BRUNO WALKS INTO THE South Beach Building Society ten minutes before closing time. It’s an old-school bank building with clean marble floors and high ceilings. Polished and prim. It doesn’t really gel with the rest of the Strip. It’s not for the battlers and the dreamers. This is a rich person’s bank. Tonight, two young guards are stationed by the front door, something they’re keeping locked. Inside, there’s an older guy on duty. The young bucks let Bruno pass, no questions asked, but the old guy pegs him for a cop immediately. ‘We all good?’ he says, coming across the foyer, hand out.
‘Just following something up,’ says Bruno. ‘Is Alfred Simmons around? I believe he’s the deputy manager.’
‘Al’s out back. I’ll bring you through.’
Al has a big office with an L-shaped couch in one corner and an aquarium built into the wall. He looks exactly as expected: pudgy, late fifties, suited up and busy. Standing beside him at his desk is a much younger woman. Al turns to her and says, ‘Who’s this?’ as Bruno walks in.
‘I don’t know,’ says the woman, picking up a manila folder and coming round.
Bruno doesn’t wait for a negotiation. He opens his ID wallet and says, ‘I’m from the Gold Coast Criminal Investigation Branch. I only need a few minutes.’
‘Can it wait?’ says the woman.
Al’s watching on. He looks tired. His eyes are bloodshot.
‘That’s not how this works,’ Bruno says.
‘It’s okay,’ says Al. ‘Can she stay?’
‘She can do whatever she likes.’
‘Take a seat, kid. But can we make it quick, please? I’m not messing you about. I’ve got somewhere to be. I’m trying to get out the door.’
Bruno opens his notebook. ‘I’m looking for a client of yours. Phillip O’Grady.’
‘Sure. I know Phil. He’s away. On a cruise, I think. Doreen, weren’t the O’Gradys in here a couple of weeks ago getting traveller’s cheques?’
‘That’s right,’ says the woman.
‘I can’t go into details about what’s happening,’ says Bruno, ‘but we have a letter from you, Mister Simmons, that outlines irregularities with the O’Gradys’ bank account.’
‘That’s right.’
Bruno waits for more, but Al doesn’t offer anything else. ‘I’ve had a look through those bank statements you sent through the mail. It looks to me like someone is running down their accounts.’
‘It looked that way to me too.’
‘And you didn’t think it was Phillip and his wife doing it?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Do you know who was cleaning them out?’
‘That’s a private matter. I can’t discuss things like that.’
‘I don’t think the O’Gradys are on that cruise ship. So, what’s this private matter?’
‘Have you seen the automatic teller machine outside, Detective?’
‘What about it?’
‘Have you used one before?’
‘No. I don’t want to talk to a machine.’
‘Well, Phil O’Grady doesn’t share your distaste for them. You use a key card and a PIN number. It’s like a secret code. I think someone has Phillip’s card and his PIN.’
‘When was the last withdrawal?’
‘I don’t know exactly. We’ve cancelled the cards. Doreen, could you take him out and have Frederick bring up the records?’
Bruno stays seated. ‘Who do you think has this card of theirs?’
Al looks at the papers on his desk. ‘I couldn’t say.’
‘I think you could.’
‘I really can’t say, Detective. Is that all?’
Bruno stands up. ‘It’ll do for now.’
Out in an office behind the front counter, Bruno waits at the desk of a German man called Frederick. Frederick isn’t big on conversation. When Bruno asks how he’s faring with the O’Grady records, Frederick says, ‘Do you want to take over?’
He doesn’t.
To kill time, Bruno wanders around the bank. He watches the tellers standing behind the long counter, finishing up with the day’s last customers. An old biddy fusses with a deposit slip. Down the hall, Doreen drags the vacuum cleaner out of a closet.
‘Here,’ calls Frederick. ‘Come, please.’
Bruno turns.
Bright lights across the rear wall.
Behind him, a man hollers.
The whole building shudders as what sounds like lightning erupts through the foyer, the force of it spraying glass and dust. The blow knocks Bruno over as the overhead sprinkler system sprays the room. Flashes erupt in the water.
Gunfire.
Screaming.
The bank tellers scramble for cover, ducking beneath the counter and nearby desks.
Bruno reaches under his jacket, but a gloved hand grabs him by the neck and rams his head into a filing cabinet, knocking him to the floor. A man with a shotgun steps around. Black balaclava. Blue sports tracksuit. ‘Get your fucking faces down,’ he screams.
Bruno and the tellers all press themselves to the floor.
Another man appears, jumping over the counter and landing on the wet carpet. The second one is armed and dressed in the same garb. He drags Al Simmons from his office down the hall and yanks him off into another part of the bank.
A voice shouts, ‘One minute,’ from across the room.
Bruno forces himself calm.
Three assailants.
At least two armed.
They don’t know I’m armed.
Shouting in the hallway, a way off. Al’s voice.
The sprinkler system keeps on drenching the place. They’re all soaked to the bone. Water pooling on the floor.
No sirens yet.
For a horrible minute, nothing happens.
Everyone thinks about dying.
The masked man by Bruno shuffles his feet, lifts his gun.
‘Two minutes,’ yells the other voice, agitated now.
‘Okay,’ says the one near Bruno.
It’s followed by more screaming down the corridor.
Al Simmons reappears, the second man behind him. Bruno gets a good look at the assailant this time. White skin through the eyeholes of his balaclava. He has Al by the throat.
‘I don’t have it,’ whimpers Al.
The man throws him down, fifteen feet from where Bruno lies.
‘Please,’ says Al, a shotgun in his face.
The gun fires and Al’s face evaporates, turning the wall behind him black and red.
A teller behind Bruno starts shrieking.
Doreen appears out of nowhere, sprinting from the hallway where she’s hidden herself. She clears the counter, into the foyer. The man who shot Al follows her out, poised, gun raised. He fires again and Doreen yelps.
Bruno springs up, gun in hand, pressing the muzzle into the man closest to him and firing twice.
A voice screaming, ‘Go, go, go.’
More shots, the rounds sparking the filing cabinet by Bruno. Bullets ricochet.
Bruno spins and fires blindly across the room.
Snap, snap, snap.
He ducks and reloads. ‘Come on. Fuck.’ Absolute panic in his voice as something catches his eye. Bruno glances over at the body of the man he’s just shot. He’s moving. His hand is reaching for the discarded shotgun by his side. Bruno pounces, but the man has the gun now. They tussle, arms heaving, fighting for the shotgun. Both have their hands on it. Bruno presses down with all his weight, the gun fires and the man’s body goes limp.
It’s over.
Bruno doesn’t look.
The sprinkler rain keeps coming.
There’s a teller sitting five feet away and she’s holding her throat, blood silently bubbling out.
‘Stay down,’ he says.
Bruno pads around for his police revolver, spotting it under a nearby desk. He pushes the bullets in and comes up, scanning around.
Move.
He runs down the counter and around.
There’s water everywhere, carnage everywhere.
Gun smoke.
Flashing lights.
Ringing ears and submerged sirens and moaning.
A banged-up Ford utility sits in the centre of the bank foyer, engine running, high beams in the mist.
It was a ram raid.
The young guards are standing back, too stunned to move.
The older one is keeled over, injured.
Doreen’s dead, blasted apart at the shoulders. The wet ground around her running pink.
Bruno feels it all at once, the sudden press of adrenaline, insanity, fear.
He hears fake silence.
He scans the room. He keeps his gun up.
He moves out onto the street.
Police cars arriving, jumping the kerb.
Regular people coming out of hiding.
A helicopter overhead.
It’s not good.
They’re gone.