The Steel Trap

After working at the same Los Angeles bank branch for eleven years, now as its assistant manager, Jim Osborne, in his restlessness due to the same professional life day in and day out, begins to fantasize about stealing the money in the bank's vault, at the end of the week that amount generally in the vicinity of $1 million. That fantasy becomes an obsession. He believes the actual theft a relatively easy and straightforward process. Because of a change in banking schedule following this weekend, he plans to steal the money at the end of the banking day Friday, head on a plane to Brazil since it is the only country with which the US does not have an extradition treaty, and be settled in Brazil by Sunday evening before the bank would know that he and the money are gone by Monday morning. He plans on taking his wife Laurie and their adolescent daughter Susan with him, but not tell them of the theft. As Jim works through his plan, one problem after another seems to be working against him, from the flights available to Brazil to get them there by Sunday evening, to obtaining the passports and visas within two days, to the bank employees changing their routine on Friday, to telling Laurie a viable lie regarding the trip to Brazil and why she and Susan should go along. Beyond the issue of making it to Brazil by Sunday evening with the money, Jim also has to figure out what to tell Laurie if she learns about the money and its source.