The night is young, yet, the sun only just having set. The city fairly glows with the promise of the night, shutters and curtains only half-closed, spilling illumination across what should be dark alleys and shadowed doorways.
Through one of these shadowed doorways, in what is already a dark alley, there is a room. In this room, a man in an immaculate suit sits at the head of a long, rectangular table, smoking a cigar, and on occasion sipping from a glass of what looks like bourbon. The table has many seats, but is empty -- no tablecloth, and only a scattering of empty glasses and the open gin bottle resting upon it.
This man is waiting for people to arrive, as they will all inevitably be shown in by one of the nearly faceless, silent bodyguards that seem to blend into the furniture and walls when he doesn't address them.
He is a tall, thin man, with his hair going gray at the temples. His face is creased with lines from scowling, and he looks like he's missed a few days worth of shaving, by the rough-appearing stubble across his cheeks.
Currently, he is awaiting the reply to the letters his boss sent out, seeking recruits for his plan.
Ivan enters the room holding his fedora in his hands, his head turning to and fro, taking it all in. He stops for a moment, nodding to Mr. Rockmoore's representative in a show of respect and murmuring, "Good evening," before proceeding to the table. Once he's been shown to his seat by one of the bodyguards, he thanks the silent man, who leaves the room. Sitting quietly, his hat placed on the table in front of him, Ivan alternates between studying it and glancing at the scowling man at the head of the table.
Ralph is shown in by one of the guards, in the process of removing his jacket and draping it over his arm. Taking one of the chairs, he settles in with a grunt, glancing between the room's two other obvious occupants.
Lumbering in, the other occupants of the room may be treated to a sight - a huge mass of a man, clad in the suit of the time and a leather cap that looks more beaten than F. Scott Fiztgerald's wife comes in and plops down hard on one of the chairs. It's perhaps a honest to God miracle from his sainted ma that it didn't break under his girth, which has easily got to be be over 200 points on his 6+ foot tall frame.
Sweat glistens on his bald, pale head, the slightest hint of dark whiskers on his round chin. His face has a greedy scowl to it, as if he's imagining his next score, woman or juicy steak. Considering his bulk and his lack of obvious intelligence, it's probably the latter. Looking around the room, he settles in and keeps his red eyed gaze on the main man.
Brett is manhandled into the room by two of the thugs. They have all of his concealed weapons - apparently the man in charge isn't taking chances with a sneak. Forced into a chair, he becomes acutely aware of his lateness and twitches nervously. Brett briefly scans the faces around him and then begins studying the man at the head of the table, making sure that his own hands are neatly and visibly on the table to prevent a hasty thug from punching his lights out.
In a dry, gravely voice, the man says, "Most of you are here." He pauses, taking a sip of his gin. "Make yourselves comfortable. Cigar? Gin?" He looks around the table, waiting to see if anyone is interested.
Brett has had a policy about drinking on the job ever since he drunkenly attempted a spontaneous theft and was consequently beaten half to death. He replies, "No, thanks," trying to sound confident and professional. He politely keep his eyes on the man for a moment, and then glances around the room casually, taking note of everyone and everything he can see. Despite his airy demeanor, he is quite aware that smooth talking will not help him with this man, and certainly none of his other skills will be of any use, weaponless as he is. Given that his options are extremely limited, he decides to adopt a passive approach and remain as unremarkable as possible.
"Nah, gives me the shakes," Ralph replies. "Can't afford that in my line of work."
Settling back into his seat, he waits to see how the others react - the big man is almost a sure bet for one or the other, and the first... not too likely, but he could be wrong on that one.
"Gin, please," Ivan answers, as he hasn't had anything serious to drink for over a week.
"Yeah, gin," he grunts, meaty hand clenching sligthly on impulse.
Two glasses of gin are poured, and slid across the table. "One more," the man repeats, taking a long draw from his cigar.
Gripping the shot glass and gunning the clear liquid down lickety split, Gus lets out a giant sigh as a path is burned down his throat.
"Hope that big lug gets his ass in here...ain't got no time to be sittin' here..." he mutters to himself.
As Gus finishes speaking, a burly looking bruiser with a sturdy looking coat and slouch hat opens an interior door, and steps into the room. Approaching the man at the head of the table, he begins whispering something.
The man grunts, and nods in reply to the bruiser for a few minutes, and then growls low in his throat. The bruiser scurries back into the interior of the building, shutting the door behind him.
"We're done, then," the man at the head of the tables says, grimacing. "Our ... other has been unfortunately ... detained." The man's grimace widens into a cruel smile. "But I don't think the police would send in two moles, so we should be ready.... Are we?" Snorting, the man tosses back the rest of his gin, filling another glass before he continues.
"Now. You are all probably wondering why you've been called here today ... but I'm sure you've got a good idea of why you're here. We have a job, men. A job that I expect to be quite ... profitable.
"Harvey has established a very powerful plan, which is very complex, and involves numerous people in specific teams. That's really all you need to know about that ... you've been ... offered a rather lucrative deal. Think on if you need too, but not long.
"Long story short," the man continues, slamming back another gin, and then turning his attention to his cigar. "We're gonna bust a bank. You drop all the money at a warehouse. You're given a clean ride, an alibi, and directions to a town a hundred miles south of here. If you help us out, each of you will be paid 10,000$ for your assistance."
The man leans back in his seat, and puffs at his cigar, looking over everyone at the table for a moment. "Questions?" he prompts, tracing a large, smokey question mark in the air with the cigar.
Ivan drinks the gin slowly, listening to the other man speak. When the speaker is done, he nods at him. "Yes, I have two, if I may," he says, placing his half-empty glass back on the table. "While I have full trust in Mr. Rockmoore's plan, we do need to know the date and time of this operation. And it would not hurt to know about each other's... talents... if we're going to be working together on this one."
"The timing is largely going to be up to you," the man says, shrugging. "Now, I have selected a window of time I believe would be most ideal ... but you must understand, the heist needs to be done in the evening. That is when the most money is in the bank, after all ... ideally, at about 4:30, maybe 4:45. We'll leave the timing for you...." Coughing, the man stubs his cigar out, and taps a fingernail on the table.
"It would, as you suggest, benefit you all to learn who you'll be working with on this." He smiles at that, and eyes everyone in turn before leaning back in his chair.
Ivan nods again at the other man's words. "And since I've asked this, it would be polite to go first. My name is Ivan Raschenko," he addresses his future companions, "and I work as an accountant at the bank." He gives a little smile. "I would like to think that I know a little about the layout of the place, and about the personnel working there and their habits."
He pauses briefly, musing over his next words. "I am not familiar with the details of the security system the bank uses to protect the safe and how to deactivate it, I'm afraid, but I'm assuming one of you gentlemen can take care of that end?" Having said that, Ivan glances at the other three men expectantly.
"Gus O'dell," the big guy says, voice low. "I'm in," he states simply. "Just the muscle," he says, taking off his flat cap and wiping his dome with a handkerchief.
The man at the head of the table nods, and then surveys the others at the table, raising an eyebrow expectantly, but saying nothing.
"Ralph Jergensen," the lanky, pale young man replied. "You need a safe or a vault opened, I'm your man. Ain't met a safe yet that I couldn't crack," he boasts.
With a gesture towards himself, Brett introduces himself as "Brett Anthem, petty thief." Good-naturedly, he continues, "I presume there'll be some role even I can fulfill in the plan that's been prepared." Brett tries to emphasize "plan," hoping that the man will be a little more free with the details. He didn't want to come off demanding information and sounding like a mole, but obviously the plan would have to be shared sooner or later.
"What plan?" the man at the head of the table asks, smirking. "That's up to you. I'll give you any information you need on the bank, and Ivan, as has been mentioned before has worked there." The man pours himself another glass of gin, but doesn't drink right away. "You'll notice, I'm sure, that the rumor mill being what it is ... people already suspect that something is happening. Best not to leave any REAL meat for them to chew on.
"Now, on to business, men. What do you need to know?"
"Two questions. One, since you want this done in the afternoon, are you planning for this to be a robbery? Info I'd gotten made it sound more like this was going to be more stealthy-like. I can do the job either way, just need to know whether I'm going for quick and dirty or smooth."
Ralph settles back in his chair. "And the other question is payment. You say to drop the loot off, but when and where do we pick up OUR pay for this?"
"When you drop off the dirty money, we'll have laundered money waiting for you," he assures. "As to why it needs to be in the afternoon.... Each afternoon, at around five o'clock, as the bank is closing, four police cars and an armored van show up to take the day's deposits to the national bank. The van is too obvious a target, and too well defended ... so we'd like to get in and take the day's deposits before they ship it all out. If you can find a sneaky way to do this, then by all means...." The man shrugs, and takes a small sip of his gin.
"We could wait in the bank until it is time," Ivan suggests. "There are places inside where a few people could easily remain hidden for several hours. And we could set off a decoy to distract the guards to make sure that you can work on the safe without interruptions. Maybe even a holdup elsewhere to tie up the police manpower?" he muses, drinking some gin. "Some of us could pretend to be holding customers or clerks at a shop located far enough from the bank hostage, and make some foolish demands to the police to keep up wasting time negotiating. Once we're done, that group could say they're releasing several hostages and simply walk out. By the time the cops notice something's wrong, we'd all be long gone."
Ivan shrugs then. "And if you don't want to split up our resources, a simple fire might do the trick just as well."
Ralph thinks for a few moments, a look of concentration on his face. "Problem with splitting up is that I don't know how long it'll take me to crack the vault. You got any details on what kind of locks it uses?"
Ivan frowns, and then reaches into his pocket and takes out a small notebook. "I know a little bit about the vault," he says, while he leafs through it, until he nods to himself. "The combination has four numbers, from what I managed to discern, and I know two of them. The first two," he clarifies a moment later. "However, the safe also requires a key to open, and said key would be with the owner of the bank at all times."
Ivan checks his notebook again. "There is a rumor that his secretary also keeps a copy, for various emergencies, but I haven't been able to confirm it." He shrugs apologetically. "My information about the layout of the bank and the working schedules of the employees is based on first hand observations, I assure you."
Ralph takes a moment to consider, nodding a bit. "What about the vault - where's it inside the bank? Quick things I'm looking for are this: Is the vault against an outside wall, and is the main vault door visible to a lot of people?"
The man nods, and slides a piece of paper onto the table, where everyone can see it. "This," he says, stabbing at an indistinguishable squiggle (A), "is where the tellers are."
Moving his finger past the tellers, to the area near what resembles a bank vault door (B), he says, "This is the vault door ... there's usually two armed bank guards there." His finger then slides to the large area without any details on the left half of the map (C). "This we believe is offices ... where the owner would be. His secretary is behind these doors," he continues, tracing his finger back near the tellers (D). "Perhaps you could shed a bit more light on it?" He smiles, and looks to Ivan, raising an eyebrow.
"Certainly," Ivan agrees. After studying the map quickly, he points at the large area to the left of the vault. "I work here," he says, "and the pair of guards standing near the vault's door I have to pass to get to my desk are the only ones I've noticed there. If we continue to go around the vault until we almost come full circle, as you've shown on this map, we'll arrive at the offices of the owner and his secretary, which are next to each other."
Seeing that no one else is laying out anything specific yet, Ralph nods once. "Okay. I'm open to alternatives, but I'm all for the quick and quiet style - we get in and out fast and clean, with as few people as possible who realize what's going on. Try not to trip alarms, don't let folks see you, that kind of thing."
He stabs a finger down on the map. "I'm guessin' this is a doorway from the offices into the vault area, right? If we can come in from this direction - after gettin' the key off the owner - we might be able to take out the guards without the tellers even noticing. From there I crack the vault, we grab the loot, and everyone's happy. Ain't saying it'll go that perfectly, but that's the sort of thing I'd shoot for."
"You'd have to pass the guards on the way to either the offices or the owner, though," Ivan says thoughtfully. "If you want to knock them out after getting the key, they're bound to see your face as you go in, which would clash with the entire stealthy concept. It might work, if you enter the bank much earlier, pass the guards and hide inside until it's time." He consults his notes again. "Garbage pickup is around noon, so perhaps if you took their place or pretended to be with them...?"
His brows furrow suddenly, and Ivan looks at his watch. "To be perfectly honest, it's getting rather late. Perhaps we can meet tomorrow at my apartment and discuss this further then, with fresh insight?" he asks his fellow would-be robbers. "If that's alright, that is?" Ivan then adds, looking at the man at the head of the table.