“We’ll meet back here when you’re done. Don’t come back without the files, they’re vital for us to find more connections to the murders,” Delta said, reloading her handgun.
“What file, exactly? What name are we looking for?” Max asked.
“Mario,” Zak said, smirking.
“Martin, Zak, but close,” Delta corrected him.
“Yeah, Mario, that’s what I said,” Zak replied, putting on the UPS jumpsuit he stole.
The boys got out of the car, walking down the block to the Hardin Bank Headquarters. Zak stopped Max next to a dumpster, filling the empty cardboard box with trash.
“I didn’t want it to feel empty… plus it’ll be funny if I have to throw it at someone and all this junk comes out,” he said taping it back up.
Max just smiled, then handed Zak a wireless earbud, “Put this in.”
“Oh, cool! We got earpieces? Can Delta hear us with these?” Zak grabbed the earbud and put it in his ear as they turned the corner, looking at the door to the bank headquarters.
“No, dude, we’re not that cool. It’s an earbud, for music,” Max said, hitting play on his phone, “three minutes, fifty seconds and counting, let’s work fast.”
The boys walked in, as the opening riff of “That Black Bat Licorice” by Jack White played in their earbuds. Zak went straight to the desk, asking the secretary if there was a Luigi around, that the package was for him. This gave Max time to slip down the hall to the right and up the stairs. He would have taken the elevator, but he didn’t want to waste time. Delta told them that the files were on the seventh floor, so Max booked it up there. Zak’s distraction was working, but he was running out of ideas for names to ask for. He had tried Luigi, no luck, thought about using Yoshi, but figured there weren’t any white guys in this building named Yoshi, and then asked for Link, Zelda, and Sonic, which is when the secretary finally realized what he was doing.
“Sir, you need to leave, that package doesn’t go here,” she said politely.
“I must have the wrong building, but do you mind if I use your bathroom real quick?” Zak tried to play off the failed distraction, walking down the hallway to the bathroom.
As Jack sang “I spit it out/Whatever’s in my mouth,” Max swang the door to the seventh floor open, greeted by two security guards blocking the doors to what he assumed was the “files room” as he caught his breath. He waved at the guards, then swung at one as the drums for the chorus came into the song, after failing to think of a way to talk the guards away from the door. He pushed the other guard back, into the wall, and busted into the door. He frantically rummaged through the boxes of files, landing in the “M’s” box after ten seconds.
“Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario,” he repeated as he fingered through the files, “Martin! Got it!” He grabbed the file, stuck it up in the air for a split second, then came back to reality as one of the security guards walked in the door. Max sprinted to the other side of the room, ran around the hall, back to the stairwell he had come up. As he approached the door, he saw the guard he had punched holding his nose.
“Sorry, man, I couldn’t think of anything else,” Max apologized as he ran down the stairs, “get well soon!”