Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 56, No. 5, May 2011

Bankasaurus Rex by David Dietrich

I walked into the Haslam Bank and Loan and marched straight for a teller window where a customer had just finished her transaction. The window was at the end of the counter and the two windows beside it were closed, which made it perfect for a private conversation. I was about to speak when the teller beat me to the punch.

“Excuse me, sir, but there is a line,” she said. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”

She was my mother’s age, maybe a bit older, sweet smiles on the outside but tough as nails inside, Texas to the core. The plastic plaque on the counter said her name was bev, which made me think of my mother’s best friend when I was growing up. Her name was Beverly. But I digress.

“I was just going to...” I began to say, but she shook her head and pointed with a fully outstretched arm and an unusually long index finger toward the line.

“They’ve been waiting patiently,” said Bev, “and so will you.”

It felt like my opportunity to protest had passed, so I hung my head in shame and trudged to the back of the line, catching nasty glances and looks the whole way.

“I can’t blame ya for cuttin’,” said the crusty old-timer in front of me. He said his name was Clem. He looked like he should be manning the chuck wagon in a John Wayne movie. “Seems all I do these days is wait in line. And for what?”

I took it to be a rhetorical question, but he kept staring at me like he was expecting an answer, so I said, “I know what you mean.”

“Yeah,” he said, clearly happy that we were brothers-in-arms in the battle against inefficiency.

After that yeah he paused to take a breath, then launched into a rant that didn’t stop even when it was his turn at a teller window. Standing at the window he turned in my direction and continued his discourse from ten feet away until the teller handed back his passbook and sent him on his way. By the time he shuffled out of the bank I knew his positions on gun control, water rights, speed limits, the metric system, and the use of electronic line equipment at Wimbledon.

We waved our goodbyes and as luck would have it, I found myself back at Bev’s window.

“Hello,” she said, stretching the last syllable twice around the block, “and welcome back.” I opened my mouth to speak, but Bev wasn’t finished yet. “We appreciate that you’ve chosen Haslam Bank and Loan for your personal financial services needs. How may I assist you today?”

I waited to make sure she was really finished before saying, “Give me all the money in your drawer.”

Bev cupped her hand around her left ear and said, “Excuse me, son, but did you just ask me to give you all the money in my drawers?”

“No, ma’am,” I clarified. “I said in your drawer. Singular, not plural.”

“Good thing, because that would have been rude,” she said, looking simultaneously pleased and disappointed. “So this is a robbery?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Why are you afraid?” she asked. Then she shifted into a low, conspiratorial whisper and asked, “Is someone forcing you to do this?”

She looked around, like she was trying to figure out who in the bank was putting me up to it.

“No, ma’am. I’m here of my own free will.”

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. If her disappointment had begun at Level 5, it was up to Level 8 by now. Were I a guest in her home, her Texas hospitality would still obligate her to make me supper, but there’d be no dessert coming my way. “Get on with it, then.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds. Apparently she attended the Clem School of Patience.

“Well, get on with it.”

“I already did. It’s your turn.”

“How’s that? You haven’t even handed me a note yet.”

“I don’t have a note. I told you verbally instead of putting it in writing,”

“Verbally? Whole lotta good that does me. How am I ’sposed to prove to my boss and the po-lice that I really was robbed and that I’m not just an incompetent teller who gave ten thousand dollars to a customer who only wanted to withdraw ten?”

“I don’t know. They’ll just have to take your word for it.”

Bev shook her head and said, “It really is customary to have a note.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll remember that next time.”

“You do that,” said Bev. “This is your first time, I’ll bet.”

“First time?”

“Robbing a bank. Or trying to, anyway.”

“That’s none of your business. Just give me the money.”

“What’s your rush?”

“This is a bank robbery. They’re supposed to be fast.”

“A note would have helped speed things up.”

“You want me to write one now?” I grabbed the pen tethered to the counter.

“Too late for that, but I appreciate the thought.”

I returned the pen to its holder.

“So,” Bev continued, “we’re noteless. Let’s see what you did bring. How about a gun?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Knife? Bomb? Flamethrower? Crossbow?”

I shook my head four times.

“So what’s the threat? Why should I give you a penny?”

“Because I’m dangerous.”

Bev let loose an ego-deflating laugh.

“Look out, it’s Public Enemy Number One!”

“You’re mocking me, Bev.”

She faked a frown.

“Sorry, sweetie. But let me tell you something. I’ve been working in banks longer than you’ve been alive. When I worked in Dallas I saw more robberies than most FBI agents will ever see. I’ve had guns shown to me and pointed at me. I’ve had dudes holding briefcases and backpacks claiming they were filled with explosives. I’ve even been in a takedown robbery with all the big guns and ordering people onto the floor and such. So it’s gonna take a little more than no threat whatsoever to get me to cough up any cash.”

“Fine. I do have a gun,” I said, quickly lifting, then lowering my shirt, giving her a flash of the dollar store cap gun stuffed into my waistband. “I just didn’t want to scare you.”

“How thoughtful of you,” said Bev. She could have taught the Sahara a thing or two about dryness. “I’ll play along and pretend that’s a real gun. Did you bring a bag for the money?”

“Actually, no, I didn’t.” This was getting embarrassing.

Bev shook her head. “Do you think we keep bags handy just in case we get robbed by a forgetful crook? Because I can assure you, we do not.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I admitted.

“Sounds like there’s a lot you haven’t thought about. Maybe this isn’t the profession for you...”

She left it hanging there, waiting for me to fill in my name. It took me a few seconds to think of one.

“Rex,” I said.

Bev laughed again and repeated my fake name, adding a marathon-length ess sound to the end. Everyone else in the bank must have thought we were having a grand old time.

“Okay, Rex. So you showed up without a note, sporting a toy gun and lacking a bag for the money. Not good. Care to tell me why you want the money?”

“I need it.”

“Well, yeah. Of course. But tell me why you need it.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Okay. But I’m gonna make a guess anyway. You lost your job and you’re only robbing a bank because the satellite TV company is threatening to cut off your service if you don’t pay.”

“Dang,” I said, “you got it on the first try.”

Bev gave me a withering look that could have turned a grape into a raisin in the blink of an eye.

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Rex,” said Bev. “You need to give some serious thought as to what you’re doing here and if it’s what you really want to be doing with your life.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Give me all the money in your drawer and I promise I’ll leave and think about what you said, long and hard.”

Bev stared me in the eye. It felt like the human lie-detector thing my mother used to do.

“Does your mother have any idea what you’re up to?”

“She’s my getaway driver,” I said.

Bev let loose a belly laugh that caused heads to turn in our direction.

“I’m guessing she’s at home wondering what her little boy is up to. Probably has no idea you’ve entered into a life of crime.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Be nice if it stayed that way.”

“It’s a little late.”

“Maybe. I think I know a good boy when I meet one. You haven’t made any real threats or demands or called me any bad names. So there’s hope.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” said Bev, finally getting around to loading cash into a plastic grocery bag she dug up from somewhere, “Well, I’ll just get this together for you and let you get on your way.”

“Thanks.”

“See? You’re polite.” She paused “Do you want the change too? Probably another ten or fifteen dollars worth here.”

“No thanks.”

“Okeydokey.”

Bev stole a glance toward the front door.

“Haslam’s finest waiting for me out there?”

“To be expected, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“You’ve got the gift of gab, Bev. Kept me talking like a fool for how many minutes now? Bet you pressed the alarm button the second I told you to give me the money.”

Bev winked and said, “I’ll tell ’em to go easy on you, this being your first time and all.”

“Thanks,” I said, leaving the money on the counter.

I walked out of the bank with my hands raised, but there were no police waiting for me. Nor were there any behind me as I passed the Haslam City Limits sign. I kept my speed under the limit, said a silent “thank you” to Bev, and pondered a career change.

Copyright © 2011 David Dietrich