It had been ten minutes. Sam looked at the clock with focus and patience. He had gathered both the clients and the tellers of the bank and lined them up against the street facing windows, looking outside. He had to be sure the police wouldn't shoot at him.

"He'll be here." Sam said, trying to reassure himself. One hostage could leave for every minute he got to talk to Senior Detective Carl Weiss, Sam's father. That was the deal he made on the phone. He heard the cruisers pull up outside, establishing a perimeter.

Time to make it count.

Detective Weiss walked in, hands raised, staring puzzlingly at the young bank robber who he noticed was working alone and didn't even have his gun pointed at the detective.

"H-hey dad," Sam said, savoring the moment.

The detective was stunned. Still, he had to keep cool. He was working with someone unstable, clearly.

"Hold on," Weiss said, speaking as calmly as he could. "You gotta hold up your end of the deal. You said two hostages could go when I got here."

Annoyed but understanding, Sam motioned for the two hostages nearest to the door.

"You two, go. No one else."

The hostages ran outside like their life depended on it. Some officers moved up, secured the wailing people, then returned to the perimeter.

"See?" Weiss said. "Everything is moving smoothly and you're in control. You wanna talk, then I'm willing to talk as long as I see the hostages leaving as agreed."

"Fine." Sam stated flatly. He didn't want to waste any time. "Listen. I'm your son. Maybe you don't remember me, but I remember you."

A hostage collapsed from panic to Sam's right. He turned and leveled the gun at her.

"Get up! Nobody tries anything! This isn't Drama class. Get up!"

He was wildly waiving the gun around in her general direction.

From behind the police barriers, it only took good timing, a window of opportunity and a clear shot.

Sam's bicep exploded by the force of the .308 caliber round that crashed through the window which was now open due to the hostage collapsing.

The pain wasn't as intense as it should have been. Sam reeled when Weiss put the cuffs on him, but the rest was a blur, probably due to the blood loss.

He woke up in an interrogation room. The bright white light caused him to shiver. He noticed his hands were shaking while two men looked him over from the table he was cuffed to.

"I need to speak with my father, Senior Detective Carl Weiss. I won't say anything otherwise." Sam said, quick to use the little leverage he had.

"Oh, well..." The man on the right said. "We just talked to him about you. He said he couldn't remember if you were the same guy. He doesn't wanna talk to you until he can be sure, you know?"

"What the hell do you mean? He was standing right in front of me at the bank! Are you telling me he doesn't remember the literal bank robber that wanted to talk to him? Or how I wanted to send one hostage out for every minute we talked? He doesn't remember all that?"

The two men smirked. The one on the left closed a file shut and said, "Thanks for the confession, freak."

Sam looked up and noticed the camera in the top left corner of the room, blinking its careless red light of truth.

The one on the right leaned over to Sam. "Oh, by the way? Any sentence is a death sentence for you. There's no access to fentanyl where you're going."

Sam passed out again and woke up in a courtroom. There were three judges. Glaring with contempt.

"Wow! I'm important enough for three judges!" Sam said, dreamily. A woman on his right, his attorney, leaned over to him and said, "For the third time, this is your appeal trial. The only reason you're getting this is because cases involving drugs have come under systematic review by the courts. Your name came up."

Sam didn't understand any of that, really. He tried to shrug, but the immovable cast on his right arm weighed heavily, like someone caked his arm in concrete and let it dry. Sam looked at it like he had never seen a cast before.

He woke up once more in a dark room. He could hear footsteps moving outside the room. It took all of Sam's strength to stand up. He looked outside the small square window at the top of the iron door they had him locked behind. A guard was making his rounds.

"Hey, hey you!" Sam yelled. His voice was raspy and weak.

The guard paused in place, hanging his head.

"You can't keep me in here! I'm 16! I'm not supposed to be in maximum! I need to talk to my father, Senior Detective Carl Weiss."

The guard sauntered to the door, head still hanging low.

"Inmate, I'm going to tell you this as many times as it takes for you to fuckin remember it, ok? You're not 16, you're 35. Detective Carl Weiss is not your father. Your father died of a fentanyl overdose when you were 16. It was your doing. You had a stash and tried to hide it in your closet. When your dad tried to do your laundry, there must have been a leak. It got through his skin. Died on the spot.

"You freaked out and tried to rob a bank to go and find your dad, thinking he left you to go and be a hot shot detective. You didn't want to see what you did. You made up a new dad that left you and your mom when you were little. Your intelligence worked against you in the court case. You had everything planned out too well. They tried you as an adult.

"Your appeal was a complete failure. They tried to get you out of here for mental incompetence because fentanyl fried your brain and now you can't remember shit even though your clean, but again, your planning worked against you. You weren't incompetent at the time of your crimes. This is where you've been for nineteen years. You've still gotta serve the time for the dozen or so remaining counts of threatening with a deadly weapon, among others, consecutively. You'll be here another fifty years. Now, have a good day. I need to complete my rounds."

Sam slunk back to the corner of the dark cell like he had just been scolded by a teacher at school. He used up all his energy today. He decided it was time to sleep. He needed a good rest. Tomorrow would be different.

Right?

Copyright 2024, All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.