Deborah's Number: A Bank Heist Mitzvah: The Torah Codes, #3

By Ezra Barany

When your beloved is kidnapped, and you're caught in a bank heist, being held hostage is damned inconvenient.

Carl Best's bucket list has plenty of things he might never do, thanks to being stuck in a Witness Protection Program as a bank teller in a Podunk town in upstate New York. When he is framed for grand larceny, gets beat up in jail, and then becomes a hostage at the bank in a bank heist? Yeah. Those weren't on his bucket list, either. He was thinking more along the lines of going to New York City to see the New York Hall of Science Museum.

When he uncovers that the heist has international consequences, and his wife Sarah has been kidnapped by a rogue police officer bent on killing him, he's convinced someone gave him the wrong bucket list. Now if only there were some way to escape the robbery in time to stop the kidnapper from killing Sarah, his rock and life's purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dafkah Books
• Release date: May 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393390107

Book preview

Part I

1

Amsterdam City, New York

---

I hate guns. Especially when one’s pointed at me.

Give me your money, a scruffy-bearded guy hissed, waving his handgun at me under the dimly lit streetlamp. Looked like a troll, smelled like an armpit stuffed with old cheese. In the cold air, his breaths came out in puffs of vapor.

Pointing a gun at me wasn’t the only beef I had with the guy mugging me at the empty street’s ATM. I also hated his choice of clothes. His faded jeans were so loose, he had to hold them up with his other hand.

I blinked. Nope, he didn’t disappear, so he wasn’t one of my hallucinations. Besides, my meds have kept me delusion-free for quite some time. He was real, and he really wanted the forty bucks I had just pulled from my bank’s ATM.

There should be some sort of etiquette for people carrying guns. Don’t ever point them at other people. And if you absolutely must point a gun at someone, at least have the decency to keep your pants up with a belt.

The streetlamp in the early evening did little to highlight my plight to the few passing cars. The shops were closed and the street corner had no passersby to scare off the mugger.

I wagged a finger at him.

Wait a second, I said. I recognize you. You’re George Lucas, the guy who directed Star Wars!

The scruffy man scowled. Could be confusion. Maybe he’d never heard of George Lucas or Star Wars.

I went for his gun, shaking it with delight as if I were shaking his full hand. I pushed the barrel to the side and grinned.

It is such an honor, Mr. Lucas. I loved Han Solo, C3PO, his sidekick the Dalek, and Spock…

Dalek? He tried to pull his hand away, but I twisted the gun out of his hands and dropped it in the nearby mailbox. It clanked inside the metal box. Hey! My gun!

Yeah, well, if you don’t want to lose it, keep it locked up next time. I unlatched my belt buckle, whisked my belt from my pants, tossed it to him. And put on a belt, for crying out loud.

I left him peering into the mailbox, working out how to get his hand down there to retrieve his gun. My slacks were a little loose without my belt, but held with no threat of falling down.

I returned to the lot, paid the parking attendant with the ATM cash, and got in my car, a silver Chevrolet four-door. In the summer dusk, I turned onto West Main Street and drove home to my wife.

Better not call the cops on this mugger. No need to alert the local police department that I was in Witness Protection because some person or persons wanted us dead.

The trouble with Witness Protection was it worked the justice system backwards. The killer roamed free while we, the targets, had our identities under lock and key. I used to be Nathan Yirmorshy, but I’d been Carl Best for nearly two months now.

It sucked that my wife and I didn’t know who the killer was. The only thing we did know was that the killer or killers were high in the government’s chain of command.

Some advice? Never let your spouse end up on a hit list. Pretending my wife was already dead worked for the short term, but how long that would last depended on how well Witness Protection could keep our identities a secret.

We had sacrificed a lot to change our identities. No more old friends, no more going to our old hangouts. Who we spoke with and where we went was restricted until the killers were caught. Who knew when that would be?

What good was being alive if we weren’t truly free?

I parked in the driveway of our two-bedroom house, locked the car, and entered through the front door.

My beautiful wife dashed at me, embraced and kissed me.

I smiled, panting at the festive assault.

You’re home! She patted my chest with a warm hand. Life is perfect as long as I’m with you.

Wow. That answered my whole What good was being alive? question. And she was right.

I returned her kiss.

It was her turn to pant. I admired her blue eyes and short blonde hair.

Why are you smiling? She smirked.

You’re cute when you’re naked.

I’m not naked, she laughed.

Let’s fix that, I said.

We did.

In the morning, my alarm clanged. Images came to mind of the two gears used for the clock’s hammer striking between two bells. I smacked silent the alarm clock and licked my dry lips. When I was a kid, I often took apart alarm clocks and put them back together. Remembering how the clock’s alarm worked came easily. Remembering my father’s amusement when I couldn’t successfully put the clocks back together also came easily. My chest warmed at the memories.

I shifted, stretching out the kinks. Still had to get used to this bed. Hell, I still had to get used to this house Witness Protection provided us. Mental note: Write a letter to the people at the dictionary to change the definition of bummer to the inconvenience of having to change your identity due to religious nuts wanting your wife dead.

Our situation was unique. Instead of testifying and then being placed in the Witness Protection Program, the police were still figuring out who the suspects bent on killing Sophia were. Once the suspects were found, we’d be called in to testify.

I ran a hand through Sophia’s hair. She moaned her gratitude and went back to sleep.

I stumbled out of bed, snatched the first pair of slacks I could reach, and kicked into the pant legs. With a white dress shirt buttoned, I shuffled barefoot into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. Coffee black, Corn Crunch cold, breakfast of champions. 

I ate standing up, gazed out the window, and watched the birds in the nearby tree shout at the sun. Working on a Saturday was another thing I had to get used to. Stupid bank hours. Leaving the job wasn’t an option, either.

What if one of the killers worked for Witness Protection? I shuddered. The idea sounded paranoid, and considering my bipolar disorder, paranoia was my modus operandi.

The coffee went down like a beam of liquid sunlight. I returned to the bedroom. The mirror brought my paranoia back. Was it a two-way mirror? Was the killer from Witness Protection behind it taking photos of us? Sure, the idea was as absurd as a sushi cupcake, but being watched that way happened to me before. A simple test would be to cup my hands against the mirror, peer close, and see if I could see through it.

Sophia groaned and stretched, waking up. No point in worrying her. I was probably giving my imagination a race car, letting it get way ahead of myself. Could my boring bank job be the cause of such anxiety? Probably. But I needed the job, no matter how much it put me to sleep.

As I tied my work noose with a double Windsor knot, I took comfort in knowing it read Damn you all! on the back. That hidden message was a secret side of me I kept from my coworkers and clients, the equivalent of a female lawyer going commando in the courtroom.

Sophia whispered, Nathan. My dapper man.

I turned to face her. Tucked under the covers, she lay on her side, eyeing me in my outfit. I’d have to wait until she no longer faced me before checking the mirror. For now, I’d pretend we weren’t being watched and everything was normal.

I straightened my tie. Don’t you mean Carl?

She rolled her eyes. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to our new names. I feel like a part of me died when my name changed from Sophia to Sarah. I don’t even know what the name Sarah means.

She had a point.

And what about the name Carl? she asked. Do you know what it means?

I sat on the bed and tugged on my socks. With any luck, it means ‘the dude with a really cool hat.’

Sophia giggled. You don’t even wear hats.

Are you suggesting that while I thought my hat was cool, this whole time my head’s been naked? I eyed the mirror. Just my round face, shaggy brown hair, and long neck. No clue of it being a two-way mirror. Yet.

I’m serious. She sobered and pulled the covers to her chin. When we had to cut ourselves off from our friends and families, that was hard enough. And then changing our names? She shivered. "It felt like someone kicked me when I was down. Do you understand how I feel, Carl?" 

She emphasized my new name as though hearing it would help me know what she meant.

Do I understand how you feel? I don’t know that I would ever put it that way, but yeah, I get it. I had to get used to my shoelaces, too. They were thin, stringy things that came with the dress shoes I was breaking in. No more sneakers for me.

You get me? Good enough. She lay on her back and shut her eyes.

On my phone, I looked up the meaning of our names. Sarah means princess.

Ugh. I don’t feel like one.

I chuckled at the phone. Carl means peasant.

She laughed. "How come you get the humble name?"

I shrugged, grabbed my briefcase full of memos and streamlined protocol strategies. I gotta go.

You still haven’t taken out the recycling. She smiled and fluttered her lashes.

So cute.

You got it. When I get home from work, I’ll take on that strenuous task.

She tapped her lips. I gave her a kiss, putting all my attention in the gratitude I had for sharing her life with me. She smiled with that beautiful one dimple of hers, and rolled over to snuggle into the covers. I was such a sucker for her asymmetrical smile.

I cupped my hands to the mirror and placed my head against them as if peering through a periscope. Nothing but a dark reflection. All in my head. Good.

Jeez. These religious nut jobs who wanted Sarah dead to hasten Armageddon had me looking ten ways before crossing a street.

I’ll see you tonight, I said.

Have a great day, she called out.

In the kitchen, I scribbled a note for her and left for the bank. Picturing her reaction when she read the note made me smile.

2

First Nationsafe Bank

Amsterdam, New York

---

It had been an hour since my shift as a teller started. The bank was open, but eight o’clock was still too early to have many customers. Nearly none of my coworkers spoke to me. I knew why. They used to ask me how I was, and I always responded to pleasantries with gruesome non-sequiturs, like what a taxidermist did to me the night before. I couldn’t help it. A day just didn’t feel real without it being a little surreal. So, yeah, aside from a Middle Eastern gal with a sick sense of humor, all my coworkers stopped talking to me.

A customer stepped in. He was a twenty-something kid that looked like he had been drop-kicked out of college and loved every minute of it. His dirty blond hair stuck out all over the place. His jeans and T-shirt, at first glance, looked like an unmade bed. The T-shirt had a picture of a heart on it breaking through ropes, and read, Love knows no bounds.

I was the only teller, yet he followed the pointless protocol of following the strap guiders back and forth through the non-existent line and waited for me to call him.

Next. I tried to sound pleasant. Damn, that was hard.

He came to my window and asked for a withdrawal. The other workers were outside of earshot. I decided to have some fun.

A withdrawal? Absolutely, sir. I gave him a stiff bow at the waist. Must have looked impressive from someone with such a tall stature as myself. However, to give our customers full satisfaction and the comfort in knowing people such as yourselves can rely on our security, we’ve added an additional security measure, so I’ll need you to answer a few questions. Will that be all right?

He shrugged. Sure.

I picked up a pen and a pad of paper. Name?

Jason Green.

Month and day of birth?

September fifth.

Favorite breakfast?

Uh… what?

Cereal? Eggs? It’s all a part of our security measure. Please answer the question.

Eggs, I guess.

I scribbled down a picture of a puppy. How do you like them? Scrambled? Sunny side up?

I usually prefer a cheese omelet. Is this really necessary?

I’m afraid it is, sir. Kind of cheese?

Cheddar. He stood on tiptoe and eyed my pad of paper.

I obscured it behind the computer monitor and realized doing so may have raised his suspicion. I wanted to see how long I could make this dance last. Better to mix the ridiculous with the serious.

I gave him the most authentic smile I could muster. Are you married, single, in a relationship?

He smiled back. Good. I’m actually in an awesome relationship. My girl Renée is the one. Looks like I found true love.

Sounds great. Think your response will change from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘married?’

His smile broadened, and he shrugged. Who knows? Maybe.

I certainly hope so. Marriage is a much better institution than some of the other institutions I’ve been in. I cleared my throat. Birthplace?

New York City.

I scribbled a bear eating a fish. Favorite city?

Cairo.

I put my pen down and checked if he was being serious. Have you been to Cairo?

No, but I love the pyramids. Everything about them. The history of the pharaohs, the geometry and architecture of the pyramids, very cool stuff.

I nodded. Maybe it would be nice to see them, but I could never imagine living there.

Jason seemed to spot me not writing down his last response. I quickly jotted down a crab pinching the bear’s tail. Time to do my own riff of a Jerry Lewis sketch.

Thank you, Jason. There is one final test I must perform, if that’s all right.

A test?

A very simple thing, similar to the forms you fill out online. You know those numbers and letters you have to type in the box to prove you’re human?

Yeah.

Same kind of thing. I’m going to list some standard things you’d find at a laboratory and you repeat them. Okay?

He shrugged. Sure.

Just repeat after me. One scientist.

He scowled. One scientist.

Excellent. Next one. One scientist, two lab partners.

One scientist, two lab partners.

You’re doing great, Mr. Green. Next one. One scientist, two lab partners, three crackling computers.

He repeated my list.

That’s correct. Now, one scientist, two lab partners, three crackling computers, four synchronized swimmers in bubble-wrap bikinis singing songs of string theory singularity solutions.

Jason laughed.

Are you all right?

He shook his head, saying something like, I can’t repeat that. But I couldn’t be sure, what with all the giggles.

Some of the other employees’ heads turned, Sean Flannigan the security guard spotted Jason laughing. Bad news. Mirth was inappropriate at a bank. I had to end playtime.

Sir? I’ll take care of your withdrawal now.

He dried his eyes.

I pointed to the card reader. Just swipe your bank card.

Don’t have it with me. Let me get out my phone. My checking account number is there. He took out his phone. It had a protective cover that looked like a toaster tart dessert. He tapped the screen and scrunched up his face as though something was terribly wrong. Then he rolled his eyes. Terrific. My girl Renée got into my phone and changed the autodial number for pizza again.

What do you mean?

She’s always playing this prank on me. She changes the pizza phone number to her favorite numbers. You don’t know how many times I tried to order a pizza and ended up dialing some poor dude in Ghana, Africa.

I flashed on all those crank calls I’d received, some jerk asking for Dominos Pizza, when I lived in Winneba, Ghana. Cletus?

His jaw dropped. That was you?

Holy crap! What were the chances?

More to the point, were Sarah and I in danger? Connecting with anyone from our past could put our lives in jeopardy.

But Cletus, as I had called him when I mocked him on the phone, didn’t know anything about me. Not my name, not my former workplace, nothing. Just a phone number that he always thought was for a pizza place.

Jason smiled at me across the counter. I extended my hand, figuring he was safe and this was not a situation to contact the marshals for another placement. Great to meet you, Mr. Green.

He shook my hand. Call me Jason. He nodded at my name tag. You’re Carl?

That’s right. Listen. I know that the one time I answered the phone instead of letting it go to voicemail, I shouted at you. I’m sorry for yelling at you over the phone. I just had a very bad day that day. You know how it is. Spoiled milk in the fridge, girlfriend on a hit list, that sort of thing.

He chuckled. Sure, sure. No sweat.

Let me help you with that withdrawal.

What’s the balance of my checking account?

I checked the screen. You have seventy-eight hundred dollars in your checking.

Really? He whistled. I knew that my bonus was going to be big, but wow. Two thousand dollars?

Surprised me too. That’s a huge bonus, all right. Where do you work?

Pharmaceutical company. LAN support.

That explained it. Covering the local area network for a company paid well. Doing it for a pharmaceutical company probably paid huge. As he requested on his withdrawal slip, I withdrew five hundred dollars from his account.

It’s spare cash for a rock concert. I’m taking Renée to see Justin Bieber. It’s going to be awesome.

I imagined the drinks, hot dogs, nachos, and T-shirts he might get with the cash.

It’s none of my business, I said. But if there’s anything my wife taught me it’s that she doesn’t care how expensive a gift is as much as how often I give her something, be it a little note, a phone call check-in on how she’s doing, that sort of thing.

Jason smiled and nodded. "Duly noted. But spending a lot of money on Renée makes me feel good."

With that, he crossed the empty lobby and exited the bank. His surprised expression at how much he had in his account reminded me of my upcoming credit card bill. I checked my own account to be sure I had enough. Back when I was Nathan Yirmorshy, I had plenty of income from my factory, a desalination plant, in Ghana, Africa. Now, Nathan was gone, access to those profits was gone, and I had to rely on my banker’s salary to pay the bills.

What the—? Like Jason, I had more than enough. Unlike Jason, my more than enough was not two thousand dollars more, but two hundred and fifty thousand dollars more.

A chill the size of Siberia went down my spine. Where the hell did the extra money come from?

I checked the transaction history. The deposit came directly from my bank, as though someone working at the bank, like me, had transferred funds from another account into my own. Was I being framed?

I studied the transaction. Apparently, I was the one who made this transfer a few minutes after I arrived for my morning shift at seven o’clock. Uh, no, I didn’t. I stared at the withdrawal’s account number, not recognizing it. Was this more paranoia? Maybe I read the numbers wrong. Maybe if I checked again, there wouldn’t be any extra money in my account. Better yet, maybe someone was going to tell me it was just a computer glitch.

I peered up at the near-empty lobby and considered my options on who, if anyone, I should tell. That was when I saw two uniformed police officers speak to Sean, our security guard, about something. Sean pointed straight at me.

Terrific. I wanted the day to be exciting, but getting arrested was not what I had in mind.

3

Carl and Sarah Best’s Residence

Amsterdam, New York

---

Sarah drifted awake to the sounds of Eastern bluebirds whistling in the oak tree outside the bedroom window.

Ah. She stretched and grinned. No ringing up groceries at work today.

She ambled over to the window and squinted at the rising sun, the rays hitting the bedroom floor like zebra stripes. The red oak dominated the back yard, its late summer leaves shimmering green in the dawning day.

Sarah headed to the kitchen, the tile cold and hard under her bare feet. She ached to pick up the phone and call her old friends.

Stupid Witness Protection, she grumbled.

Her old identity as Sophia Patai had died along with all connection to her past and her friends. They thought she’d died at the hands of a crazed killer.

Sarah placed a small pot of milk on the stove. A note lay on the kitchen table. She smiled. He had left another one. She read it.

Good morning, Sweetie. Hope you slept in. Hey, it’s Saturday! You should be a proper practicing Jew and do what all good Jewish people do on Saturdays: nothing. See you tonight.

-Carl

Sarah grinned. She pictured him scrawling the note, a lock of auburn hair falling to his eyes.

She tucked the note in a recipe box and stowed it on the counter next to the cinnamon. The box was stuffed with all of Carl’s morning notes from the last two months since they’d arrived in tiny Amsterdam, New York.

She opened the window above the sink and refilled the bird feeder with sunflower seeds, then left the window open for fresh air.

She poured the hot milk in a mug that read, Create your own destiny, and stirred in Dutch cocoa powder. She dusted the top of the hot cocoa with cinnamon, sat at the table, and stared out the kitchen window. A different oak tree from the one in the back yard, different birds, but they all had flocks of companions. The birds chatted with their friends. Lucky birds.

Sarah warmed her hands on the hot chocolate mug and sighed, inhaling the familiar comfort.

Her life with her friends, Miriam, Frank, and her family, all of them had to be dead to her now. That life was over. What was left?

A sip of the hot chocolate tasted warm and strong and bittersweet, like a fond memory with the promise of something better.

Sarah thought of Carl, thought of the rabbi that had married the two of them, and of the guidance that the rabbis in Carl’s life had given him. Maybe that was what she needed. Guidance.

Sarah plopped the mug down on the table, the contents sloshing over the edge, spilling a few drops.

Carl was right. Maybe she should be a little more religious.

She snatched her phone from its charging cradle, did a search on the Internet, and found what she was looking for.

There was a synagogue on Guy Park Avenue only a few blocks away, near the cemetery, one of her favorite places to walk.

Sarah slipped into her best clothes, which unfortunately were no more than a new pair of blue jeans and a short-sleeved coral blouse that buttoned up the front. Oh, well. When it came to fashion, Carl always said, Comfort first over smoldering good looks.

Besides, people who attended synagogues didn’t judge a person’s clothes, did they?

She’d have to be careful, though. If they asked about her past, she would have to avoid revealing too much. She could dodge such questions by asking about their own lives.

Sarah stepped out the front door with her backpack-purse and locked the door. She walked along the sidewalk between the canopy of maple trees.

It was time to make friends.

4

First Nationsafe Bank

---

I needed to delay my run-in with the police as much as possible. Had to think things out. Who got into my account? Why would they put money in instead of take money out?

Someone wanted to get me in trouble.

I left my post at the teller’s window and hurried down the carpeted hall toward the staff room.

I was about to be arrested. Perhaps that was the only goal of whoever did this. They wanted to get me out of the way by setting me up. But why? Who were they?

I groaned.

Here I was using they, again. They were setting me up. They were out to get me. They had plans to make my coffee expensive. The paranoia that descended upon me was as subtle as a skydiving hippopotamus with a broken parachute.

But was this truly all a delusion? I had taken my meds this morning, so I was pretty sure those were real police, and they weren’t here to welcome me to the neighborhood. The they this time was a very real person wanting me arrested. The question again was who? And why?

I opened the door to the staff lounge. My Middle Eastern coworker Qamar stood at the table unpacking a paper bag.

Oh, hi, Carl. She flashed a smile and removed a sealed plastic bowl from the bag. You look well this morning.

She always said that. She had to be lying this morning. I couldn’t imagine anyone looking well knowing that cops were close on their tail. Could she have been the one to set me up?

I found my words to look in control. Picked her favorite subject. Thanks, Qamar. How are things between you and your husband?

No change, I’m afraid. She peeled off the lid of the bowl. Hopefully nothing your presence and this slice of apple pie can’t chase away. She dipped a finger in the bowl and smiled as she licked it clean.

Was it really her loveless marriage that pushed her to flirt with me all the time? Or was she trying to get close to me? Close enough to know my login codes?

Whatever the reason, I hated how much she flirted with me. It had started small, just a greeting and a wink, so I thought it too insignificant to mention to Sarah.

By the time Qamar became more aggressive with her flirting, it seemed too late to let Sarah know. I didn’t want to have the conversation about why I didn’t mention it sooner. Besides, I could handle it. I thought I could, anyway. But if her whole flirting thing was just a ruse to engage me enough to set me up, she had succeeded.

She put a hand on her hip. Any ideas on how I could get him to fall in love with me again?

I shrugged. Lose a few pounds?

She chuckled. Qamar was actually a tall, thin gal with dark hair