One Endless Hour (17 page)

    "First time I've seen it myself," Dahl said cheerfully, backing up the reel of film. "Just got it back from the processor. I'm gettin' better at those inside shots. Anyone can shoot an orgy in a woodland glade, cousin, but it takes practice to get those interiors. Let's look at it again."

    I sat and watched the reappearance of the bare behinds upon the wall while I tried to analyze the effect the first viewing had had upon me. By nature I'm not the easiest individual to "turn on" sexually. Most men have some one sexual totem pole which invariably accomplishes erection. It had never been that way with me. All my life I was never sure what was going to bring it about. Sometimes at embarrassing moments nothing brought it about.

    That was why it had been so great for me with Hazel Andrews. After an initial fiasco, the big woman and I had hit it off in bed together in a manner I'd never experienced before. Over the years I'd become so hesitant making an effort with women for fear of something going wrong that Hazel had been an exhilarating experience.

    Dahl was watching me as he disassembled the projector and put it back into his suitcase. "Kind've got you, cousin?" he said shrewdly. "Don't get shook. It gets to most."

    I had forgotten my Scotch until Dahl picked up his glass and took a swallow. "These nudie movies," I said after emulating him. "Do they really have such an appeal to-"

    "That's not a nudie," he broke in. "What you just saw, I mean. It's never a nudie till you see the broads' snatches. In the trade we call these 'sunsets.' Don't ask me where the name came from. All you show is a few boobs and butts. They're as far as you can go in tight-censorship areas. Then there's the nudies, which I don't bother with -after all, when you've seen a couple dozen bare asses you've seen 'em all-an' finally the ones I make, the exploitation movies."

    "Exploitation?"

    "Yeah. A movie that tells a story but with a couple of zippy sex scenes in it that can be exploited in the ads. A nudie is just an ol' swimmin' hole background or some-thin' like that, and with a couple of recent Supreme Court decisions the market is openin' up. But hell, anyone can make a nudie." His tone was scornful. "A good exploitation movie is art, though. An' Dick Dahl makes the best."

    "Then why do you need to keep on…" I hesitated.

    There was nothing shy about the movie maker. "Why do I need to keep takin' banks to get up a fresh bankroll, you mean?" His grin was wry. "Because I get carried away. I've lost money on my films because I couldn't get my best sex scenes past the censors in the big-money markets."

    "Then why not tone them down?"

    He turned serious. "Listen, cousin, when you make a movie you make it right, don't you?"

    "Even if it loses money?"

    "Even if it loses money. 'Course, a couple more court decisions like we been gettin' lately an' I figure I can reissue all my back films. They'd go right now if they had a European stamp on 'em. It's a hell of a note when hard-workin' American film makers are discriminated against."

    He sounded so injured I almost laughed. It wouldn't have helped our relationship, because he was in deadly earnest. "I don't understand where you get your actors," I said.

    "No problem. I've got a notebook full of names. Two notebooks, actually. One with people workin' re'glar who moonlight in films, hopin' to make it big, an' one with volunteers for the blue stuff."

    "Volunteers?"

    "Sure. You wouldn't believe the exhibitionists in this world. I always got more than I need. An' I can whistle up five eager chicks for every guy on my list. Somethin' about everyone she knows seein' her ballin' it in livin' color really turns on a certain type of tomato." He took another swallow from his glass and changed the subject. "What's the job look like so far?"

    "Everything in the Schemer's blueprints has been right on the nose. Around the bank, anyway. In the next couple of days the three of us will check out the homes of the manager and assistant manager for arrival and departure times of the families. Wait a second and I'll get the file. I want you to look over the escape routes."

    Halfway across the room I remembered something and detoured to the telephone. One reason I had selected the Carousel was because it had direct phones in each room that didn't go through a switchboard. "There's one thing in the Schemer's notes I want more information on," I explained to Dahl as I dialed the Schemer's number in Washington, D.C. "Schemer? Earl Drake. Call me right back at the motel, will you?"

    I hung up the phone, took the scale drawings of the bank and the access roads around it from my briefcase, and handed them to Dahl. He pointed to the phone. "What's with this call back business?"

    "The Schemer's ultracautious. He never talks business over his own phone. He never meets anyone face to face, either."

    "You mean you've never even seen the guy?"

    "That's right."

    "Then how'n'ell does he get paid?"

    "Through the mail."

    Dahl whistled. "He sure must wind up waitin' at the gate for the postman. Waitin' in vain, I mean."

    "Not as often as you'd think. You only miss with him once. Then he puts you on his blacklist, and he's so well and so favorably known that once on his list you'll have trouble hooking up with the_ right kind of people for your next job."

    Dahl still looked dubious. "I say it's no way to run a railroad. He must-"

    The telephone rang. I picked it up. "Drake here."

    "Why the call?" the Schemer's voice asked.

    "One small point," I explained. "Your notes say the manager and assistant manager each has half the vault combination. What happens if either of them doesn't make it to work?"

    "I didn't have that in there?" Irritation threaded the clipped syllables. "I'm slipping. If it's the manager, Barton, who doesn't show up, his half of the combo is in the hands of the retired chairman of the board. I don't remember his name, but it's in the list of bank officers. If it's the assistant manager who misses, the bank attorney, who is also a director, has his part of the combination. His name is Carlisle and his office is right across the street from the bank."

    "No luck," I said ruefully. "I was hoping someone might have goofed and one man like the board chairman would have both halves. That way we could have bypassed the families."

    "I didn't say it was going to be easy," the Schemer said. "Anything else?"

    "Nothing. We're getting close."

    "Fine. I kept that job on ice for quite a while waiting for the right workman."

    The connection was gone. Dahl looked at me quizzically as I replaced the phone. "No shortcuts, huh?"

    "It was worth a try. Now we follow the blueprint." I looked at my watch. "Time to pick up Harris. There's no need for you to come. I'll drive you down the road where you can get a room."

    Dahl stretched, yawned, and glanced at one of the large double beds. "What's the matter with sackin' out right here, cousin?"

    "No," I said. "We're not going to be seen together any more than is absolutely necessary. You'll need to hire a car in the morning anyway."

    Dahl grumbled a bit but finally put himself in motion. He carried his suitcase out to my car. It was only a three-minute drive to the other motel. "You sure we're gonna knock this one over next Thursday?" he said when I stopped on the shoulder of the road in front of the motel.

    "Unless we get a bad break," I promised. "Goodnight."

    " 'Night," he echoed. He walked up the driveway to the motel office, lugging his heavy suitcase. I watched from the car to make sure he got a room. I drove off when I saw the clerk swing the register in Dahl's direction for him to sign. It reminded me that I should have asked him what alias he intended to use.

    

    

    At the airport I found I had a forty-five-minute wait for the arrival of Preacher Harris's plane. I left word at the airline counter for him to be paged upon arrival and I left a phone number for him to call. The phone was a pay phone at one end of the terminal. When it finally rang, I was sitting five yards away from it. "Harris," the voice at the other end of the line said when I picked up the receiver.

    "Drake," I identified myself. "Let's meet behind the first row of cars in the parking lot."

    "Be right there," he said.

    He was obviously tired when I met him. "Bad flight," he said briefly. "I chucked twice. I need to sack in."

    I suspected that at least part of the dark circles under his eyes and the strained expression around his mouth came from more than a bad flight. Long, losing hours at the tables in Las Vegas had evidently preceded the flight. "I'll take Dahl on a dry run in the morning," I said. "You can sleep till noon and we'll look it over together then."

    The sound of Dahl's name seemed to rouse him. "Is he just as cocky as ever?"

    "No ego shrinkage that I could see." I didn't tell him about Dahl's movie made inside the bank. If I knew Dahl, Harris would be seeing it for himself very soon. I drove to a third motel, this one ten miles from the Carousel, on U.S. 1 near Lima. "What name are you going to use if I want to reach you?"

    "Harris James. James is my real first name."

    "That's easy to remember."

    I remembered an armored truck job years before in which a change of plan had come up at the last moment. The critical interval came and went with one partner hammering on door after door of a motel because he couldn't remember what alias his partner was using.

    At the motel I waited again until I was sure that Harris had a room, then drove back to the Carousel.

    We would be starting the last lap in the morning.

    

    

    Dahl and I drove to Philadelphia at five A.M. the next morning. He picked up a rented car, and I parked the VW. We continued to Thornton with Dahl driving. A light rain was falling and the streets were slick. It was full dark, and would be for another hour of the late-August morning.

    Dahl appeared to be in good humor during the thirty-five-minute drive. He hummed as he drove. When I directed him to the street in Thornton where George and Shirley Mace lived, he asked his first question. "Who we lookin' over this mornin', cousin?"

    "The assistant bank manager and his wife. Slow down now." A block away from the Maces' I noticed a sign on a lawn that said TOURISTS-ROOMS. That would be a good spot to park one of the cars. The police wouldn't pay any attention to a strange automobile parked in front of such a building. "Turn here. Fourth house on the other side of the street. If a cruiser gets nosy, I'm being transferred out of the territory on my advertising job, and I'm breaking you in." I opened my briefcase and showed Dahl my Yellow Pages flyers.

    He looked speculatively at the house, which was in a neighborhood that had seen better days. "What's to know about this pair that can do us any good?"

    "Their habits, especially in the early mornings. Circle the block and park where we can watch the house."

    "Are they gonna be a problem?"

    "The Schemer doesn't think so. They never go out together, for one thing. They don't seem to have any social life at all. Even when he takes a vacation, Mace shows up at the bank almost every day."

    "Sounds like a guy who's afraid someone's gonna find out he's been tiltin' the pinball machine."

    "If he is, he's good at it. He's worked at this same bank for twenty-two years. He refused a couple of transfers with advancement. He and his wife have lived in this same house all those years, too."

    "Refusin' a chance to move up sounds even more like a man who doesn't care to have anyone lookin' too close at his operation," Dahl said.

    "I'm sure the bank took that into consideration."

    "Just so there's somethin' left to grab when we make our move. Maybe he's just not makin' it with his war department. But imagine shackin' up with the same broad under the same roof for twenty-two years if you weren't cuttin' it with her?" He was silent for a moment. "Speakin' of there bein' somethin' for us to grab on a job," he resumed, "what we really need is a union, you know. Some outfit that could set up priorities. A good friend of mine is doin' twenty-to-life because he walked into a bank with his gun out when the FBI was standin' right there investigatin' another heist pulled in the same bank forty-five minutes before. It shouldn't happen to a dog."

    I made no reply. We sat and watched the neighborhood come to life. Men of all shapes and sizes emerged from their homes, climbed into their cars, and drove to work. The teen-age generation was apparently taking advantage of the last few days of summer vacation to sleep in. There were none visible. A few small children appeared in front of their homes in increasing numbers until the neighborhood took on the appearance of a tricycle headquarters. The wives, like the teenagers, remained invisible at that hour of the morning.

    "What time we gonna hit the place?" Dahl wanted to know.

    "This house? We'll have to work out a timetable. Early enough in the morning to have this home and the manager's under our thumbs so we can get the two men to the bank before daylight."

    "Sounds like an all-night job." Dahl sighed. He fingered the camera suspended from the cord around his neck. "Good, clear shootin' day. Hate to waste it."

    I was mentally running through the Schemer's notes again. Shirley and George Mace; no children; seldom any visitors; little social life. Side-door entrance hidden from the street by hedge along the driveway. It was hard to see a problem.

    The other house could be a different story. Thomas Barton, the bank manager, had three children. If Dahl and I went to the bank with Barton and Mace-no, after Dahl's antics during the Washington job it had better be Harris and I escorting the bank officials. Dahl could remain behind to keep the families hostage. That meant consolidating the families, and the easiest way would be to shift Shirley and George Mace to the Barton home when the time came.