The Adventures of a Small Businessman in the Forbidden Zone
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He had already prepared notices to put in the windows to advise customers why the bank was closed. All of the staff was to assemble in a safe place except for four male members of staff. These four were instructed to stand in front of the plate glass windows around the bank building to ensure that customers didn’t hang around outside where they would be in potential danger of serious injury from flying glass.I kid you not.
“And what about us, the four male members of staff?” I asked.
“Er… how do you mean?” He wasn’t quick this guy.
“ERR…I mean what about us and any potentially dangerous flying glass?”
Silence greeted me. All the staff was staring at the office manager, waiting for him to explain this rather bizarre aspect of his well thought out plan.
Still silence. I broke it for him.
“Tell you what,” I said, “while you stand outside that bloody great plate glass window thinking about it, wearing that ill fitting pin striped suit for protection, me and the other guys will go join the ladies somewhere safe. OK?”
With that we left and spent a pleasant couple of hours in the Town Square, chatting and drinking coffee.
It was home time when we heard the controlled explosion and were thankful that the noise wasn’t louder and more significant.
Quite rightly the bomb squad had not taken any chances. They sent in a remote controlled robot device on caterpillar tracks, fitted with a rifle and an explosive charge. After checking the area for secondary booby traps, the robot approached the back of the van. Using the rifle it blew off the door lock and used its robot arms to open the van doors. Then it placed the explosive charge against the suspect box and retreated to a safe distance.
Booommmm, was the explosion we heard, followed by the sight of a student’s dirty laundry slowly falling down to earth around the car park. That will teach him to remember where he parked next time he gets drunk in town.
Wonder if that is covered by your insurance?
Another morning we received a visit from two plain clothes police officers. They had received a tip off from a reliable source. Their informant had overheard a conversation in a bar where a guy had told his drinking buddy how desperate he was for money and that he was going to rob a bank on Friday (the day most people locally got paid) then skip town. The informant said the desperado showed his friend what appeared to be a sawn off shotgun under the bar table.
The police spoke to us all before we opened the doors to the public. “Be extra vigilant Ladies and Gentlemen. Keep as little cash as possible on the counter. We have no idea which bank the criminal mastermind intends to strike at. If the man points a gun at you do as he says and give him everything he wants. Remember the bank is insured and we don’t want any dead heroes.”
If he points a gun at you do as he says? Are you fucking joking? If he points a shotgun at me Ill make sure he doesn’t leave without the manager’s wallet and car keys as well. Be a hero? For these wankers? I don’t think so sunshine.
This was the day that I discovered a little known fact about the bulletproof glass counter screens that separate the staff from the customers. It isn’t bulletproof. It isn’t even very thick. Bulletproof glass is apparently too expensive to waste money on protecting staff from shotgun wielding desperados.
So my long held suspicions are confirmed. The counter screens exist only to make normal conversation between customer and cashier all but impossible.
Which brings me to the next question. Why they are there for fucks sake? I’m afraid I have no adequate explanation.
Anyway back to the tale. The day of the raid passed without incident as far as we were concerned. We all went home for the weekend none the wiser that the desperado had indeed attempted his robbery.
Next week we heard on the grapevine that he had attempted to hold up a small sub-branch down by the docks. Why? I honestly can’t say. The place only had three staff and was just open a couple of hours a day. If he had stolen every penny in the place he would still have had to borrow money from his mum to pay for a plane ticket to Ibiza. It must have been handy for the drug clinic where he collected his free needles or something.
Allegedly he walked into the sub-branch wearing a pair of women’s tights lopsidedly over his head, menacingly waving the sawn off shotgun at the one and only elderly lady cashier. He stuck a plastic shopping bag into the cash slot and screamed at the elderly cashier “Fill her up Bitch!!!!”
The cashier was frozen stiff with fear at the sight of the weapon. The other problem was that the tights muffled the gangster’s voice. What with that and the effect of the glass screen between them, she had no idea what he wanted. So she just sat there looking terrified.
So he reiterated his request a bit louder “I said fill her up bitch!!!” Then to make his point more forcefully Interpol’s most wanted fugitive aimed the gun skywards and let off both barrels.
Minutes later, mildly concussed by a collapsed false ceiling and covered in concrete dust, he was seen making his getaway on a racing bicycle headed back towards town, the sawn off shotgun dangling from the handlebars in the otherwise empty shopping bag. Would that all bank robbers were so efficient.
That is not the stupid part of the tale. No, the stupid part of the tale is that despite the fact that the robber had an amoeba sized IQ and his getaway vehicle was a second hand bicycle, the police didn’t catch him. Scary Huh?
After two years I had finished the accelerated training course. More than half the people that had joined at the same time I did had already left the bank to do something else less stressful. Like mediating between the Israelis and the PLO. Now it was the bank’s usual practice to move on the remaining graduate trainees to a new branch to give them more experience.