Excerpt
Newburn is a small, rural community of about 5,000 souls, plus assorted numbers spread out around the town in rings of farmland. Founded on the Missouri River in 1867, 40 minutes from St. Louis as the buzzard flies, the town began as a village, and moved up with the influx of people looking for a place to raise their kids without fear of being shot by angry bank robbers, who in those days barely got enough for their trouble, even in St. Louis.
Newburn grew (without a bank) for some time before necessity became the watchword.
It was necessary to build a bank, folks said, most of them having forgotten the fears that motivated their ancestors in the eight years since the town was founded. The reason was simple: they were tired of traveling to Waterford, which lay 12 miles to the west, to cash their checks, and local money would help build a school.
Three months after The Newburn Bank officially opened for business, on a boiling day in early June of 1886, legend had it a pair of would-be robbers were beaten nearly to death with oak walking sticks by a pair of senior citizens later called the Guardians.
The town grew, and with it the reputation that the bank was off-limits, but the town fathers had waited too long and the bid to become the county seat was lost to Waterford, which boasted two banks before The Newburn Bank was opened, and already had a school.
A second bank was built in 1941 and the times were dicey, to say the least.
The original cattle-rancher group that built The Newburn Bank was at odds with the man from St. Louis, who came to town and built The Bank of Newburn, which the locals took as pretentious, what with the funny-looking word at the front.
By the time Chief Kocke took his post as a Newburn police officer and began patrolling Riverfront in 1985, The Bank of Newburn had grown and now owned the The West Bank of Newburn; folks still hated that funny-looking word and it had grown to two. The West Bank of Newburn had been robbed four times in its history, all in the last three years, and a heist was being planned for later in the week. Apparently, the Guardians weren't as fierce as legend had it.
But today the original bank was the target of such activity.
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Brian Fennigan and Todd Brown climbed into the former’s Toyota Tercel, losing the battle to get the doors closed all the way and wishing like hell they could just stay home and smoke.
But the situation was rough, and they had places to be and people to see, as Todd the poet had said, so they fought the doors valiantly until they appeared to be closed.
Brian knew the first hard bump they hit would loose the doors like a pair of wings. Todd had nearly fallen out the first time they rode together, and while it was just about the funniest thing Brian had ever seen, the look of pure terror on his friend's face had made him feel bad. For a few minutes anyway.
It all came down to money. Neither had any and both desperately wanted some. And with their limited understanding of economics, they dimly perceived that their now-gone supply of weed would require money to replenish.
Their supplier, Crazy Willy, told them they could smoke tea bags for all he cared, and they had tried, but both experienced only sharp pain and nausea.
Only one place to get money, they knew, and that was the bank. They had been hired on as reservists with the Newburn Police Department as part of the mayor's bid to keep the streets of Newburn clean; he already had Allen Frye's deal in motion, what were two more locals if if meant a victory at the polls?
Neither Brian nor Todd had an account, and their employment history was as checkered as an Italian tablecloth, so they were prepared to engage in some creative financing.
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