The End of the Dream (31 page)

Her forte was in administration and in placing the right people in the right assignments. She saw that Mike Magan was champing at the bit, so she turned him loose on the Hollywood case. Magan wasn’t alone.

Every one on the Puget Sound Violent Crimes Task Force had a personal theory on the best way to catch the elusive bank robber.

By returning again and again to the same banks and/or the same neighborhoods, he was almost asking to be caught. Or he was thumbing his nose at them. From the time they were in junior high school, when Mike Magan and his brother Jake had been faced with seemingly insoluble problems, they always told each other, “Don’t think horizontally think vertically.” It didn’t make much senseto anybody but the Magan brothers, but it meant they had to step back and look at a puzzle from a different angle. Sometimes, that worked. Often the solution was right there, but they had to look at it in a different way to see it.

Now, Mike stared at the photographs taken by all the bank cameras over the prior four years. He had them blown up and enhanced and looked again. The clothing Hollywood wore varied slightly, but the face was almost always the same. , It was as though he was inside a glass ball, “ Magan recalled, “and I couldn’t get in. There was something there that nobody had seen yet and I was trying to find it.” Concentrating on the enhanced photographs, he could see that Hollywood carried a number of tools, a knife, a radio clipped to his belt (the way a lot of cops did), an ankle holster with what looked like a .22-caliber gun in it, the 9-mm Glock in his hand.

Mike noted the somehow bowlegged stance of the man he sought. The gloves. Some of the witness statements suggested that the real color of his hair was black or dark brown. He looked like a caricature of a person, but that caricature had become a personality itself. Mike Magan began to see the man in the Converse All-Stars in his sleep. It was almost as if, if he could just concentrate hard enough, he could see it all. He saw everything .. . but the face. On May 23 a day after the last bank robbery Magan returned to Madison Park. With the help of the Seattle Police Department’s Community Police teams, he figuratively put a net over the area of the First Interstate Bank in Madison Park. It wasn’t that he expected Hollywood and his accomplices to still be there, instead he hoped to find the people who were routinely in the area around noon on a weekday. People tend to forget those they see every day, they become the background in the painting of their worlds, becoming almost invisible. “I was a delivery man myself in college, “ Mike recalled. “I drove the beer truck and people saw me and my truck without really seeing me. But throw a net over a section of blocks at 11 A. M. on a weekday morning, and you’ll see who’s trying to get in or out. Then you may find a witness who’s seen someone suspicious.” The officers who fanned out over the Madison Park neighborhood talked to scores of people. “Were you here this time yesterday? “

“Did you see anyone who looked peculiar to you? “

“Did you see a man running? “

“Did you see a man carrying a blue duffel bag? “

“Did you know the bank across the street was robbed? “ Painstakingly, the officers jotted down bits and pieces of memories and observations.
 
They handed out 800 flyers with Hollywood’s picture and with a composite sketch and a description of a second man the bigger man who had been seen twice. The flyers mentioned that, at one bank robbery, Hollywood had yelled at his accomplice to watch the door sand he had called the second man “Mark.” One of Mike Magan’s goals was to keep Hollywood away from Madison Park. He asked the media to cover Hollywood intensely.

Between the nightly television news and the flyers, he doubted that Hollywood would have the guts to come back to the Madison area. But Magan did not delude himself into believing Hollywood would just go away. He would be back, and Mike guessed that he would probably surface again somewhere in the north end. Steve Meyers saw one of the flyers about the Hollywood bank robbery.

When he read about the $50,000 in reward money, his heartbeat faltered.
 
He didn’t know how many people beyond Mark and Traci, Bobby Gray, and possibly his own brother, Kevin knew that Scott Scurlock was Hollywood.
 
There were the guys Scott had paid to buy the expendable station wagons, but Steve had no idea who they were, or if they knew what Scott wanted with the wagons. There was the guy in Olympia who let Scott use his mailing address, and he didn’t know much about him either. But $50,000 was a lot of money. All it would take would be one anonymous phone call.

Steve confronted Scott, and held out the flyer. “You never told me about this.” Scott shrugged, and lifted his hands, palms up.

He didn’t seem worried. “You goofed. Somebody heard you call Mark by name.”

“There are a lot of Marks in this world.” Steve wanted to walk away, but he felt “hooked.” He was caught in the robberies too tightly to extricate himself now. If he couldn’t get Scott to stop, sooner or later it was all going to come crashing down on them. Steve begged Scott to end it while they were still free and in one piece.

Even so, Steve took the packets of money Scott gave him and flew home via Reno, where he exchanged the bank cash for casino money. He felt a little better when he was finally back in New Orleans. Kevin Meyers did know about Scott and his brother. Most of the time, he tried not to think about it. But, in the summer of 1996, he became aware of the $50,000 reward money, and he even thought it might be a way for him to end the nightmare. If Scott and Steve went to jail, they wouldn’t get hurt or killed, and, better, they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else.

“But I couldn’t do it, “ he remembered. “I couldn’t turn in my friend, and I sure couldn’t turn my brother in. I didn’t want the money. That would be blood money. All I could do was try to convince them that what they were doing was wrong that it was going to end with somebody dying.” Kevin’s pleadings didn’t make much of an impression on Scott. Like so many other things in his world, he had always pictured dying as it happened in the movies. Kevin remembered how Scott had watched First Blood over and over, fascinated with the way Sylvester Stallone’s character was depicted. In the film, Stallone spoke graphically about how parts of his friend’s body literally exploded in battle and how he had tried to put him together again. Of course, Stallone washed the blood off when the director yelled “Cut” and lived to be shot at again in movie after movie. Kevin wondered why Scott didn’t realize that dying in movies wasn’t like real dying. But then, Scott didn’t expect to be caught, or shot. He was beefing up his own arsenal to include powerful, metal-piercing automatic weapons. He was also studying up on new anti-bank robbery devices. He had heard that there were things beyond dye packs that could be hidden in stacks of money various devices that could tie robbers to their crimes. He didn’t know if such high-tech equipment really existed or if it was only something on the “X-Files” or in spy novels. It didn’t worry him that much, it was only another challenge, part of the very sophisticated “chess game” that his entire life had become. Now that he was the most sought after bank robber in Seattle, Scott assumed that the cops would bring out everything they had to stop him. It didn’t matter, he wasn’t about to quit, not until he carried out such a memorable bank robbery that nobody would ever forget it. Sabrina still lived with Scott in the treehouse, although she made frequent trips to Arizona. She had learned never to ask questions about his activities, but she knew he was in danger. He had told her that someone might come after him, and that they would have to be ready. She didn’t know that Scott had been talking about being ready for years all she knew was that Scott was involved in a massive “experiment” and that it required a big cash investment.

In the long edgy summer of 1996, Scott told her he was running a little low on money and asked her if she would get a cash advance on her credit cards for him. She had good credit, and she had loaned Scott money before. He always paid her back twice what she had loaned him.

This time, Sabrina was able to get over $30,000 for Scott. Borrowing that much was a little scaryshe had never been in so much debt before but it didn’t matter, she loved Scott, and they had been together for more than a year now. She thought they would probably be together for as long as they lived. Her money was his money, and, anyway, she had every reason to trust that he would pay her back when his latest project came through for him. Sometime in high summer, Scott traveled to see Steve Meyers in New Orleans. During the week that Scott stayed in Steve’s home they discussed their future plans.

Scott seemed to consider Steve’s worry that they were running out of luck. Both of them had always played long odds and won but they also knew that no one won forever. Scott told Steve that there would be only one more bank robbery. Steve felt a tremendous sense of relief.

But Scott held up his hand, “I meant, we’re going to do one last day of bank robbing.” His plan was to hit three banks in one day. Bing.

Bang. Boom. The cops would never expect that. While police cars were clustered around the first bank, Scott, Steve, and Mark would already be in the second. That would leave the police and the FBI reeling and then they would be in and out of the third before the men and women on the task force ever put it all together. Steve Meyers stared at Scott, wondering if he had lost his mind. Three banks in one day? “It will be a big job, “ Scott continued smoothly. “We’ll get at least a million maybe two.”

“I’d need twenty percent, “ Steve said, “for something that risky.

“

“No problem.” Scott explained that he was approaching this job with more preparation and study than ever before. It would be a three-man job. He had already consulted with technicians who might be able to help them circumvent any new security the banks might try to throw at them, and he had even figured out a way to lose police helicopters.

Steve asked about Mark. Mark had made mistakes in each of the bank jobs he had participated in so far.

How did they know he wouldn’t get nervous and mess up again? What if he

got caught? “If he’s wounded wouldn’t leave him behind, “ Scott said

flatly. “I’d kill him, because he would talk “

“What about me? “ Steve asked in a hushed voice. “You wouldn’t get caught.

Nobody ever sees you.”

“But what if I did get caught? “ Scott said nothing. For all his calm exterior, Scott seemed to sense that everything was spinning out of control. Did they need two million dollars? Was it worth the risk?

Was anything worth the kind of risk that Scott was suggesting? Scott went ahead with his plans, brushing away any questions or objections.

He called for a summit meeting in Olympia. Steve was there and so was Mark Biggins. Scott outlined the possible targets, the Sea first Bank in the Roosevelt district, the Sea first Bank in the Green Lake district, and the Sea first Bank in Lake City. They were all in the north end of Seattle the first two in the near north end, and the latter near the city’s northern border. They were all neighborhood banks. Bing Bang Boom.

While Scott Scurlock was holding his summit meeting with his accomplices, there was a similar summit going on among the detectives who stalked him. Not only was he the main focus of the PSVCTF, he was also a special target all by himself for the Seattle Police Department.

He had finally attained a kind of infamy not unlike the movie rogues he so admired. Whether Scott saw the irony in the fact that he, who was obsessed with movies, was now dubbed Holly wood by lawmen is an interesting question.

Most likely he himself didn’t realize how skewed his thinking had become. Film and reality had merged in his thought processes, and he could no longer differentiate between what was real and what was fantasy. On August 30, 1996, with the help of Sergeant Paul Mcdonagh of the Seattle Police Emergency Response Team (the SWAT team) Mike Magan prepared an official memorandum for the Seattle Police Department. It did not go out to the entire department, there was enough support among the brass for Mike Magan’s theory that Hollywood might actually be a working cop that the information was disseminated in as confidential a way as possible. Not even the patrol units would know the extent of the proposed operation.

Those organizing the joint all-out effort were, Supervisory Special Agent Ellen Glasser, Special Agent Shawn Johnson, Sergeant Kevin Aratani, Detective Mike Magan (all from the task force), Lieutenant James Pryor, SPD Robbery Unit Commander, Sergeant T. C. Miller, SPD Robbery Supervisor, Lieutenant William Moffatt, SPD Special Patrol Unit Commander, Sergeant Tim Moellendorf and Sergeant Paul Mcdonagh, SPD SWAT Supervisors (all from the Seattle Police Department). Because he had been so prolific and had already stolen $1,500,000, because he was thought to be a profound threat to both the public and to police officers, and because the “level of sophistication” he had attained was so impressive, everyone agreed that it was vital that Hollywood be taken off the streets and, especially, out of the banks. The memorandum read (in part), During the past four years, sixteen banks, 14 in Seattle, two in Portland, have been robbed by an individual or group of individuals..
 
.. Officers should be aware that “Hollywood” may wear any number of different disguises.. .. In the past, he has worn loose fitting clothing, which usually includes a brimmed hat, sunglasses, a sport or Gortex coat, dress pants and gloves. He is armed with a semi-automatic handgun which he displays early into the robbery.

This weapon is carried in a shoulder holster. “Hollywood” also has an ear piece in his ear which is believed to be connected to a two-way radio. He or his accomplice may have access to a police scanner. The mask the robber uses appears to be made of plastic or a putty. The makeup is designed to create an extended chin and nose. The mask has a mustache.. .. the suspect is a W/M, 35-40, 5’10”, 160-179 lbs. He appears to have some knowledge of bank security procedures such as alarms and dye packs .. . once inside a bank, he commands all occupants into an area where he can control them. He removes money from the teller drawers and the vault, spending considerable time inside the bank.
 
“Hollywood” appears very athletic in his movements and has vaulted counters.