Some of the flight attendants are still in their uniforms, but almost all of the pilots quick-changed out of their pilot garb. John and Tom have simply ditched their coats, ties, and hats and are dressed in only their white dress shirts and uniform slacks—their company issue dress slacks with the lone tiny thin blue stripe down the side of the pants. To the untrained eye, no one would notice that the uniform slacks were part of a pilot’s attire. Hell, most folks would not even notice the thin blue stripe.
John begins the conversation with, “Two days and we’ll be in Jackson, Mississippi.”
Tom’s answer is, “Hey, you still up for our deal? You seem tense and up-tight.”
“Yea, sure, I’m merely a bit tired,” comes back the response. The boys lean back in their chairs to unwind and drift off into deep thought; they are at the end of a long day. These two men are ready for a long night of rest.
* * * * *
Back in Houston, several hundred miles west and northwest of the Florida Keys, the clock on Fuzzy’s wall indicates that the time is 11:35 pm, basically time for all the second shift regulars to start showing up.
Louis offers, “Hey guys, what do ya want?”
CW is the first to answer, “Bud Light.”
Agent Bob adds, “The regular, scotch, Mr. Johnny Walker Black with a splash of water.”
Finally, “Jack and Coke—light on the Coke,” is Detective Roberts’ request.
Louis fires back, “Coming right up boys.” He quickly gets their drinks then serves them and some others at a far table. He promptly goes back to this new bull session to catch up on the day’s events. These are his friends—these guys are his real friends. When the time is right, he offers, “Hey, boys, did Sal here tell you when and where the serial bank hijackers will hit next?”
CW, putting down his beer, sort of grunts out a weak “Huh?”
Det. Roberts, kidding now, offers,”Oh this must be a good one.”
The ever serious Agent Bob quips, “Well, I’d like to hear.” Sal smirks as he glances at Louis, “Come on. Damn, Lou.”
A kidding CW follows this on with, “No, no tell us, we all want to hear this . . . oh Great One.”
Sal, a bit peeved, offers a quick, “Fuck all of you very much,” to the gathered group of friends, good friends.
Louis, trying to make amends, “No . . . now Sal, it seems rather logical to me. Ya see it amazes me at the way you have been keeping tabs on this fucker as soon as you found out about the big reward money being posted . . . maybe for you.”
A quick comeback from Sal, “Bullshit, I’m simply trying to keep busy. However, I will admit the reward money wouldn’t hurt my little retirement nest egg either.”
CW adds a quick jab, “Come on . . . tell us.”
“OK, OK; well, you can all eat your hearts out when I pick up my 100,000 dollars in cold hard cash.”
Det. Roberts adds, “Yeah, yeah, I can’t wait . . . I’ll hold my breath.”
The comeback by Sal is, “Just drop it . . . oh and don’t ever confide in this here bartender because he can’t keep a secret.”
“Hey, hey, I didn’t realize all this was supposed to be kept in confidence,” says Louis, trying appease him now . . . “Look man, I’m sorry, look, have one, have a beer on me.”
Sal grabs a quick sip and adds, “Hey, I’ve got a theory working here, like the guys assigned to the case, up in the DC Task Force. Even you guys know it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they’re going to hit somewhere in the south . . . maybe Louisiana or Mississippi. Hell, it could be almost about any one of the states on the Gulf Coast . . . and if you boys would like, I’d bet a 100 bucks on the Gulf Coast.”
Det. Roberts continues, “That’s your big lead? Geeze, my ten year old daughter could have made the same kind of wild ass guess.”
A bit of a snide remark from CW kicks up the conversation with, “Well, partner. I’m with you all the way . . . uh, don’t forget your little ol’ partner here when you strike it rich.”
Without missing a beat, Sal carries on, “Hell, even if I could narrow it down to a specific state, none of this would matter anyway. I figure basically we probably got at least one, two, three thousand banks in each and every one. Therefore what I figure is uh . . . no way any agency can muster up the manpower to cover all of them. Hell . . . even you schmucks are smart enough to figure this much out.”
The quiet, ever so quiet Agent Bob decides to jump in with “No shit!
“I can tell you right now, you’re sort of close. Around here are over two hundred banks within a hundred mile radius of downtown Houston. Can you imagine trying to stake out each and every single one? Look, you all understand it would take a minimum of four agents or detectives per bank.
“You know the drill, two to cover the front entrance and two in the back door. Can’t be done today, can’t be done tomorrow and couldn’t be done with two weeks notice in my book.”
The conversation carries on and the drinks flow as these men are all in their element way into the wee hours of the morning. To an outsider, observing these men bicker back and forth, no one would not, could not ever believe for real these guys are friends . . . best friends. To the lone Hobo strolling by the secure front door with his grocery cart, he too once had good, close friends who had carried on the same way. He understands. Today, these men are just cherished memories stored away inside this old vet’s wounded brain. He somehow survived the 1968 Tet Offensive . . . the massive NVA attacks. Somehow, he lived, but all his close friends died in a one week time frame on the other side of the world. He no longer wishes to celebrate New Year’s Eve . . . So much for the year of the Monkey.
Later in the evening, now the time is late . . . a late night, inside Salvatore’s condo. The TV is on and a rather tired half-drunk Sal is sitting on the couch, sort of watching TV and flipping channels. He is going through numerous print-outs, some from county records (official looking), but most of them are different copies of what appears to be newspaper articles.
He is flipping between an old TV series called Police Story, an old black and white John Wayne movie, The Flying Tigers, CNN, and the Weather Channel; back and forth, one station, followed by the next, over and over again. In between, are commercials—one for a truck driving school. The announcer talks about driving the big rigs across the US. Upon hearing this, he stops what he is doing and picks up a yellow legal pad and starts writing down some notes.
Deep in thought he ponders; he goes over in his mind, the “what ifs” all good detectives do all the time. What if this, what if that? “Big rigs cross country . . . hmm. All of these scenarios could work, deliver goods to this state and off to another one. There has got to be some rhyme or reason . . . such as I wonder exactly . . . how this SOB is getting around from state to state. The answer is, he could be using the good old traveling salesman routine. Uh, maybe a drifter, a friggin’ drifter casually hitchhiking his way across the land. Plenty of serial killers were able to use nothing more than their thumbs to get from one end of this country to the other. Let me see, uh . . . one was Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Glover, Ted Bundy, hell, the list goes on for miles. Dean Corll, uh and all the other ones, I can’t even remember,” he thinks. Taking a drink, he carries on his conversation with his inner self.
“Somehow, there has got to be a link somewhere, something logical to tie the cases all together, something to connect all the little friggin’ little dots together, to follow the trail of these guys. Whatever I find has to be something logical . . . not illogical. As crazy as this seems, somewhere nearby is actually a link or a tie which will one day make sense to all these cases.”
Shifting his position on the couch, he is still flipping channels and stops on a stock car race replay on ESPN. The commentator is talking about the race and how the crews spend so much time on the road, trying to get from
one race to another, etc. We can witness as the TV cameras pan into the parking lot, row after row of motor homes, fancy million dollar buses, Winnebagos, and the like, and this makes him think even more. He pulls his computer keyboard down into his lap and starts tapping the keyboard, tap, tap, tap.
Talking to his computer he continues on. “In all my years as a cop, if I have learned anything, it’s that crooks—bad guys—don’t bother to get fancy. This has got to be something simple, Mr. Computer . . . the tie, the tie that connects all these damn robberies together. Like these pit crews driving from one race town to the next. Could he be a traveling salesman who covers all these cities? Please tell me, Mr. Computer, what’s the link . . . are they some rogue racing crew members pulling these jobs?
“Is it a drifter or truckers . . . tell me, tell me please? Cross-check every single city to examine what they all have in common . . . there has to be a logical link in there that will tie all these towns together.” Still sitting on the couch, his tired body gently drifts off to sleep.
* * * * *
Today, another day later in the week there is a light rain once again falling, with low cloud ceilings and fog. The day is basically a crummy day for most folks. The Jackson, Mississippi branch bank is in view across the street. On the damp streets outside there is not too much traffic, just a little traffic, and no one’s walking on the rain drenched streets.
On a side street, a late model rental car pulls up to the stop sign and stops about ten feet from the posted stop sign. It’s being driven by John. The car pulls out and slowly drives down the street, ever so slowly; the right rear door opens half way, and at this time, Tom, dressed as a uniformed security officer exits the bank and dives into the now open rear door. The car only drives a few feet, turns, and disappears into the fog bank. It vanished into oblivion within seconds of passing the bank. Even if someone wanted to race out and try to write down a license plate number, the car seemed to vanish . . . to be absorbed by the fog bank—like disappearing into a black hole; in a flicker of an instant, they are gone.
Later in the day, the soft rumbling sound of an airliner in flight informs everyone on board we are up high at the plane’s assigned cruising altitude. Inside the cabin, the three assigned flight attendants are serving drinks and snacks. A static crackle breaks the cabin sound as the overhead speaker comes to life.
Tom’s voice breaks the silence. “Once again from the flight deck here, we want to thank all of you for flying with us today. Since we have reached our cruising altitude of 29,000 feet, I’ll turn off the seat belt sign and, according to our calculations, we should get you to the gate right on time. Thanks again, sit back, relax, and enjoy the remainder of your flight.”
Up front in the cockpit, the boys are relaxed—the ride up here is a good one today. Pulling out a small black ballistic nylon brief case, Tom places it in his lap. He next starts to pull on the zipper, but stops. He turns around in his seat and re-confirms again that the cockpit door . . . is the latch properly locked? After that task, Tom reaches in and pulls out lots of money, lots of cash money, mostly in bundles and then sort of half-assed counts the loot. Digging around in his right front shirt pocket, John pulls out a bit of tape and places the tape over the CVR and starts to count in a low voice. Thank God for locked cockpit doors.
“Uh, ten thousand for me. And ten thousand for you. Uh, another ten thousand for me. And another ten thousand for you. Uh, another ten thousand for me. And another ten thousand for you.”
After he is through, he hands over half of the loot to John, who quips, “Not too bad for a half of a day’s work.”
“Yep,” says Tom.
“Yeah, but sooner or later we’re gonna need to lie low for at least . . . at least a year.” He adds, a bit of kidding going on now, “We need to let our scent fade from the trail.”
“I’m with you on that,” Tom agrees. “Hell, I realize all too well that you’re right. Look, this game has been fun and we can’t go on forever, but I’d like to do one, possibly two more before we stop, my friend. I promise you, we’ll quit for as long as you want to.”
John responds. “Yeah, fine with me. After scouting out the new possible deal up in Midland, Texas, I figure . . . with work getting in the way, the new deal will take us at least four or five weeks to scout out another location, anyway.”
“Yeah, I’d like to do another look-see on Augusta, and after that do a couple of up north Omaha runs to check out what it is like up there. I figure we oughta start to hit more up north on our next endeavor,” said Tom with a silly grin.
“Hey, we might try our hands at being some kind of fancy cat burglars or perhaps art thieves . . . what do ya think?”
“Cat burglars? Art thieves? Are you high on reefer man or something? First off, I’m allergic to cats, and I don’t know a damn thing about art other than the paint by the numbers stuff.” They both laugh.
“No, I’m for real . . . listen for a minute. I’ve been doing a bit of research and did you know, for example, when a bank is built from the ground up, the vault is the key piece—the linchpin. The entire building is designed and fabricated around the vault. However, when someone or some company decides to open a branch bank in a small strip center or in a building that was not built originally as a bank, they’re required to rely on old fashion floor safes.”
“No, I didn’t ever consider that,” replies Tom.
“Look, here is the deal; not in reality, the basic floor safe isn’t all that safe after all. From what I’ve gathered thus far, any old safe can be beat by simply drilling into the metal case. Of course, it may take five or six hours to drill into the hardened steel, but it’s done time and time again. You merely have to beat the burglar alarm system.”
“OK, but those deals sure seem dangerous, I mean, to be in a building for hours and hours,” says Tom. “I like to be in and out in less than one or two minutes, and you are talking about hours . . . uh, not for me.”
“I agree completely. This type of endeavor would require some sort of computer guru to be added to the team. I’m not sure if I want to go down that path either. Really, I’m just giving us or exploring our options.”
“OK, but for now I’m not too keen on this new idea,” was the cautious reply. Tom then says, “Hey, I’m working on another card trick,” as he pulled out another deck of playing cards.
“Oh, no . . . not another card trick!” sighs John.
Thank God for auto-pilots and locked cockpit doors.
* * * * *
Back half way across the nation in Houston . . . once again it’s another night at Fuzzy’s Tavern; anyone can find a bunch of the usual crowd hanging out. It’s the same folks day after day; week after week, you can find the same off-duty cops, file clerks, dispatchers, booking officers, and the like inside the place. The clock on the wall tonight indicates the local time. It is 11:30 pm, Night Line is on and Mr. Terry Moran is on reporting on the latest bank robbery; the serial bank robber has hit again.
Detective CW Williams, along with Det. Roberts, and Special Agent Bob are gathered at the bar talking with Louis.
CW blurts out, “Son-of-a-bitch! They hit again.”
“Huh? What? I’ve been cooped up all day long in meetings. Who hit?” asks Agent Bob.
The ever cynical Det. Roberts, half kidding, half serious, adds, “Lucky guess.”
“A shot in the dark . . . a lucky friggin’ shot in the dark.”
The TV’s on and the commentator is reporting on bank robbery number fifteen. Terry Moran starts to speak: “Today, our serial robber, called by the press the Dress Up Bandit now, robbed bank number fifteen. The number is now up to fifteen armed robberies of small branch banks. Yes, earlier today, another small bank was hit in another southern state by the serial bank hijacker now being dubbed by the local press as The Dress Up Bandit.
“Yes, another ba
nk was hit today by the Dress Up Bandit shortly after the bank opened up its doors at 10:09 am. Then he simply vanished into thin air . . . disappeared without a clue. Authorities are saying that perhaps it is the same man who may be hitting all the other banks in the south while wearing some sort of uniform and leaving some type of hoax bomb behind.”
Sal walks in the nightclub’s front door behind two other off duty officers, but waits for a moment to speak as everyone seated at the bar is glued to the TV sets. He loves the situation; he’s already aware of the new case, the one he predicted would take place in the southern state of Mississippi.
Terry Moran is still speaking and now pointing to a photo; he offers, “In today’s robbery, our bandit wore a well fitting professional security guard’s get-up, as you can see here in the surveillance photos.”
“Ha! I told you, you bums,” shouts Sal as he sneaks up on the gathered group. “Should of bet the farm, the ranch or something,” he fires off in a loud booming voice.
His best friend CW offers up a high five, “That’s my partner.”
Without looking up from his drink, Det. Roberts throws out, “He got lucky . . . it’s the fuckin’ reward money somehow got him up and motivated.”
A serious Agent Bob speaks next, “Look, I seem to recall that you’re retired and officially off duty, but if you want to tell me where he’s gonna hit next, I would greatly appreciate it. I’d love to be able to show up those pricks in DC just once.”
Sal, now kidding around a bit, grins and shrugs his shoulders . . . but he can’t resist taking advantage of the moment as he pops off, “Oh yeah sure, since all the reward money is almost within my reach, you’re all my best friends. Sure, sure, well then . . . somebody please buy me a beer, Ha!” he quips.“Someone buy me a beer!”
In the background, the large TV is playing the end of a commercial as Terry Moranis still reporting on the earlier bank robbery. It’s the biggest story of the day. He continues as he advises everyone the reward has jumped up to 150,000 dollars. Behind him on a monitor is footage of the robber walking (almost marching) out of the bank, again never looking upward.
Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured Page 7