All About the Benjamins, Chapter 1

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Prologue

Chapter 1
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      It was a cold and windy Sunday night in the heart of the downtown business district...  An economically thriving area of the city, with major retail establishments, a shopping mall, a university campus, the headquarters of major corporations and fortune 500 companies, as well as other retail businesses, hotels, restaurants, offices, and entertainment venues. The Ewing Building was a typical looking downtown office building, tall skinny fancy high rise office building, very ornate, 19th century Victorian Neo Gothic building. The upper floors were filled with furnished offices.

Stationed in front of a huge green safe, having great mass and weight and unwieldiness; and standing over six feet tall, with the solid steel door over two feet thick, two dark figures contemplated the situation.

"Better get Magic fingers in here pronto."  Dawson commanded...  Van Dawson was the kingpin in town. He had his greedy little finger on the pulse of everything that went on in Bridgeport.

Nothing came in and nothing went out of his town without him knowing about it.
Dawson's youngest son Danny radioed down to the lobby to his older brother Marlon who was standing by with a walkie-talkie.

"Get Rebel up here right away"

"Get going."  Marlon ordered Rebel,  punching the elevator button.

"Where to." Rebel replied.

"Eighth floor,"  Marlon said, as the elevator door opened. "First door on the left, around the corner."

Rebel soon found the office, and two security guards lying dead on the floor.   The sign painted in gold letters on the glass door read, "Simoleon Life Insurance Company". The insurer advanced 17 spots on the Fortune 500, and profits spiked 70% to $9.5 billion thanks to big increases in investment banking and trading revenue.  Tomorrow morning at 6 am an armored truck would come to collect the contents of the safe that held just over 5 million dollars in cash.

Rebel could see a man sitting at a desk through the large glass window panel in the door. The panel glass was wavy. It blurred outlines a little bit. He couldn't make out the man's features clearly through the panel. But he could see the man's pin striped suit, a large desk, and even a couple of large paintings on the back wall of the office. Rebel opened the door and walked in.

"Enter," a polite voice called out.
Van Dawson rose in friendly greeting.  Dawson was a portly, balding middle-aged man of around fifty years old,  who always had a fat cigarette between his pudgy fingers, or at least always when Rebel had seen him in the rare occasion of exiting the grounds of his manor or to affront business to his men.

He was very well dressed in a well-tailored but quiet pin striped business suit. And so coughing and puffing lazy wisps of smoke into the air of the room he motioned Rebel to the safe, and resumed his seat behind the desk. Dawson radiated prosperity and confidence.

Rebel's lips parted in a shameless smile as he stood before an obsolescent, cumbersome safe. It seemed in effect, a slap in the face, to a qualified professional like himself.  He reached down into his small black leather tool bag and brought out a pair of latex gloves to which he quickly covered his deft hands. His Burglars' Tool Bag contained a full array of tools for breaking and entering, surveillance and lock picking. Everything one might need for a late night excursion
And now his hands and fingers worked like lightning.  The only sound, was the express, serrated high pitched whine of the miniature cordless drill.  Rebel worked fast.  He drilled a hole through the face of the old-fashioned safe, then put the tools back into the black leather tool bag. His sensitive fingers shot to the dial on the safe.  Rebel held an electronic stethoscope close to the dial, listening as the tumblers fell, while his dexterous fingers spun the knob invariably decisive and punctilious.
Suddenly the safe door swung open, and there it was.  Just as Dawson said it would be... 5.2 million dollars in cash.

Danny roughly pushed Rebel out of the way and began shoving the money into a large suitcase.  The three men hurried down the elevator and out to the street where Marlon already had a car waiting.

As they drove across town, past the town square, and headed for the outskirts of town, they all laughed with excitement.  Then Rebel spoke up and said...

"Hey I already know what I'm going to do with my share of the money."  he said in a frivolous and lighthearted manner. "I have it already figured out... 5.2 million split 4 ways comes out to 1.3 million dollars each.  Now what I'm going to do with my share is..."

"Rebel"  Dawson flung out the interruption, abruptly. "About your share of the money."  He said pulling a ruger 9mm from his shoulder holster concealed underneath his coat and screwing a silencer on to the barrel.  "Stop the car."  Dawson shouted.

Marlon slammed on the brakes bringing the car to a screeching halt, half way across the 9th street bridge, over the Simgahela River.  Rebel opened the door and backed slowly out of the car, as Dawson aimed his gun at Rebel's chest.  Rebel kept backing until he felt the railing behind him, perched on the edge clutching the rail firmly, he looked over the railing down at the swift water over a hundred feet below, and back again at Dawson's gun. Marlon and Danny had both gotten out of the car and cocked the hammer back on their guns.  Rebel thought to himself...

"If I jump I could die.  If I don't jump I'll surely die."   With three guns pointing directly at him, his decision was immediately brought into existence . Like a bat out of hell, Rebel thrust himself backwards as if being suddenly released by an elastic force he flew over the railing in a twisting, spinning, whirling dervish, reminiscent of his college days as a member of the diving team.  The thunderous explosion of gunfire filled the night air as all three men emptied their clips in just a matter of seconds...  bullets hummed viciously past his head one after another.

Suddenly there was a loud splash, and the three gangsters rushed to look over the edge. They sought intently for any signs of life, but found none.

"Do you think we got him?"  Danny asked looking at his father.

"I don't know."  he answered.  "But if he survived that fall, he's a better man than I am."  he announced with a boisterous roar of laughter. The ol' man slapped his two sons on the back. "Come on... Let's get out of here."

[The scene fades slowly to black as the red tail lights of the car fade out of sight.]

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