The Butterfly Man

A black and white police car was sitting in an empty parking lot, its occupant sipping on a hot coffee. Another officer joined him a few moments later. The second officer balanced his own cup while he carefully headed his unit alongside the first car. He rolled the driver’s window down and greeted his beat partner.

"Miserable day. Damn it’s cold out. I hate this early morning wet. You watch, the T.C.’s are gonna start stacking up and traffic is gonna run out of people and then you know who gets to handle them. Me." Traffic collisions were a bane to the average patrol officer, who neither understood them nor, for that matter, wished to.

"Ahh, they’re not so bad, Paul," the second officer responded. "What you need to do is put in for a transfer to Traffic and once you do a few of ‘em it’ll be second nature."

"Yeah, easy for you, Jon," the first officer continued. "You like that kind of thing. Me, I don’t want anything to do with traffic."

One-half mile north of the officers in a K-Mart parking lot adjacent to the First Union Bank, sat a lone black male in a beat-up 1967 Pontiac. He had been watching the employees arrive since 8:00 a.m., and had carefully noted the number of women as opposed to male employees entering the building. Nervously glancing at his watch he impatiently waited for the bank to open its doors, precisely at 10:00 a.m.

"Good morning, Judy." The bank manager smiled at the latest arrival. "A little wet out this morning."

"Good morning, Mr. Truesdall. Yes it is. Although, I have to say, I’ll take any amount of rain any time. We really need it." The new arrival moved into the employees’ break room to hang up her raincoat.

The clock read 9:55 a.m.

DeShaun Jackson was a local eastside resident who had been in and out of trouble with the police for years. His name was synonymous with everything from petty thefts to strong-arm robberies. He had never attempted a bank job before but he had watched this isolated branch for several weeks now and had talked himself into what appeared to be an easy take. Walk in, pull a gun, grab as much cash as he could carry and split. Pretty simple, and judging from the older female employees he had seen coming to work over the past few weeks, no one was likely to chase him.

He realigned the stolen .38 caliber Colt in his waistband and waited.

At ten o’clock, the manager opened the doors to the bank. There was no one in the parking lot and it would be unlikely for anyone to show for awhile. The inclement weather was an unplanned benefit.

DeShaun drove slowly into the parking area just off to the side of the bank and out of sight of the front windows. He left the engine running and glanced around one last time hoping no one would steal his car while he was inside the bank. The streets were deserted. Even the K-Mart lot was empty. He walked in through the front doors and looked around. Everyone was busy with opening preparations and didn’t notice him at first. He picked the oldest looking woman teller and moved quickly up to her window.

She glanced up and smiled at him, a forced smile, he could tell. All white people looked at him that way. She was trying to appear sincere when the distrust and fear showed right through. He hated them all.

"Hello, may I help you?" Her nameplate read Alice Johnson. She was about eighty years old but then, all white people looked alike to DeShaun.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder. Still clear. He pulled the gun out of his waistband and showed the barrel to the old woman.

"Gimme the money, all ah it. Don’t be tryin’ no funny stuff or else I shoot you lame white ass. Be quick now, I ain’ got all day fo’ YOU, bitch."

The woman’s face went pale. Her mouth opened and closed. She opened it again but nothing came out. He thought she was going to have a heart attack right there.

Don’ be dying on me bitch. He thought. He waved the pistol at her to emphasize his point. She seemed to snap out of her trance and began to stuff banded packs of money in a bag. She pushed the bag across the counter toward him and stepped back, wringing her hands together.

Whooeee. That was some easy sh--. The thought raced through DeShaun’s mind as he turned and walked toward the front door. I could be liken’ this action.

At that precise moment several things occurred simultaneously. The bank teller had tripped the silent alarm upon removing the money from the drawer. At the dispatch center of Riverside Police Department a red light went off on the alarm board and a high-pitched tone instantly notified the dispatcher that there was a possible robbery in progress. An officer seated near the board read the location to the dispatcher and the call was broadcast to the units responsible for that particular area. The dispatcher preceded the call with a "Hot Call" tone alert over the radio frequency. The tone warned everyone on the air of an impending emergency broadcast.

BEEP- BEEP –BEEP. "Units 2 Robert 20 and 2 Robert 21, a two-eleven silent at the First Union Bank, Three Zero Five One Iowa. 3051 Iowa, cross of Massachusetts. Sam 41, copy?"

The two beat officers having coffee stared at each other for a microsecond as they realized the source of the call was less than a block and a half away. Coffee flew out of open windows and the two police cars fishtailed out of the parking lot in their haste to get traction and speed. The only signal between them and the bank was green. The units accelerated through the intersection demanding more and more speed from the straining police cars.

"Robert 20 and 21, 10-97," announced one of the units as they cleared the intersection. They could see the bank parking lot a half block away.

At the particular instant the alarm was notifying the dispatcher of trouble, DeShaun walked through a signaling beam set up at the front door of the bank. The beam tripped a device embedded within one of the packs of money. By the time he had taken three steps out the front door, the pack had literally exploded, sending indelible red dye all over the money, effectively destroying it. The dye also soaked his shirt and trousers and had seeped through to his skin. The exploding pack also emitted a noxious cloud of red smoke mingled with tear gas.

DeShaun threw the bag into the front seat of his idling getaway car and as he was careening out of the parking lot, red smoke billowing from the open windows, the two black and white units were entering the parking lot from the opposite side. The sight of DeShaun trying to drive with his head out the driver’s side window was unforgettable.