:After hearing other share stories of their exploits in response to his own, George was reminded of the next of his most profitable escapades, as he learned the ropes of truly organized crime, and felt compelled to share it as well:

                I knew that I was on to something with that last scheme.  Tons of cash and juicy extras without any of the exposures of all those stupid little felonies and rash unnecessary nonsense.  I had found a way to put a lucrative twist on a petty score.  And it was all because I had a plan.  As I’ve heard said before, “You need more than guts to be a good gangster, you need ideas.”  So I was on the lookout for some ideas.  I also wanted to get some of my friends involved, too, if I could.  Henry had gotten a chunk of my last score, but I probably should have used him more on the day of the actual robbery.  He certainly could have helped me avoid some of the speed bumps as a lookout or distraction.  I would have to keep that in mind and learn from my mistakes.

                It was a few days later, after sharing that last story with a few friends, when inspiration struck.  A few guys were sharing with us the troubles that they had with their last bank robbery.  Similar things to the post office:  the uncooperative public, the alarms and tricks that the tellers used, and the security whose presence had increased since we had started doing business in that neighborhood.  I knew that there had to be a way to supersede these obstacles, as I had with the post office.  So I asked my buddy Henry to meet me for lunch to toss the idea around a little bit, and, by the end of the meal, we felt comfortable enough to move on with part one later that week.

Henry entered the bank on a Thursday dressed in his absolute best.  I even loaned him my diamond cufflinks that I had gotten from a friend as a gift honoring my last promotion.  And he cleaned up nice, too.  With his hair slicked back, his suit freshly pressed—the guy needed to look like a million bucks, and he did the job.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Vidi,” said the customer service man as he took a seat across from Henry.  “Margaret tells me that you’re interested in starting up a savings account with us.”  Everything about this man was skeletal.  His cheek bones stuck out frighteningly through his light skin.  Even his shoulders and clavicle seemed to jut up abnormally through his cheap, faded suit.  The suit was all Henry needed to see.  Henry would get what he needed from this guy.  Even so, it took a great deal of self-control for Henry to reserve his usually forceful nature and to toy with this man.

“Yes, I told the woman—“

“Margaret.”  The skeletal man interrupted.

Henry squeezed the bridge of his nose between his eyes, closed them, and took a deep breath before continuing very slowly.  “Yes.  I told the woman that I want to keep my money here, but I’m not talking to your scrawny ass about it for a second longer.  Get me the manager.”

“Well, sir, first of all, my name is Richard Notéleks (he said it with an accent thrown in, but Henry smirked, knowing that the man was flattering himself) and I assure you that I am more than capable of—“

Listen, NotUHleks,” Henry interrupted him just as I had taught him to and plopped a stack of cash on the table.  “That’s a hundred grand.  Now, I have forty more of those at a bank across town.  I’m sure that they're perfectly happy sitting where they are in some competitor’s vault, but I’m not sure how you guys feel about it.  You guys want my business?  I want to talk to your manager.  And not a manager.  The manager.  And I’m certainly not giving your creepy ass a god damned dime. “  As punctuation, he shoved his money back into his jacket.  He had not leaned forward off of the seat back or raised his voice even by a decibel during the whole exchange.  If the suit had left any doubt, he knew now that he had the man.

“I’ll…be right back, sir,” the creep said, and disappeared.

Moments later the creep returned and led Henry to an upstairs office with a balconied view of the lobby.  From the moment it came into his view, he knew that this was the office that we were looking for.  The leather on the chairs didn’t shine—it glowed up in a way that displayed to you every contour in the flesh of the animal.  The ceiling was painted in a mural to reflect the image of a sky scene with babies flying overhead, and the woodwork of the desk seemed to Henry to be even more intricate than that of our boss’s fireplace.  This office was sure to contain what it was that we would need.

The manager stood when Henry entered, and he saw that their frames nearly matched.  The two men, each about 5’10 with a powerful build, sized each other up as they shook hands.  The manager, who appeared to be in his mid-forties with blonde hair fading to grey, introduced himself as Mr. Montgomery.  He wordlessly motioned for Henry to sit.  “Well, Mr. Vidi, he began, I’m sure you realize that this is highly unorthodox, but it seems that you will be a valuable client, so, of course, I am happy to meet with you.  I apologize, but, as you can imagine, my time around here is very valuable.  Now then, can I fetch you a drink?” 

Montgomery moved towards the liquor display and began pouring himself a brandy when panicked screaming erupted in the lobby.    Montgomery dropped his glass and, without excusing himself, hurried to the balcony and down the stairs into the lobby.  Many people could now be heard screaming and fleeing the bank.  Henry grinned and began searching through Montgomery’s drawers.  In no time at all, he had found his keys through the false back of the lap drawer.  He knew that these keys would be missed and that they would have to initiate step two in the next couple days, rather than weeks later, as they had originally planned.  He was just about to return to his seat across the desk when something else caught his eye.  It was the SecureCar log which indicated when shipments of money came or left the bank.  Not wanting to take THIS as well, he scanned the sheet and saw that the next shipment would leave two days later, probably in the early afternoon.

Upon returning to his seat, Henry realized that he had wet the knees of his pants while kneeling to inspect the desk and its contents.  He started to get awfully nervous as he waited for Montgomery to return, and when he did, Henry put his hands on his knees in an effort to somewhat cover the marks.  Montgomery did not seem to notice, however, he was so distracted by the disturbance, and they carried out a simple conversation on the topic of interest rates for about fifteen minutes while a short woman with a dirty face and even dirtier uniform cleaned up the glass and brandy on the marble floor.  Henry completed the conversation in ordinary fashion, told Montgomery that he would think about it, and left without being shown out, careful to turn quickly so as to keep his wet knees out of the man’s sight.

Around the corner, a very wet Mr. Bean and I were waiting to pick him up in my Ford.

“Christ,” I said as Henry sat inside.  “You’re BOTH all wet.  Just don’t get any of that crap on my seats.”  Mr. Bean stopped wringing out his Teddy onto the floor in mid-squeeze.  “I trust that everything went well, fellas?”

“We have what we need, but we’ll have to follow through this week.  Two days from now is best,” Henry answered.  “Your diversion couldn’t have been better, Jelly,” he told Mr. Bean.  You made him drop his brandy.  You should have seen it!  What did you DO?!”

Mr. Bean threw his head back and laughed before answering.  “Let’s just say that I gave everybody in there a flashback to childhood.  I had so many water balloons, they didn’t even know what hit them.  And I had my pockets stuffed with them, you know, and I was running all around avoiding the employees and that marble floor is slippery to begin with.  Once it got a little wet, they kept falling everywhere, at a certain point I was literally running circles around them.  Then, when they finally tackled me, like 6 balloons exploded in my pockets all over their face.  And there I was all wet, so I managed to slip away.  I must have had them chasing me for FIFTEEN MINUTES or more!”  We all laughed as we drove home to iron out the finer points of the next step of our plan.

The next day, I returned when Henry had determined Montgomery would be gone for lunch.  I was also dressed in my best, but I pushed a rocking chair in front of me like a lawnmower, and more than a few people were staring.  I walked up to the security guard, shoved it in his direction, and nodded.   He gave me a confused look and asked, “Are you sure that Mr. Montgomery is alright with this?”

“What?  Are you kidding?” I said.  “I’m his son-in law.  It’s all taken care of.  Don’t’ worry about it.” 

He looked pleased and sat down, but a nosy teller—literally, nosy—she had a huge nose—came up to me and asked, “Can I help you?  Mr. Montgomery is out.  You had better wait here for him.”

“Honey, relax,” I said.  “I’m his nephew!  And, between you and me, I’m going to be taking over this whole place real soon, so I wouldn’t want to get on my bad side, if I were you.”  I stomped out the front door, and, moments later, she stomped back to her place behind the counter muttering curses about ‘ol Montgomery and his hoity-toity family.

I walked down the street and stopped at a payphone to phone SpaceMountain.

“Hey.  Boss,” I said.  “You’ve got a safety deposit box at the local bank, right?...Ok, I thought so, now, what’s the number?...  No, don’t be ridiculous, nothing to worry about, but you may be receiving a large deposit tomorrow.  Yeah, that’s right.  No, don’t worry.   I’ll take care of everything.  Take care of yourself, boss.”  I hung up.  I was beginning to get excited about the possibilities of this job.

The next day I returned around the same time.  I nodded to the nosy teller and the security guard, now snoring noisily, his head hanging against the side of the wooden back of his chair.  Using Montgomery’s keys, I let myself behind the half-wall divider and headed down the rear hallway.  Again using his keys, I turned off the alarm on the rear exit and opened the door to allow Henry and Mr. Bean inside, each of them wearing mock-SecureCar uniforms.  Using Montgomery’s keys one last time, I let us into the vault and closed the door behind us.  Inside, Mr. Bean began to stuff the waiting SecureCar shipment into a bag while I tried to find the Deposit Box master key, and Henry searched for the boss’s box.  We all finished at once.  “All done!”  “Got it!”  “Here it is!”

I opened the boss’s box and began going right down the line, opening every deposit box in order.  Henry and Mr. Bean followed me as I did this, grabbing each box and dumping it into SpaceMountain’s.  And these were some priceless items, too—not just plain old cash and junk like that.  I’m talking antique guns, jewelry, ancient artifacts, and family heirlooms.  The next time the boss came to check out this SD box, it would be like Christmas and his birthday all rolled in to one.

Anyway, we secured as much cash as we could carry for ourselves (and I couldn’t help but take this really nice pendant in the shape of a “G” that I found) and split out the back door.  I didn’t even bother to lock it behind us.  I tossed the stolen keys into a dumpster behind the building and we all piled into my car again and headed home to count our money.

A great story once again George!  Now where's Teddy's cut!?

I TOLD you, Beany.  Teddy only gets 1%--and not a cent more.  He did nothing but slow you up, from what I saw.