Confessions of a Bombshell Bandit (3 page)

BOOK: Confessions of a Bombshell Bandit
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"It's still stealing."

He grinned, a dimple showing in his left cheek that would have been boyishly handsome if he hadn't had a gun pointed at me. "Hey, I never said I was a saint."

If I'd have been the kind that went for bad boys, I'd have swooned right about then. Luckily a lifetime in a trailer park had cured me of that girlish obsession and my hormones just did a mild 'yowza' at the wicked twinkle in his blue eyes.

Mr. Bank Robber did a quick glance down at his watch. "Okay, Carrie. That's all the time I have to chat. The cash, please?"

I handed over the stacks I'd pulled, surprised to see my hands had almost stopped shaking. Almost.

He must have noticed them still quivering a little because he covered one with his. "Hey, sorry you're having such a shitty day," he said. And if he wasn't still pointing that gun at me, I might have said he actually sounded sincere. "But, chin up," he said, stuffing the money into the duffel bag. "You're too cute for this place anyway." Then he winked one blue eye, pulled his Angels cap down low, and turned to walk out of the building.

I stared after him. Damn. The man with the gun had made me blush. I waited until he'd cleared the front door and passed the cow handing out interest rate fliers.

Then I hit the panic button.

* * *

After the police took my statement and left, David helped me carry my pathetic file box of belongings to my Civic. I drove straight to the nearest 7-11 and picked up a pint of Ben and Jerry's, figuring being fired
and
robbed all in the same day negated any calories consumed that night.

I pulled up to my three story apartment building in the fringy neighborhood of Chatsworth. Two blocks to the east, paradise. Two blocks west, the ghetto. But at least it didn't have roaches. Okay, not
that
many roaches.

I did a slow drive-by of my building, checking the street for the repo man's black van. I didn't see him out tonight but I circled the block and parked behind a dumpster in the alley anyway. Better safe than sorry.

I climbed the stairs to my third floor apartment and opened the door. Once inside, I found an envelope had been slid underneath. I tore it open while I fished the B&J's out of my grocery bag. Only I paused as I read the note, that first spoonful of Cherry Garcia hovering halfway to my lips.

"Dear Resident,

We're happy to inform you that the building is going condo. As of the first of the month, you will have the option to buy your current apartment at a reasonable market price. If you do not wish to purchase, please be advised that you must vacate by said date."

I continued reading the fine print, my mouth dropping open, B&J's dripping onto my linoleum floor. When I got to the bottom, the listed price for my apartment turned condo, I felt tears well in my eyes. There was no chance in Hades. Especially now being unemployed. I looked up at my Betty Boop calendar. The first was three weeks away. Great. Fired, robbed,
and
Mr. Chen was evicting me.

I was so pissed off at Fate I could spit.

Instead, I crumpled up the letter, grabbed my pint of B&J's and went to bed, consoling myself that at least the day was over. At least life couldn’t get any worse.

Famous last words.

* * *

"Well this just sucks big fat donkey balls," Quinn said, rereading the condo notice as she sipped her margarita.

"You know you could always come stay with me," Lynette offered. But considering she was currently wearing both cupcake colored drool and baby spit up on her blouse, I decided that was Plan B.

Or C.

"Thanks," I mumbled. Then did another tequila shot. I'd been holed up in bed for the past three days, existing on cheese doodle crumbs and ice cream until Quinn and Lynnette had staged an intervention. They arrived with chips and salsa (Lynette's contributions) and margarita mix and a video entitled 'Huge Hung Hunks' (Quinn's contributions). Somewhere between the hunks and the chips I'd abandoned the margarita mix and switched to straight tequila.

"It's not fair," I said, slugging back another shot. "I've worked hard. I've paid my dues at the bottom. And every time it seems like I might claw my way just a teeny bit closer to the top, Fate knocks me down again. I'm homeless and unemployed. Even my dad has a job making license plates!"

"I'm sorry honey," Lynette said, patting my arm.

But I wasn't going to be that easily consoled. One of the benefits of tequila. "And you know what? I think the repo man found my car last night. Bastard."

"Leeman's blaming you for the robbery, you know," Quinn said.

"No!" I poured another shot. "He isn't?"

Lynnie nodded. "I heard him in the break room telling the cops that they should look into the disgruntled employee theory."

"Snake." I threw another shot back.

"I heard that he's sleeping with the DM, " Quinn said, rewinding a particularly interesting section of her video. We all paused, turning our heads to the side to get a better view of just how hung the hunk was.

"Figures," I mumbled. "No wonder she didn't believe me."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, at least you won't have to endure the octopus any longer. I'm sure you can get another job at a different bank."

"Not if the cops really do start investigating you," Quinn added oh-so-helpfully.

"Shit." I did another shot. Was that number four or five? Or fifteen? I'd totally lost count. "You know what's the least fair thing in all this? He's free as a bird, off to the Bahamas and I'm stuck here unemployed and soon to be homeless!"

"Who's going to the Bahamas?" Lynette asked, popping another chip in her mouth.

"The guy who robbed me. Mr. Blue Eyes. Twenty five thousand, three hundred and twenty-two. That's' the price of his freedom. I know," I said, waving my empty shot glass in the air. "The cops made me count."

Quinn made a low whistling sound. "Wow. I could pay off my student loans with that."

"You know how many diapers I could buy with that?" Lynnie chimed in.

"Well, hell, maybe we should start robbing banks," I said, giving up on the shot glass and swigging straight from the bottle.

Quinn laughed. "Yeah, and we'd start with L.A. Mu. Could you just imagine Leeman's face if you showed up waving a gun?"

Lynette snorted. "He'd pee his pants, the little weasel."

"God, that alone would be almost worth it," I mumbled.

"But wouldn’t that be weird? I mean, the same bank getting robbed twice in a row?" Quinn asked.

"But that’s the genius of it," I argued. "No one expects it to get hit twice in a row. They're not ready for it."

"We'll need disguises," Lynnie decided.

"Yeah, that robber's disguise sucked. Blue eyes. Pft!" I blew out a puff of air between my lips. "We could so do better than a pair of blue contacts." They had to be contacts, right? I mean, no one had eyes that blue. Almost unnaturally blue. Bright and wide and so clear you could get lost in them…

"Masks!" Lynnie yelled, snapping me back to the present. "We'd need masks."

"I have a Marilyn Monroe one from Halloween last year," Quinn offered.

"Perfect! Let's all be 50's bombshells," Lynnie suggested.

"And we can wear teeny tiny bikinis," I added, doing another shot. "They'll be so busy staring at our tits, no one will be able to describe us later."

This sent the three of us into a round of unladylike snorting that sounded more barnyard than bombshell.

* * *

"So, you hatched your master plan over a bottle of Jose Cuervo?"

"No!" I punched him in the arm, making the car swerve a little on the nearly deserted highway. We were taking the old route 66, scenic, ill maintained, and less conspicuous. "We were only joking around."

"But then it became serious."

I looked out the window. "I guess it did."

"When?"

"Right about the time I got evicted and had to go live on Lynette's couch. It smelled like urine. And I wasn't even sure if it was from the golden retriever or the babies, because no one in that house could seem to hold their bladder. Even Lynnie dribbles when she laughs too hard."

"Wow. More than I needed to know."

"You did say you wanted to know everything."

He grinned. "So I did. Okay then, you decided to do it for real. Lynette and Quinn were with you?"

I shrugged. It took a while, but Lynette started realizing just what that kind of money would mean to her kids and Quinn, well, Quinn said it could be more of a high than when she bungeed naked off a 400 foot bridge in Ojai. Besides, we all figured that after enduring years of Leeman's leers and ass grabs we'd earned this. Call it hazard pay.

"So, here's what I want to know," he said, turning to me. "Where did you get that gun?"

I smirked. "Let's just say I have friends in low places," I said, remembering how my mother's latest honey, a paranoid underground militia member, hadn't even missed the pieces I'd borrowed from his stock arsenal underneath Mom's doublewide.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh please, don't tell me you're one of those girls that goes around quoting Garth Brooks songs? I'll let you out right here."

"You wouldn't dare."

"I might."

"You forget, I have the gun."

He lifted one eyebrow at me and grinned. "Good point."

"Thank you." I settled back in my seat, pulling one bare leg up to my chest as I let the sun soak into my skin.

"So… you decided to rob the bank to get enough money for your condo?"

I shook my head. "No. We did it out of revenge. On L.A. Mu. And Leeman. We wanted to see him squirm."

"Really? Pure revenge?"

I paused. "Okay, so maybe not pure revenge. There was a little greed in there as well."

He laughed. Deep and low in his throat. It seemed to rumble off the abandoned red-rock canyons surrounding us like a picture postcard. "Greed I understand. So, you convince the girls, you get the disguises, you have a gun. Then what?"

I turned to him and smiled. "Then I met you."

* * *


Ready, ladies?” Quinn asked.

I felt butterflies rolling anxiously in my stomach as we pulled our masks on.


Just like we rehearsed,” I heard Quinn say. “They’ll be so distracted, they won’t even know what hit them.”


Right,” I managed through my dry throat.

I stripped off my jeans and tank top and the three of us bolted from the car, earning a confused stare from the guy in the cow suit. Personally, I didn't think he was anyone to judge.

Two seconds later we were through the doors, guns drawn. There was no going back now even if we wanted to. I heard a woman scream, Lynette telling David to 'be cool', Quinn yelling obscenities at the bank patrons. But I blocked it all out, intent on my one mission. I strode purposefully up to the third teller window on the left.

Mr. Leeman stood behind it, his jaw stuck in the open position.


Hi, there” I said in my most cheerful voice. Which wasn't hard to fake. Seeing Leeman scared shitless put me in a pretty good mood. “Empty the drawer into my bag, don’t even think of pushing your panic button, and keep your hands where I can see them. And,” I added, unable to keep from grinning behind my mask, “stop staring at my tits.”

He paused, going a shade of pale just slightly above death. "I… uh… I can't," he said, his nasally voice quivering.

I shoved the gun inches from his nose. "Sure you can, muffin. Just open the damn drawer."

"Oh, Jesus," he squeaked out. He licked his thin lips, a bead of sweat trickling down his face to hover on the tip of his nose.

"Empty the damn drawer."

"I, I, I can't!" he stuttered. "I just emptied it for that guy!" He pointed a shaky finger to the right where a group of bank patrons lay face down on the floor.

I looked over. A man in an Anaheim Angels baseball cap, carrying a bulging duffel bag, stood up. Then trained a pair of California sky blue eyes on me.

"You!" I turned the gun on him. "What the hell are you doing back here?"

He took a tentative step forward. He blinked, taking in my mask, then honed in on my eyes, recognition dawning in his own. "Hi there," he answered. "I guess I just enjoyed myself so much last time, I thought I'd stop by again."

I shook my head. "You're hitting the same bank twice in a row?

He shrugged. "That's genius. No one's expecting it."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Damn. Nice logic.

"What are
you
doing here?" he asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

He looked down at my outfit. Or lack thereof. His gaze lingered a healthy amount of time in all the right places. Despite the fact that our best laid plans were falling down around me, my body responded with gusto, my stomach clenching and going all fluttery.

"It looks like you're causing a scene," he finally responded. "And what's with the gun?"

BOOK: Confessions of a Bombshell Bandit
9.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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