Getting Paid for Nothing

“So which plan are we going with?” a gravelly voice whispered.

“I dunno Bruce. Let me think,” a soft voice hissed back.

“Well Tina, let me know when you decide. I’ll just catch a cat nap,” some shuffling could be heard and then what sounded like a large sack of bricks, dropped onto a section of ground nearby.

Tina sighed as she held up her flashlight and examined a few stolen blueprints she had purchased from Greasy Sam. After a few moments, she did indeed hear Bruce’s grating snores. On edge already, she stepped away from him, peered out onto 42nd Street and gazed at their target. Hessen City’s Greater Bank, home to over 40 million dollars in gems, gold and, of course, green bills. But she had to be careful of cash, it could be marked. Better to go for gems and gold, even if it would take longer to hock.

Suddenly a siren blared and lights came on in Hessen City’s Greater Bank. Startled, Tina moved back out of sight as she watched two people crash through both front doors. They started to run down to Broadway Boulevard only to find two cop cars driving towards them. They turned again, but didn’t get much further as they were surrounded by more cop cars.

Tina sighed and shuffled over to Bruce. She kicked him and he fell over with a loud thud.

“What was that for?!” he growled as he pushed himself up.

“Time to go!” Tina said sharply.

“Oh? Where you goin’?” Bruce gazed inquiringly at her as she walked away from their intended heist.

“I feel like Chinese food, how about you?” Tina walked down 42nd Street towards Howard Street, which had a bus stop going to Chinatown.

Following her, Bruce glanced behind him and saw what had happened, “Oh,” he sighed, “Chinese sounds good to me too.”

As they walked along, they heard gunshots behind them. A few moments later, sounds of hard running came up behind them and they heard someone further back shout, “Stop them!”

Someone else closer to them shouted, “Move out of our way!”

As Tina and Bruce turned back, two bodies crashed into them. Tangled limbs and shouted curses, Tina and Bruce struggled to get free. Cops surrounded them and pulled everyone apart.

Two cops lightly held each of their arms as four other cops handcuffed both bank robbers.

One cop turned to Tina and Bruce, “You’ll need to come with us to Cop Central.”

Tina scowled, “Why?

Bruce started to sweat, “We didn’t do nothing wrong!”

“Of course you didn’t. But I’d expect you’d want your reward,” he smiled and motioned to both cops to let them go. Letting go of their arms, both cops started walking back to their cars.

“Reward?!” Tina was stunned and turned to Bruce, who also had a similar expression on his face.

“You helped us stop a bank robbery. It’s up to Hessen City’s Greater Bank to decide how much to reward, but they generally do a percentage of what was stolen. These two grabbed a safety deposit box that had several diamonds and other rare gems,” he paused for a moment, trying to calculate, “Even at 1 %, a couple of million dollars worth of gems would translate into twenty thousand or so.”

As this sunk in, Tina grinned and grabbed Bruce’s arm, “Well, we was just doing our civic duty, officer. Of course we’ll come with you.” As Tina and Bruce marched to a cop car, Tina slyly dropped all three blueprints in a nearby trashcan.

There certainly was nothing like someone else doing your work for you and still getting paid for it.

(word count:612)