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Arriving at the bank, I nonchalantly place my briefcase next to the main entrance, and amble over the ancient and darkened parquet flooring to join a queue of impatient, mid-morning customers. I have selected the line leading to the youngest and least experienced cashier.
Five minutes later, it’s my turn. I smile at the smartly dressed young lady who will serve me. I read her name, ‘Josie,’ embossed on a metal plaque supported by a small wooden plinth on her desk, and hand her my empty canvas bag and the printed note I’ve prepared beforehand. The note reads as follows:
Good morning,
Please keep smiling as you read this, and do not, under any circumstances, attempt to raise an alarm. Keep cool, for the sake of everyone in the building.
Josie glances up at me and obediently forces the smile to remain on her worried face.
Look over to the main entrance. Do you see a briefcase?
Josie risks a look across the bank to confirm the presence of a briefcase. I smile at her once more. I know it’s cruel, but I really do want her to relax and avoid doing anything stupid.
The briefcase contains sufficient explosive to make a real mess of this building and everyone in it. The detonator is a remote switch currently residing in my left hand.
Josie looks at my left hand. I toy with the remote, and with her fears. She breathes deeply. Her smile disappears for a brief moment before she remembers my first request.
In the canvas bag you are to place all the used banknotes at your workstation. Do not attempt to include any of those bundles of new notes containing exploding dye.
I am not a greedy man. I want only enough to get by. Being rich is for stupid people. When done, zip up the bag, and hand it to me—with a smile.
Once I have left the bank, do not raise the alarm for three minutes. The explosive briefcase will remain by the bank’s entrance, and my remote detonator has a range of several hundred yards.
I hope to be out of the reach of your security guards (and the police) by the time you hit that red alarm button under your desk.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Have a nice day!
Josie does as instructed by the note, and within a couple of minutes I am casually walking out of the bank’s main entrance. Still visible in my left hand is the small remote, and slung over my right shoulder is the canvas bag containing several thousand dollars in small-denomination, used banknotes.
Hollywood dictates that at this moment a bank robber should dive dramatically into a sleek car, hot-wired earlier the same day, before screeching away from the crime scene, burning rubber onto city asphalt. Dramatic, yes, but hardly an effective escape strategy; far too conspicuous. My own exit is sedate, bordering on tranquil. I join the foot traffic on the sidewalk, and stroll un-rushed to the corner of the next block. I turn left, walk a little further, and stop in front of the doorway to a betting shop now permanently closed, boarded up, and smeared liberally with colorful, yet illegible, graffiti.
Still no alarm. Good.
Earlier, before entering the bank, I had prepared this shop doorway.
I crouch down and then sit on a selection of dirty cardboard. Next, I unravel a battered old sleeping bag, also left earlier in the doorway. The canvas bag containing my new-found fortune is pushed to the foot of the sleeping bag, and my feet follow it. Propping myself against the doorframe, I slouch, as if semi-comatose. I remove my woolen hat and tousle the unkempt hair I’ve deliberately left unwashed for several days. Shaving is another chore that has been neglected recently.
To complete the process, I untether Timmy, my ancient mongrel, and maneuver him to sit on the foot of the sleeping bag, right beside my hidden canvas money bag. I reward him with a hug and a couple of his favorite meaty treats. Finally, I pick up an old, chipped enamel mug, hold it out in both hands, and lower my head.
Now, I wait.
Within seconds, the bank alarm screams like a spoilt child, alerting everyone within a half-mile radius that a faceless, super-rich bank has just lost a minuscule fraction of its obscene wealth.
Within a minute, uniformed security guards dash around the corner, shouting dramatically at pedestrians to get out of their way. This is their show; they’re the good guys chasing the bad guy. Just like on TV. Desperate orders and counter-orders are shouted into expensive walkie-talkies. They continue scanning the streets, bemused. By now the smarter ones may have worked out that the briefcase back at the bank contains no explosives, just a couple of house bricks. Eventually, a posse runs right by me, only a couple of feet from both the money and the thief. Fools.
As the confused guards continue down the sidewalk, an old lady, unimpressed by the street action, stops in front of me. She throws a couple of coins into the mug and, as they rattle around, says something about me having a nice day, sonny. I mumble my thanks, but refrain from informing her that actually, yes, I am having a very nice day.
Planning a robbery is easy, the difficult part is getting away with it. To achieve this, it is important to resist one of mankind’s most powerful primal instincts—the desire to run. Much better to blend in, inconspicuous to the point of invisibility. And in every busy city, no one is more invisible than the homeless.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Michael Smith is a British writer, based in Europe. The absurdities of life and the international nature of his day job continue to be rich sources of material.
His short stories have been accepted for online publication by Fabula Argentea, Witcraft, Literally Stories, Heimat Review, The Hooghly Review, Winamop, Uppagus, The Expressionist Literary Magazine, Freedom Fiction Journal, Impspired, Fevers of the Mind, The Writers’ Journal, Who Let The Stories Out?, and Rosewater Productions Podcast.
To date, he has self-published Gruseltal, a humorous novel, and two collections of short stories, Fonts, then Songs, all available from online bookstores.
Author website: https://frucht-schleifen.weebly.com/
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t”:
We loved author Michael Smith’s very different take on how to commit a bank robbery, and we were pleasantly surprised by the inventive outcome.
This piece pairs nicely with the D. B. Cooper story, “Outline of an Incident” in our January 2025 issue. In one way it’s the opposite because of the simplicity of the thief’s set up and escape here, but it’s similar in that both thieves escape by blending into the everyday background of society.
The tightness of this piece also drew our attention. The author takes what appears to be a rather mundane story and quickly turns it into something interesting, then he gives it a solid ending with a sad comment on our society.