thirties bleached blonde pleads, "Don't hurt me ... please don't hurt me and you can have all the money ... I swear ... it's not mine it's the bank's."
Tom's reply is simply a soothing "There, there now."
He once again gently caresses the teller's hands and tapes her shaking hands around the little 4"x4" gift wrapped box; across the top and then down to the bank counter's surface.
Tom, looking out from behind his sunglasses, offers, "Now, now ... please stay calm and keep this little box pinned down to that countertop for next five minutes then you will be all right."
With this said, he smiles, turns, and exits the bank whereby he once again seems to vanish into the thick street level cloud.
* * *
Later in the evening and off in a corner hotel bar, Tom and several other travelers sit drinking. Some are lounging around while others are at the bar drinking, chatting, relaxing. Tom has on a basic white dress shirt and tie. However at this time of day, the tie is loose around his neck. All around are several empty seats in the bar area. In view, mounted above the bar in front of the large mirror, way above the dozens of liquor bottles almost to the ceiling hang two wall mounted 42" plasma television sets turned on. The one on the left displays the first real sports channel, ESPN and the other one is on the late local news.
The folks in the bar can make out the end credits of a show, the lead-in for the 11 o'clock news. A female anchor on a split screen is talking about the daring daylight bank robbery that occurred earlier in the day. Tom is soon joined by his cohort John who has ditched his work clothes, his official dress uniform and has dressed down to shorts with a pullover polo golf shirt. He is off duty for real.
"This ought to be good," John says, speaking under his breath.
Tom quips with a snicker, "Now, now; let's listen young man, uh ... to what they're going to say."
The evening news comes on and they sort of catch a glimpse of a black and white grainy photo of a surveillance snapshot photo flashed across the screen. This is their lead story tonight. As is typical of these bank surveillance photos, the quality is poor, which makes the print almost impossible to figure out who the man in the photograph is. Of course, much of the person's features are obscured by the dark sunglasses, goatee, mustache and ever-present hat.
The lead female reporter starts talking, "Just after opening their doors this morning, a lone robber held up the Citizen Bank & Trust with a bomb and escaped with an undisclosed amount of money. The device was in actuality only a bomb threat; no real explosives were found by the Police Department's bomb squad. Local detectives and the FBI are looking into this robbery and sources here indicated off the record ... this may be the work of a serial bank robber who has hit in several different states since last year.
As is so typical of today's news coverage, the side-kick talking head, man with perfect jet black hair sitting next to her reads his part from the teleprompter.
"Yes, News Eleven has followed this story all day long and our sources are indicating now thus far that there have been at least eight robberies across the southern half of the United States of America. Sources also tell us here at News Eleven, again off the record, that the FBI's crack, Bank Robbery Nation Wide Task Force is looking into these cases. Each one occurred in a different state, but the suspects always wear some sort of uniform and leave behind or use some type of a fake bomb in a small box to pull off the robbery."
Our female reporter continues, "Yes, as far as we know, this is correct, Tim. Now it turns out that the fake bomb used in today's robbery was nothing more than a small gift box with a lone business card inside. Authorities are not telling us at this time what was on the card or what the front of the card said. A source close to the investigation did confirm to us here in the newsroom that the card contain some sort of writing or group or series of numbers written ... maybe typed on the card, but nothing more."
"Still, my sources at the police department to anyone out there watching–if a bad guy, a bank hijacker tells a bank teller that he's got a bomb inside of a box, the general rule is you need to take the threat serious. There is no way to tell a fake bomb from an actual bomb. Therefore, you have to believe the threat to be real."
In perfect sync with her, Mr. Male reporter, with the perfect hair adds, "Yes Jane, consider the bomb a real one."
"As you know, I certainly covered many bank robberies over the years and most of the time, the bombs are fakes, but again, when an armed mad-man tells you he placed a bomb in the box ... what can you do? No one can tell the difference simply by looking at a wrapped up box. Turning to his right for camera two, he changes stories ..."Now, for our other top stories ..."
* * *
Across the country some 742 nautical miles away in the heart of downtown Houston, at a discreet little cop bar named Fuzzy's, a group of men gather, drinking and chatting about their day. Fuzzy's is a cop bar in the middle of downtown Houston. There is no neon beer sign hanging outside to tell all who pass by that Fuzzy's is right here. The owner does not need to advertise, nor does he want to. His special, extremely special breed of clients know exactly where the little bar is. On the right side of the sturdy steel front entrance door is simply a small 3"x12" brass sign with a simple inscription: PRIVATE CLUB.
The tavern is housed on the first floor of a rather old ten story brown brick office building. The structure was built after the turn of the century. She stands in the shadows of the ever present tall fancy 50, 60, 70 story modern office towers or ... skyscrapers. This edifice, this structure was built by men, real men, one brick and one floor at a time long before OSHA and the invention of safety lines. Today, more than half of the buildings along with half of the entire block are vacant or listed for rent. In today's rough economy, a rather large portion of the entire downtown office space is vacant.
Anyone who enters the tavern notices right off that all the walls, the ceilings, the tables, everywhere–this is a cop bar. There is police stuff, police memorabilia everywhere. The walls, the tables, everything is covered with cop-stuff, red emergency light bars, police motorcycle helmets, a busted up right front fender from a marked police car, Dirty Harry posters, machine gun ads, and more. Hell, even cop stuff is painted on the floor, No Parking, Tow Away Zone, Handicap Parking Only! And the collection goes all the way to the ceiling. Attached way up to the ceiling tiles is part of a wrecked helicopter ... it now belongs to Louis, the bar owner; it's his wrecked police chopper hanging down from the rafters.
On one of the walls, is a rather new large flat screen 51" TV with the original Dirty Harry movie made back in 1971 running. The movie alone was one of the greatest recruiting tools for the nation's police departments ever made. Data at the time indicated that more people applied to the local police departments after seeing that two hour piece of film, all by itself was an immense recruiting tool in the seventies.
Across part of the picture, you can spot that the closed caption settings are on and you can read the scene where Clint Eastwood as Inspector Callahan is holding his Smith and Wesson, model 29 blue steel .44 magnum in one hand and eating a hot dog with the other saying something about a .44 magnum, the greatest handgun in the world ... do you feel lucky PUNK? ... as the letters scroll across the bottom half of the TV screen.
The clock on the wall behind the bar indicates early morning–2:00 am. A lone Vietnamese man, actually a native born South Vietnamese bar-back named Ha Tran, is cleaning up behind the large scuffed up wooded bar top. Today, he is a simple bar-back ... a helper ... a menial thankless job, but he is happy to be here in America ... he is mighty happy to even be alive. Back in the sixties and seventies, he was a soldier, an army officer in his home country of South Vietnam.
Ha Tran, like his father and most of his extended family, worked for the US government all throughout the so-called 10 year long Vietnam War. Mr. Tran and several of his family members were some of the few lucky ones who escaped to the US back in late May of 1975 right as Hanoi was falling into the communist hands of the Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnamese Army. His dad and other family members were not so lucky. They never made it out of the country during the last days of the War and haven't been heard from since. In his heart, in his gut, Ha Tran knows they are all dead. Not a kind death either. The North Vietnamese people were well schooled in the oriental art of torture.
At this late hour, the club is almost empty except for Fuzzy's Old Salt bar owner Louis J. Washington, a medically retired helicopter cop with a bad limp. He was the city's first ever black street officer selected for the aviation unit. At only five foot ten, he was never a basketball star, nor was he a hip teenager in high school. He was actually a bit of a school geek.
Math and science came easy to him and these talents helped him get through Army Flight School at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. He always wore thick dark rimmed glasses and even played trumpet in the school band. Louis was also a decent second baseman on the varsity, class 3A baseball team. They made it to State one year, but never advanced past the first round. He was attending a local community college on a two-year baseball scholarship when his draft lottery number was coming up. He decided to join up rather than be drafted, which offered him the opportunity to fly–he wanted to fly military helicopters for the US Army.
In regard to the Police Helicopter unit, it was not like he wasn't qualified, it simply turned out that he was the first African-American officer to apply to get into the unit. A highly trained pilot, he had flown high-tech, state of the art military choppers for the United States Army in Vietnam and joined the Houston Police Department in 1973 after his three-year tour with Uncle Sam was up. That was now a long time ago.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured by Salvatore A. Joseph Copyright © 2012 by Salvatore A. Joseph. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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