While Marchenko got the customers on the floor, Parsons whipped out his nylon bag and confronted the tellers. It was an easy mid-afternoon scene: four tellers, all young Asian and Middle Eastern women, and an older broad at a desk behind the tellers who was probably the manager. Another banker who was probably a loan officer or assistant manager sat at one of the two desks on the public side of the tellers.

Parsons made his voice fierce like Marchenko and waved his gun. His gun scared the shit out of these chicks.

“Stand away from the counter! Step back, goddamnit! Stand up! Don’t get down, fuckin’ bitch! Stand UP!”

One of the tellers, already crying, had dropped to her knees, the dumb bitch. Parsons leaned across the counter, jabbing his gun at her.

“Get up, you stupid bitch!”

Behind him, Marchenko had pulled the desk jockey to his feet, screaming for the manager.

“Which one of you has the key? Goddamnit, who’s the manager? I gotta fuckin’ cap your ass, I will!”

The woman at the desk behind the tellers stepped forward, identifying herself as the manager. She raised both hands to show her palms, walking slowly forward.

“You can have the money. We’re not going to resist you.”

Marchenko shoved the one he had down, then stalked around the pass-through behind the tellers. While he took care of his end, Parsons ordered the tellers to step forward to their stations and warned them not to trip the alarms under their counters. He told them to dump their drawers on their desks and leave out the fuckin’ dye packs. He held his rifle in his right hand and the bag in his left. He ordered them to put their cash into the bag. Their hands shook as they did it. Each and every one of them trembled. Their fear gave Parsons an erection.

He had a problem with the stupid bitch on the floor. She wouldn’t get up. She didn’t seem able to control her legs or even to hear his commands. He wanted to jump over the counter and beat the bitch silly until the next teller offered to empty her drawer.

Parsons said, “Do it. Come over here and give me the money.”

While the helpful teller bagged the cash, a man with short grey hair and weathered skin entered the bank. Parsons saw him only because he noticed one of the tellers looking at the man. When Parsons glanced over, the man was already turning to leave.

The rifle jerked up with a life of its own and three rounds ripped out with a short sharp brrp. The tellers screamed as the man windmilled and fell. Parsons didn’t give it another thought. He glanced at the people on the floor to make sure no one was trying to get up, then turned back to the tellers.

“Give me the goddamned money.”

The last teller had put her money into his bag when Marchenko returned from the vault. His bag bulged large. The real money was always in the vault.

Parsons said, “We cool?”

Marchenko smiled behind his mask.

“We’re golden.”

Parsons zipped his bag closed. If a dye pack exploded the money would be ruined, but the nylon bag would protect him from the color. Sometimes the dye packs were on timers and sometimes they were on proximity fuses that were triggered when you left the bank. If a dye pack went off, the cops would be looking for anyone wearing indelible colored ink.

With the money, they stood together, looking back at the bank and the people on the floor.

Marchenko, as always, shouted his signature farewell.

“Don’t get up, don’t look up. If you look up, I’m gonna be the last fuckin’ thing you see.”

When he turned for the door, Parsons followed, not even glancing at the man he had killed, anxious to get out and get home and count their money. When they reached the door, Parsons turned for a last glance to make sure everyone was still on the floor, and, like always, they were-

– because robbing banks was so goddamned easy.

Then he followed Marchenko into the light.

Lynn Phelps checked her watch as the two robbers stepped out the door. It was three-eighteen; nine minutes since the two bozos with their black costumes and big guns had entered the bank. Professional bank robbers knew they had less than two minutes to make their robbery and get away. Two minutes was the minimum amount of time it took for a bank employee to trigger a silent alarm, for that alarm to register at the security firms that banks hired to monitor such things, and for the police to respond once they were notified a robbery was in progress. Every second past two minutes increased the odds that a bank robber would be caught. A professional would leave a bank when the clock struck two whether he had the money or not. Lynn Phelps knew these guys were amateurs, dicking around in the bank for nine minutes. Sooner or later they would get bagged.

Lynn Phelps stayed on the floor and waited. The time clicked over. Ten minutes. She grunted.

Lynn Phelps did not know for certain what was waiting outside, but she had a good idea.

Parsons backed out of the bank, making sure the people they had just robbed didn’t rush up behind them. Backing out, he bumped into Marchenko, who had stopped only a few feet from the door when the amplified voice echoed across the parking lot.

“Police! Do not move. Stand absolutely still.”

Parsons absorbed the scene in a heartbeat: Two nondescript sedans were parked across the parking lot, and a black-and-white police car was blocking the drive. A beat-up Econoline van was on the street behind the black-and-white. Hard-looking men in plainclothes were set up behind the vehicles, aiming pistols, shotguns, and rifles. Two uniformed officers were at either end of their radio car.

Parsons said, “Wow.”

He did not feel afraid or any great surprise, though his heart was pounding. Marchenko raised his rifle without hesitation and opened fire. The movement of Marchenko’s gun was like the okay sign. Parsons opened up, too. Their modified M4s operated flawlessly, hosing out streams of bullets. Parsons felt light punches in his stomach, chest, and left thigh, but barely noticed them. He dumped his magazine, jammed in another, and recharged. He swung toward the black-and-white, rattled off a stream, then swung back toward the nondescript sedans as Marchenko fell. Marchenko didn’t stagger or spin or any of that; he dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

Parsons wasn’t sure where to go or what to do except keep shooting. He stepped over Marchenko’s body, then saw that one of the men behind the sedans had a rifle very much like his own. Parsons lined up, but not quite in time. Bullets snapped through his vest and staggered him. The world was suddenly grey and hazy, and his head buzzed with a feeling far different than the Royal Blue Metallic. Parsons didn’t know it, but his right lung had been destroyed and his aorta had burst. He sat down hard on his ass but did not feel the impact. He slumped backwards, but did not feel his head strike the concrete. He realized that all of it had gone terribly wrong, but he still did not believe he was dying.

Shapes and shadows floated above him, but he did not know what they were and did not care. Parsons thought about the money as his abdominal cavity filled with blood and his blood pressure dropped. His last thoughts were of the money, the cash, all those perfect green bills they had stolen and stashed, each dollar a wish and a fantasy, millions of unfulfilled wishes that were beyond his reach and moving farther away. Parsons had always known that robbing banks was wrong, but he had enjoyed it. Marchenko had made them rich. And they had been rich.

Parsons saw their money.

It was waiting for them.

Then Parsons went into cardiac arrest, his breathing stopped, and only then did his dreams of the money vanish on the hot bright street in Los Angeles.