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Bill Tasker
took his daughter’s hand as they crossed the parking lot
heading into the Bank of Florida branch in Kendall, just south
of the city of Miami. The blond eight-year-old saw a license tag
from Quebec on a rust-riddled Nissan pickup truck and turned to
her father and asked, “What’s that mean?” pointing
at the phrase on the tag.
“Je
me souviens?”
“Yeah,
what is it?” Her blue eyes wide.
“French.”
“But, what’s it mean?”
“Not
sure, sweetheart, but I think it means, ‘I brake for no
apparent reason.’ ”
She gave him
one of her looks.
“Or
it means, ‘I drive slow in the left lane.’ ”
She kept her
look until he laughed and then asked him again, “What’s
it really mean?”
“I think
it means, ‘I remember.’ ”
“Remember
what?”
Tasker shrugged.
“I dunno, baby. Maybe they should remember not to start
a war with the English.”
She gave him
another look, but seemed satisfied with the answer as they pushed
open the tall, glass front door and walked inside.
The
smell of banks bugged him—that fake, clean, antiseptic odor.
Just like the fake nice furniture—the expensive-looking
veneer pasted over cheap pressboard, designed to be replaced every
few years when the constant swarm of people turned it black with
dirt. After a couple of minutes, his biggest concern was that
Emily would damage some of it. When they were fifteen people back
in line, she had dropped to the floor to do a full split. Now
that they were ten people back, she was leaning on a stool with
one hand and lifting her whole body off the ground in short bursts.
“Look,
Daddy,” she said, as her entire body floated off the ground,
muscles straining, balancing on her left hand.
Bill Tasker
smiled and said, “That gymnastics class is paying off.”
An older Latin
man next to Tasker said, “That is a real talent.”
He was sincere and Tasker had to admit he was proud of the athletic
ability of his youngest daughter.
She lowered
herself with control and stepped back to her father in line. “What
are all those stars for?” she said, pointing at a large
poster.
Tasker said,
“Those are asterisks. They mean free checking costs six
bucks a month, and four percent interest on a CD is really two
and a half.”
She looked
at him in confusion.
He smiled
and said, “It just means that when the big letters say something,
you have to read what’s at the bottom of the page, too.”
She
shrugged, just happy to have a few minutes with her dad. He felt
the same way. He saw her and her sister, Kelly, at least once
a week even though they lived with their mother seventy miles
north in West Palm Beach. They stayed with him in his town house
every other weekend, and then he visited one or two nights a week
for dinner. Their mother seemed to appreciate the visits as much
as the girls.
Today was
an extra weekday—a teacher’s planning day in Palm
Beach County. Tasker had taken a rare day off from work just to
spend with them, directly addressing his ex-wife’s contention
that he focused more on work as an agent with the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement than on the girls and her. A belief that was,
unfortunately, built entirely on fact. Police work, especially
investigations, required an alarming amount of time. FDLE tended
to get involved in the biggest of cases and there often wasn’t
time to just take off and see your family. As he and the girls
grew older, he realized what a mistake that was.
He
could watch either of his girls all day long. Granted, Kelly,
the oldest, had a much more refined streak and mature attitude,
but he thought of her as perfect. Emily was almost like the son
he never had. He took in a deep breath of recycled air, appreciating
the fact that he had a day with them he had not expected.
Emily playfully
started to pull on his arm and climb off the ground, but he stopped
her. He hated to admit it but the toll of the last six months
had caught up to him. Among his other injuries during a hunt for
a fugitive, he had torn the ligaments in his left shoulder. The
fugitive, Daniel Wells, had been wanted for the bombing of a cruise
ship. Tasker had allowed him to slip through his fingers once
and, determined to catch him, had made an ill-advised leap into
the back of Wells’ speeding pickup truck. He felt the result
of his exit from the moving truck every day. The new scar on his
forehead didn’t bother him, but chronic pain was starting
to mount up. He still hadn’t started back to practice with
the Special Operations Team.
Tasker and
his daughter exchanged small talk and played games until they
were near the front of the line. He had allowed the day off and
the attention of his daughter to relax him more than he’d
been in months.
Out of nowhere,
Emily said, “That lady is pretty. Would she be fun to go
out with?”
Tasker’s
eyes followed her finger to a petite Latina with layers of lustrous
light brown hair and dark, intelligent eyes. She was cheerfully
directing the tellers as she calmed the impatient crowd. Tasker
noted that she had a touch too much makeup, then caught himself.
That picky attitude might explain why he’d been celibate
for almost six months. He had to admit he’d been lonely,
due to this shit-heel, critical attitude and the fact that he
was still hung up on his ex-wife.
“Why
would you ask that, beautiful?”
She shrugged
her tiny shoulders. “Mom goes out with Nicky sometimes.
Kelly and me want you to be happy, too.”
He ruffled
her hair and smiled. “I am happy. You guys make me happy.”
“But
she’d make you happy, too, wouldn’t she?”
Tasker looked
back at the vivacious, radiant bank manager with the extra eyeliner.
“I’m sure she’s a nice person.”
“Will
you ask her out?”
“Let’s
see when we get up there.”
“So
you might?”
He
smiled and let out a little laugh. Before he could answer, though,
a blast of warm, humid South Florida air hit him as the front
door swung open. He looked up and ...couldn’t pinpoint the
feeling exactly, but his hand almost instinctively came to rest
on the small, green belly bag that concealed his off-duty Sig
P-230 automatic. Two men in their early twenties stood next to
the door, talking. Tasker scanned them from their ratty Keds to
the grubby University of Miami ball caps on their heads.
They looked
up at the security cameras and then up and down the row of tellers.
They never even looked at the customers. Tasker knew what they
were up to. The only question was whether they had the balls to
go through with it right now.
Every
instinct told him to draw now and preempt what was coming, but
Emily’s presence at his side slowed him, as did the other
innocent bystanders. Unless there was an immediate threat to someone’s
life he shouldn’t worry about a bank losing money. Besides,
maybe these guys were just workmen assessing a painting job. Oh
please, he was thinking like an attorney now.
His
heart rate picked up as he watched the two men, dressed in jeans
with unbuttoned shirts over T-shirts, separate, one staying near
the front door, the other heading toward the counter. He noticed
the tattoos on the neck of the guy walking toward the counter.
The other had both ears and an eyebrow pierced. He wanted to give
a good description when the Metro-Dade detectives asked him what
he had seen.
He turned
to Emily. “Hey, let’s play a little game.”
She immediately
lit up.
“You
try and hide where I can’t see you, under that table with
the marble-looking top.” He pointed to a table in the small
loan area twenty feet from the line. “You stay there, out
of sight, until I come over and get you.”
Without hesitation,
she scurried over to the empty loan area and disappeared under
the table.
Tasker took
a step to the side, moving out of the line, then started to step
forward past the few remaining customers toward the counter and
the would-be robber. As he took a step, he felt a hand on his
shoulder.
“Where
do ya think you’re goin’?”
He turned
quickly, and at first thought no one was there, then looked down
and found that an elderly lady, not much taller than Emily, had
reached up and grabbed him.
“No
cutting in line. We’ve all been here awhile.” She
had a sharp New York accent.
“Yes,
ma’am, I know. I wasn’t cutting in line.” As
he was about to turn back, he heard a loud voice.
“Nobody
move.”
It was one
of the men he’d been watching. He stood next to the counter
and held a large-framed revolver. The other man blocked the front
door, with a much smaller revolver in his hand. It looked like
a Smith five-shot .38.
Tasker’s
stomach flipped as he glanced back to the table Emily was under.
He didn’t see her. Good. He stood still, letting this thing
unfold. It was the smart move, keeping everyone out of the line
of fire, but it went against his nature.
The
robber at the counter turned to the tellers and started barking
commands as he pulled out an empty pillowcase from somewhere under
his open shirt. “Fill this quick. When it’s heavy
enough, I’ll leave and you can go back to business. You
fuck with me and I’m gonna pop a cap in somebody’s
ass.” He tossed the pillowcase to the closest teller, who
immediately started shoveling cash from her drawer into it. She
passed it to the next teller, who did the same.
Tasker
zeroed in on the redneck accent and figured him for a Homestead
thug who’d watched too much TV where people were always
popping caps and holding their guns sideways. That shit annoyed
Tasker as much as robberies. He stole another glance toward Emily’s
table and still saw nothing. Poor, tiny Emily was probably squished
in the corner, terrified.
The
man at the counter banged the grip of the revolver on the counter
saying, “C’mon, c’mon,” as his eyes darted
around the bank’s lobby and the pillowcase made its rounds.
His partner appeared much calmer, watching the people in line
and occasionally glancing out the door. His head bobbed to some
private beat in his brain.
Then
things changed. The small, pretty manager Emily had fancied as
a stepmother took the case from the last teller and approached
the robber. The pillowcase was stuffed with cash now. She struggled
with the heavy bag as she handed it to him, then took a short
step backward. She stood silently, her brown eyes taking in every
detail. Tasker wasn’t the only one gathering a description.
The
robber set the bag on the counter and dug through it with his
free hand. After a few seconds of searching, he froze, then yanked
something from the bag. Tasker could see it was silver-colored,
probably a dye pack. The man heaved it across the tellers’
space, causing one of the younger female tellers to let out a
yelp. The robber stared at the manager silently and raised the
gun to the young woman’s head.
“Think
we’re stupid?” he shouted, sticking the gun barrel
in the middle of her delicate forehead. She remained placid and
said, “I’m sorry, it—”
Then
he pulled the trigger, the sound of the gun echoing hard on the
tiled floor of the bank. The bank manager’s legs went limp
and she dropped straight to the ground, her long brown hair floating
over her face as she fell. Everyone gasped, and for an instant
the bank was as quiet as a library. Then came the screaming. The
noise seemed disconnected from the people making it.
Tasker
took the moment to grab a look at the punk with the piercings
at the front door, who appeared startled by the violence, then
to each side. These people were in danger if he took action, but
by the look of the guy at the counter, they were in danger if
he didn’t. He took one last peek at Emily’s hiding
place and didn’t see her.
The shooter
stood over the manager, staring at her body. He still had the
gun up pointing at the tellers. His gaze came up as he looked
for a new person to order around.
That was it.
Tasker decided to take advantage of the confusion by reaching
for his pistol.
He
stepped away from the crowd and yanked a string that opened the
front of his bag, revealing the pistol in a holster and a yellow
badge patch with the word POLICE under it. He drew the flat gray
Sig smoothly, bringing it directly on target without a sound,
then fired at the gunman. He was worried that the small caliber
might not have enough stopping power, so he reverted to his years
of SWAT training and automatically fired three times, twice in
the body and once in the head. He caught the robber before he
could aim his revolver. The round in the head stopped every brain
function the man had and the gun slipped to the floor a second
before his dead body.
Tasker didn’t
pause. Blocking out the screams and movement of the customers,
he pivoted and dropped to one knee, his pistol sight coming onto
the chest of the man at the door, his eyes wide, his Adam’s
apple bobbing up and down like it was broadcasting a redneck Morse
code.
Tasker assessed
his target and saw the young man hadn’t raised his gun;
he just stood there in horror.
Tasker raised
his voice above the chaos and, once again following his training,
said, “Police, don’t move,” in a clear, direct
tone.
The man froze.
Tasker stole a look past him toward the front door. No one else
was coming in. The bank seemed to quiet down as if on cue.
“Drop
the gun, now.” Clear, not panicked. That took effort.
The small
revolver clanked on the tile floor.
“Step
toward me, now.”
The man stepped
toward Tasker, and more important, away from the gun.
Tasker stood,
keeping his pistol on the man’s body, and said, “On
the ground and spread your hands.”
The man complied
and then everything rushed into Tasker’s head at once as
he came out of his tunnel vision.
He stepped
to the man and searched him roughly with one hand as he held the
gun to his head. He leaned in close and asked, “How many
more?”
The young
man shook his head violently and said, “Just Vinnie the
driver, but he ain’t got a gun.”
Tasker touched
the barrel of his gun to the man’s head. “If you move
when I stand up, you’re dead meat. Got it?”
The man nodded
his head vigorously.
Tasker
backed away until he was next to the robber he’d just shot.
There wasn’t much blood because of the head shot. His heart
had stopped getting the signal to pump before he’d hit the
ground, but Tasker reached down to check his pulse anyway. Nothing.
He picked up the two dropped revolvers and held them with one
hand. He hopped onto the counter, still watching the prone man,
and then turned to see the young manager sprawled at an odd angle
on the carpeted floor. One neat, nearly bloodless hole in her
forehead. He didn’t risk losing his line of sight to the
remaining robber to check her. She was dead.
Then he sprang down and darted past the line and looked into the
loan area.
Emily’s
face was white as she crouched on the far side of the table.
In the distance
he could hear the sirens.
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