Josef Gunther: “Bank Robbery”

 Josef Gunther: “Bank Robbery”

The call came late. A branch of the old savings bank in Kreuzberg had been hit at closing. No shots, no hostages, just a quiet crew that knew the vault timing and the guard rotation. The manager wanted it kept quiet until the insurance people arrived. Gunther took the case because the manager’s father had once been a colleague who had not sold his name after the Wall fell.

He walked the street at the same hour the next day. The camera above the side entrance had been turned just enough to catch only the delivery van’s roof. The side door lock showed no force. Someone inside had left it on the latch for thirty seconds. Gunther checked the staff list, then the part-time cleaner who had started two weeks earlier and left after the job. The man had given a real name and a real address in Wedding. The address belonged to a cousin who still worked for a logistics firm that moved cash for three smaller banks.

Gunther sat with the cousin for twenty minutes in a bar that still smelled of old East German cigarettes. He did not raise his voice. He placed the cleaner’s timesheet next to the cousin’s phone records and said nothing. The cousin finally spoke. The crew was three men who had done similar work in the nineties and had gone quiet. They wanted one more score before the new cameras went in. The money was already in a garage near the old border strip, waiting for a buyer who had not yet shown.

Gunther called the manager from the street. “The money is still here. The men will be gone by morning if you wait for the police paperwork. I can give you the garage address and the cousin’s statement. You decide how loud you want this to be.”

The manager paid in cash and asked no more questions. Gunther walked back through the cold. Some jobs were not about catching every man. They were about making the next one cost more than it was worth.