Prince of Thieves Read Free

the dead telephone and kicked the wall before shoving bitchily through the doors out into the early morning.
     
     
Jem dropped the loot bag next to the tool bag and the work bag. "Let's blow," he said, exactly what Doug wanted to hear. As Gloansy pulled plastic ties from his pockets, and Jem and Dez lifted jugs of Ultra Clorox from the work bag, Doug turned and walked fast down the rear hall into the employee break room. The security equipment sat on wooden shelves there, and the system had tripped, the cameras switched on and recording, a small red light pulsing over the door. Doug stopped all three VCRs and ejected the tapes, then unplugged the system for good measure.
     
     
He brought the tapes back out to the front and dumped them into the work bag without anyone else seeing. Gloansy had the assistant manager in one of the teller's chairs, binding the guy's wrists behind the chair back. Bloody snot painted the assistant manager's lips and chin. Jem must have flat-nosed him on their way in.
     
     
Doug lifted the heavy tool bag to his shoulder just as he saw Dez quit splashing bleach, setting his jugs down on the floor.
     
     
"Hold it!" Dez called out.
     
     
Dez's finger went to his ear as Jem emerged from the vault, jugs in hand. Gloansy stopped with the manager seated behind the assistant manager now, back-to-back, a tie for her wrists ready in his free hand. Everyone looked at Dez-- except Doug, who was looking at the manager staring at the floor.
     
     
Dez said, "Silent alarm call, this address."
     
     
Jem looked for Doug. "What the fuck?" he said, setting down his bleach.
     
     
"We're done here anyway," said Doug. "We're gone. Let's go."
     
     
Jem drew his pistol, keeping it low at his hip as he approached the seated bankers. "Who did it?"
     
     
The manager kept staring at the floor. The assistant manager stared at Jem, a black forelock of hair hanging ragged and sullen over his eyes.
     
     
"We were gone," said Jem, pointing at the back hallway with his gun. "We were out that fucking door."
     
     
The assistant manager winced at Jem through his hair, eyes watering from the bleach fumes, still sore from his cuffing at the door.
     
     
Jem locked on him. Wounded defiance was the worst possible play the assistant manager could make.
     
     
Dez picked up his bleach, hurriedly finishing splashing it around. "Let's go," he said.
     
     
"We've gotta move," Doug told Jem.
     
     
Another few seconds of staring, and the spell was broken. Jem stepped off, relaxing his gun hand, slipping the piece back inside his belt. He was already turning away when the assistant manager said, "Look, no one did any-- "
     
     
Jem flew at the man in a blur. The sound of knuckles against temple was like a tray of ice being cracked, Jem holding back nothing.
     
     
The assistant manager whipped left and slumped over the armrest, the chair tipping and falling onto its side.
     
     
The assistant manager sagged, still bound to the chair by his wrists. Jem dropped to one knee and hammered away again and again at the defenseless guy's cheek and jaw. Then Jem stopped and went back for his bleach. Only Doug's hooking his arm stopped Jem from emptying the jug over the man's shattered face.
     
     
That close, Doug could see the pale, nearly white-blue of Jem's irises within the recesses of the goalie mask, glowing like snow at night. Doug twisted the bleach out of Jem's hand and told him to load the bags. To Doug's surprise, Jem did just that.
     
     
Doug soaked the night drop in the lobby. He soaked the carpet where they had filled the loot bag, jumpy near the windows, expecting sirens. He shook out the jug over the ATM cassette, then returned to the counter.
     
     
The assistant manager remained hanging off the overturned chair. Only his wheezing told Doug the guy was still alive.
     
     
The bags were gone. So was the manager.
     
     
Doug walked to the back, bleach fumes swamping his vision. The bags were stacked and