Aquarius – Chapter Two
"Remember the last Bank of LA robbery?" Charlie queried idly, while Dani drove at breakneck speeds that would make most people wish for Dramamine.
"Yeah, I was twelve," she said her annoyance and distraction evident as a pedestrian with a death wish stepped off the curb and she swerved to avoid, "my dad was the SWAT Commander, remember?"
He didn't respond and she took her eyes off the road to glance at him.
"I know you know that," she argued acerbically, "it was on the wall in your closet."
"Yeah," he said humbly. Then quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself like he did when they first met he added, "but there's so much I don't know."
She recognized that something about this response - to this incident - spooked him. Crews wasn't scared or even phased by much and the fact that she noticed that about him spoke to the increasing closeness of their bond. Over the years, she'd alllowed herself to care about him, long before she'd noticed she was interested in him sexually. She multitasked while quizzing him. In her own way saying "I care," without actually having to utter the words. "Does that scare you?" she wondered jumping the curb with one wheel to get around stopped traffic at a light.
"No," he said blithely invoking Zen, "knowing that we don't know, can't know - should give us strength and help us to understand our place in the universe. Not knowing is a gift."
She examined him as closley as her current speed would permit. For just a second he returned her gaze and he was himself again - the man he was with her - not the Zen automaton or the cold blooded killer who lurked under his shiny bravado. In that moment he tried to convey, without words, all the things he couldn't say and to her great surprise she got them. She let him off easy, rolling her eyes and joking, "a gift? Yeah...Sure it is."
Tha magnitude of the moment made them both feel strange and yet somehow special and connected. They rode in silence for a long moment as the sounds of their siren and the screeching tires of the car seemed far off. Then suddenly, Charlie demanded, "Stop the car," urgently.
"We're still twelve blocks out," she countered, but slowed anyway.
"Reese, stop." The urgency in his tone made her do so without understanding why.
Sirens sounded. Other cars, marked and unmarked, whizzed by. She pulled to the curb and waited, but he said nothing. He was thinking she could tell. She tried not to sound annoyed as she inquired, "Mind telling me why we're missing the party?"
He stared into space. Right now he was either in the past or future because he wasn't present. "I studied the Bank of LA robbery," he said in thin voice. "Researched it."
"How?" she asked skepticism undercutting her question, "everyone died."
"Exactly," he turned and looked straight at her. "How did they plan to get away?"
This stunned her into silence and he continued vocalizing his theory with each word getting stronger and more sure of himself. "Bank robbers have to have a plan to escape. A getaway car and a driver to keep watch. Think that's changed much in the era of walkie talkies and cell phones?"
She shook her head no and smiled. What he'd concluded instinctively was now clear to her.
"The driver would be staged somewhere, blocks from the bank - outside where police cordon will be. He'd be able to drive off – if the alarm was sounded," she posited.
He continue finishing her thought, "he…or she," he gestured at her behind the wheel, "would be far enough away to slink off, if the cops got close and live to rob another day. Start making circles, block by block, tightening in," he instructed and she put the car in gear. "We're looking for…"
"Someone not interested in or distracted by the bank robbery, police response," she finished it for him. "Someone looking for something else." He nodded in agreement and a small tight smile turned up one corner of his mouth. They knew something no one else did; the question was – could they make something of it?