READ BOOKS AND...

[Doktor Howl]

...BECOME SOMEBODY!

[Freeky]

The lookout nervously scans the area for signs of the guards; they were guaranteed a twenty minute window, but it might have been a trap.  Their inside man was a ten year old janitor, and those bastards are vicious about tattling.  But no, it's all clear.  He signals the others.  They dart through a hole in the fence - gratis Billy - and make a furtive beeline for the janitor's entrance.  The door should be unlocked, and thank god! it is.  The first one inside pushes the security camera to face the wall, and they bolt to where Billy said the goods were being kept.

This is risky business, and they all know it.  If they get caught, they'll likely get a 25 year sentence in prison.  If they make it out without detection, they'll be rich.  Very, very rich. 

They make it to the vault, and one of them types in the passcode.  The door opens, and as air is released from inside, a wonderful smell hits them; the delicious, comforting smell of old books.  They have no time to relish it, though, because they have used five of their twenty minutes.  They get out their sacks and run in different directions.

Shakespeare, Mencken, Orwell, Vonnegut, Twain, so many authors it's difficult to choose.  But they had planned for this indecisiveness, and just began shoving books into their sacks as fast as possible, hoping that their favorites would turn up at the end of the night. 

Ten minutes later, they run again, laden down with dozens of books strapped across their backs.  They wince every time the sacks bounce - not just because of the damage no doubt being done to their precious cargo, but because this is a heretical way to treat books in general - but they grit their teeth and run as quickly as they can. 

Just as they hit the hole in the fence (thank you, Billy), an alarm goes off and the place begins swarming with armed guards.  They dodge through the fence, and keep running, now severely out of breath, towards where their van and getaway driver ought to be.  She's there, they pile in, and they take off.  They remove their ski masks and begin laughing - who'd have thought they'd have been able to pull it off, The Great Heist of the Texas Book Depository?

[Juana]

"Let's see what we got," Hank says, carefully pulling out his loot.

"Fairy tales," Jamie says, "Twain - ooh, one of his short collections! - Hawthorne, and--" she trails off, gently pulling all of the books out and piling them in her lap.

Franky doesn't talk much and he looks uncomfortable as he retrieves his own selection. Hank doesn't think much of it at the time. They had just pulled off what might well be the biggest depository job in the last sixty years after all, and they won't be completely in the clear until they fence everything.

[Doktor Howl]

And poor little Lee sat in the upstairs window, all alone.   

[Cain]

That's how he got around to reading the Communist Manifesto/Bircher leaflets.

Because GARBO and FREEKY took all the good stuff.

[Doktor Howl]

That's how he got around to reading the Communist Manifesto/Bircher leaflets.

Because GARBO and FREEKY took all the good stuff.

AND THEN LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON.

THANKS A LOT, LADIES.

[Freeky]

That's how he got around to reading the Communist Manifesto/Bircher leaflets.

Because GARBO and FREEKY took all the good stuff.

AND THEN LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON.

THANKS A LOT, LADIES.

[Juana]

 

[Freeky]

Samantha is glancing back in the rear-view mirror; she always thought it was pretty dumb, seeing as there was no back window.  Frankie, she notices, is looking shifty.  Her instincts, which need to be good the way she drives, tell her something is up. 

"Dude, what's your deal, Frankie?"  She glances from side to side out the windows all clear changes lanes.  "Are you not stoked?" 

[Juana]

"Of course I am!" Frankie said, perhaps a shade too quickly. "I--just, this is a lot, Samantha. This is big and I'm a little nervous, ok? Anyone would be."

Hank growls and rolls his eyes when he sees Samantha open her mouth. "My god, you two never stop."

[Richter]

Bronte.

John stared down at the pile in front of him.
He'd been in on it.  A claim to fame, the thrill of the honest, but not frontline resistance frenchman.  Still an honest one though.  He'd made calls, he'd pushed paper, he'd passed off what money he could and did the preliminary sounding out of a few contacts. 
WEll yeah, he was never in on the heist, that shit was dangerous.  They had all been clear though.  He got a cut. 

Twenty books.  For safety sake they break for a year.  Random moves and job changes to de-centralize the haul, then slowly re-contect by blind drops to exchange and read what the others got.  Like the purveyors and procurers of any rare addictive illegal though, they'd dicked him.  Dicked him because he wasn't a front line man.  Dicked him because he was the LEAST likely to go violent.  Not like the dutchman, the spook out of the old UK, or that crazy ass boat captain. 

He could narc.  The fuckers had earned it.  18 months of "Personality Therapy" with their eyes glued open and re-runs of "Spongebob" would learn 'em.  No way to do it safely though.

..and there was still the fucking Bronte. 

sighing JOhn sat back and shut up.  Like he always did, and cracked a copy of "Wuthering Heights"

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

"Fuck!" Jamie interrupted, oblivious to the conversation. "It's not here! Where the fuck is it?"
"What?"
"We have to turn around, we can't leave it!" She stood up in the moving van and lunged toward the drivers seat.
"What the fuck, Jamie! Get back!" Samantha yelled, trying to split her attention between the road and the nutcase behind her. Hank grabbed Jamie by the arm and yanked her back, pinning both arms at the elbow as she kicked and struggled to escape.
"We can't-- mmmmpff!" Frankie cut her off with a solid gut punch.
"No one's turning around!" Samantha shouted over the din. "The cops are already on their way in, we'd never make it out."
"We'll never get another shot at it!" Jamie cried, sagging in Hank's grasp.

[Freeky]

Her pride injured, Samantha snaps her mouth shut and glares at the road.  Glance right to off-ramp it's empty exit highway.  Maybe Hank was right, but she wasn't going to say so.  Instead she asks, "What else did you guys get?" 

As they finish sorting through the books, Samantha drives back to their hideout.  She curses the van's lack of rear window, because she still feels uneasy.  They are a block away from their destination when she decides she is STARVING OMG and pulls into the only Arby's all-night drive through in town.  She places the orders everyone wants and pulls around to the window. 

Then she sees them.  The lights.  Red and blue, and flashing.  "God.  Fucking. DAMMIT," she shouts.

[Juana]

"Shit, goddamn it Samantha!" Hank snaps, bundling up everything in reach as he climbs out, wincing as he roughly stuffs them back in their bag. "Run! You know what to do!" he says as he throws the door open and ignores the bewildered cashier at the window.

Hank hears the others scrambling out of the van but doesn't look back as he tears off east, toward the industrial district. If they get out, they get out. If they don't, well, then they don't.
He's going to hide, lay low for a while. He's got a safehouse he hasn't told them about. He always figured it would be best to have an ace up his sleeve if someone turned chicken and ratted them out.

[Freeky]

Samantha takes off after Jamie and (almost) Frankie have jumped out.  She was never one for running on foot, and she only sees the one.  She turns her lights off, hoping to get some cover that way, and peels out into the street, headed for a nearby residential district.  She hopes really hard that just because she's being stupid with the lights doesn't mean she'll become a statistic.  She glances into the back, and with horror realizes that a sack of books is about to fall out the open door.  She takes her foot off the gas, steadies the wheel with her knee, and lunges.

                   ___________________________

Jamie manages to grab her sack and leap out before Samantha takes off, and bolts.  Frankie stumbles, his leg yanked from under him as the van races forward.  She takes off, not looking back.  They were to split up if anything happened, which it has.  How did they know, she thinks frantically, how did they know?!  Vaguely, she sense the van veer suddenly, mount the sidewalk, and return to its roadway course.