The truth is that the bank robber went to ridiculous lengths not to point the pistol at anyone inside the apartment, to avoid frightening anyone. But the 1rst person the bank robber accidentally happened to aim the pistol at was a woman called Zara. She’s somewhere in her 1fties, and beautifully dressed in that way that people who have become 1nancially independent on the back of other people’s 1nancial dependency often are.
The funny thing is that when the bank robber rushed in, stumbled, and ended up waving the pistol in such a way that Zara found herself staring straight down the barrel of the gun, she didn’t even look scared. Another woman in the apartment, on the other hand, let out a shriek of panic: “Oh, dear Lord, we’re being robbed!” Which seemed a little odd, because the bank robber had absolutely no intention that this bit should be a robbery. Obviously no one likes being treated in a prejudiced way, and the fact that you just happen to be holding a pistol doesn’t automatically make you a robber, and even if you are, you can still be a bank robber without necessarily wanting to rob individuals. So when another woman cried, “Get your money out, Roger!” to her husband, the bank robber couldn’t help feeling rather insulted. Not unreasonably, really. Then a middle-aged man in a checkered shirt who was standing by the window
—Roger, evidently—muttered sullenly: “We haven’t got any cash!”
The bank robber was about to protest, but caught sight of the reAection captured in the balcony window. A 1gure with a masked face armed with a pistol, and the other people in the room. One of them was a very old woman. Another was pregnant. A third looked like she was about to burst into tears. They were all staring at the pistol, eyes wild with fear, no one’s wilder than the
eyes staring out through the holes in the ski mask in the reAection. Then the bank robber reached a crushing realization: They’ve not the ca9tiues heve. I am.
The only person who didn’t look remotely scared was Zara. That’s when they heard the sound of the 1rst police sirens from down in the street.
