Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

by Brennen Tammons

  Detective Henderson becomes furious, and runs over to a wall in the room. He takes his fist, and starts punching the wall very roughly. From hitting the wall, his knuckles start to bleed badly. Detective Henderson wipes the blood from his knuckles with his handkerchief, and sits down at the table in the meeting room. Detective Henderson being Catholic, reaches in his pocket, and takes out a wooden cross. He closes his eyes and looks up at the ceiling, and starts to pray that his sanity will be healed. The immense mental pain he’s under, is too much for him to deal with. Detective Henderson plans to retire from being a criminal investigator soon, as the job is causing too much stress for him. He hopes that he is able to gain some closure to this particular case, before he actually does withdraw himself from the police force.

  Detective Henderson finishes praying, and puts the cross back in his pocket. He grabs the box of evidence belonging to all the heists, and leaves out the room. When returning to his desk, Detective Henderson swallows a couple Tylenol pills, and then starts his break for the day. He gets in his car, and drives to a nearby shooting range, where police officers are allowed to have target practice. The shooting helps him express his anger better, and allows him to be more calm and collect with how he’s feeling. While he’s shooting, he cannot stop thinking about the heist investigation, and how bad he truly wants more answers surrounding it. He fires away at more targets, with near perfect accuracy.

  Detective Henderson then has to report back to work, as his break is now over with. The target shooting definitely was the correct solution to the slump he was in. He gets back into his car, and drives back to the precinct, to get started on other active cases. Yet, he is more focused on getting to the bottom of the “Snowman Bandit” heists. On Friday, he feels that if they are prepared enough, they can possibly crack this particular case.

  Meanwhile at Russell’s residence, Jesse wakes up, crawling himself out of the bed feeling lethargic. After looking at the alarm clock which is stating that it’s 9 A.M., Jesse wasn’t expecting for it to be that late. The men have all agreed to case the bank this morning, for the heist tomorrow. Looking at the clock, Jesse knows that they are running terribly late. Jesse begins to panic, and runs over to the closet to pick out his clothes, throwing several articles of clothing all across Russell’s bedroom. Jesse also starts to have flashbacks on last night, after they came home from Kevin’s funeral. Russell almost killed him, by dangling him across the balcony. He ignores all of this, and keeps his mind focused towards getting ready. Once Jesse picks out what he wants to wear, he heads into the living room.

  Russell who was completely drunk the night before, is now badly hungover. Jesse tries to push at him to wake him up, but Russell doesn’t wake. Jesse then grabs a glass of water, and throws it at Russell’s face. Russell starts to reluctantly wake up. Jesse then walks into the bathroom to get himself ready. Russell is now slightly awake, and sits himself up on the sofa. He has a really bad headache, and the last thing he remembers is coming home from Kevin’s funeral the day before. Everything else is a blur at this time, and he cannot recall or remember any of it. Russell then realizes that it’s Thursday, and he has a lot to do. He still has on his clothes from yesterday’s funeral. He staggers inside his bedroom, so he can get himself some clothes to wear. Russell is too hungover, and strugglers to get undressed. Without removing any of his clothes, he lays down on the bed, and falls straight back to sleep. Jesse who has finished getting ready, notices that Russell has fallen asleep. Jesse does the same thing as he did previously, and throws a glass of water on him. This causes Russell to awaken once more, and Russell sits up on the bed. Jesse walks out to the kitchen, to make Russell a cup of coffee. Russell then remembers that he needs to get himself ready, and tries once more to undress himself. He fails yet again, becoming too tired and hungover, and drops himself back down to bed once more. Jesse returns to the bedroom with a cup of coffee for Russell, and becomes irate when he sees that Russell is asleep again. He has had enough. Jesse sets the cup of coffee down on the night stand, and starts to slap Russell on the face repeatedly.

  “Russell, get the fuck up. That’s what you get for fucking drinking too much. We have a lot of shit to do today. You gotta get up now. Here, drink some of this, it will help you.”

  Jesse hands Russell the cup of coffee, but Russell squints his eyes, and shoves it away. Jesse feeling angry, then tries to force the coffee down Russell’s lips, and Russell takes very small sips of it using this method. Jesse continues to do this until half the cup is empty. When Russell still doesn’t wake himself up, Jesse reaches his limit, and starts to undress Russell. He removes Russell’s shirt, and then he takes of his pants. Russell is now only in his boxer shorts on the bed, still with his eyes closed, about to drift right back to sleep once more. Jesse picks out a white polo shirt, and some black sweatpants for Russell to wear. Jesse struggles to dress him, as Russell is quite a heavy man. Jesse luckily is able to have Russell nearly dressed. He puts Russell’s socks and sneakers on as well. Jesse then grabs Russell’s deodorant and cologne from his dresser, and he freshens Russell up. Russell starts to slowly compose himself, and begins to speak.

  “Hey? What’s going on? What the fuck are you doing? How did you get my clothes on?”

  Jesse and Russell then stare at each other, Jesse observing how tired Russell is. Jesse returns an angry and disappointed face to Russell. Jesse then tries to lift Russell off of the bed. Due to Russell’s heavy weight, this is not easy to accomplish. Jesse is able to lift Russell up, and he walks him over to the bathroom. Jesse then starts to brush Russell’s teeth. Once he’s finished doing that, he sets Russell down on the sofa. Russell not even a second later, is deep asleep. Jesse had a feeling Russell would do just that, and doesn’t seem that agitated over it.

  Jesse grabs Russell’s keys and wallet, and sticks them both in Russell’s pockets. After that, Jesse picks up Russell’s phone from under the television set, and starts to text Brian. He explains to Brian that Russell is hungover, as a result of feeling depressed after returning home from Kevin’s funeral. Jesse asks if Brian can come pick himself and Russell up. Brian understands completely, and does agree to help out.

  After talking with Brian on the phone, Jesse starts to slap Russell on the face again to wake him up, and Russell does wake up. Jesse then grabs the coffee cup, and tries to get Russell to drink more of the coffee, by forcing it down his throat. However, Russell is doing a good job of persisting the coffee. Russell gets the entire rest of the cup of coffee down, and Jesse wipes Russell’s mouth, as he starts to regurgitate a small amount of it. Russell then falls asleep yet again. Jesse sits on the other side of the sofa, and places his hands over the side of his face, feeling defeated.

  Jesse looks down towards the ground for several minutes, looking up when Russell would wake up for a few seconds, then immediately he would result back to sleeping. Jesse sits back on the sofa, and looks above.

  Jesse then starts to flashback one more time about last night. He didn’t know how intoxicated Russell actually was, but he couldn’t believe that Russell was very close to killing him. Jesse was scared that if he said anything or screamed, that Russell would throw him off the balcony. He wasn’t expecting for Russell to do any of that. As much as he doesn’t want to blame it on the fact that Russell was just strictly drunk, sometimes that excuse isn’t enough. Jesse begins to worry deeply, as of all the days for Russell to be under the weather, today is not the correct day. Jesse is also aware that Russell probably has no idea of what he did the night before. He was that drunk, it caused him to black out. This means he will not remember any of the events he did while he was intoxicated, the day after. A half an hour later, Jesse while he’s looking up at the ceiling thinking to himself, Russell’s phone rings. Jesse looks at Russell, who is still very much out of it, and he goes to pick up Russell’s phone. Brian is on the other line, wanting to get inside of the complex. Jesse quickly tries to find where Russell put the card key, as Jesse searches for it in th
e kitchen. Russell has placed the card key on the other side of the counter. Jesse grabs it, and he runs outside to Brian to hand it to him. Brian pulls into the parking structure, and Brian, Jesse and Victor all walk into Russell’s apartment. Brian notices how out of it Russell is, and tries to get Russell to return to his normal self.

  “Russell, hey. You okay man? We have to leave okay? Come on Russell, get up man.”

  By hearing Brian’s voice, Russell for the first time this morning, starts to come back to reality. He looks around the room, and responds to the other men.

  “I’m sorry guys, I had too much to drink, my head is spinning all around, and I can’t really see that much. Everything is all dark. I can’t drive, but we can go now I guess.”

  Brian nods his head, and the four men walk out of Russell’s apartment, and get into Brian’s car. This particular day is quite cloudy, but the sun would intermittently pop itself out in the sky. Every half hour the sun would appear, giving out a nice gleam of rays and light. A warm humid sensation in the air, floats all around. Then for the next half hour, the sun would hide itself back into the clouds, and the sky would become dark and cloudy; giving a moody and gloomy atmosphere. It becomes colder when the sun is not visible and behind the clouds as well, giving off a slight windy breeze. With Russell now fully awake, he looks out the window of Brian’s car. Russell still has a really bad headache. He has no recollection of what exactly made him drink as much as he did, and he is so tired; he has to keep reminding himself to stay awake.

  The men are currently driving to “First Federal Bank”, to examine the bank for the heist tomorrow. Something which they have done twice before with other two heists they have committed. The only issue is; Russell is ill at the moment. With the men thinking of him as their leader towards all of these crusades, it could possibly make the planning stage much more difficult.

  The men have several things that they need to get done on their agenda for the day. Casing the bank they will hit tomorrow is one, and going to their last work shift is the other. This will be the first heist, to where the men will not have any assistance or help from Kevin. Any electronic devices that they have used in the past, none of those tools can be implemented now. They will go with this last heist, the old fashioned way. Using quick thinking, and fast judgment. Russell starts to conform himself the longer Brian drives, and the closer they get to the bank. He now is starting to remember getting insanely drunk after Kevin’s funeral.

  Although his memory of it is still very much scattered, he is now remembering picking Jesse up, and dangling him off the balcony. Russell takes his sunglasses off, and his eyes are bloodshot red. He begins to produce tears, due to how irritated his eyes are. He looks towards the floor of Brian’s car, and shakes his head; his vision is poorly, but it’s slowly starting to come back. Russell’s headache has not gone away, but it’s not as severe as it previously was. Brian gets closer to the bank, and Russell starts to talk.

  “I’m sorry you guys, I got too carried away. Usually we Russians are good at holding down liquor, but I’m being such a pussy right now guys. I feel so ashamed, I’m sorry.”

  Brian while driving, understands where Russell is coming from, and responds to him.

  “You don’t have to apologize Russell. You’re absolutely right though, you got carried away, and you have now learned your lesson. Now you have to be a man and get yourself together, as we have to go into beast mode right now. It’s very important you stay alert now.”

  Russell bites his nails, and shakes his head while looking down. He pulls out his phone, he turns his head around to look at Jesse, and he asks him a question under his breath.

  “Did you get me dressed? Because I would know if I put clothes on, and I don’t remember getting dressed. If you dressed me, that’s impressive. Crazy you did it so well.”

  Jesse while looking out the window, scoffs at Russell, and answers his question.

  “Yes Russell, I got you dressed and it was not easy. But I had to do it. Okay? Ugh.”

  Russell takes off his sunglasses again and rubs his irritated eyes with his hand. He looks out the window, and starts to grunt and complain to himself. Victor then looks behind, at profiles Russell. After seeing how bad his condition is, Victor reaches in his pocket, and gives Russell some aspirin pills, and eye drops. Russell quickly grabs both of them from Victor. The men are happy that Russell for the most part, seems to be getting back to his regular self. Being that the heist is tomorrow, all of them need to be in proper condition to do the job right. Russell now sobering himself up and getting out of his hangover, now has a more perfect recollection of the incident last night between himself and Jesse. He distinctively remembers grabbing Jesse, and becoming insanely close from dropping him high above from his balcony. Russell however doesn’t know why he would ever think of doing such a thing, but is able to recall doing the action. Russell starts to have a sudden uncomfortable feeling of guilt over that. Wanting to get a clearer picture as to what when down when he was drunk the night before, with Jesse being the main witness to all of his actions. He turns his view over to Jesse who’s looking out the window. Russell hisses at Jesse to get his attention, but Jesse is ignoring him. After Jesse doesn’t respond, Russell shakes his head and doesn’t worry about it. Victor plugs his phone into the car stereo; he is playing a bunch of old Beatles songs. Victor despite being young, always seemed to prefer music from way before his time. He is able to recite all of the lyrics perfectly to nearly every single song. Brian looks at the clock on his dashboard, and it is now showing 10:45 P.M. They men have to be at work by noon, so they do not have much time at all. Thankfully, they are not that far away from the bank from the position they are at now. Brian proceeds down Grand St.; one of the major streets located in downtown Los Angeles.

  As he’s riding in the rear seat, Russell once again takes note of all of the high profile business men in highly tailored suits, walking with their briefcases down the street. Russell as he’s starting immensely out the window, starts to rub his goatee slowly, and smiles in both amazement and in shock, mainly because this used to be the exact same lifestyle he had. Going from being professional such as that, now planning his third bank heist. Coming to terms that his life has completely changed, and he is now a totally different person. Russell shakes his head and looks down at the ground, resting his hand on his forehead. He then takes the bottle of eye drops Victor gave him, and carefully uses the eye drop liquid to heal his eyes. Russell squints and grumbles due to the irritation of the formula going into his eyes, and hands Victor back the eye drop bottle. Brian mistakenly drives right past the bank at this point, as the “First Federal” bank has a slightly confusing entrance towards it. Russell quickly notices this, and shakes his head. He slightly snaps at Brian for doing so.

  “Brian, you just went by ‘First Federal’. That big building with the glass doors, that was the bank right there. I thought you knew where it was man? Ugh. Don’t feel intimated though, it is the biggest bank we’ve seen so far. We can take it. Go back, and don’t miss it this time.”

  Brian proceeds into the turning lane, and shakes his head. He responds to Russell.

  “I’m sorry man, you should have told me. How the fuck was I supposed to know? Can you chill Russell? Damn. You’ve been unconscious all morning, now that you’ve woken up, you want to start pushing us around like that. I’m the driver, and that’s now how to talk to people, especially people that are your friends, and are supposed to help you rob a fucking bank. Shit.”

  Russell looks down towards the ground once again, shaking his head and laughing out loud. Brian is puzzled by Russell’s reaction, and makes a U-Turn, back to the correct direction. Russell pulls out his phone, and starts to respond to Brian, chuckling out the words.

  “Fuck you Brian, That’s not even pushing you around at all. I only said that you passed up the bank which you did, and you took it as me belittling you. I wasn’t. Forget about it man, you can park at this corner, the bank is behind
this building here. You can part right here man.”

  Brian takes a deep breath, and pulls the car over to the curb. They are now facing an office building, and an underground parking lot. It is connected behind the “First Federal Bank”. Likewise, with the previous two banks they have targeted, this bank also has a slightly obscure path outside of it. This will allow for easy access, when trying to escape from the heist. Russell also has a personal vendetta to this bank, as John is now a manager. The vindication he feels, only causes Russell to act more dangerously towards this particular heist.

  With this being their absolute final heist, they are all ready to finally proceed with the plan. Unfortunately, the men have no idea that earlier this morning, Detective Henderson held an important conference at the police station. He is implementing tactics the that they have never reinforced in the past, to catch them. These new plans that they plan to use to defect the men, could perhaps make this their most difficult heist yet. Using all of the desire they have gathered up from all the heists they have done, confidence is the major thing which keeps them going, and allows them to feel confident. As the men are parked right behind the bank, Russell starts to explain several things to them.

  “Alright guys. I know I said this bank was similar to ‘First Savings’, well, I lied. This one is slightly bigger and better. It’s one of the biggest banks in downtown LA. Which is why I really wanted to hit this one last time, instead of doing ‘First Savings’. Don’t feel intimidated guys, this bank is going to be simple, if not easier than the last.”

  The men all nod their head to agree with what Russell is saying. Russell then rubs the back of his head, as he’s examining the parking structure located right in front of them.