One Endless Hour (18 page)

    It could wait until we'd looked over the Barton home.

    Some circumstance there might make me want to change it. We wouldn't look it over today, though; we'd already spent enough time in the Mace neighborhood.

    When George Mace came out of his side door at 9:10 A.M. and backed down his hedge-bordered driveway in his fender-dented Rambler station wagon, I nudged Dahl. "Back to the motel," I said.

    "We're not gonna case the manager's house?"

    "Harris and I will do that tomorrow."

    "You mean I'm gonna waste the whole day tomorrow?"

    "You won't be wasting it. You'll be out buying enough cord to make adequate slip-noose tie-cords for the hands and feet of two wives and three children."

    He grunted acquiescence. "What about gags?"

    I considered it. Who could tell what might happen? "You'd better have gags ready." I thought of the children again. "Yes, you'd better have them ready."

    "Okay."

    We left the city limits of Thornton behind us at 9:15 A.M.

    If all went well, on Thursday morning we would also leave the city limits of Thornton behind us at 9:15 A.M.

    

    

    The next morning at six A.M. Preacher Harris and I were sitting in Harris's rented car diagonally across the street from the Thomas Barton residence. The streetlights were still on. In contrast to his Sunday night tenseness, Harris seemed much more relaxed.

    I felt reasonably secure about the surveillance. The Schemer's notes had made it clear that the city police had developed a pattern of returning the cruisers to the station at five A.M. while reports were made out. The state police cars never left the state highways unless called. In many communities there is a gap in police coverage during the early morning hours.

    At 6:15 a half-ton enclosed van rumbled down the street and parked in front of the Bartons' house. A man ran up the walk with a bundle in his arms, tossed it onto the porch where it landed with a thump, and ran back to the truck, which pulled away.

    "Newspapers," Harris deduced although there were no markings on the truck. "Did the Schemer's file say the Barton boy had a paper route?"

    "No."

    "If he does, I don't like it," Harris said. "People are used to getting their papers at the same time every morning."

    I didn't like it myself. It was a complication, but the only thing to do was work around it. The Barton front porch light came on and a boy in T-shirt and shorts came out the front door and bent down over the bundle. He was followed by a girl three or four years older. She had on a shortie nightgown, and even in the weak porch light she was something to see. "Dahl should be here," Harris said dryly. Dahl had insisted upon showing Harris his bank movies the previous afternoon. "That's a good-looking girl."

    The boy cut the rope binding the papers and handed one to his sister. He put the papers in a wire basket on a bicycle parked on the porch, wheeled the bike down to the street, and rode away. The girl yawned, looked the neighborhood over, stretched casually, and reentered the house. The porch light went out.

    I opened the car door. "Follow the boy," I told Harris. "I'll stay here."

    "Follow him? For what?"

    "There can't be more than thirty papers in his bundle. If we know his route to make sure he can't make a wrong stop, one of us can go with him Thursday morning." I stepped out onto the sidewalk. "I'll walk up to the next corner where I can still watch the house."

    Harris drove off after the fast-pedaling boy. Daylight came shortly after 6:45. It would be a tight fit to wait for the boy to return from his paper delivery and still get his father to the bank while it was dark. No newspapers delivered probably would bring phone calls from subscribers, though, and an unanswered phone call might trigger someone's unhealthy curiosity.

    Harris returned in twenty-five minutes, during which there had been no further activity visible at the Barton home. "Not too bad," he reported. "He never gets out of a four-block area. He leaves a paper at almost every house."

    "But where is he now?"

    Harris shrugged. "He rode off somewhere. I only stayed with him till he got rid of the last paper. I thought I'd better get back to you."

    It was all right if his absence didn't mean he was picking up more papers for additional delivery, I thought. I didn't say anything. Harris was staring reflectively at the Barton home. Although not very far in distance from the Mace home, it was a world apart in milieu. "What about that shortie-nightgowned job?" Harris asked.

    "What do you mean, what about her?"

    "What did the Schemer have to say about her?"

    "According to him, she's a swinger. Pretty wild by high-school standards. Why?"

    "That girl is still in high school?" Harris answered a question with a question. "She sure as hell doesn't look it"

    "Why the question?" I asked again.

    Harris grinned. "I just kind of had a picture of Dahl and his camera in the car with you here this morning instead of me. He'd have been right up on the porch asking her to pose."

    "The hell he would," I said grimly. "I've had enough of that camera foolishness."

    "I guess you're not turned on by the dollies any faster than I am," Harris said. "With me, the main line has always been two dice or fifty-two cards on a green felt table."

    We watched the house in silence for a moment. "How'd you happen to go the gambling route, Preacher?" I asked.

    "Only thing I ever really wanted to do," he said softly.

    "It's not everyone's game."

    "Yours, for instance?"

    "I might have bet fifty bucks on a horse three times in my life."

    "I never got around to horses," Harris said. "Dice and cards gave me all I could handle."

    "And banks," I said.

    "Just another gamble."

    We fell silent again. The neighborhood grew lighter. The Barton front door opened and a blond, pig-tailed pixie in a preteen version of a miniskirt bounded down the front walk. She was carrying a violin case. "That must be Margie, their eleven-year-old," I said.

    "I sure hope she doesn't take a violin lesson on Thursday morning, too," Harris said.

    "We'll check it against the Schemer's blueprint on everyone's whereabouts at the critical time."

    Harris lit a cigarette. "How much does he have the jug figured for if we get it all?"

    "Two-hundred twenty-five thousand."

    "A third of that'll buy the croupier a few drinks," Harris said dreamily. He savored the idea for an instant. "Although it doesn't seem possible in a town this size."

    "There's industry on the outskirts," I said. "The armored car delivery on Wednesday is to make up factory payrolls."

    "It's a wonder anyone pays by cash any longer. Sure would put us out of business if they quit, though."

    "It's changing," I said. "I can remember when I started in the business. A delivery like this one would usually consist of two-thirds cash and coin and one-third paper. Checks, bank money orders, bonds, that sort of thing. Now it's about reversed. That's why it pays to buy a job from someone like the Schemer. You know the cash is there and that you're not going to have your work for nothing."

    Harris turned in the front seat to look at me. "Who's going into the bank on Thursday morning?"

    "You and I."

    "That's good," he said earnestly. "I don't mind telling you I get nervous thinking about Dahl roaming loose inside a bank for the length of time we'll have to be there. He may be long on nerve but he's short on brains."

    "We'll supply the brains." I tried to soothe him.

    He wasn't listening. "How are we going to handle it when we get there with the manager and assistant manager?"

    "I've been thinking of the old Willie Sutton routine. You know, staking one of them out in plain sight with a dog chain around his ankle and a heavy piece of furniture to anchor him in place so the employees entering the bank will think that everything is all right. Then as they come in we'll intercept them and take them to an out-of-the-way area so they can't get to any alarms. I want to look at the Schemer's diagram again before we decide just where. When the time lock goes off, we make Barton and Mace open the vault. Then we grab the cash and go."

    "Do we take Barton and Mace with us?"

    "My thinking now is that we'll lock them in the vault. If it has air vents. Most of them do these days for that reason."

    Harris considered it. "What happens when the bank doesn't open up at nine A.M. and the customers start pounding on the door?"

    "The Schemer thought of that, too. This afternoon I want you to drive into Philly and locate a sign painter. Have him letter a sign that says 'examiners present-open at 10:00 A.M.' "

    "Banks don't do that, though, do they?"

    "Who knows that they don't? It's better than the two of us trying to manhandle a bunch of customers in addition to bank personnel while we're getting Barton and Mace to open the vault."

    "Yeah, I guess so." Harris still sounded doubtful though. "And Dahl will be watching the women and children all this time?"

    "To make doubly sure Barton and Mace don't get balky about opening the vault," I confirmed..

    "It sounds all right," Harris agreed. "If nothing-"

    The Barton front door opened. Thomas Barton emerged, trotted down his front steps, and walked around to his side yard. I looked at my watch: 8:44 A.M.

    Barton's car backed out into the street, then pulled away.

    "Back to the motel," I said to Preacher Harris.

    

    

    That afternoon Harris picked up the hand-lettered sign for the bank door, plus the dog chain. On Wednesday morning I sent Dahl to check again on the Maces while Harris and I did the same with the Bartons. No significant differences in the family patterns emerged from this surveillance.

    Wednesday afternoon I sent Harris and Dahl to Thornton in my VW to check on the arrival of the armored car at the bank. When they came back to the motel, they reported that everything had happened just as the Schemer's schedule had predicted.

    At ten thirty P.M. Wednesday evening I telephoned both Barton and Mace to verify that neither had been called out of town unexpectedly. As an excuse I inquired if either wished to buy the new edition of the Britannica. Both were polite in saying no.

    H-hour was set for three A.M. on Thursday morning.

    We would meet at the Carousel and drive to Thornton in the two rented cars and my Volkswagen.

    At three thirty A.M. we would force the lock on George Mace's side door.

    We were as ready as we were ever going to be.

    

    

    Thursday morning at three A.M. it was warm and muggy with a hint of rain in the air.

    I wore my coppery-red hairpiece. Harris and Dahl both carried their Halloween masks, but I didn't bother. I knew I couldn't keep a mask on for six hours without perspiration ruining my makeup and revealing scar ravages beneath.

    Each of us drove to Thornton. Although I intended us to eventually drive to the bank and later leave it in Barton's car, I had Harris park his rental near the bank in case anything went wrong and we needed a spare during the getaway. Harris then got into Dahl's car and they followed my VW.

    I parked in front of the house I had previously selected, the one with the sign that said "Tourists-Rooms." The VW shouldn't be noticed in front of that house. Harris and Dahl picked me up, and at 3:34 A.M. we sat in Dahl's car where he and I had watched the Mace house the first morning. Harris and I left the car with Dahl still sitting at the wheel. We walked up the Mace driveway to the back door.

    "Look at that!" Harris muttered hoarsely.

    There was a light on in the kitchen.

    The rest of the homes in the neighborhood were as dark and as silent as an abandoned silver mine, but the house that we intended to enter was brightly lighted. I knew we couldn't afford to be held up at the very outset of the operation. There would almost surely be unavoidable delays later on. "Someone probably forgot to turn it off," I said. "Don't get spooked."

    I went up the three steps to the back door. I had a celluloid pick in my hand and a steel pry-bar in my pocket. When I pulled on the handle, the unlatched screen door swung open. The back door itself was locked. I inserted the pick. I wasn't afraid of noise even if someone was in the kitchen. The Schemer's diagrammatic drawing of the house had showed a long passageway between the back door and the kitchen. The intervening space was used for storage.

    There was a faint click as the celluloid slid back the tongue of the lock. I opened the door a crack. The passageway was dark. I couldn't hear a sound from inside the house. "Let's go," I whispered to Harris, who was standing on the step behind me. There was a blur of movement I knew was caused by his putting on his mask. I lined myself up with the doorway and moved straight down the black passageway to avoid bumping into anything.

    My outstretched left hand made contact with the wood of the inner door. I groped for the knob, found it, and turned it. The door inched open. It wasn't locked. I reached across my chest with my right hand and drew the Sauer from its holster. I opened the door wide and walked into the lighted kitchen with the automatic showing in my hand.

    A woman in pajamas with her hair up in curlers was standing at the stove. She was stirring a steaming pot with a long-handled ladle. She appeared middle-aged although her complexion was unlined. Her mouth opened but no sound emerged as she stared at me. The ladle hung in midair where her arm movement had frozen. Liquid dripped from it to expire with a hiss on the burner. On the kitchen table beside the woman there was a green wooden tray with deep troughs containing wooden dishes and bowls and wooden utensils.