Minutes

Nine in the morning and the manager twists the knob on the door, officially opening the bank for that day’s business. James Atherton stands patiently waiting and is the first through the door once it’s unlocked.

“Hi,” the pregnant teller smiles as he approaches the counter, “How can I help you?”

“I need the services of a notary public,” he says.

“I can help you with that,” she replies.

Three minutes in and two more people, both women, enter the bank. They are immediately greeted and helped. Meanwhile the woman assisting James quietly and methodically looks through the papers he’s handed her.

“So when are you due?” he asks, breaking the quietude.

She looks up, “In about four-weeks.”

“Wonderful,” James replies, “And congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she responds. “There you are.”

James hands her a twenty-dollar bill for her services. She moves over to her window to put the cash away.

Six minutes in and three more people enter the building. These three have AK-47’s and one of them shouts, “This is a robbery!”

Across the parking lot, a large man is plodding heavily on the treadmill. He’s silently complaining to himself for having gain the excess weight as he watches the green four-door vehicle come to a stop and three men get out.

Seeing the weapons, he grabs his cellphone and dials 9-1-1. “Hey, this is Officer Larry Andrews, Badge Number 14-98 – and there’s a bank robbery in progress.”

He retreats to the locker room and pulls on his sweat pants before retrieving his service pistol, I.D. and badge. Without a word he exits the gym and casually walks across the parking lot towards the green car.

The driver never see’s him as he walks up beside the vehicle and places his pistol against the left side of the driver’s head, “Don’t try anything stupid. Turn off the car.”

The startled driver moves his head slightly towards the gun barrel and see’s gold-colored badge. Without argument, he reaches up and turns the keys in the ignition switch to the off position.

Officer Andrews, believing he has the situation under control, steps back and directs the driver to get out of the car. Without warning the driver lifts his right hand, in it is a handgun, which he points at the unsuspecting officer and fires.

Andrews also fires. Both are mortally wounded; the driver slumped sideways, part of his forehead gone and Andrews, a pointer-finger sized hole in his chest over his heart.

Eleven minutes in and several police and sheriff vehicles surround the bank. Other law enforcement personnel begin the task of clearing nearby businesses of by-standers and lookie-loos.

Inside the bank, the gun fire hasn’t gone unnoticed. “Shit, Black, there’s cops everywhere.”

The robber, known as Black is standing to the right of the bank door as one would enter. He’s directed the manager to lock the door as his two accomplices move both employees and customers into a back room.

James is sitting on the floor next to the teller that had jus’ finished notarizing his paperwork. He looks at her name tag which reads ‘Jennifer.’

A telephone rings. It’s the police and they want to talk to whomever is in charge.

Black takes the receiver from the manager, “Yeah?”

As soon as he hangs up the phone, Black calls out, “Mr. Red move to that room and keep an eye on the door from that direction. We don’t wanna have’em sneaking up on us.”

“But, what about the hostages?” he complains.

“Mr. White has’em – you jus’ do as I say goddamn it!” Black growls.

Mr. Red does as he’s told without another word. Meanwhile, Mr. White stands nervously over the seven people he’s got seated on the floor against the far wall.

James thinks to himself, “I’ve seen this movie before – “Reservoir Dogs” – everyone’s named after a color.”

He watches Mr. White as the young man paces back and forth, mumbling to himself. Twice, Mr. White stops and peeks around the door jamb toward the front door as if he’s wondering what Mr. Black plans to do.

As he sits, James quietly looks about the room. He realizes that Jennifer, out of habit, grabbed her purse and brought it with her and he smiles.

She frowns at James as he reaches into her bag when Mr. White’s back’s turned and looking towards the front door. When he removes his hand, he’s holding a small bottle of water.

Jennifer continues to frown at him as he twists it open. James winks and sets the bottle down when Mr. White turns back to look at them.

As Mr. White turns back to the door, James pours the content out of the bottle between Jennifer’s legs and under her floral skirt, then slips the bottle back into the puzzled woman’s purse.

“Hey, I think her water jus’ broke – she’s gonna have a baby,” James calmly states.

“Ah, christ, Mr. Black – there’s a chick here gettin’ ready to have a kid,” Mr. White screeches.

“Yeah,” Mr. Black answers, “That’s her problem…jus’ keep her quiet.”

Jennifer has begun to moan as if she were in pain.

“You know anything about babies bein’ born?” Mr. White asks.

James answers, “I do.”

“Then help her,” the half-frightened Mr. White directs.

“Are you comfortable in that position?” he asks the woman, whose now playing along, uncertain what James plan is, but willing to go along to get free of the robbers’ hold.

She half-mumbled, half-groaned, “Mmhhmmm. Ohhhh!”

Ninety-one minutes in and by then Mr. White is no longer paying close attention to the hostages. He is more interested in how the trio are going to escape the situation, and upset that ‘this isn’t how things were supposed to go down.’

Between caring for Jennifer and her faked birthing, James studies Mr. White’s behavior. He notices that the man rarely places his finger inside the trigger guard and using this information along with the knowledge that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that there isn’t a round in the chamber, he plots his next move.

With a quick wink to Jennifer, James withdraws a lock-blade knife from the right hand pocket of his jeans and quietly opens it. Without warning, he stand, steps behind Mr. White, and grabs him by the chin with his left hand and with the knife in his right, draws it aggressively across Mr. White’s throat.

As slight gagging noise comes from the wounded and soon to be dead man’s throat as a spray of blood washes over the door and wall. Deftly, James grabs the AK-47 and rips it from the dying man’s hands.

Quietly, he moved to the corner, away from the door and pulls the magazine from the receiver. Seeing that it does have bullets, he replaces it and by drawing back on charging handle, moves a bullet into the chamber.

Stepping over the cooling body of Mr. White, James waves Jennifer and the other hostages to lay on the floor. Next, he sneaks a peek out and towards what is soon to be his shooting gallery, and having calculated which robber is the greater threat as he stepped out, he empties his lungs of air and moves onto the bank’s open floor.

Mr. Red doesn’t have a chance as James squeezes off two rounds in rapid succession. Fatally wounded and spilling blood from both a wound to the left side of his chest and face, the would-be gunman drops straight to the floor, outside the door way from which he’s positioned himself.

In shock at the sound of gunfire, Mr. Black stands up and begins to swing his rifle into position. However, James has already fired into the man’s upper body and he keeps firing as long as the man remains standing and holding his weapon in a threatening manner.

Ninety-three minutes in and James lays the AK-47 on the floor along with his knife. The phone rings and without prompting, the manager swiftly answers.

She explains why the gunfire, hangs up the phone and races to the door, unlocking it. James stays with the bank manager, who is second to last to leave the building.

Despite her point-by-point explanation and praise, James’ is arrested and whisked off to the county jail where he faces charges of ‘open murder.’ During his initial interview he’s confronted by two detectives.

“What in the hell were you thinking? You could’ve gotten everybody killed!” the older one chides.

“But I didn’t, did I?” returns James.

The younger detective snorts, “Thinks he’s goddamned ‘Batman.’”

“No,” James responds, “Batman would have never killed anyone.”

“You mean murder…” the elder cop said.

“No — kill,” replies James. “I never murdered anyone.”

“What about the guy whose throat you cut?”

“That wasn’t murder, that was self-defense.”

“His back was to you!”

“That was his second mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“His first was pointing his weapon at me.”

“Think yer smart, huh?”

“Smart enough to end this by saying ‘I want my lawyer,’” James smiled.

He spends the next four days in lock-up before the District Attorney drop all charges against him ‘with prejudice.’ Five-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty minutes in and James Atherton exits the jail, a free man, where he’s met by his wife and Jennifer, who invites them to be on hand at her child’s birth, a girl she names Jamie.