by David Gordon
Just then a bike messenger in a hooded sweatshirt, speeding along the sidewalk where he shouldn’t have even been, zoomed by and, while the eyes of the passersby were on Stan, swung his helmet and slammed Jon hard across the back of the head, knocking him off his feet and into the crowd around Stan. Stunned, Jon rolled on the sidewalk, trying to get his bearings.
Meanwhile, a young Asian delivery guy in track pants, a white kitchen shirt, a wool cap and the kind of thin rubber gloves kitchen workers used when preparing food, had been walking down the block. While Jon, distracted by the Hasid, stepped away from the truck toward Stan and got clobbered himself, the delivery guy came up, pulling his cap down into a ski mask. Drawing a 9 mm Beretta from his paper delivery bag, he hopped into the truck’s open and now-unguarded passenger door, sitting next to Mark. Mark, unfortunately, had been distracted by the loud siren that suddenly blared from the ambulance beside him and was looking out the window to his left, wondering why the ambulance didn’t move. Before he even noticed anything, the delivery guy had grabbed his right hand, preventing him from reaching for his gun or the truck’s ignition keys, and shoved a gun in his face.
“Don’t move or I’ll kill you. Understand?”
Petrified, Mark nodded. The gunman removed Mark’s weapon from the holster and then grabbed his radio. “Now get out,” he ordered.
*
John (the guys called him H, because he was the new guard on the team; he didn’t mind) helped Jimmy, the buffed-up guard from the client, push the strongbox up the ramp and into the back of the truck. Well, really Jimmy pushed, H just kind of yanked from the top and made sure it didn’t tip over or slide off the dolly. Still, when Jimmy, with a grunt, muscled it off the ramp and onto the truck, H had his rifle slung around back so he could help, which, he would realize later, made it pretty tough to reach if he needed it. So he really had no time to do anything when the Hasidic teenager jumped onto the truck and pointed a gun at them.
He seemed young, the Hasid—he and Jimmy would agree about that later—with a thick black beard, black frame glasses, and the usual hat and coat. They all dress like old men, but this one was littler, and his voice was still a bit high, though with one of those very thick accents, Russian or Yiddish or whatever. Also—and this struck both witnesses—the unfortunate young man seemed to have a hump, like a hunchback from the movies, though it didn’t seem to slow him down any.
“Don’t move or I will kill you both,” the kid yelled, and they both froze as another bigger and older Hasid in a gray beard and the same black outfit appeared. He pushed the ramp up, climbed onboard, and pulled the doors shut. Then he pointed another gun at them, a Sig 9 mm, before saying “go,” seemingly into his coat. Instantly, the truck lurched forward and was moving.
“On your knees,” the old one barked, and they kneeled, the truck careening around a corner, and the younger one quickly removed their weapons and radios. “Facedown,” he ordered in his higher voice. He guarded them, gun pointed at their heads, while the older one, after pulling on doctor’s gloves, bound their wrists behind their backs with plastic ties, then their ankles. He took two small canvas bags from his pocket and fitted them over their heads, pulling the drawstrings snug. Now H saw nothing, but he was not choked and could breathe easily through the fabric. As the truck bounced along, jostling him, he realized there was still a siren blaring nearby. He wondered if it was the cops, coming to rescue him. It was not.
*
After Cash pushed the driver out of the armored truck, he slid into his seat, shut the door, and put on his seat belt, while Josh got in the passenger seat beside him and shut his door, likewise buckling up and sliding on a pair of gloves. Cash put the truck in drive and checked the side mirror, where the ambo, driven he knew by Liam, was blocking traffic and leaving them room to pull out, while also keeping up a distracting racket with its siren. A few seconds later, Joe, talkative as ever, came over the radio: “Go.” Cash went, stomping the accelerator and, as the big truck engine roared, the truck shot down the block and made a screeching right onto Sixth Avenue, just as the light went yellow.
In the ambulance, Liam was set to follow, but the driver from the armored truck, seeming badly shaken by the holdup, was just standing in front of the ambulance, despite the deafening siren.
“We got to move,” Juno told him, fingers flying over his keyboard.
“I know,” Liam said. “Just give us a few seconds, if you can.”
“Can do,” Juno said as Liam turned on the loudspeaker: “Clear the way,” his voice boomed out in a pretty good copy of a loudmouth New York accent. “This is an emergency.”
The guard jumped, looked over as if just noticing the ambulance, and hurried to the sidewalk, where he began frantically trying to explain to passersby what had happened. Liam hit the gas and the ambo flew forward, making the same wild turn uptown onto Sixth, but he did not even bother to check the light. He knew it was still yellow, because Juno had held it for him. And now, as they cleared the intersection, Juno turned it red, letting the Uptown traffic surge in behind them.
22
As soon as the two guards inside the truck were bound and hooded, Yelena took off her beard. It was insanely itchy, and she was already imagining the breakout she would have to treat later. She put it in her hat and handed that, along with her gun, to Joe, who sat on the jump seat, where he could keep watch over the prisoners at his feet. Next Yelena pulled on some thin surgeon’s gloves and removed a stethoscope from her pocket, sliding it in her ears. She then cleared her mind of other concerns and got to work on the strongbox.
*
As Cash crossed Forty-Eighth Street heading north, a cop car emerged from the west, siren on, and began pursuing the truck. In the ambulance, Liam cut his siren to make them less conspicuous and hung back, staying a few car lengths behind the cop.
“One on your tail,” Liam told Cash over the radio.
“Got it,” Cash said. “Hold the greens.”
“Will do,” Juno said and had the light stay green as the armored truck, the cop, the ambulance, and a few cabs and private cars who were riding in their wake sped through. Then he turned it red and crosstown traffic resumed. Meanwhile he opened a flood of green lights running up the avenue before them, creating an open road. While the traffic ahead rolled forward, clearing the way, the side streets were held, and the reds Juno turned on behind them made it hard for other cops to join the chase.
It also let Cash build up some real speed. And as they raced toward Fifty-First Street, passing Radio City Music Hall, he carefully checked both ways and in both of his side mirrors. The air was full of the angry honks of the drivers being held, which threatened to drown out the cop’s siren.
“Ready?” he asked Juno over the radio.
“Say when,” Juno responded.
“Now,” Cash said and yanked the wheel.
Juno unleashed the traffic, turning all lights green.
Careening left, Cash drove the truck up onto the sidewalk, plowing through a garbage can and a food cart and scattering frantic pedestrians, then bumped back over the curb onto the street, which was now clear running west. Meanwhile, the angry bottled-up traffic pushed forward into the intersection, and the cop, frantic at finding the way blocked and with more cars coming up behind him, slammed on his breaks and yanked his wheel left. But it was too late to make the turn Cash had made and he skidded, sideswiping a passing car. Liam, meanwhile, turned his siren back on and followed more slowly in the path Cash had cleared, drawing shocked stares but no interference as the ambulance lumbered over the curb and back onto Fifty-First, trailing the armored truck, about a half block behind.
*
In back, Yelena was kneeling in front of the strongbox, slowly turning the dial as she listened to the tumblers. By listening carefully through the stethoscope and finding the dial’s parked position, she had been able to count the number of times the lock clicked as it passed that certain spot on the dial. She paused, pulled a small notebook
with graph paper from her pocket, and wrote the number 3. That was how many numbers there were in the combination. Now she set up a graph, with an x-axis running down the left margin and a y-axis across the bottom. She drew two lines, both reaching from the lowest to the highest number on the dial. Then she reset the dial at zero and went to work, concentrating intensely on the slow and methodical task of finding each number in the combination.
Meanwhile Joe watched her work, hair hanging over her weird hump, while he kept an eye on the guards, holding his gun loosely, barrel pointed down at the floor. It wasn’t just Yelena’s knowledge or skill he admired; that could be learned, if you had enough patience and the right teacher. It was also her ability to focus on such a meticulous task and stay calm under these conditions. That’s why she was a pro and why he’d insisted on using her for this job. The truck bounced over a pothole and one of the guards, the big one, moaned; Yelena didn’t flinch. She heard two clicks close together and wrote down a number. That was the first one. Two more to go.
“My back hurts,” the guard groaned. “And my wrists are sore.” Joe kicked him.
“Shut up,” he said. “Or I will shut you up with a bullet.”
He shut up.
*
Both vehicles turned south on Seventh now, and as they recrossed Fiftieth, going back downtown, two more cop cars joined the party. Juno kept the lights green while Liam hung back with the rest of the pack behind the cops, it being standard driving procedure in New York to follow any emergency vehicle in the hopes of riding their tail through traffic, like a biker drafting behind the leader in a race. They moved through Forty-Ninth and Forty-Eighth at a good clip, but as they crossed Forty-Seventh Street, completing their circle, Cash was forced to brake; they were headed toward the crossing where Seventh Avenue met Broadway. That was Times Square: tourist insanity and a black hole of traffic. There would be nothing Juno or even God could do. By the time they crossed Forty-Sixth, they had slowed to the normal Manhattan crawl, and now they could see it looming before them at Forty-Fifth, total gridlock that would block them in whatever the lights said. The cops knew it, too, and they closed in, ready to stop their cars and jump out for the arrest.
“How’s it going back there?” Josh asked his radio and in the back Joe leaned toward Yelena.
“How’s it going?” he asked softly. She held up a hand for silence. Joe waited, muting his radio. She wrote down another number. That was two.
“A few minutes more,” she said.
“A few more minutes,” Joe told Josh.
*
“Ready?” Josh asked Cash, who nodded, then blew a bubble, while cruising straight ahead, toward the wall of traffic with the two cop cars crawling right up his ass. Josh spoke into his mic: “Okay back there, we’re ready to make the drop-off.”
Cash made a left onto Forty-Sixth Street, nice and slow. He even signaled, almost as if he were pulling over for the cops, the way you would for a ticket. He waved an arm out the window. Both cop cars followed, just inches behind, one right in back of the other. They knew they had them. Then the rear doors of the armored car opened and two guards with hoods over their heads came rolling out, landing right on the front cop’s hood. Panicked, he braked, and the other cop, with nowhere to go, banged into him from behind. As the armored car made off, a bearded Hasidic man in black pulled the rear doors shut.
*
Yelena scribbled down the third number and took a deep breath as she removed the stethoscope from her ears. Now she had the three numbers; all that remained was to try each possible combination. Behind her, Joe secured the doors and then got undressed. He removed his beard and hat and then took a few items from the long coat’s deep pockets before removing that, too. He pulled the black pants off over his black sneakers. Underneath he was in cargo shorts and a polo shirt. He fitted a golf cap onto his head. Then he unfolded his knife and reached for one of the cash bags. He had an idea that might buy a few extra seconds.
*
Cash turned right on Forty-Third Street, then right again up Sixth Avenue, driving in circles like someone looking for a parking space, which in essence he was. As he crossed Forty-Fourth heading north he glimpsed cop cars making their way through the traffic toward him.
“We’re running out of street here,” he told Josh.
“What’s up?” Josh asked his radio.
*
In the back, Yelena had tried three of the six possible combinations. She methodically crossed it off her list and then carefully turned the dial again. Click. Finally she smiled as the door opened.
“Open,” she told Joe without even looking back.
“We’re in,” Joe told Josh.
“Thank God,” Josh said over the radio.
Yelena moved quickly, removing the case of diamonds and handing it to Joe. Then she pulled a pair of sandals from her pockets and took off her black clothes and shoes while Joe opened the case, which was lined in cushioned velvet, and transferred the diamonds to a felt bag. There was no time to even think about the value or beauty of what he was holding, but for a moment it was like a broken star glittered in his hand. He pulled the bag shut and got a roll of duct tape from the pocket of his cargo shorts.
Underneath her long black jacket, Yelena had a light cotton dress tucked into the pants. The hump strapped to her back was a foam lump made to look like a pregnant belly. Joe duct-taped the bag of diamonds to the inside of the belly and then, while she fitted it properly under the dress, he dumped all their other stuff into the strongbox, forcing in as much as he could. Then he squirted a small can of lighter fluid on it and tossed the can it too, before lighting it up. The insides of the strongbox burst into flame like it was a barbeque grill. He let it get going good, then shut and locked the door. Meanwhile, Yelena wiped the guns down and then put on her sandals.
“Ready?” Joe asked, handing her one of the cash bags he had sliced open.
She nodded.
“We’re ready,” he told Josh, who replied, “Hold on.”
They held on.
*
Cash headed uptown on Sixth Avenue, picking up speed as he moved toward the Rockefeller subway station on the corner of Forty-Seventh, a large, busy station where the B, D, F, and M trains all stopped. He could see cops in the rearview now, lights flashing, and there were others pulling out from Forty-Seventh Street to cut him off. There was no way out.
“Time to park this heap,” he told Josh and then spit his gum out the window as he veered right.
“Hold on,” Josh said over the radio to Joe and Yelena and then did the same, tucking his head down and bracing his arms against the dashboard as Cash drove up onto the sidewalk, leaning on the horn and chasing pedestrians out of the way, and then rammed the truck down the stairs and into the entrance to the station, while a cloud of money burst from the rear door.
23
First there was terror. The truck hit the steps at a good speed, smashing the fender, crumpling the hood, and rupturing the radiator in the process. Folks on the sidewalk, as well as those in the station, ran for their lives, but the truck had lost momentum and they got away with no problem. Like a wounded beast, it hobbled down the stairs, scraping along the handrail, before coming to rest, nose down at the bottom.
After the terror came the greed. When the truck bounced onto the sidewalk and began lumbering toward the subway, Joe had kicked a back door open and shaken out a bag of cash, sending it flying in their updraft. As a result, the same crowd that had scattered in blind panic immediately surged back the moment the truck halted, scrambling and fighting for the money, chasing flapping bills in the air like butterflies or crawling around on the ground. Inside the station was a similar scene. The truck had landed with a crash, tilted forward on the steps, and everyone had fled as if escaping a monster. Cash and Josh bailed immediately, leaving their guns in the truck. They ran into the station and jumped the turnstiles, ditching ski mask, bandanna, and white jacket in a trash can along the way, so that they were only
in track pants and T-shirts. Josh had grabbed his backpack, and he pulled an MP player from it, as they met the curious crowd that was now pushing toward not away from the crash.
Meanwhile, as soon as the truck crashed, Joe and Yelena had hopped out of the back door, Joe waving the second cash bag and scattering money like it was chicken feed as they ran away. He tossed the empty bag and, as they entered the station, they both removed their gloves and began yelling for help and for someone to call the police. But as soon as people saw cash they broke into a run, surging around Joe and Yelena like a flood from a burst dam, ignoring them completely and scrambling to snatch up money, while the people who were following the money trail from the street came down the stairs, and the two crowds met. It was pandemonium.
Joe took Yelena by the hand and they made their way through the long station as people around them ran wildly either to or from the crash or else simply tried to reach their trains, oblivious to what had happened as only New Yorkers intent on minding their own business can be. As though taking a stroll in a hurricane, they walked calmly through the chaos they had created, untouched by the storm that whirled around them. Now the law had arrived in force, and cops were coming in the other entrances. Some ran past Joe and Yelena, yelling for them to step aside as they raced to the crime scene, others took up posts by the exits. No doubt the station was locked down, and even if it were not, trying to flee upstairs and out onto the street would be hopeless, as police and emergency personnel swarmed all over. The other option was to try to get on a train. But the trains in the station were being held. Nothing was moving, and anyone who tried to get off, from frustration or curiosity, was being accosted by police.
But Joe and Yelena didn’t try either of those options. They took a third choice. They hurried right up to a cop, a big, heavyset white guy with a red, sweaty face, who was standing guard in front of an exit staircase. People milled all around, waiting, pacing, talking on their cell phones or bothering the cop about what was happening and when they could leave.