Meet the Guys
Steve Olson
Chapter 1: Meet the Guys
The news report finished. Great, more rain I thought. I shut off the car, looked at Leo and Eddy. “We all set guys?” I asked the other two, one in the passenger and the other in the back. I checked my 45., and shoved it in the holster that was between my pants. I saw Eddy hide his 9, which I felt was useless unlike my 45.
Leo, put the sawed off shotgun inside the side of his oversized coat that hid his skinny frame. Turning to me he said, “It’s time. You guys each know your job, so do it and we’ll get out of here alive.”
Leo always took command at the start of the job. He was pretty much the leader, something that I hated to admit to myself. However, he managed for the most part to keep the wildcard Eddy in line.
Eddy piped up from the backseat, “No shit Leo, we aren’t the boy scouts. I’m going now.” He opened up the door. Being a broad muscled man, he somehow managed to hide the duffel bag in his coat and his 9 that was hidden by his side. Eddy went in first, using the bathroom to waste time and space out the time we needed to all be in the bank together. I went it second, grabbing a bag of free popcorn and waiting in line. Eddy came of the bathroom and headed for the water fountain where the security guard was standing close by.
Leo walked in the door heading toward the loan table to space us all out. He nodded at Eddy to get rid of the guard as soon as I made it to the counter. I was next up, walking up to the teller. I smiled, out of the corner of my eye I could see Eddy lay out the guard. I pulled out my 45., pointing it at the teller as his smile froze, gasps and cries filled the bank.
Leo spoke up to the room of panicked people, “Calm down, lay on the ground and everything will be fine. We just want the money and don’t want anyone to be missing a father or mother for dinner tonight.”
“Put the money in the bag and we will be out of here before you know it. Don’t push that button either,” I said. I had my gun still pointed at the goofy looking motherfucker behind the counter. He stammered, and put the money in the duffel bag that I had handed him.
A female voice rose up above the noise, “I’m not taking this, you fucking scumbags.” As she reached for her phone Leo kicked it out of her hand. She was a mean looking woman in a bad mood she started to move towards Leo as he told her to sit back down. Eddy could move well for his size. Before the lady could shove Leo again, he smashed her in the nose with the butt of his gun and she dropped to the ground screaming.
“Well consider yourself lucky you’re not dead, bitch.” Eddy replied.
The man and his coworkers had finished packing our bags. He seemed to be the manager of the bank and wanted to protect his female employees.
“Go, Go.” Leo yelled as we fled out of the bank together.
Someone had got up and was yelling, “They just robbed the place stop them!” A redneck attempted to stop Leo. Leo paused for a second and pulled out his gun on the guy.
“Get in the car Leo, get in the fucking car! Leo let’s get the fuck out of here”.
We just finished our third job in a small town. I wanted to stop after the second, but Leo always seemed to get his way. Eddy really didn’t care. He just loved the adrenaline rush, of scoring a hit, and he loved the movie Reservoir Dogs.
He always said if he had to pick, he’d be Mr. Pink. He often said, it’s a faggy name, but he’s the one who lives at the end. Eddy also likes to fight and whenever somebody starts shit he always quotes his favorite Reservoir Dogs line to Mr. Black from Mr. Brown, “You gonna bark all day little doggie or are you gonna bite?” That’s the time things turn to shit and things get violent. Sometimes he doesn’t let people finish and just punches them.
Leo is the brains of the operation, or like Eddy says, the man with the plan. His unassuming looks made people comfortable around him. He also had a way of talking to people that gets them to see his point of view. Unlike Eddy, he uses his brain instead of his brawns. Leo was the most level headed guy of the group, which helped reign in Eddy when he lets his temper get the best of him.
Then there’s me. Boring old Stan, just a small time criminal who did a couple of stints in prison, for various reasons who somehow got caught up with these two yahoo’s.
So back to the present day and enough about us.
“Step on it Stanley, you fuck, I don’t wanna go back.”
I snapped out of our personal history, regrouped and floored it. Down Martinsville Blvd, taking the right at the stop sign. Heading to the national forest park to dump this piece of shit Honda, switch cars and move to another small town.
“Well, that was a hell of a rush” I said to the other two.
We entered the park, turning down the gravel road, getting a little sideways like the rally cars I love to watch.
“Slow down we’re in the clear” shouts Leo, as I struggled to correct the car.
“We’re not in the clear until we dump the car, grab the other car, and get the hell out of here.” Eddy shouted back at Leo.
I’m an easily stressed out person if I forget my meds and this was a hell of a day to forgot them. This should have been the last career choice. Was it really a career choice, if people can label you a criminal? Yeah, guess being a bank robber is a great career choice, damn it.
We pulled up to the Crown Vic, Leo and Eddy jumped out and started loading everything into the car. I pulled down the service road, out of sight, from the main road. Parking the Honda, I got out and thanked it, a weird habit I have. Dumping gas all over the inside of the car, I took a lighter out, took a step back and threw the lighter inside. The car was nearly fully engulfed as Leo and Eddy pulled up to the entrance of the road. After quickly getting in, we sped off down the road, to take the back road to the next county and next town.
Leo turned to Eddy as he drove down the road, “You almost shot that lady, we don’t need that, we already have someone on us, according to the paper and news.”
Eddy was never one to hold back, “If you hadn’t been trying to be the nice guy, I wouldn’t have had to shut her up. I didn’t kill her, just let the butt of the gun silence her.”
The drive was two hours, to the next county, and for the next two hours, I would probably have to listen to this shit. Most of the time they went back and forth like this. The miracle was that Eddy didn’t shoot that lady, but he did knock her out, and we left her covered in blood on the ground. The other miracle was that Eddy and Leo hadn’t shot each other yet as they seem to bicker like a married couple and things always got heated between them. I often wondered how long things could last with us as a group. The heat was getting a little too strong and we’re, it seemed like nearing the end before finally parting ways.
We had all agreed that after five we would take our splits and go our own ways. I hated odd numbers, something about them bugged me, everything in my life that went bad happened on an odd day. On top of that I was 35, so with that and robbing banks, luck would have it that I’d be dead before 36. Six was a lucky number for me, good things had happened, if you can count being born as lucky as a good thing? Other things, I got out of prison six years ago, on March 6th and back in high school got my first car on July 6th before the school year. My revolver I carried, also had six bullets…
“Were here,” braking my train of thoughts about the good luck of the number six. It wasn’t really a train of thoughts. I got distracted too easily and constantly thought of random things. The problem was I could think of everything under the sun to do, I just never did any of them...
“Were here, what name are you using this time?”
We all had three fake ID’s in case we needed them to rent a place. Most places we stayed didn’t give two shits and just wanted money in their pockets. That was the great thing about towns on the outskirts or just small towns in general. Most of the time people left you alone to do your own thing. It was only the big city that I tended to get hassled.
Leo took care of renting the hotel, Eddy was checking out a girl he thought was pretty, who looked like she had caught the attention of a few bikers too. Eddy finally walked into the room after we convinced him that we didn’t need the trouble and needed lay low.
Eddy told us he was getting Chinese for dinner and bringing it back to the hotel for all of us. I thought damn it Eddy, he was probably thinking about the girl he thought was cute outside smoking. Leo always carried extra money that was clean. He also had a guy that could somehow clean our money to keep it under the radar from the feds or the law. That way prison was less of a chance for us. Eddy grabbed the keys and walked out the door as Leo checked his phone to see the news.
“Look at this! The lady is fine, thank god. Eddy still brought more heat on us. The big dumb bastard. One of these days we’re just going to leave him.”
As he handed the phone to me, the headline read “Third Bank in Third Different County Hit.” Damn, that was quick. It had only been three hours since we hit the bank, dumped the car, and drove over here.
“Well, I guess we’re famous. Gotta have a nickname for us.”
Leo just smiled “Really, if you didn’t get the gang together and helped me out a couple of years ago, I’d leave your dumbass too.”
Two days of takeout dinners and complimentary breakfast made my stomach sick. I couldn’t stop shitting with the sorry excuse they had for coffee at this place. Leo told us one more day and we would start planning for the next job. This was our last job Leo had told us. We were attracting to much attention from the media. Like everything with the media, they were making us small time guys famous. Maybe it would have been better if we had just robbed big town banks. They would have thought it was three different robberies.
Another night of takeout dinner, this time Mexican. Dear lord I was gonna feel this in the morning. Leo set up a map, pulled out his laptop and started checking stuff. When he got in this mode, he never talked too much. I never bugged him when he was thinking. It was hard for me to just focus on one thing. A half hour later, Leo told us he had to make a phone call and went to the car.
“I don’t like this one bit,”
I cut off Eddy, “Watta you mean?”
“Is he a fucking pig, things almost went south, after he did the same thing, huh, huh?”
Eddy was getting in one of his crazy modes. “Hey man, come on now. You’re being paranoid. This is just the way he does things. We’ve already done three jobs, just chill the fuck out, man.”
“I’m not chilling, Stanley, don’t talk to me like a fucking hippie. He’s either a cop or going to cheat me out of my cut. If he does, I’ll shoot him and take his cut. Maybe yours, too?”
The only thing I could really do is laugh, Eddy liked to try to get under my skin, he knew I hated being called Stanley. I had tried something different. Now I just laugh it off, it seemed to piss him off even more. Eddy was really just a bully. If we hadn’t been doing jobs together, I’d be another victim who got his face kicked in by him. Fucking crazy Eddy. I wouldn’t miss him one bit.
We sat in silence as Eddy muttered things to himself about the last job, Leo, me, pigs, and women. The guy had mental problems. Thank god I had my pills. If not, I probably would have let him get to me. He needed pills, the sociopath. I was convinced he had killed someone and just never been caught.
Turning on the TV distracted me, which was good. I turned it up so the sound would drown out Eddy’s fucked up thoughts. Leo finally opened the door, looking at the two of us.
“Oh no, Eddy acting up again,” Leo said, with a laugh, and before Eddy could respond he went to his laptop and told us to come look. “Stan, glad to have you back buddy, looks like the pills have mellowed you out, man. Now for the other mentally ill, give him some of the shit that you got.”
I just grinned, as Eddy muttered more shit and glared at Leo. Leo began to tell us about our next and final job.
“So my contact told me about this small town, with a bunch of rich people. He hacked into the banks, balances, blueprints, everything and anything you can name. The bastard’s good, this is a ton of money. He’s gonna need a cut and I’m bringing him in on it. If, and it’s as big if we pulled this off, we’ll all be rich. If we fuck up we will probably all be dead. Rich folks don’t like to part with their money believe it or not. They also are extremely frugal people.”
“How much?” I asked.
“How much you ask? Eight million. This is the biggest bank in town, a town of 30,000 and most of them are living away from the scourges of the city.”
I could only say “Damn,” that’s a ton of money. We have to do this right, if we don’t my prophecy would be self-fulfilled.
Eddy smirked, “Good, glad to hear you’re not selling us out Leo, one big job and I’m disappearing to Ecuador via Mexico. I won’t miss you two either, living large with all the senoritas.”
“Well Eddy, that’s good to hear, but back to reality. We will have to split up for the next week or so. My contact filled me in, things are being stepped up to finds us.”
Things are going to get rough for all of us. This was it, either we get rich or mostly likely, a Swat’s bullet cuts us down. We would need more firepower for this job than the last three jobs. Handguns just wouldn’t work this time; we need something with a little more punching power. The AR or AK was a good choice, I sometimes felt that I was just with Leo so that I could pick up guns and tools for future jobs. That was ok, because it was about time for a big payday.
On the other hand, Eddy was the guy who best knew how to use them. He was the brawn. The guy who liked a fight or a firefight. That’s what made me nervous, despite the pills that made me seem like the mildest mannered person you’ve ever been around. Eddy could turn it into a shit show. Leo would find a way to escape and leave us both for dead. I liked Leo better, but with this job in the back of everyone’s mind, they realized they had to look out for themselves.
“So, what are the plans guys? This job is going to take a couple of weeks to set up. I’ll keep in contact through phone and email. Sending you plans of the job as we get closer to pulling it off. And, to top it off you, get to meet Johnny. So I can prove to you, Eddy, that I’m not going to leave you on shit creek without a paddle, ok buddy?”
“That’s fine, I’ll take the bus, back to my humble abode. You two shits don’t need to know where I live or ever will. The last thing I need is you leading the police back to my house, because you had to make a deal. Stanley, I’ll tell you now, I still don’t trust Leo.”
I nodded “This is our last job. Don’t fuck it up, Eddy, by getting crazy. After this you don’t have to talk to him or me.”
Eddy grabbed his bags. Leo threw him a phone on the bed, which he quickly snatched up.
“Answer that when it rings. If you want, text me your email.”
Eddy, true to himself, just muttered a few choice words at Leo, flipped me off, and walked out the door. All we could do was turn to each other and laugh. Eddy was a piece of work; I was glad to get a break from the guy after constantly trying to calm him down on this last job.
“He’s getting worse Leo. The woman he hit is just the start, next time he’s gonna to kill someone that smarts off to him.”
“Yeah, but he scares people, so that they listen. I hate the fucker, and we need a break. For this job we need him.”
Over and over the thoughts played in my head. Someone is going to die. Either me, or someone at the bank. I had hurt a lot of people. In street fights, stealing, and whatever way I could make money. The jobs before had been simple grab and runs. Leo had often told me we needed a big heist. I thought, for the most part, he was just small timer, acting big, blowing smoke up my ass. He had finally delivered on his promise, well with the plans anyways. He was the only person so far to come through and actually mean it.
“Stan, I can drop you off at the train station, ok, buddy? I need to tell you something, I know how fast Eddy likes to do jobs. This one we’re going to need a month to sit on it and make sure everything goes well.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I need to smell the beach, before I go out,” I said, with a laugh. That would be nice, back on the beach and the back roads. I could truly feel alone for once and collect my thoughts. I was weird like that. I could do that for a while, and then just panic for no apparent reason. A few good bars would help me feel grounded, and I knew a few guys who could hook me up with pills and whatever I needed to stay grounded.
Leo dropped me off. We didn’t say much, except as I left, he said, “Keep low, man.” I said bye and walked my way inside. The ride to the coast was the only thing that relaxed me. The rocking of the train, the beautiful scenery and the comfortable seat made me feel at peace. The folks who I rented from never asked questions. They let me keep my old Jeep pickup there too. They knew I had gotten in trouble with the law. Something I had told them when I had too many beers one night. They just figured I was having trouble looking for work and when I was gone, found it. Money helped a lot too. Everybody likes cash in their hands.
I took a taxi home; the owners saw me as I walked into the small house. I just waved. The next month was hard. Keeping everything together was hard, especially in my mind. Passing the time working on the pickup, chopping wood for the fireplace, and watching movies.
Finally, the day came. The phone Leo had given me rung. I quickly answered it, Leo voice was on the line.
“How are things or should I say mind” he said with a chuckle.
Leo was also good at putting me at ease, not just people in general.
“You know, just working on the truck, watching movies, and buying beer to swallow my pills.”
“Hmm, you’re still popping pills, get your head right. I just had to call. I can’t send anything, someone hacked my account. I hope it wasn’t Eddy wanting to see the plans early. Thank god I had nothing on there, just junk mail and shit.”
“So that means the job’s off? My mind started to go into mode of other places I could hide.
“No, Johnny helped cover my tracks. We need to keep an eye on Eddy, he was too calm when I called him. He didn’t seem himself, he’s up to something. I’m too smart for his dumbass.”
“Well, glad to hear things are on. I was getting antsy, need something fun to do.” Thinking someone was now listening on the phone.
“Meet me and Johnny at the Old Mill on the way to the dunes, ok? Eddy should be there too. Probably early as he needs to scout out the place for cop’s, dumb bastard. See you there.”
As the phone clicked, I grabbed the keys to my truck. Everything I needed was already packed in the truck. I would wait to get the tools this time, because Leo knew someone was checking them out. The plans for Leo’s big job I would see for the first time at the warehouse. I didn’t like that Eddy was acting funny, and that both of them thought someone was hiding something.
The drive to the mill was a little more than an hour for me. Leo never told me, I however assumed he knew where I lived, thanks to his hacker friend. I was glad to be finally meeting the guy, after wondering what type of connections Leo had to keep people hidden from us. The paranoid thoughts were just that. I felt better about Leo, not setting us up as Eddy liked to always say.
I looked for the turn off and found it, driving down the road and taking the back dirt road to the open part of the old mill. I saw a car parked there, but nobody near it on the far side of the building. I parked in the same area. Checking my bags and pulling my gun out of the glove box. There is no honor among thieves. Throughout my life that has never been truer. Today I didn’t need that shit happening to me.
Walking into the door I saw Leo and an overweight guy next to him looking over a table. Johnny I assumed, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed towards me as I started to climb the stairs.
Leo smiled “Glad to see you Stan. Come take a look at what’s gonna make you rich.”
I barely got to glance at them as we heard another car approach. In walked through the door Eddy.
“Finally both you guys are here. Johnny meet Stan and crazy Eddy. Now that intros are done let’s get started.”
