Bank Shot (14 page)

At eight-thirty the regular bank guard, an old man named Nieheimer, not a C.D.A. man, locked both bank doors and then stood by one of them to keep unlocking it again for the next five minutes or so, letting the last customers out. Then the employees did their closing paperwork, put all the cash away in the safe, covered the typewriters and adding machines, and by nine o'clock the last of them – that was always Kingworthy, the manager – was ready to go home. Fenton always stood by the door to watch Kingworthy out and be sure the manager locked up properly on the outside. The way the system worked, the alarm could be switched on or off only with a key on the outside; once Kingworthy left, the guards inside couldn't open either door without sounding the alarm down at police headquarters. For that reason, all seven guards brought lunch bags or lunch buckets. There was also a men's room at the front end of the trailer, the end farthest from the safe.

Nine o'clock. Kingworthy left, he locked up, Fenton turned and said what he said every Thursday night: ‘Now we're on duty.'

‘Right,' Mulligan said and reached for the courtesy desk's chair. Meanwhile, Block was going down to get the folding table from where it was stored by the safe, and the others were all heading for their favorite chairs. Within a minute, the folding table was set up in the customer area of the bank, the seven guards were in seven chairs around it, and Morrison had pulled the two fresh decks from his uniform pocket – one deck with blue backs, the other with red – and they were all taking handfuls of change from their pockets and slapping them down on the table.

Seven cards were dealt around, with the high card to be the first dealer, and that turned out to be Dresner. ‘Five-card stud,' he said, put a nickel in the pot and started to deal.

Mulligan was sitting with his back to the safe, facing the front of the trailer; that is, the part with the officers' desks. The tellers' counter was to his right, the two locked doors to his left. He sat with his legs spread wide, both feet flat on the floor, and watched Dresner deal him a five of hearts up. He looked at his hole card, and it was the two of spades. Morrison bet a nickel – it was nickel limit on the first card, dime after that, twenty cents on the last – and when it came around to Mulligan he very quietly folded. ‘I don't believe this is going to be my night,' he said.

It wasn't. By one-thirty in the morning he was losing four dollars and seventy cents. However, Fox occasionally dealt draw poker, jacks or better to open, and at one-thirty he did it again. In draw, each player anted at the beginning, so they started off with a thirty-five-cent pot. When no one could open and Fox had to deal out another hand, they all anted again. Still no one could open, and when Mulligan looked at his third hand and saw three sixes in it there was already a dollar five in the pot. To top it off, Fenton on his right opened, with a quarter, the maximum bid. Mulligan thought of raising, but decided to keep as many players in as possible, so just called. So did Garfield and Block. Two dollars and five cents in the pot now.

It was time for the draw. Fenton, the opener, took three new cards; so he had only the one high pair, jacks or over, to begin with. Mulligan considered; if he took two cards, they'd all suspect he had trips. But he was known to be a man to try for straights and flushes, so if he took only one card they'd think he was at it again. In addition to the three sixes, he had a queen and a four; he threw away the four and said, ‘One card.'

Garfield chuckled. ‘Still trying, eh, Joe?'

‘I guess so,' Mulligan said and looked at another queen.

‘An honest three,' Garfield said. So he, too, was starting with only a pair-probably aces or kings, hoping to just beat out Fenton's openers.

‘A dishonest one,' Block said. Which was either two pair, or an attempt to buy a flush or a straight.

After the draw, the maximum bet was fifty cents, and that's what Fenton bet. So he'd improved.

Mulligan looked at his cards, though he hadn't forgotten them. Three sixes and two queens – a very nice full house. ‘I believe I'll just raise,' he said and plucked a dollar bill from his shirt pocket and dropped it casually among the coins in the pot.

Now there was three fifty-five in the pot. Mulligan had put in a dollar-forty, meaning he could win two dollars and fifteen cents if nobody called his raise.

Garfield frowned at his cards. ‘I'm kind of sorry I bought,' he said. ‘I'm just gonna have to call you, Joe.' And put in his own dollar.

‘And I'm just gonna have to raise,' Block said. He put in a dollar and a half.

‘Well, now,' Fenton said. ‘I bought a second little pair, but I suddenly don't believe they'll win. I fold.'

The pot now had four dollars and sixty-five cents in it that Mulligan hadn't put in there. If he just called – and if he won – he would be within a nickel of breaking even on the night. If he lost, he would be down another two dollars and forty cents, all in one hand.

‘The hand of the night,' Morrison said disgustedly, ‘and I'm not in it'

‘I'd just about trade places with you,' Mulligan said. He kept staring at his hand and thinking. If he actually raised another half dollar, and got even one call, and won, he'd be ahead on the night. On the other hand …

Well, what did those two have? Garfield had started with a high pair and had taken three cards and improved – meaning more than likely either triplets or a second pair. In either case, nothing to worry about. Block, on the other hand, had taken only one card. If he'd been buying to a straight or flush, and if he'd bought, Mulligan's full house would beat him. But what if Block had started with two pair and had bought a full house of his own? Mulligan's full house was based on sixes; that left a lot of higher numbers for Block to come up with.

Garfield, sounding nervous and irritated, said, ‘Are you going to make up your mind?'

It was, as Morrison had said, the hand of the night. So he ought to play it that way. ‘I'll raise half a dollar,' he said.

‘Fold,' Garfield said in prompt disgust.

‘Raise you right back again,' Block said, dropped a dollar in the pot, and smiled like the cat that ate the canary.

A higher full house. Mulligan was suddenly very depressed. It couldn't be anything else; it had to be a higher full house. But he'd come this far … ‘I'll call,' Mulligan said wearily and shoved in yet another half dollar.

‘King high flush,' Block said, spreading the cards out. ‘All diamonds.'

‘By
God
!' Mulligan cried and lifted his hand over his head to slap it down in the middle of the table with the full house showing; but just as his arm reached the top of its swing, he was suddenly jerked backward, up over the chair and onto the suddenly bouncing floor. And as he went flailing back, his legs kicked up into the under part of the table and sent it too flying; nickels and dimes and cards and guards exploded in all directions, and a second later the lights went out.

17

At this hour on a Thursday night there were three police dispatchers on duty down at the station house. They sat in a row at a long continuous table, each one equipped with three telephones and a two-way radio, all three facing a big square panel of lights built into the opposite wall. The panel was four feet on a side, edged with a wooden frame, and looked like the kind of thing hung in the Museum of Modern Art. Against a flat black background, sixteen rows of sixteen frosted red bulbs stuck out, each with a number painted on it in white. At the moment none of the bulbs were lit, and the composition might have been titled ‘Tail Lights at Rest'.

At 1.37 a.m. a tail light lit up – number fifty-two. At the same time, a very annoying buzzing sound started, as though it were time to get out of bed.

The dispatchers worked in strict sequence, to avoid confusion, and this squeal – which was what the fuzz called the buzz – was the property of the man on the left, who pushed a button that stopped the noise, at the same time saying, ‘Mine.' Then, while his left hand reached for one of the phones and his right hand switched the radio to
send
, he quickly glanced at the typewritten list on the table in front of him, under a piece of glass, and saw that number fifty-two was the temporary branch of Capitalists' & Immigrants' Trust.

‘Car nine,' he said, while with his left hand, still holding the phone receiver, he dialed the number
seven
, which was the captain's office, currently occupied by the senior man on duty, Lieutenant Hepplewhite.

Car nine was the regular patrol car past the bank, and tonight the men on duty were Officers Bolt and Echer. Bolt was driving, very slowly, and had driven past the bank just five minutes ago, not long before Joe Mulligan was dealt his three sixes.

Echer, the passenger right now, was the one who answered the call, unhooking the mike from under the dashboard, depressing the button in its side, saying, ‘Car nine here.'

‘Alarm at C. and I. bank, Floral Avenue and Tenzing Street.'

‘Which one?'

‘It's on the corner of both of them.'

‘Which
bank
.'

‘Oh. The temporary one, the new one, the temporary one.'

‘That one, huh?'

Ambling, it had taken five minutes to come this far from the bank. Flat out, siren screaming, red light flashing, it took less than two minutes to get back. In that time, Lieutenant Hepplewhite had been informed and had alerted the men downstairs on standby, who were playing poker as it happened, though nobody had had a full house all night. ‘The colds are card,' Officer Kretschmann said in disgust at one point, and the others hardly even noticed; he did that kind of thing all the time.

Two other patrol cars, on beats farther away, had also been alerted and were rushing toward the scene. (The standby men alerted at the station house were not as yet rushing toward the scene, though they had stopped playing poker and had put on their jackets and guns; having been alerted, they were standing by.) The dispatcher who had handled the squeal was staying with it, answering no other calls until car nine should report.

‘Uhhhh,' said the radio. ‘Dispatcher?'

‘Is this car nine?'

‘This is car nine. It isn't here.'

The dispatcher felt a sudden instant of panic. The trouble wasn't there? He looked again at the red light, which was still lit even though the buzzer was off, and it was number fifty-two. He looked at his typewritten sheet, and fifty-two was the temporary bank. ‘Well, it
was
there,' he said.

‘I know it
was
here,' said car nine. ‘I saw it only five minutes ago. But it isn't here now.'

The dispatcher was by now completely bewildered. ‘You saw it five minutes ago?'

‘Last time we went by.'

‘Now wait a minute,' the dispatcher said. His voice was rising, and the other two dispatchers looked at him oddly. A dispatcher was supposed to stay calm. ‘Wait a minute,' the dispatcher repeated. ‘You knew about this trouble five
minutes
ago and you didn't
report
it?'

‘No, no, no,' car nine said, and another voice behind it said, ‘Let
me
have that.' Then it apparently took over the microphone, becoming louder when it said, ‘Dispatcher, this is Officer Bolt. We are at the scene, and the bank is gone.'

There was silence from the dispatcher for several seconds. On the scene, Officer Bolt stood next to the patrol car, holding the microphone to his mouth. He and officer Echer both gazed at the place where the bank had been – Officer Echer in a glazed manner, Officer Bolt in an aggravated and brooding manner.

The low concrete block walls were there, but above them was nothing but space. Wind blew through the air where the bank had been; if you squinted, you could almost see the structure standing there, as though it had become invisible but was still present.

To left and right, wires dangled like hair from the telephone and power poles. Two sets of wooden steps led up to the top of the concrete black wall and stopped.

The dispatcher, his voice nearly as thin as the air where the bank had been, finally said, ‘The bank is gone?'

‘That's right,' Officer Bolt said, nodding in irritation. From far away he could hear more sirens coming. ‘Some son of a bitch,' he said, ‘has stole the bank.'

18

Inside the bank, everything was chaos and confusion. Dortmunder and the others hadn't bothered about springs, shock absorbers, none of the luxuries; wheels had been their only concern. Since they were now moving pretty fast, the result was that the bank dipped and swooped and bounced pretty much like a kite at the end of a string.

‘I had a full house!' Joe Mulligan wailed in the darkness. Every time he managed to get to his feet some chair or some other guard would come bowling along and knock him over again, so now he was just staying down, hunkering on hands and knees and bawling his announcement into the darkness. ‘You hear me? I had a full house!'

From somewhere in the confusion – it was like being in an avalanche in an aquarium – Block's voice answered: ‘For Christ's sake, Joe, that hand is dead!'

‘Sixes full! I had sixes full!'

Fenton, who had been quiet till now, suddenly shouted, ‘Forget poker! Don't you realise what's happening? Somebody's stealing the bank!'

Until that moment, Mulligan actually
hadn't
realised what was happening.

With his mind occupied on the one hand by his full house and on the other hand by the difficulty of simply keeping his balance in this bouncing darkness and not getting beaned by a passing chair, it hadn't until just that instant occurred to Mulligan that this disaster was anything more than his own personal disaster at poker.

Which he couldn't very well admit, particularly not to Fenton, so he shouted back, ‘Of
course
I realise someone's stealing the bank!' And then he heard the words he'd just said and spoiled the effect by squeaking. ‘Stealing the
bank?
'