Chapter 81

Though it had been planned the night before, this robbery was still a last minute decision. John and the men felt sloppy and reckless, entering the bank and generally running amok. It was hard to keep the hostages in one place and everyone seemed to be shouting out different orders. John had demanded one of the employees to open two safes. He released one but claimed he didn't have the information to open the second. John had thought the man was fooling with him as the first safe had only a few hundred dollars. Was he protecting the one with the most value?

Homer and Pete and the rest of the guys herding the hostages began to put them to work on opening the registers. That hadn't been part of the plan either.

John didn't have the time to be doing so, but he watched and encouraged the man to try different combinations to open the other safe. Even being threatened at gunpoint did not deter the man's lies, or perhaps he wasn't lying at all and really did not know the combination. With few men to watch over the hostages as they rummaged through cash registers, money began to reappear and disappear, the men quickly losing control over the robbery.

"Company!" one of the guys who had seen vehicles lingering outside shouted. It was a general alert. It didn't mean that there were coppers or g-men out there, it just meant they were drawing attention.

It was John who stopped them all, ordering his men to cease what they were doing, secure the money they had and drag the hostages outside before the new arrivals had a chance to get the upper hand over the gang.

John covered himself with two people- a man and a woman. He held the women in font of him and kept the man at his side. When he exited the building the things that were waiting for him he had not been anticipating. The horror came so suddenly he felt like he'd been shot, slapped, or left alone in a pool inhabited by sharks. The grim reaper was waiting and he'd brought his friends and armed them like they were going in to war.

"That's him! It's Dillinger!"

"Keep your guns on him!"

"Let them go, we've got you surrounded!"

Amid the chaos John felt as though his senses were heightened. The screaming voices seemed far away and he could hear himself breathing- inhaling and exhaling with a wheeze. He could hear his heart beat as if a microphone were attached to it- thud thud. Thud thud.

John was too greatly distracted by all the vehicles and weapons pointed at him to properly find Red. He couldn't tell if these were g-men or police, or maybe a large combination of both. How did they know? How had they gotten there so fast? He really didn't have time to wonder. He had to think of one thing and one thing only- survival.

He moved. John took a few steps in the direction where he thought the getaway would be, still keeping the man and woman tight against himself. She was crying and yelping, the man almost numb. This movement seemed to excite another round of chaos.

"Stop walking or we will shoot!"

"Not another step! Gentlemen, weapons ready!"

"I repeat: we will shoot!"

With no other reasonable idea coming to mind, John then began to run. He didn't get past one stride before a shot rang out and the woman screeched so loud she echoed above the mayhem. So they hadn't been joking. They were going to shoot, regardless of his hostages, and since that appeared to be the case John released his hold on them, throwing the woman to the ground. It wasn't his intention to hurt her and even if he had pushed her roughly it was to get her out of the way of the bullets that were aimed at himself. She continued to scream and sob, her hands of her head, and John slithered away.

Once he was on his own it was a guns-blazing free-for-all.

Bullets hit everything and flew everywhere.

John seemed to be heading for the cover of a car, men running and shooting to keep up with him.

Billie hadn't really heard Mairy or Jane calling after her. The second she put herself in the middle of the mayhem her senses seemed altered as well. She knew other people were yelling, shots were being fired by the second, but all she really heard was the panic of her own breathing and she was focused on was John's fedora. She had to get to him. She had to run- faster!

It was like a dream where one couldn't outrun a monster no matter the circumstances. Though she was running so hard her legs were straining it seemed like it took her an eternity to catch up to the chaos. The appearance of a young woman wearing a fur coat running for her life was a big abnormality, but what was more strange was that she was running right into danger.

"Ma'ma! Stay back!"

"Stop running!"

They assumed that she could possibly be attempting a distraction from Dillinger and so there was no order to cease fire.

"Keep your weapons on him!"

"Stop her!"

Billie cried, "John!" and sidestepped an officer heading her way. "Johnnie!"

She was catching up but John was fast. He looked to be heading toward a car, likely wanting to hide behind it, but as Billie was running toward him so were an army of officers. They were closing in on him and Billie vowed with her whole life that she would get to John before the g-men.

What happened next seemed to alter the science of time, the actions happing in an endless second with acute clarity. It appeared as though Billie and an officer reached John at the same time- his gun pointed directly at John's skull.

"Johnnie!"

He pulled the trigger, there was a defining boom, and Billie threw herself forward.

John could barely comprehend how and why he heard Billie's voice so clearly. It took him a moment to realize that it was because she was there. She had appeared out of nowhere, lying above him like a guardian angel. "Billie?"

Their bodies were being moved- pushed. John found that he was being hoisted upward and was no longer in control of his limbs, that someone had his arms bound behind him. It was the first sensation of being caught, but the real horror was playing out before him. Billie was on the ground where he had just been, clutching her upper arm. Her eyes looked frenzied but clear. Slowly she took her eyes away from Johns and glanced at her arm, releasing her other hand. That area of her fur coat was covered with blood, the red liquid also seeping down her hand.

"Billie!"

John began screaming her name. For a moment Billie appeared to be stunned, looking at her own blood and questioning its existence, wondering if it were just a figment of her imagination.

"BILLIE!"

John's wail became lost in the air, the officers handcuffing him and rejoicing in their capture. John Dillinger had finally been caught, and there was only one thing left for him. Death.

TO BE CONTINUED…