Round Robin:
Hostages
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Chapter One
By Nicki Knight
==========
Perfect Tommy should of known as soon as he stepped down stairs and
everyone else had vanished.
Except, of course, Peggy Banzai and Mrs. Johnson., both of which were
armed with their shopping tennis shoes and purses.
The two women grabbed poor Perfect Tommy before he could make a run
for it.
"Just who we've been waiting for." Peggy greeted, wrapping an arm
securely through
"In other words, too stupid to see it coming?" PT groaned.
Mrs. Johnson stood on her tippy toes to kiss his cheek. "I thought
you'd be the one guy who'd like shopping."
"For me, maybe." The Cavalier shook his head. "Standing around a
woman boutique while girls run about, squealing, and trying on
dresses and under-stuffs and..." He paused, an eyebrow raised. "Um...
hmm.... who am I to turn down my two favorite girls?"
Peggy smiled up at him. "Which is why you get to wait in the car
until we need help caring our stuff out." Ignoring his groan, she
began to tug him to the door. "Don't you worry none. We made sure
you'll have company."
"Yea." Mrs J. giggled. "We already hog tied Slow Motion and tossed
him into the back of the hummer."
-----
"Bank?" complained the little street thug. "Who ever said anything
about a bank?"
"You wanna be mugging penny pinching tourist all your life?" snapped
the leader of the gang of eight young hoodlums. "This one little job
could set us for life! An' no one's gonna mess with us after we go
an' take down a bank. I mean, man!, everyone's gonna know that we're
a bunch of bad asses! Ain't no one gonna get in our way!"
"We gotta take down the bank first." pointed out another.
"An' get away." added another. "You wouldn't believe how fast those
fat cops will move when there's all that money on the line!"
The leader grinned. "Yea? You'll surprised how fast they do what
they're told when you got some pretty, rich, money depositin' white
girl held up in front of you." When none of his friends raised any
further protests, he nodded. "Let's get this done then."
-----
"Bank?" Perfect Tommy complained. "Who said anything about a bank?"
He glared at Slow Motion just in case he had been given more
information than he himself had.
Slow Motion just closed his eyes and sighed. But they shot open again
when Mrs Johnson grabbed his arm.
"So, you're coming with me." she told him.
"Why me?" Slow Motion wanted to know. Whatever the reason, he wanted
to make sure he didn't do it again when it came to shoe store.
"You don't complain as much." was the answer.
"I can start." he offered, but was already being dragged into toward
the bank.
"You women are cruel." Perfect Tommy accused as he settled back in
the driver's seat of the hummer, watching his friend being dragged
off to the long line of boredom at the bank.
Peggy leaned against his arm and hung her bare feet out the passenger
side window. "yea." she admitted. "And that's why you men love us
sooooo much."
Perfect Tommy's response was to wrap an arm around her and pretend to
choke the life out of her.
-----
Slow Motion's eyes narrowed as soon as he spotted the young men
wandering about the bank. He was trained to spot oddities in a scene,
look out for possible trouble, know it when he saw it.
Six rough looking young men stood in weird places around the bank.
Most had eyes darting about nervously. A couple were just way too
still, not looking at anyone nor anything. They obviously weren't up
to any legitiment business.
Slow glanced about for the security guards. There were two. One was
in the back, in the vault with the security boxes. The other was
leaning over a desk, flirting with the lady bank manager.
"Hey, Mrs. J, what do you say we use the ATM?" Slow suggested.
"We're almost to the front of the line. Be patient." she waved him
away.
Two more rough looking men stepped in through the front doors,
stopped, and eyed the room. The other six straightened up.
"You armed?" Slow whispered.
Mrs. Johnson glanced back at his sharply. She frowned. "Yea." she
whispered back. "Trouble?" Her eyes darted about. It took her only a
moment to spot the men. "Aw, gee, the one day I get to go out and
play..."
"Don't draw your weapon." Slow Motion warned. "Just let them get what
they came for and get out."
"Shouldn't we stop them?"
"Don't want to start a gun fight in the middle of all these
civilians." Slow pointed out.
"What if they start it?" Mrs. J wanted to know.
Slow Motion sighed. "Then we do what we gotta do to save lives."
One of the new comers whipped about his long coat, pulling a sawed
off shotgun from the folds. "Alrighty, ladies and germs!" he shouted,
drawing everyone's attention. "Richi Rich is here to make a withdraw!"
The other seven followed suit, drawing some form of gun.
The flirting security guard spun about, reaching for his gun.
The speaker spun on him, firing the shotgun directly at his chest,
killing him.
Women screamed, men cursed and yelled, Slow Motion and Mrs. Johnson
both started forward.
One of the gunmen stepped forward. "Everyone on the floor! Move
it, 'fore you all get a little lead poisoning."
"How poetic." Mrs J grumbled, drawing the aim of the two closest bad
guys.
"Hey, guys!" Perfect Tommy hit the front doors so hard they swung in
smashing into the two bad guys still standing in front of them.
Quickly leaping over them, he kicked their weapons out of reach,
before spinning about to find some new target.
"Perfect Tommy!" Slow yelled a warning, taking a running step forward.
Mrs Johnson drew her gun.
All three Cavaliers skidded to a halt as each came face to face with
two gunmen and their weapons.
"Ah..." Perfect Tommy smiled at the hoods, noting the nervous
twitches of trigger fingers. "So, Slow.... You gonna be much longer?
I was thinkin' of runnin' 'cross the street for a _mocha."
Slow Motion sighed. "Yea, Tommy. Yea, I think we're gonna be another
couple of minutes."
-----
"Oh, deuces." Peggy hissed, seeing it all from her point of view in
the hummer. She jerked her hand against the handcuff Perfect Tommy
had used to make sure she didn't follow.
He had slapped it on almost before the sound of the shot gun blast
had completely registered. Told her to stay put, call Rawhide, and
keep her head down. Then he walked in to the bank with that damn,
prefect smile of his...
And he hadn't come out yet.
Damn, when she gets loose she was gonna have to kill...
Another gun shot sounded from inside the bank.
"Oh, god." she gasped, before grabbing her go-phone and calling for
help.
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Chapter 2
By Regalo3000
-----
Mrs. Johnson's gun was slowly taken from her hands by one of
the hoodlums. "Ladies shouldn't carry guns," said the hood,
smiling behind his nylon stocking mask.
The leader of the gang of hoodlums had fired into the ceiling of
the bank as a warning. Debris rained down. All eight of the bank
robbers wore stockings over their heads and they did look
terrifying what with their flattened faces, angry expressions and
anxious movements. The leader was shouting now, "All right.
Maybe you all didn't hear us the first time. Down on the floor!"
Perfect Tommy and Slow Motion relented, lying down on the
marble floor. The two hoods that had been knocked down when
Tommy had come flying into the bank were back on their feet,
guns in their hands, ready to rock and roll. "Hey, guys, it's Perfect
Tommy, you know, of the Hong Kong Cavaliers," said one of the
robbers.
"We came here to rob a bank," said the leader, "not get
autographs. By now, there's a hundred squad cars heading in
our direction, so let's make this fast! Remember the plan! Find
the manager! Get the jewels!"
One of the hoods, holding an empty canvas bag, was lifted
above the plexi-glass enclosure by another hood. He lept over
and landed on the other side. "Where's the manager?" he asked.
"I'm the manager," said a clean-shaven man in a grey suit who
looked nervous.
"Take me to the safe!" said the hood.
"These guys must have guns," one of the hoods was saying,
pointing at Perfect Tommy and the Indian on the floor.
"What?" said the leader.
"The Banzai People," said the hood, "they always carry guns."
"Search 'em," said the leader.
"What's going on?" asked the hood behind the plexi-glass.
"Never you mind!" orded the leader. "Just get the jewels!"
"We don't have any jewels," said the manager.
"What do you mean you ain't got no jewels?" asked the jumper.
"All we have is cash," said the manager.
"You're lying!" screamed the jumper.
"No, sir, I'm not!"
"He says he ain't got no jewels!" the jumper said to the leader.
"Time's up!" one of the hoods yelled who had been timing the
entire raid until now.
"We wasted too much time, let's go!" screamed the leader.
"Abort! Abort!"
"Wait for me!" yelled the jumper, leaping onto a counter and
hefting himself over the plexi-glass, but, when he landed on the
other side there was a loud pop! He screamed, his ankle had
snapped making the sound of a large twig broken in half.
"Leave him," said the leader.
"We can't leave him," said another hood, "he can identify us!"
The leader up and shot the jumper in the chest. "Now he can't!"
he said and they all began backing towards the door.
"Come out with your arms up! This is the police!" The warning
had come from outside the bank.
"Aw, crap, there's cops out there!" said a hood who was looking
out the window.
"Gimme your guns," one of the hoods was yelling at Slow Motion
and Perfect Tommy. "I said gimme your guns." The two handed
over their weapons, sliding them across the marble floor.
"There they are," said Slow.
"All Christmas-wrapped," said Tommy.
"No funny stuff," said the hood standing over PT and Slow
Motion, "I know you guys like being heroes."
The seven hoods pulled the civilians closer to the plexi-glass
enclosure. "Blow the lock on this door!" said the leader to one of
his hoods, who used a shotgun to pulverize the lock on the door
leading to the cash registers.
"You two!" said the leader to PT and Slow. "Come here!" The two
men rose and did as they were told, cooperating and heading for
the enclosure. Now it was a stand off between the police and the
hostage-takers. The robbers hunkered down behind the
plexi-glass with their hostages.
"What now?" said one of the hoods to the leader.
"We die," said the leader. "They're not going to take us alive!"
"That wasn't the deal," said the hood.
"It is now," said the leader, pulling off his nylon stocking
revealing his face, rising, and firing into the windows. Glass
exploded and rained down, littering the floor inside the bank and
the sidewalk outside.
"You said this was gonna be easy! You lied!" screamed one of
the hoods.
"I didn't lie," said the leader, smiling. "I just didn't know what I
was doing!" he then laughed crazily.
_______
"Yes!" said Peggy into her go-phone. She was still handcuffed to
the stearing wheel of the hummer. "I think they mean business!"
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