The Secret Diary of Cameron Baum
cont...
Margaret Thatcher leads the way, followed by Richard Milhous Nixon, with Marilyn Monroe bringing up the rear. They stop by the front entrance of their target, The First National Bank of Long Beach, which they are about to rob. Nixon turns to Marilyn Monroe and says, "No shooting to kill. Not even if things go bad. I don't want innocent people dying just because we screwed up."
"I understand, Mr President," Marilyn replies in her breathy little girl's voice.
Nixon shakes his head. "Don't do the voice. It's too bizarre."
"Are you two ready?" Margaret Thatcher demands. "If we're going to do this we need to do it now."
She's so bossy. No wonder they called her the Iron Lady.
-0-
We bought the celebrity masks from a joke shop to use as disguises. They are made of rubber and fit tight to the face. From a distance they are very realistic. Sarah Connor is Margaret Thatcher. John is Nixon. I am Marilyn Monroe. I chose her myself.
Finally, a chance to be a ditzy blonde!
At 9.00am, the doors are unlocked and the bank officially opens for business.
We casually enter the bank, just Maggie T, Dick Nixon and Marilyn the flake out for a harmless stroll together. Nothing to see here. Nothing suspicious.
"Heads up, people!" John yells. We wave our guns in the air. There are four tellers and three customers and this gets everyone's attention. "This is a robbery. Step away from your desks, lie on the floor and do as we tell you so no one gets hurt."
We secure the wrists and ankles of all but one of the tellers with the plastic cuffs, leaving her free to stuff the gym bag Sarah Connor throws at her with money.
"Fill it up. High denominations. No singles. No dye packs. I'm watching."
Everyone seems cowed by our presence. There are no would-be heroes. It must be a shock to be robbed by an ex-British Prime Minister, the 37th President of the USA, and a famous Hollywood sex symbol. Not least, because we are all supposed to be dead. Maybe they think we're zombies!
Emilia Clarke, the bank manager, appears in the doorway of her office. She looks calm and rather smug.
"You tripped the alarm, didn't you." John accuses her.
"You all better leave now while you still can. The police will be here in six minutes."
"Not today they won't. Take us to the vault."
We follow her to the vault room, where John shoots out the security camera on the wall. We don't want any recorded evidence of what is about to occur.
"What's the combination?" he demands.
"Combination won't help you. It's on a timelock. No one can open it for another hour."
"You wanna bet?"
He nods at me. I take hold of the handle set in the middle of the huge circular steel door and pull. Something snaps inside the mechanism and there is the harsh grinding sound of metal against metal.
The door swings open.
For the first time Emilia Clarke loses some of her composure.
"How...How..."
We don't bother to reply. Her wrists and ankles are bound like the others. She seems almost too stunned to notice.
I smash open the safe deposit boxes at random, filling another gym bag with the contents. This is mostly for show. We already have what we came here for: Emilia Clarke's testimony of how I, a seemingly waif-like girl, managed to crack open a steel vault weighing several hundred tons like it was nothing at all. The police will not believe her. Only one man will.
Rubin Creed.
"Okay, we're done here. Let's go."
Back in the foyer, Sarah Connor is standing over a large man in a uniform who is lying on the floor, hands bound and a trickle of blood running down his face. "The security guard," she explains. "Late because he got stuck in traffic."
"I hear that's a bitch today," John quips. "He give you any trouble?"
"Nothing I couldn't handle. I won a war with Argentina, remember?"
We exit the bank carrying two gym bags filled with cash and other valuables.
Before leaving, John pauses in the doorway and drawls in his best Nixon impersonation, "I am not a cr-oo-oo-k!"
This is wrong on so many levels!
-0-
We walk quickly away from the bank, discarding the masks as we do so. The beach is less than a half mile away. Traffic is virtually nonexistant. Sarah Connor takes point while I carry the gym bags and John covers the rear. We walk fast enough to make good progress yet not so fast we will attract suspicion.
We reach the car park adjacent to the beach and load the gym bags in the back of the Suburban, covering them with a tarp. Another bag is retrieved from the back seat. It contains all the clothing we'll need on the beach. Not very much. When the temperature's in the mid-80s you don't want to be sat on the sand swaddled in furs. You might get noticed. And heat stroke.
We select a spot midway down the beach, spreading towels to sit on. We remove our street clothes. Sarah Connor dons a black swimsuit. John a pair of blue swimming trunks. I've chosen a red bikini for myself.
I lie back on the towel and stretch my legs out, clenching and unclenching my toes. John grins. "Check you out," he says, checking me out.
"No, check you out."
"No, check you out."
"Will you two stop," Sarah Connor complains. She's such a buzzkill.
"Would you like me to cream you?"
"What did she say?"
"She means apply sun lotion. Sure. Go ahead."
I spread sunblock on John's skin. Prolonged exposure to UV rays can turn human flesh lobster red. Not a good look - not even on a lobster.
"Look at us! Are we the coolest bankrobbers ever!"
"Certainly the least dressed."
"It doesn't feel right," Sarah Connor remarks. "Sunning ourselves when we've just robbed a bank."
"Mom, we've gone over this. If we leave now we'll just get stuck in the same traffic jam as everyone else."
"We should have used motorbikes."
"The police will put choppers in the sky. If the only things moving are three motorcycles I think they'll be a tad suspicious."
As if on cue a police helicopter roars by overhead, ignores us entirely and heads inland.
"Just relax, mom. Catch some rays. Didn't you use to like the beach?"
"When I was younger."
"Well, do what you did then."
"You want me to find a surfer boy, smoke pot and sleep with him?"
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
We are not the only ones enjoying a trip to the beach. Families are dotted around on the sand. By the surfline people are wading and walking their dogs. Off to the right a man wearing bermuda shorts is intently sweeping the sand with a metal detector. I hope he doesn't come over here; he'll find find more than he bargained for.
A shortwave radio is produced. With white earphones it seems as if John is listening to music on an iPod when he is actually scanning the police frequencies.
"It's chaos. The whole of downtown is gridlocked," he reports. "Traffic is even backed up on the Interstate. Every available police officer is on emergency traffic duty. We could've robbed every bank in Long Beach and no one would even notice.
"One is plenty," his mother insists. Such a killjoy.
After an hour, John announces. "Okay, I think that's enough. Call off the attack dogs."
I use an iPhone to access the highway department's mainframe computer, easily circumventing their firewall and clumsy security protocols. I send a suicide message to the virus infecting the system. It self-destructs, leaving no trace behind. The original programming will now resume.
"It's done. Albert is dead."
"Albert?"
"I named the malware Albert."
"Whatever floats your boat. Okay, we'll give it another hour to get back to normal then we're out of here."
We find a discarded frizbee half buried in the sand and John and I pass the time throwing it back and forth. It's a slow moving object that requires little in the way of skill or dexterity to judge its flightpath. One of the dogs near the surfline notices our game and runs up the beach to join in only to realise halfway that I am - well, me. The dog empties its bladder in terror before turning tail and running full pelt in the opposite direction. It is a reminder of how unique Snowy is. The only animal I have ever encountered who not only tolerates my presence but actively encourages it. I will fix him a big bowl of doggie chow when we get home to show him how much I appreciate this.
When the hour is up we shake the sand off the towels, re-don our street clothes and head back up the beach to the car park. John stops suddenly and I almost crash into him. "Sonofabitch!" he exclaims.
The Suburban is gone. And with it the money and the bulk of our weapons.
-0-
"It is the police?" I ask, bringing my primary combat program online. I begin scanning for targets.
"The police would hardly take the car and leave us sunbathing. No, I think someone's stolen our ride. Pretty damn ironic if it wasn't such a royal pain in the ass.
He takes the iPhone from the bag and activates the lojacking program. A small moving white dot is overlaid on a street map of Los Angeles. "Heading north with a ten mile headstart. Better find some wheels and fast."
Just then a sleek black Trans Am enters the lot. A young couple get out, obviously intending to spend time at the beach. The woman is already wearing her bikini and I can't help noticing she fills her top more lavishly than me. I stifle a sudden urge to strangle her to death with her own boobs.
Once they are out of sight, John says, "This'll do."
I open the driver's door, the puny lock detaining me for the merest nanosecond. I am about to smash open the steering wheel binnacle to hotwire the ignition when John says, "Wait."
He searches behind the rear view mirror, the glovebox and under the passenger seat where he finds a hidden set of keys. He's so wise!
We reach the Interstate and I accelerate up the ramp. "Keep it legal," John advises. "Last thing we need is a firefight with the highway patrol."
"Especially when we have precisely one handgun and no spare clips," Sarah Connor states from the backseat.
Fortunately the thieves are also being circumspect; they have as much to lose as us from being pulled over by the police for speeding.
"Gap's eight miles and closing. Still heading north."
"Where d'you think they're going?" I ask.
"Probably a chop shop somewhere."
"Chop shop?"
"A place where they'll weld on new vin plates, do a respray and forge fake registration documents before selling it on the black market."
"Suppose they go beyond Los Angeles? Canada, for instance?"
"That's crazy. They won't drive Canada."
"We should plan for every contingency," I insist.
A sigh. "Okay. When we get to Canadian border we'll dump the Trans Am, hijack a passing moose and track them down old school."
He's joking. I think. I've never driven a moose. Do they come with SatNav?
"Five miles. They're slowing, leaving the Interstate. Shit. We need to speed up. If they open those gym bags and find the money it's a whole different ballgame."
I floor the gas. The Trans Am responds with a throaty roar and surges forwards. I slalom effortlessy between the other vehicles, my reactions and anticipation far superior to human drivers. Bragging much? Just a little.
"They've stopped. Looks like Roosevelt Street." He switches to Google Street Maps. "Low end business district. The nearest address is Ramos Motors. They specialize in panel beating."
"Why do they beat panels?" I ask. "Because they're naughty?"
Sarah Connor laughs out loud; John merely smiles. "I'll explain later."
-0-
Even in the bright California sunshine Roosevelt Street is a dump. Dingy warehouses and dilapidated storefronts, many closed and out of business. Weeds grow through cracks in the sidewalk and in abandoned lots.
I park next to a dumpster, fifty yards short of Ramos Motors, a large building made predominantly of rusting sheet metal. There is no sign of the Suburban.
"I wish we knew how many we're dealing with. Whoever stole it isn't gonna just give it back if we say pretty please."
I switch to infra red. "I detect five separate heat sources. However, the building is large and there may be more that aren't registering."
"One gun and eight bullets," Sarah Connor states. "This could be tricky."
"I've got an idea. It's pretty wild," John admits. He rumages in the beach bag, removes a towel and stuffs it up my shirt. "You're pregnant," he declares.
"I am?"
"Uh huh. Now listen up. Here's the plan..."
It's a plan alright. It's a complete doozie. And I get to be preggo!
-0-
Sarah Connor and I step out of the Trans Am. John has already left with the pistol, making his way to the rear of the building to round up anyone in back who might be a threat to us.
"Wait. You're supposed to pregnant."
"I am." I point to my shirt bulge.
"You're walking all wrong. Pregnant women walk more like this."
She demonstrates, walking with a slight lean backwards. "See. It throws your centre of gravity off."
I imitate her walk. She nods, satisfied. "Good. That's better."
Who knew there was so much to getting knocked up?
We approach Ramos Motors, pull the metal sliding door open and step inside.
The five men I detected with infra red are all present. They're young latinos. Three are working on a highend Mercedes saloon which is the process of being repainted. Two others are in welding gear bent over a late model BMW. Our Suburban is parked away to the left. No one is working on it.
One of men notices us and says, "Hey. Whatup, sister?"
Sarah Connors says, "I'm looking for Jose."
One of the welders lifts his protective mask. "I'm Jose. Who are you?"
"Who am I? I'll tell you who I am. I'm the mother of the girl you knocked up, that's who."
That's my cue to begin crying. "Oh Jose!" I wail. "I'm so sorry. She forced it out of me! Please don't hate me!"
"I knocked who up?" Jose says, shaking his head. The other men are grinning, enjoying his plight.
"You SOB! That's my daughter you're talking about."
"I've never seen either of you before in my life!"
I weep some more. "You told me you loved me, Jose! That we'd be together for ever! Don't you remember?"
"What the hell is going on here? I swear I've never seen this girl before in my life!"
I weep and wail, contort my face with grief. Meryl Streep has nothing on me.
A new man emerges from a side office. He's black, not latino, and older than the others. His head is completely bald. "What's going on out here? Why aren't you jerkoffs workin'? That beemer's gotta be in Mexico by the tenth."
One of the the other men says, "It's Jose, boss. He's knocked up some whitebread bitch and now her mom wants payback."
"Don't you call my daughter a bitch!" Sarah Connor scolds.
"Marvin, man, I swear on all that's holy I ain't never seen this girl before in my life!"
"Oh Jose! You promised you'd love me always!"
"You crazy, girl! What the hell's wrong with you?"
"I think we know what's wrong with her, man!" One of the other men grins. "She having your kid, bro!"
The others laugh. Jose's face goes red. "This is a joke, right? You guys are setting me up! Ha ha. Very funny."
"It's no joke, Jose. And you're marrying my daughter. The registery office is booked for Saturday."
"WHAT?"
Everyone is engrossed in the spectacle, like it's a soap opera being enacted for their amusement. None of the men are working and fail to spot John as he sneaks past the vehicles until he presses a gun against Marvin's bald head and says, "Not nice you boys laughing. Everyone on the floor. Now!"
The men reluctantly comply. We truss them hand and foot with the last of the plastic cuffs. Marvin says menacingly, "If this is a shakedown, kid, you're making a big mistake."
"You're the one made the mistake. That Suburban? It's ours. We want it back."
"Don't know what you're talking about. This is a legitimate business."
"The hell it is. One of your boys stole it from a lot in Long Beach. It's lojacked. We followed it all the way here."
"Dammit, Miquel! How many times I tell you - always check for tails."
Jose says, "Wait a second. So the girl's not really pregnant?"
"Nope. Show him."
I remove the towel from under my shirt. Jose's smile is broad with relief. "Oh gracias Jesucristo!"
"Hey, you could do a lot worse," John tells him. He's so loyal!
Marvin says, "What's here stays here. You're shit out of luck, kid. You want the Suburban back you better shoot us. And I don't think you got the cojones."
"You'd be surprised what I've got. I'll make you a trade, Marvin. You say you're a businessman so this should be right up your street."
"What kinda trade?"
"Outside is a shiny black Trans Am. Consider it part exchange for the Suburban. It's a better deal than you deserve."
"Trans Am, huh? What year?"
"Oh-eight. Maybe oh-nine."
"Stick shift?"
"Five on the floor. Plus alloy rims and a Sony sound system. It's a sweet ride. So, we cool, Marvin?"
"Trans Am for a freaking mom mobile? Sure, we cool. You can untie us now."
"You really think I'm that stupid?"
"Worth a shot."
-0-
On the drive home, John congratulates us on our performance.
"Really great job, guys. Academy award stuff. You almost had me believing it. One thing, though - how'd you know there was a guy named Jose in there?"
"I didn't," Sarah Connor smirks. "When I saw they were all latinos I took a guess. It's a pretty common name."
"Good call."
"I enjoyed being pregnant," I announce.
"Oh yeah? Try saying that when your ankles swell up and you lose control of your bladder."
"You looked cute with a belly."John grins. "What would you name the baby?"
"Metal Abomination," Sarah Connor sneers.
Metal Abomination? That's a terrible name for a child. Imagine the teasing at school.
-0-
Cameron Baum gave birth to a beautiful baby towel. Mother and towel are doing fine. No word on a name yet though my money's on Polly Esther.
"Why do they beat panels? Because they're naughty?"
Makes sense to me. Ba-aa-ad panel.
Poor Jose! He'll have nightmares about that.