She found the clip and smiled at the headline. Leeds had thrown the paper across the room and cursed the Times for a week, but Pollard had smiled even then. The headline read: Beach Bum a Hero.

Pollard read the clippings at her kitchen table and remembered how they had met…

The Beach Bum Bandit

The woman ahead of him shifted irritably, making a disgusted grunt as she glanced at him for the fourth time. Holman knew she was working herself up to say something, so he ignored her. It didn’t do any good. She finally pulled the trigger.

“I hate this bank. Only three tellers, and they move like sleepwalkers. Why three tellers when they have ten windows? Shouldn’t they hire more people, they see a line like this? Every time I come here it sucks.”

Holman kept his eyes down so the bill of his cap blocked his face from the surveillance cameras.

The woman spoke louder, wanting the other people in line to hear.

“I have things to do. I can’t spend all day in this bank.”

Her manner was drawing attention. Everything about her drew attention. She was a large woman wearing a brilliant purple muumuu, orange nails, and an enormous shock of frizzy hair. Holman crossed his arms without responding and tried to become invisible. He was wearing a faded Tommy Bahama beachcomber’s shirt, cream-colored Armani slacks, sandals, and a Santa Monica Pier cap pulled low over his eyes. He was also wearing sunglasses, but so were half the people in line. This was L.A.

The woman harrumphed again.

“Well, finally. It’s about time.”

An older man with pickled skin in a pink shirt moved to a teller. The large woman went next, and then it was Holman’s turn. He tried to even his breathing, and hoped the tellers couldn’t see the way he was sweating.

“Sir, I can help you over here.”

The teller at the end of the row was a brisk woman with tight features, too much makeup, and rings on her thumbs. Holman shuffled to the window and stood as close as he could. He was carrying a sheet of paper folded in half around a small brown paper bag. He put the note and the bag on the counter in front of her. The note was composed of words he had clipped from a magazine. He waited for her to read it.

THIS IS A ROBBERY

PUT YOUR CASH IN

THE BAG

Holman spoke softly so his voice wouldn’t carry.

“No dye packs. Just give me the money and everything’s cool.”

Her tight features hardened even more. She stared at him and Holman stared back; then she wet her lips and opened her cash drawer. Holman glanced at the clock behind her. He figured she had already pressed a silent alarm with her foot and the bank’s security company had been alerted. An ex-con Holman knew cautioned him you only had two minutes to get the cash and get out of the bank. Two minutes wasn’t long, but it had been long enough eight times before.

FBI Special Agent Katherine Pollard stood in the parking lot of the Ralphs Market in Studio City sweating in the afternoon sun. Bill Cecil, in the passenger seat of their anonymous beige g-ride, called out to her.

“You’re gonna get heatstroke.”

“All this sitting is killing me.”

They had been in the parking lot since eight-thirty that morning, a half hour before the banks in the area opened for business. Pollard’s butt was killing her, so she got out of the car every twenty minutes or so to stretch her muscles. When she got out, she left the driver’s-side window down to monitor the two radios on her front seat even though Cecil remained in the car. Cecil was the senior agent, but he was only on hand to assist. The Beach Bum Bandit was Pollard’s case.

Pollard bent deep at the hips, touching her toes. Pollard hated stretching in public with her big ass, but they had been hovering in the Ralphs lot for three days, praying the Beach Bum would strike again. Leeds had dubbed this one the Beach Bum Bandit because he wore sandals and a Hawaiian shirt, and had shaggy hair pulled back into a ponytail.

A voice crackled from one of the radios.

“Pollard?”

Cecil said, “Hey, lady, that’s the boss.”

It was Leeds on the FBI channel.

Pollard dropped into her car and scooped up the radio.

“Hey, boss, I’m up.”

“LAPD wants their people on something else. I agree. I’m pulling the plug on this.”

Pollard glanced at Cecil, but he only shrugged and shook his head. Pollard had been dreading this moment. Forty-two known serial bank robbers were operating in the city. Many of them used violence and guns, and most of them had robbed way more banks than the Beach Bum.

“Boss, he’s going to hit one of my banks. Every day he hasn’t drives up the odds that he will. We just need a little more time.”

Pollard had patterned most of the serial bandits operating in Los Angeles. She believed the Beach Bum’s pattern was more obvious than most. The banks he hit all were located at major surface intersections and had easy access to two freeways; none employed security guards, Plexiglas barriers, or bandit-trap entry doors; and all of his robberies had followed a progressive counterclockwise route along the L.A. freeway system. Pollard believed his next target would be near the Ventura/Hollywood split, and had identified six banks as likely targets. The rolling stakeout she now oversaw covered those six banks.

Leeds said, “He isn’t important enough. LAPD wants their people on gunslingers and I can’t afford to have you and Cecil tied up any longer, either. The Rock Stars hit in Torrance today.”

Pollard felt her heart sink. The Rock Stars were a takeover crew who got their name because one of them sang during their robberies. It sounded silly until you knew the singer was stoned out of his mind and strumming a MAC-10 machine pistol. The Rock Stars had killed two people during sixteen robberies.

Cecil took the radio.

“Give the girl one more day, boss. She’s earned it.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s done, Katherine. The plug has been pulled.”

Pollard was trying to decide what else to say when the second radio popped to life. The second radio was linked with Jay Dugan, the LAPD surveillance team leader assigned to the stakeout.

“Two-eleven in progress at First United. It’s going down.”

Pollard dropped the FBI radio into Cecil’s lap and snatched up her stopwatch. She hit the timer button, started her car, then radioed back to Dugan.

“Time on the lead?”

“Minute thirty plus ten. We’re rolling.”

Cecil was already filling in Leeds.

“It’s happening, Chris. We’re rolling out now. Go, lady-drive this thing.”

The First United California Bank was only four blocks away, but the traffic was heavy. The Beach Bum had at least a ninety-second jump on them and might already be exiting the bank.

Pollard dropped her car into gear and jerked into the traffic.

“Time out, Jay?”

“We’re six blocks out. Gonna be close.”

Pollard steered through traffic with one hand, blowing her horn. She drove hard toward the bank, praying they would get there in time.

Holman watched the teller empty her drawers one by one into the bag. She was stalling.

“Faster.”

She picked up the pace.

Holman glanced at the time and smiled. The second hand swept through seventy seconds. He would be out in less than two minutes.

The teller pushed the last of the cash into the bag. She was being careful not to make eye contact with the other tellers. When the last of the cash was in the bag, she waited for his instructions.

Holman said, “Cool. Just slide it across to me. Don’t shout and don’t tell anyone until I’m out the door.”

She slid the bag toward him exactly as Holman wanted, but that’s when the bank manager brought over a credit slip. The manager saw the paper bag and the teller’s expression, and that was all she needed to know. She froze. She didn’t scream or try to stop him, but Holman could tell she was scared.