One Endless Hour (14 page)

    "There won't be no pursuit," Dahl said confidently. "We'll be gone like big birds. I'll go into the bank first an' herd the customers away from the cages an' the tellers out of them. Either one of you can come in next an' stand by the entrance to control the action. The third man in cleans out the cages an' is first man out an' the getaway driver."

    I looked at Harris, who shrugged as much as to say it was simple enough to work. "What about a weapon for the man at the entrance who's controlling the action?" I asked. "A handgun won't do it."

    "There's a riot gun in the trunk of my car," Dahl said.

    "Bring it along." I marked an "X" on the District map. "Harris will ride with me, and we'll park here on Military Road, a mile beyond the viaduct where it drops down off Georgia Avenue. Dahl, you park in Brightwood, steal a car and pick us up, and we'll return you to your car after the stolen car gets us from the bank to my car on Military Road."

    "Nothin' to it," Dahl said. "Let's go, cousins. You bring the briefcase. I'll bring the riot gun in the stolen car."

    "Pick us up at nine fifteen," I told Dahl. "You leave here first."

    "Like I've already gone," he said. He walked to the door, took off the latch, opened the door a crack and peered out, gave us a wave of his hand behind his back without looking around, and went out.

    "Well, the Schemer said he had nerve," I said.

    Harris didn't reply. He went to the bed, stripped a pillowcase from a pillow, folded it neatly, and tucked it into the briefcase. "I'll take the cages," he said. "You take the entrance."

    "Fine with me. Walk out to the highway now while I check out of the motel."

    Harris looked like any businessman on his way to work, briefcase in hand, when I picked him up ten minutes later. We had plenty of time. I drove slowly. Harris sat quietly, eyes straight ahead. I had no idea whether he was thinking about the job or the next whirl of the roulette wheel.

    We had eight minutes to spare when I parked on Military Road. There was no conversation. Tension pressed downward from the roof of the car like something tangible. Harris took a package of gum from his pocket, peeled off a wrapper, and crammed a stick into his mouth. He offered the package to me, but I shook my head. It was a long eight minutes.

    In the rearview mirror I saw a sleek white Oldsmobile draw up behind us. Dahl waved from behind the wheel. Harris and I got out of the VW and walked to the Olds. "Didn't even have to jump the switch," Dahl said cheerfully. "Found two in a row with the keys still in 'em. I took the one with the most horses."

    Harris was staring at a blanket-wrapped bundle on the front seat beside Dahl. Alongside it was a bright-checked sport coat with one red sleeve and one blue one. "What the hell is that thing?" Harris demanded, pointing at the coat. "Camouflage," Dahl grunted. "It gives the animals somethin' to look at besides my height, weight, an' peculiar arrangement of molecules." He picked up the coat and began to struggle into it while still seated behind the wheel.

    "You sit in back," I said to Harris. I got into the front seat with Dahl. The blanket-wrapped bundle was the riot gun. A half dozen loose shells were in the blanket, too. While I was loading the short-barreled, pump-type shotgun, Harris leaned over the front seat and placed two Halloween masks between us. I watched the road until no cars were corning toward us, then tried on the mask to make sure I could breathe properly. It wasn't too bad. There were sticky tabs at the temples-almost at the same place as my hairpiece tabs-and one under the chin to hold the mask in place.

    I removed the mask. When I looked toward Dahl, he was grinning broadly. "What's the good word, cousin?" he asked. He was a bizarre-looking figure in the outrageously flamboyant jacket and the ever-present movie camera once again slung around his neck.

    "Roll it," I told him. I gave him directions that would bring us into the bank alley from the Piney Branch Road exit. It was a short run. We turned smoothly into the exit when I pointed it out and headed up the alley the wrong way. Without my saying anything, Dahl turned the Olds around and headed it in the direction from which we'd come. There were only two cars in the alley. No chance of getting hemmed in by a car pulling in too tightly.

    We put on our masks. Dahl was first out of the car. With the psychedelic jacket, the mask, and the camera, he looked like a freak pitchman for a carnival show. I carried the riot gun beneath the blanket draped over my left arm. My watch said nine twenty-two A.M. as we walked single file toward the bank's front entrance. There wasn't a soul in sight in the alley.

    Dahl pushed on the revolving glass door and entered. Harris and I were right behind him. I took up a station just inside where I could watch the entrance and the bank's interior, including the offices on the mezzanine. I looked for a guard but couldn't see one. I let the blanket drop to the floor, exposing the riot gun.

    There were half a dozen women tellers in the cages, plus three customers on the bank floor, a man and two women. A single man was visible on the mezzanine. Beyond the line of tellers' cages a low railing separated a row of bookkeeping machines from the bank lobby. "Everybody inside the railing!" Dahl's voice boomed out.

    For an instant there was a hush, broken by two or three stifled shrieks as his role was recognized. "You, up there!" I called to the man on the mezzanine. "Don't move!" He didn't. There were gasps and another shriek as my voice called attention to me and to the riot gun. Dahl drove the three customers through a gate in the low railing, then herded them and the women tellers away from the cages, which were so high they hid him from my view.

    Harris was already inside the railing. Steel clattered and banged as he opened, emptied, and slammed cash drawers. The man on the mezzanine remained wide-eyed and motionless. I had looked at the large wall clock at the back of the bank when we entered. Now I looked again. A minute and a half had gone by.

    The revolving glass door pivoted and the bank guard walked in from the street. He was carrying a tray with eight or ten cups of coffee on it. He saw me and flinched. He tried to react so rapidly that the coffee cups sailed off the tray and spilled all over the floor. "Keep moving," I told the guard. "Inside the gate." He did as he was told.

    A chorus of twittering feminine protests rose from behind the tellers' cages. Dahl's menacing voice drowned them out. Then it was quiet again. All of a sudden a soft bright light was glowing, its source invisible to me. I could see Harris looking in that direction, and I moved in a step from the door. Then Harris went back to rifling cash drawers. I relaxed and moved back to my former position. Outside, cars went by in a steady stream along Georgia Avenue.

    I was sweating under the mask. I hoped my makeup was holding together. Harris ran for the railing, the laden pillowcase dangling from his left hand. He placed his right hand on the railing and started to vault over it. I could hear the squeak as his sweating palm slipped on the smooth surface. He turned over in the air and landed on his stomach in the longest slide since Pepper Martin stole third base in the World Series. Harris scrambled erect and ran past me to the door.

    He was already out in the parking lot when Dahl appeared behind the railing, retracing Harris's route except that with his superior height Dahl stepped over the railing. A gun dangled loosely in his right hand. I picked up the blanket and re-covered the riot gun as Dahl's coat-of-many-colors went through the revolving door, the camera dangling from the cord around his neck. I swung the gun in a final semicircle to freeze all movement, then backed out the door.

    I was halfway through the hundred-and-eighty-degree swing of the door to the parking lot when Dahl charged in on the other side, heading back into the bank. I froze. I couldn't imagine what he was up to. From my position with my back to the exit I could see the bank guard coming across the floor of the bank at a dead run. He shoved his foot into the protruding edge of the section of revolving door inside the lobby, and Dahl and I couldn't go anywhere. We were locked inside the revolving door.

    I raised the riot gun, but before I could draw a bead Dahl fired three times from his compartment inside the door. Shattering glass crashed in massive quantities. The guard ducked to one side, unhurt but shaken. The sudden acceleration of the door as his foot was removed thrust me out into the alley. In a second Dahl came winging out as the door completed the circuit. "What the hell were you doing?" I panted as we ran for the car.

    "Thought you might need help."

    "When I need help I'll ask for it!"

    Harris was under the wheel of the Olds with the motor running. Dahl and I piled into the back seat. We were moving down the alley by the time I got the door closed. Dahl jerked off his loose-fitting red-and-blue-sleeved jacket and threw it on the floor. "Masks off!" I rasped as Preacher made the turn at the end of the alley onto Piney Branch. The fresh air felt cold against the perspiration on my face when I pulled mine off.

    Dahl reached over the back of the front seat and lifted the pillowcase into the back seat. I half turned on the seat so I could watch him and still keep an eye out the back window for possible pursuit. We were headed south in a traffic flow that seemed ordinary. Dahl dumped the contents of the pillowcase onto the floor and began sorting it into three piles. "Damn, damn, damn!" he swore softly. "Small stuff."

    "I know," Harris said without turning around. There were no red fights behind us and no sirens. "What's the take look like?" His voice sounded husky.

    "Less'n twenty thousand," Dahl grumbled. Harris's grunt was eloquent of disgust. I refrained from saying that a properly planned job would have guaranteed that the amount of cash available made the risk worthwhile. "Check it," Dahl said to me, pointing to the piles of money at his feet.

    "Watch the rear," I said. I went through the cash quickly. I checked by packages of banded bills, not by counting. "It looks all right." Dahl reached down to the stack nearest him and began stuffing packages of bills into various pockets.

    I did the same. We had reached Military Road by the time I looked around. Still no sign of police pursuit. Dahl picked up the third pile of money in both hands and dropped it on the front seat beside Preacher. "This'll hardly keep me goin' three weeks," he said gloomily.

    "That's right," Harris chimed in. "Unless my system takes hold real quick this time." He looked belligerently at Dahl. "That was the most stupid thing I ever saw done on a job!"

    Dahl started to laugh. "You're jealous, cousin. I-"

    "What was this stupid thing?" I asked Harris, interrupting Dahl.

    "This mongoloid had the women tellers bare-assed on the floor, taking movies of them."

    "All but one who wouldn't pull her pants down even when my gun was an inch and a half from her twitch," Dahl affirmed in high good humor. "Must've had the rag on. You never know when you can use a little good pussy footage, cousins."

    I wondered how much of the bank area the camera had covered. "If I ever hear that you've used that film commercially, I'll find you and nail your ears to the nearest telephone pole," I threatened Dahl.

    Harris pulled the Olds onto the shoulder of the road before Dahl could reply. "What do we want to take?" he asked.

    "Nothin' but the gun," Dahl said sullenly. "Leave the masks."

    Harris was scooping money into his pockets… "Let's keep moving," he urged. His voice was husky. He sounded as though the strain was beginning to catch up to him. We walked across the wide highway to my car and I slid into the driver's seat. Harris got in with me, Dahl in back.

    I handed the blanketed gun to Dahl. "Wipe it clean."

    He was already working on it when I swung the VW around in a U-turn and headed toward Brightwood and Dahl's parked car. The final look I took in the rearview mirror showed the white Olds glistening on the shoulder of the road. Harris broke the silence. "This touch wasn't much of a stake," he said.

    "It's enough to get us together again for proper planning on the Schemer's job," I said. "And that time I think we should remember that we do just as long a bit for ten thousand as we'd do for Fort Knox. Let's make sure the cash is there."

    Dahl spoke right up. "Suits me," he said. "When?"

    "How about next week?"

    "Make it two weeks," he said. "I've still got a movie to shoot. You in, Preacher?"

    "I guess so," Harris said unenthusiastically.

    "I'll drive to Philadelphia and get set up," I said. "I've let the Schemer know where I am, and when we're ready to go you can call him to find out where to meet me."

    "Let's make the meeting two weeks from today," Dahl said.

    "Fine."

    "All right," Preacher Harris said a tick later.

    We were approaching Brightwood. "Where are you parked?" I asked Dahl.

    "In the middle of the first block, across from the post office," he replied. "Pull in anywhere." He was carefully rewrapping the riot gun in the blanket. "So long, cousins," he said when I double-parked momentarily alongside a line of cars parked at the metered curb. "Don't spend it all in one place." He stepped out, slammed the door, waved, and jogged across the street.

    "I don't
ever
want to work on a job with
him
again!" Harris burst forth as I pulled away.

    I knew what he meant. I wasn't happy about the botched aspects of the job myself, but I didn't want Harris too unhappy with it. I knew how long it would take to recruit new partners. "Now that we know he's a kook, we'll keep our fingers closer to the button next time," I said soothingly. "And you have to admit that nothing fazes him."