Benny Cunningham’s morning routine was the same. It came easy to the ex-con. When you spend anything more than a few months in prison, like Benny had, regimen came easy. Wake up, cigarette, shit, shower and shave. Pour milk of questionable age into bowl with Lucky Charms, another cigarette.

 

What was different today, like it had been for the past week, was what came after. Pull white Tyvek suit over clothes, gloves and goggles. He hadn’t asked where his associate Andy Chang got the suit, he only asked that it pass casual inspection and to get at least 5 more sets. 

 

Benny would handle the rest.

 

Benjamin Ezra Cunningham had done 5 years in Federal Prison for a string of white-collared crimes. Counterfeiting, wire fraud, computer fraud and a host of other minor crimes. It was a great disappointment to his mother, and he was the black sheep of his Long Island Jewish community ever since. 

 

“You should have been a doctor!” he heard his mother’s voice as he zipped up the final fastener. His brother Andrew was the doctor of the family, and it made Seder dinner especially tense.

 

“Wish in one hand, ma,” he thought as Andy honked outside. He grabbed his newly made CDC badge, clipboard and pen, giving himself a once over in the mirror. The white Tyvek suit went from his boots to over his head. It was pulled snug around his face. The rest of his facial features covered by a pilfered N95 facemask and goggles.  Completely legit looking while simultaneously ordinary and forgettable government drone. Perfect.

 

He bound down the stairs and into a white windowless Ford Transit. It was stolen of course, but a very much legit government vehicle. Andy Chang’s specialty was petty thefts of various kinds. There wasn’t a car he couldn’t hotwire, or burglar system he couldn’t get through. Unlike Benny, Andy had managed to stay out of prison while still being a delinquent. The son of a successful security salesman made sure he knew how to cover his tracks. Benny knew not to ask the man his reasons for choosing a criminal life; the most he could figure was that he was bored.

 

The van was pilfered from the US General Services Administration building uptown. Pilfered is a strong word. While the city was slowly turning into a lockdown due to the COVID19 virus, Andy had walked in with very real looking CDC papers and just took it. After he told the drone behind the check out desk that he was a COVID19 tester, the woman threw the keys to him and told him to leave the (very fake) paperwork at the door. As a non-essential government service, no one was using it anyways.

 

The back of the van was filled with a handful of cheap Harbor Freight pump sprayers and large nondescript duffle bags. Beside them, three other people in equally non-descriptive Tyvek suits, masks and gloves. It was important to Benny that everyone’s masks and gloves looked the same. The US government loved its uniformity, and one too many Blues Brothers movies told him uniforms meant legitimacy. Between 5’9 and 5’11, each person was more or less unidentifiable, which is what Benny wanted. If the twins didn’t open their mouths, which they did often, you couldn’t tell if any of them were male or female either.

 

The twins, Madison and Whitney, were juvenile delinquents like Benny. Each of them had a healthy drug habit, but not too healthy to cause a problem were they needed to work. The twins were officially escorts, but were not beyond drugging and stealing from their clients. And Wall Street execs would pay a hefty sum for twins, and couldn’t be bothered to notice a missing Rolex here or there.

 

Towards the back sat Reginald Brown. Reggie was an intensely quiet man. Under the baggy suit was a man who took his personal flaws and projected them through pure human strength. Officially Reggie shared the same low-security cell with Benny for check fraud. After Benny saw Reggie asphyxiate Benny’s prison bully with a towel one day, he knew not to ask too many questions. But when Benny thought up this idea in the last few weeks, he figured every good heist needs some muscle.

 

Benny and the crew had spent the last week driving around the lower west side with very real looking CDC badges, terrorizing that neighborhood’s residents merely with their presence. Benny would walk into the local bodegas, the liquor stores, or any small business with a pen and a clipboard. The story was the same: Do you know X person? No? X person and his/her entire family is now dead from COVID19 and he was known to frequent this establishment. The person’s name was followed by a stock white person photo. The owners always complied when the rest of the crew arrived with pump sprayers full of bleach and water. They made a big show of spraying everything down and preventing its local residents inside. While the store owners were told they can stay open, most closed shop the next day. A very real looking CDC warning with a very fake regional director’s contact information was taped to the front window to complete the illusion.

 

The number rang Benny’s phone. And the sparse amount of people, including the NYPD called it, a very official sounding Director Benjamin told them not to worry and that the store would be open next month after an all-clear.

 

None of these shops were the target, however. That didn’t stop the twins from taking the tils or cracking the store safes. They were a precocious duo, and needed to be satiated occasionally to keep their attention. Benny had spent a week circling the real target in its center:

 

United Orient Bank.

 

United Orient was Andy’s idea. While Benny and Andy came from very different backgrounds, they were both shoved into the very same New York public school. While Benny’s dad ran the delicatessen next to Andy’s father’s security business. Both were heavy cash businesses, both used a local Orient Bank branch. As is the nature of both their communities, cash was king, and Orient’s vaults and safety deposit boxes were always flush with it. According to Andy, Orient also had the nasty habit of laundering money through various China-based criminal organizations. In some ways, he was simply stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor (himself), Benny thought.

 

“Man there is no one out,” Andy thought out loud. He was right. The city had emptied itself over the last few days. With all non-essential staff laid off or quarantined at home, there were less witnesses. A feature, not a bug, Benny thought.