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  “What’s the matter?” asked Eager.

  Granny Kicker didn’t answer. He grabbed for his gun, pumped another round into the chamber, leveled it at his comrades and slowly backed away.

  “There are five of us,” he said.

  “Don’t be stupid. There’s four... Shit!”

  All five masked men backed away as one, tensing, leveling their guns at each other, heads and guns jerking left and right as they turned from face to face. They were all dressed identically, all clutching identical weapons.

  Brenda swallowed hard. How was Brian going to talk his way out of this one?

  “How can there be five of us!” said Eager. “No one’s come in or out since we got here. The door’s locked.” He sounded agitated. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his left hand sliding along the barrel of his shotgun. Was he going to shoot?

  One of the gang raised a hand. “Sorry, Jimmy. But I had to come along.”

  “Mom?”

  “It’s your first bank heist, son. I couldn’t sit at home and worry. I had to come and help.”

  “But ... but....” Jimmy, aka Granny Kicker, was speechless – about as speechless as any son would be upon finding his mother had accompanied him to his first bank heist. “How did you get here? How did you know?”

  “A mother knows these things, Jimmy. You put your favorite ski mask in the wash. And I heard you talking to Mikey.”

  “Mom! Don’t use our real names!” hissed Jimmy, then paused. “Not that my name’s Jimmy.”

  “No, and I’m not Mikey,” said Eager. “I’m ... Sebastian. Or I would be. If my name was Sebastian, which it’s not. Either.”

  Mikey, having dug a hole large enough for two people – neither of them called Mikey – wisely decided to stop digging and played with his gun instead – pointing it, gangsta style, at the hostages and mimicked firing it.

  Brenda had to look away. Her body was shaking with silent laughter. She had to cover her mouth with a hand. You put your favorite ski mask in the wash. Brian had excelled himself.

  ‘And now, Brenda, it’s your turn.’

  Brenda’s smile morphed into wide-eyed shock.

  ‘What? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘What I told you. Work on the hostages. They’re ready. The gang’s hold over them is waiting to be broken. Once that’s gone everything changes.’

  Brenda closed her eyes. What the hell was she going to do?

  The phone rang.

  Jimmy and the gang looked at each other.

  “You’ve got to answer it, son,” said Brian. “They might have the car ready.”

  Jimmy wasn’t convinced. He stared at the phone, but made no move towards it.

  With the gang’s attention focussed on the phone, Brenda took the opportunity to slide forward, reaching out with her hands and pulling herself alongside the hostage in front of her.

  “I think we’re on TV,” she whispered. “You know, one of those spoof reality shows.”

  “Really?” the woman whispered back.

  “Yes. I recognize one of their voices. He’s an actor.”

  “I thought so!” hissed the hostage on Brenda’s other side. “It’s been way too weird – first that Indian guy, then the mother.”

  “Shut up!” shouted Jimmy.

  The hostages shut up. The phone continued ringing.

  “You’ve got to answer it,” said Mikey.

  Jimmy looked torn. He took two steps towards the phone, turned away, swung back, shook his head. Then ran forward and snatched up the phone. “What?” he shouted.

  Sanjay’s voice crackled over the phone’s loudspeaker. “What is going on? I am hearing report of gunshot. Is anyone hurt?”

  Brenda slithered forward again, squeezing between two surprised hostages. “We’re on a reality TV show,” she half whispered, half mouthed to them. “It’s all a spoof. Tell the others.”

  “It was a warning shot,” said Jimmy. “The next one’s for real.”

  “Sorry. Repeat please, you are breaking up. Who have you shot?”

  “I haven’t shot anyone!”

  The loud speaker hissed and crackled. “I am not hearing very well. My ears are full of crackling. Are you hearing this, Radhesh? I think he has shot Mr. Warning.”

  “You are right, Sanjay. And now he is threatening to shoot an eel.”

  “An eel?” asked Sanjay.

  “That is what I am hearing. He say next one’s an eel.”

  One of the hostages stifled a giggle into a cough. Others nudged the person next to them. “It’s a hoax. We’re on TV. Pass it on.”

  Jimmy was shouting down the phone, enunciating each word. “No one has been shot!”

  The phone crackled some more before Sanjay replied. “How many eels are you holding hostage?”

  “I didn’t say eel. I said FOR REAL!”

  “You are holding four eels?”

  “He is very, very sick man, Sanjay.”

  Jimmy slammed the phone down, angry and confused. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Several of the hostages were laughing. Jimmy turned on them.

  “You think this is funny?”

  He ran at them, incandescent with rage. The laughing stopped, but not the whispering.

  “Shut up!” he screamed. “The next person who makes a noise will be shot.”

  The whispering stopped. Brenda waited. This was either the moment she did something very, very clever or very, very stupid.

  “Me! Me!” she shouted, waving her hand high over her head. “I’ll do it. Shoot me! I don’t mind.”

  A large black woman three bodies over was the first to react. “No, choose me! I volunteer. I demand to be shot.”

  “No, me! I’m prettier!” said a blonde-haired teen.

  Within seconds all the hostages were either sat or standing, some were shouting, most had their hands raised, several were jumping up and down.

  And some were arguing.

  I volunteered first! No, you didn’t! Yes, I did! You’re too fat to be on TV! Who you callin’ fat, you dumb bitch? Don’t you call me a dumb bitch, you....”

  Only Jerry Springer was missing. And, knowing Brian, there was still time.

  Jimmy just stood there, too confused to do anything other than point his gun from one hostage to another. The rest of the gang were equally perplexed. They ran forward to join Jimmy. “What’s going on?” said one. “What’s happening?”

  Jimmy didn’t answer. No one did. A tussle had broken out amongst the hostages. There was hair pulling and a bout of purse slapping.

  “You’ve got to do something, Jimmy,” said Brian, still in the guise of Jimmy’s mother. “Get their attention and show them you’re in control.”

  And, with those words, Brian stepped back.

  “Shut up!” Jimmy shouted at the hostages at the top of his voice. “Sit down!”

  And then he fired his gun.

  At the ceiling, directly above his head.

  The hostages stopped arguing and turned to look at Jimmy. A small white cloud drifted down from the ceiling. Brenda narrowed her eyes. Why so little plaster? Why no chunks? It was unlike Brian to miss an opportunity.

  Then she heard the squawk. And saw the dead pigeon. It plummeted from the hole in the ceiling and struck Jimmy on the head, bounced once, somersaulted, then settled there, beak forward and wings spread out like a second pair of ears. Above the scene, and almost in slow motion, a dozen feathers floated leisurely towards the ground.

  Brenda started laughing. Someone on her right began to applaud. Others joined in. It had to be a spoof television show.

  “What the....” shouted Jimmy, crouching down and swatting at his head.

  The pigeon fell to the floor. Jimmy stared at the pigeon. Then at the laughing hostages. Then up at the hole in the ceiling ... in time to see a large lump of plaster fall from above and strike him squarely on the forehead. More laughter, even louder applause.

  Jimmy was not amused, or entirely cohere
nt. “What? What?” he spluttered until Brian tugged at his sleeve.

  “Forget it, Jimmy. I’ve got an idea. Follow me.”

  “What?”

  “Come on,” whispered Brian. “All of you. I know how we can get out of this.”

  Brian’s real voice sounded inside Brenda’s head.

  ‘You know I spoke earlier about you being my second pair of eyes?’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘Well, it’s time to step up. I’ve had to send my eyes elsewhere and I’m walking towards the door next to the teller line blind.’

  Chapter Five

  Brian’s eyes lingered outside the bank. The SWAT team had just arrived. How much longer could he hold the police off? He’d blocked all their attempts to phone the bank. He’d disabled their megaphones. He’d soundproofed the lobby so no one heard the gunshots.

  But from the way the SWAT team was deploying, someone was considering storming the building.

  Which made his current journey all the more important. He had to find a toy store.

  ‘Right a smidge,’ said Brenda. ‘Not that much! Straighten up. Why are you swinging your head from side to side? You look like Stevie Wonder.’

  Brian locked his neck. He’d never been good at multitasking.

  ‘You try walking in a straight line while your eyes are zigzagging across town searching.’

  Somehow he made it through the door into the back office behind the teller line without walking into anything.

  ‘Point me towards Jimmy,’ he asked when he was in position.

  ‘He’s at your seven o’clock.’

  Brian turned and began to whisper, hoping he was talking to the gang and not empty air. “They think they’re on TV,” he said. “On one of those reality spoof shows and we’re a bunch of actors.”

  “Oh, right,” said Mikey, his voice betraying the moment the one cent coin – which was definitely not called Penny – finally dropped. “That explains it.”

  “And we can use that to get out of here,” said Brian. “With all the money. And without the need for a getaway car.”

  “How?”

  “Easy. That crazy bunch’ll volunteer for anything. So we dress five of them up as us and send them out to surrender. Then we walk out – with the money – dressed as hostages. The cops won’t give us a second look and none of the hostages will give us away if we tell them not to. By the time they realize they’ve been had, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “And me.”

  “Wait,” said Jimmy. “We can’t all walk out carrying duffel bags. It’ll look suspicious.”

  “You’re right,” said Brian, injecting just the right amount of dejection into his voice as he guided the conversation to where he wanted it to go. “Wait a minute! Did you see those stuffed bears in that room off the lobby? Some charity event the bank is sponsoring.”

  “No,” said Jimmy. Which was hardly surprising as Brian was still looking for them. He’d found a toy store, but did they have enough bears of the right size?

  “We can pull out the stuffing and fill them with bills. No one’ll think the money’s inside the bears.”

  “Won’t it look kinda odd?” asked Jimmy. “Five people all carrying bears out of a bank?”

  “Not in this town it won’t. Not this week. They’re staging a big charity event for kids. It says so in that room. They’re selling bears all over town.”

  “I think it’ll work, Jimmy,” said Mikey. “And we can keep the bears, too.”

  Now came the problem. He’d sold them his plan, now he had to show them the bears. Which would be difficult – even for a demon. He couldn’t teleport anything without being in physical contact. And inner eyes didn’t count.

  “I’ll keep an eye on the hostages,” he said, thinking quickly. “You four stuff the money in the bears. They’re in the room off the lobby.”

  He thought of waving an arm in the general direction of the room, but decided against it. The chance of accidentally hitting someone in the face was too high. He used a restrained finger instead.

  And then waited, listening for their footsteps.

  ‘Have they all gone?’ he asked Brenda.

  ‘Yes. They’re picking up the bags.’

  ‘Okay. It’s back to you. Stall them. Don’t let anyone in the room off the lobby until I say it’s okay.’

  He didn’t give her time to object. He transformed the fabric of his clothes, hardening them, making them rigid and self-supporting. No one would know they were empty. Unless someone came up close and looked into the ski mask’s empty eye slits.

  Then he was gone, sending his naked body racing along a tunnel he’d created between the bank and his eyes in the toy store.

  He materialized in a storeroom at the back of the shop, his eyes snapping back into his head. He crouched down and listened. He couldn’t hear anyone. And a naked man materializing in a toy store was usually worth a scream or two.

  He clawed at the stack of boxes in front of him, ripping them open and freeing one bear after another until he had the four he needed.

  A last look round. Were four bears going to be enough to take all the money? He couldn’t see anything bigger.

  And then he gathered all the bears together in one large communal bear hug and created a tunnel back to the bank.

  He froze his journey the moment the bank began to take shape. He hovered in mid-materialization, his clothes lay a few meters below him at the base of a shimmering funnel. He nudged the funnel base away from his clothes and through the teller line into the lobby. The funnel moved below him like a slow motion tornado. He had to materialize in the room on the far side of the lobby.

  And it had to be empty.

  o0o

  Brenda’s brain was in danger of overheating – not from overactive little grey cells, but from the friction generated by fleeing ideas. She was on her own. One woman against four armed bank robbers. How was she supposed to stall them?

  To make matters worse the only idea that refused to flee – having hooked a leg around a pole in her brain – involved losing her top.

  “Excuse me,” she said, running over to block their way. “Um ... um....” Her mind went blank – even the pole dancer had fled. She attempted a smile, aiming at winsome and overshooting into crazed beauty contestant territory. She twirled a strand of hair, felt the other hand reach down for the hem of her T-shirt...

  “Get out the way,” said Jimmy, shoving her aside.

  “Wait!” she said. “There’s something you should know about the police.”

  All four robbers stopped and turned. “What?”

  Good question. The words had sprung from her mouth without a clue as to what came next. She opened her mouth hoping another sentence was lurking behind her tonsils. No such luck and she could feel her right hand straying towards the hem of her T-shirt again.

  That’s when she saw it – over the bank robbers’ shoulders and to the right. It was pink. It had bears and ... oh my God!

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mikey.

  Brenda tried not to stare. The door to the room was open. She had a clear view inside. Too clear a view. All that pink wobbly skin and far too many hairy bits.

  She swung back to face Mikey and glazed a smile onto her face. “That money,” she said.

  “What about the money?”

  Another search of the tonsil area and still no sign of a telling sentence.

  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Brian wipe his hand over a poster and transform it into one with a bear on it. Then he turned and gave her a thumbs up sign – at least she hoped it was a thumb.

  Brenda took a lungful of air and launched into the nearest thing she found to a coherent exit strategy. “I was thinking you might want volunteers to help smuggle the money out the bank. I’ve done some acting.”

  o0o

  Brian teleported across the lobby, funneling through the ether and back into his clothes. This time he remembered to de-s
tarch his trousers a microsecond before he fell inside them. He’d almost yelled out in pain the time he’d returned with the pigeon.

  He watched Brenda rejoin the other hostages. She was looking daggers at him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she hissed. ‘Why are you always taking your clothes off?’

  ‘It’s a demon thing. Which I’d love to explain, but I’ve got to leave again. I want to make sure the police are still behaving themselves outside.’

  He cast his inner eye across the lobby and out through the door. The police lines were much the same as before. A few more cars perhaps, but ... where were the SWAT teams? He looked up, down and around, but couldn’t see them. Which was worrying. If they weren’t out front where were they?

  He circled the building twice before he saw them. They were on the roof. They’d found a skylight and were cutting a hole in the glass.

  Shit! Brian dived back into his body. Time to take control of the phone lines again. He patched a call through to the police outside, modulating his voice into a passing impersonation of Jimmy.

  “We surrender. We’re coming out in ten minutes with all the hostages.”

  He cut the line and hoped that would be enough to hold the police back.

  Five minutes later Jimmy and the gang returned clutching four oddly shaped bears who each looked as though they’d gone ten rounds with Pablo Tyson – the impressionist boxer.

  “Now,” said Brian, addressing the hostages. “Who’d like to swap clothes with us and pretend to be bank robbers?”

  A dozen hands shot up. Me! Me! I can do it! I am SO a bank robber!

  Brian raised his hands to quieten them. “Okay, everybody form a line and we’ll come and choose you.”

  “What about our masks?” asked Jimmy. “We can’t take them off.”

  “We’ve got to eventually,” said Brian. “We can’t walk out wearing ski masks. And the five bank robbers we send out have got to look the part.”

  “She’s right, Jimmy,” said Mikey.

  Jimmy agreed – reluctantly – and each member of the gang selected a hostage to swap clothes with. Brian chose Brenda.

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to look like Jimmy’s mother when you take your mask off?” asked Brenda.