Unbreakable (4 page)

“Ladies and gentleman,” said one, shouting through his vampire mask in order to be heard, pacing among the masses of cowering people. “In the event you have any lingering confusion, this is a fucking robbery.”

Alex

I calmed my racing heart with deep breaths. Enough, at least so that it didn’t feel as if it were about to explode in my chest. My hand left hand was shaking and my right was clenched around Cory’s arm so tightly I thought I’d never be able to pry it loose. As the initial screams subsided to low cries, I heard panicked breathing to my left, probably from the young Indian woman, though there was no chance I was going to move my head and look. I felt pinned to the bank floor by bone-cold fear, as if an unseen hand were pressing down on me, squeezing the air from my lungs so I could scarcely breathe.

The armed men in Halloween masks had fanned out. Shouts and curses could be heard from behind the teller bank, while other men wandered among those cowering on the floor, shouting for no one to make any stupid moves, to not be the hero. I cringed and screams erupted as one robber delivered a punishing kick to a man near the desks. Behind the teller bank, another woman screamed and there was angry shouting. I had limited vision but I saw another guy in a werewolf mask standing with his back to front door, barring entry and standing lookout.

The man in the vampire mask who’d announced the robbery strolled among us.

“If I see anyone texting, calling, or otherwise doing anything stupid to alert authorities to our presence, I’ll break your hands. Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.” Even through his mask—Dracula, with pale rubbery skin and bloodstained fangs—the man’s voice sounded calm, cold, almost bored. He jerked his head at another gun-wielding man in a swamp creature mask who was staring at the huge wall clock’s second hand above the door. “Time?”

“Forty-eight seconds.”

Dracula nodded and I watched, bile rising in my throat, as he walked to a woman lying on the other side of Cory a few feet away. He brought his combat boot down on the woman’s hand, and I heard the crunching of breaking bone a split second before she screamed.

The man kicked the shattered cell phone away and the woman curled into a ball, holding her hand and writhing in pain.

“I told you,” Dracula said. “I told you what would happen if I caught you doing something stupid. Now it has to get worse. The next person does something I don’t like gets a bullet. If you don’t believe I mean what I say, ask this dumb bitch right here.” He said all of this with a cold, dead voice. Even the insults were delivered with a detached boredom.

He squatted beside the woman. “Am I a liar?”

“N-no.”

“And you would know.” He patted her on the head and that was almost as repulsive as breaking her fingers. He rose and resumed strolling. “Time?”

“Minute-twenty-eight.”

Cory met my eye, as if he were checking in with me. I managed the slightest of nods. We lay facing one another, not daring to move though I wanted to see if the woman on my left was okay. I guessed she was. Her hyperventilating had stopped. In fact, a fragile calm had descended over the bank. The robbery was occurring somewhere behind the scenes and I thought it was nearly over, that we’d all get out of this with minimal injuries and no casualties.

I was so wrong. So very, very, wrong.

“Drac! Yo, Dracula!” Another robber, this one with a smaller automatic weapon—an Uzi, maybe—and wearing a mummy mask—jogged between the prone customers. “The manager tripped the alarm, and Frankie—the stupid fuck that he is—knocked her out.”

“Three minutes,” the timekeeper called, panic tingeing his muffled voice. The sound of sirens could be heard, faint but growing louder. “Aw shit.”

“All right then,” Dracula said. “Plan B. Tell the others.” He addressed the bank as the mummy loped back to the rear offices. “Hear that, ladies and gentlemen? Change of plans.”

I flinched and bit back a scream as the lights went out. A chorus of frightened cries erupted along the prone people on the floor. The werewolf at the door dropped the blinds while another ran up with a ring of jangling keys. The front doors were locked, blocked, and the sirens that had been distant were loud now, but on the other side.

The fragile calm shattered. I felt the panic run through the people, streaking through our clutched hands and huddled bodies like an electric current. My grip on Cory’s jacket tightened and the woman on my left found my hand and squeezed. Her panting breaths began again, and I squeezed back.

Cory jerked his chin, and I tore my eyes from the masked men and their guns to look at him. He shook his head—the smallest of movements—and a flicker of a crooked smile touched his lips.
Be cool,
he mouthed.

I nodded almost imperceptibly and fought for calm again. Keeping my gaze locked on Cory’s brown eyes helped.

The leader shoved his Dracula mask up onto his head, leaving his face bare. He strode among the people, his voice clearer but just as emotionless as before. When he turned my way, I saw a man in his late thirties, rather plain of face, and with blue eyes that were as flat as his voice. I had never seen anything more frightening in my life than those dead eyes.

“Listen up,” he said. “Everyone’s going to get on their feet, stay low, and move to the back. Anyone tries anything stupid and we will not hesitate to end you. Got that? Up! Now! Move!”

Five or so men began barking, kicking, and prodding as the people got off the floor. Cory took me by the hand, and in turn, I helped the Indian woman to her feet. The three of us followed the rest as we were herded past the desk area to a narrow hallway that ran behind and parallel to the tellers. We were ordered to sit, backs to the long wall of the hallway, facing conference rooms and small offices.

I sat with Cory on my right, the young woman on my left, along with fifty or so other people who’d also picked the wrong day to visit United One. The wall didn’t stretch long enough. The robbers ordered half the people to sit on other side of the hallway, facing us, strangers cowering and clinging to one another under the fluorescents, as here the lights remained on.

Dracula strolled between us casually, as if half of the Los Angeles police force and probably a S.W.A.T. team weren’t outside the bank’s walls right at that moment.

“So here’s what happens now. Things are going to get a little more personal. I wear the Dracula mask but remember old Drac’s real name? Anyone? Vlad the Impaler. Keep that in mind, why don’t you, especially if you get the stupid notion to fuck with me.

“My associates are similarly named. You’ll be introduced soon enough. Right now, Wolfman and Frankie are circulating among you. You’re to drop your wallets and cell phones and any pretty trinkets you think we might enjoy into their bags with
absolutely zero bullshit, because that is precisely the amount of bullshit that will be tolerated: zero. The situation has changed. My monster squad and I are a little tense. A little twitchy. It’s not going to take much fuckery for one or all of us to lose our patience with you, so do as you’re told and maybe you’ll keep the gray matter between your ears right where it belongs.
Do not test us
. Are we clear?”

Before anyone could answer, a phone rang from one of the offices farther down the hall.

“Excuse me,” Dracula said, “but that’s probably for me.”

He went to the phone while two of the robbers walked over and among the people, relieving them of wallets, watches, rings, and cell phones. I quickly spun my engagement ring around so that only the slender gold band was visible. I thought Cory would see and disapprove—though God knew why such a consideration could bother me at a time like this. But he was watching the masked men approach with a grim, determined expression.

“Whole bag, princess, let’s go!” whooped a guy wearing a Frankenstein’s monster mask. Frankie, I presumed. He offered an open white trash bag to the Indian woman. I noted the pocked skin of his neck above his shirt was spattered with a small amount of red—someone’s blood—and his eyes behind the green mask were wide and full of malicious glee.

The Indian woman dumped her Coach bag into the trash bag. “Your gold too,” Frankie said and cackled. His wide, dilated eyes darted to me. “You too, Red. The stones, the bag, all of it.”

I took off my watch, multi-colored gemstone earrings and necklace and dropped them into the bag, Frankie leering at me obscenely the entire time. My bag—with my cell phone in it—followed.

Job done, the Indian woman gripped my hand again, nearly making me yelp, but she concealed the fact I was still wearing my engagement ring. The huge diamond on the underside of my hand cut painfully into my middle finger but Frankie didn’t notice. He now squatted in front of Cory, bouncing up and down like an eager little kid.
Drugs,
I thought.
He’s flying high on drugs and armed with a deadly automatic weapon to boot.
I clutched Cory’s arm as Frankie sneered and gabbled at him
“You wanna give me a hard time, big guy, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

Cory said nothing but put his worn leather wallet into the bag. His watch and cell phone followed.

“That’s all you got?” The glee in the Frankie’s eyes dimmed. The voice behind the mask turned ugly in the space of a heartbeat. “You gotta face that makes me think violent thoughts, you know that? Watch yourself, asshole.”

Then he cackled again, a loose, unhinged sound that set my teeth on edge, and moved down the line.

Dracula stepped back into the hallway, his plain face passive. “Bad news, ladies and gentlemen. It seems the powers that be aren’t going to let us stroll out the front door with hundreds of thousands of their dollars. Imagine that. That means there’s a price on your heads. It means that they don’t think you’re as valuable as their precious money. It’s possible we’ll have to make an example out of one or more of you to show them the foolishness of their ways.”

A ripple of panic surged up and down the hallway and Frankie cocked his weapon. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Sad but true,” Dracula continued as if without interruption. “But the more cooperative you are, the better your chances of making it out of here in one piece.”

Another masked man—a zombie— approached and muttered something to Dracula who nodded and said, “Okay, let’s break them up. Get Frankie, Wolfman, and Swampy to babysit, you get with the others on the frontlines. Where are we on our exit strategy?”

“Dan—uh, Mummy is working on it.”

“Keep me posted.” To the three that were to guard us, he said, “Move’em now. Anyone gets out of line, make’em bleed but no shooting. Not until we have to.”

Not until we have to.

Not unless. Until.

I squeezed Cory’s hand. It was either that or scream.

Alex

The three of us were ushered into a small meeting room along with five other people: a younger woman—probably no older than twenty—two older men, and two women of middle years. The eight of us were made to sit against the back wall on the floor, on the thin, commercial carpet. The front wall had a long window showing the hallway we’d come from. Men in monster masks stomped back and forth, while the other bank customers were broken up and ushered into other rooms or offices.

My stomach lurched to see that the blood-smattered junky in the Frankenstein mask was assigned to be our guard. Dracula oozed a frightening, calm danger. Like a snake basking in the sun, about to strike. Frankie was like a ticking time bomb, ready to blow at any second.

Frankie smashed the computer on the desk, then the phone, cutting off all communications, and then shuffled and danced in front of us, chuckling as if he knew some private joke we didn’t, until Wolfman came by and told him to stand guard
outside
the door. Then Frankie stuck out his wormy, yellowed tongue through a breathing hole in the mask, and paced outside the closed door in an exaggerated fashion, like a Russian Cossack.

The eight hostages breathed easier without him staring at us, but we eyed each other uncertainly. One man—a big bald-headed man with a bristly mustache and a rumpled-but-expensive suit—scowled and leveled his finger at each of us.

“Let’s get something straight right now,” he hissed in a stage whisper. “Don’t any of you do anything stupid to get us all killed. I’ve read about these situations and the squeaky wheel does
not
get the grease. It gets a bullet between the eyes.”

The youngest woman in the group moaned softly at this and the other man with a high widow’s peak and glasses—shook his head mournfully.

“Hey,” Cory said. “Let’s quit with that kind of talk, all right?”

The bald man snorted. “What, and pretend like everything’s sunshine and roses?”

“No, I agree with you. We all need to play it cool and do what they say. But we don’t—”

“We don’t need you barking orders at us,” a sour-faced woman of middle years on Cory’s right said to the bald man. She inclined her head at Frankie, pacing outside the closed door. “We’ve got our hands full with that one.”

“Don’t lump me in with them! That’s how it starts.”

“Let’s all calm down,” I interjected. While the others argued, I had used yoga breathing to corral the fear that had been squeezing my chest. I felt better now. More in control. I used my best trial voice; the one I relied on when a witness was becoming too emotional and in danger of making the jury uncomfortable.

“We’re all in this together for however long it takes for the powers that be to get us out of here. And they
will
get us out,” I added, mostly for the benefit of the youngest among us—a Latina who was sniffling against the back of her hand in the corner to my left. “Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves?” I looked to the bald man. “Sir?”

The man grudgingly appreciated the respect and said, “Roy Jefferson Morganstern. Hedge funds and wealth management.”

The middle-aged woman beside him was tall and lithe and wore billowy clothes. “I’m Tanya Stinson and I work for a craft services company in Burbank.”

“I-I’m Sylvie Flores,” said the sniffling woman in the corner. “I’m a…a nanny.”

I introduced myself, then Cory, then the Indian-American woman who had been on my left before but had chosen to sit on Cory’s right, putting him between us.

She had one hand up to her ear, under her hair. “My name is Amita Patel and my father, Indra Patel, is a very powerful man in Mumbai.”

Roy snorted. “You think that matters? They got their money, princess. It’s collateral they need now. You’re stuck just like the rest of us.”

Amita ignored him, staring at a spot on the floor, a look of concentration on her face. “Yes, P-A-T-E-L,” she said. “In Mumbai.”

Roy’s eyes grew round and then he flapped his hands. “Okay, so she’s crazy. Wonderful. Locked up with a nutjob…”

The tight-lipped older woman in the right corner snapped at Roy to shut up.

“I’m Carol Bradford and I’m a retired physician, and if I have to listen your blustery bullshit all the live-long day, I’ll get that crazy young hooligan to put me out of my misery right now.” She turned to the man to her right. “So. You. Who are you?”

“Uh, I’m…I’m Gil. Gilbert Corman,” said the balding man, in a voice watery with fear. “I’m a pharmacist.”

“Everything’s going to be okay, Gil,” Cory said, earning another snort from Roy.

“It’s that kind of hippy-dippy talk that doesn’t help anyone,” he said, adjusting his bulk against the wall.

“It’s a lot better than your hot air,” Carol hissed.

“So what happens now?” Tanya asked. “The police are here, right? They’re going to get us out?”
“They have to negotiate first,” Roy declared, as if being held hostage were a hobby of his. “And if the robbers don’t get what they want, they start using the only tool they have. Us.”

“I’ve seen the movies,” Gil said, his hands turning over and over in his lap. “
Dog Day Afternoon
? The robbers always want a way out and the cops always stall them. Because that can never happen. They’ll never let them go.”

“Which means we’re screwed,” Roy said.

Beside me, I felt Cory stiffen. “Look, man, knock it off. There’s no reason to go scaring the piss out of everyone more than we already are.”

Before Roy could retort, I said, “The S.W.A.T. team is probably outside these walls right now. The FBI too. This building is surrounded, schematics being studied, snipers taking position. Yes, a hostage negotiator is probably the one who called Dracula. He’s going to get him talking, wear him down, glean information. They’re going to work around the clock, using the best technology and psychology they have. We just have to be calm, do as robbers say, and wait for the professionals to get us out. Okay?”

The others nodded and Roy subsided into a sulky silence.

Cory turned to me, admiration in his eyes. “How did you know all that? Watch a lot of cop movies too?”

“I had a client who was a former FBI agent. He had some wild stories.”

Cory inclined his head at the group, who each looked calmer now. “You did good.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I wish I could say the same for me. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Just breathe,” he said. “Breathe.”

I did, and the sour nausea in my gut eased, though not by much. The first hour was the worst—no one spoke, but for Amita, who muttered to herself now and then, but we kept our eyes on the door, jumping at every sound.

A tense silence fell, thick with dread and uncertainty. Only Carol seemed unaffected. She leaned her head and its crop of short silvery hair against the wall and closed her eyes, settling in for a nap.

“Well,” Tanya the caterer ventured, putting on a brave face. “Anyone have a deck of cards?”

#

No one had cards or anything else with which to pass the time, as most of our belongings were now at the bottom of the monster squad’s white trash bags. Amita chatted with Cory—monopolized him, really—leaving me to my own devices. Whatever was happening between the bank robbers and the police hadn’t touched us in here yet. Hours passed, and though I’d never have guessed it possible, the mind-numbing fear gave way to boredom. I decided to follow in Carol’s footsteps and take a nap.

I tried to get comfortable but the floor was just as hard and unforgiving as the wall.

Cory turned my way and saw my struggle. He tapped his left shoulder. “Be my guest.”

I smiled faintly. “I want to, but on the other hand, I don’t think it’s a good idea to let my guard down.”

“Probably right, though it looks like Carol doesn’t see it that way.” He nodded at the older woman, whose soft snores had been filling the small room for the last hour. “She’s a tough old bird.”

“Coping mechanism,” I said in a lower tone.

“How can you tell?”

“When you pick as many juries as I do, you get a sense for people. What they’re like.”

“Oh yeah?” Cory shifted toward me. “You think she’s…what? Playing possum?”

“Maybe. I think she puts on a tough front to cover her fear, but now she’s just escaping the best—and only—way she can.” I shrugged. “Or I could be completely wrong and she just really needed a nap. Being scared shitless is draining.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. So how do you pick a jury, anyway?”

“It’s called voire dire,” I said. “I question potential jurors and try to keep or cut those I think would be best for my case. Opposition does the same.”

“Okay, so how about us?”

Inexplicably, my heart tripped a little over that word as it came out of his mouth. “Us…?”

He gestured to indicate our fellow hostages. “We’re in your jury pool.”

“Oh, right,” I said, mentally kicking myself.
Damn, Gardener, get a grip.

“Just to pass the time. How about Roy?”

“Are you sure I’m not interrupting your conversation with Miss Patel?” That came out much more bitchy than I’d intended. Possessive. I struggled to come up with a recovery but Cory didn’t seem to have noticed.

He glanced at Frankie on the other side of the door and said in an undertone, “She’s on the phone with the cops.”

“Right now? How…?” Then I remembered Amita had been talking with her Bluetooth device. “She’s been on the line with them since the beginning?”

He nodded.

“What if Frankie finds it? He’ll go ballistic.”

“Maybe. But if they take her cell phone too far out of range, it’ll go dark anyway. So far, she’s been able to give the police a bunch of information on our hosts. Pretty damn smart.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Very.”

“Hey.” Cory nudged me gently with his elbow and said quietly, “So let’s hear it. Mr. Roy Morgenstern is in your jury pool. Do you keep him or ditch him?”

“I, uh, well, it depends,” I said, refocusing my attention. “If I were suing a corporation for some wrongdoing, especially if the company could stand to pay huge damages, I’d dismiss him first. Before he even sat down.”

“When would you keep him?”

“If I represented the corporation. In that instance, I’d pray they make him foreman.”

Cory’s smile slipped. “Do you often take cases like that? Big corporations against a little guy?”

I shifted against the wall. “I take the cases I believe I can win.”

“What if the winning side isn’t the right side?”

“There isn’t right or wrong, except in the eyes of the law.”

“Yeah, but come on. There’s a gray area…”

“There’s no
gray area,
” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. “You can’t let emotion get in the way, or sympathy. You have to put all that aside and look at the letter of the law. Period.”

“Okay, but what if the little guy is right—morally speaking—but his case is weak. You know? Where the deck was stacked against him. David and Goliath, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, I’ve seen that,” I said slowly. Munro vs. Hutchinson, I thought, although in this case David was a family-owned hardware chain and Goliath an odious little man who barely cleared five-foot-four.

“What I’m asking,” Cory said, “is who do
you
fight for?”

I stiffened.
Don’t let him rattle you.
He has no idea how hard you work or how complicated it all is.
Yet the details of my Munro case scratched around my mind like nettles. “I told you I fight for the person who hires me. If I agree to take their case, that means I think they have a good one.”

“No matter what?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s a lot more complicated than what you see on TV or in the movies.”

Cory nodded, mulling this over. “Okay, so what about me?” he asked finally.

“You mean in a David vs. Goliath case?”

“Yeah.”

I looked up at him and suddenly I felt a bit lost. His eyes were like dark pools, which held a gentleness that was incongruous with his rugged appearance. The talent that served me so well in the courtroom locked in on Cory Bishop, and I saw kindness, honor. A man who rarely complained and who didn’t stand for bullshit. A man who meant what he said when he gave his word. A man who would risk his own safety to help others, but who would rather eat glass than ask for help for himself.

At the time, I had no way of knowing how much of what my courtroom intuition told me was true, but I wasn’t considered a prodigy for nothing. Beneath Cory’s broad chest was the proverbial heart of gold, beating a steady, solid pulse of goodness and integrity. I would have staked my career on it.

“I’d dismiss you immediately.”

He absorbed this, seemed to be absorbing
me
in much the same way I had been taking him in, and then he laughed lightly to break the strange tension.

“Oh, ouch. Kick me to the curb.”