James Chase - Well Now, My Pretty…

“The goddam thing’s broken down,” He announced.

The four girls were working at high pressure. The tide was now turning, and the gamblers had at last hit a winning streak.

Rita, busy answering the red flashes on her desk, felt her dress sticking to her, but she couldn’t stop. The activity and the need for concentration allowed her only to wave her hand, signalling to Bic to do something about the breakdown.

Such was Bic’s nature, he looked helplessly at Hank. If he could find someone to take action on any little thing, he inevitably passed the buck.

“Hank! Quit that muck! The air conditioner has packed up!”

Hank dragged his eyes away from the small print. Right now, a girl was being raped. She was putting up a terrific fight and the lurid details intrigued him. He considered Bic dumb and lazy, and he had no patience with him.

“Drop dead!” he said. “You do something about it for a change.” Then he returned to his reading.

There came a sharp rap on the door, and at the same time the whining sound from the calculator slowed, then suddenly ceased.

“Damn!” Rita exclaimed. “Now the calculator has stopped!”

The four girls paused. They suddenly realised how warm the vault was growing. The piles of money, some banded, some only halfway through the counting machine, now lay in inert piles.

Again the rap sounded on the door.

With a sigh of exasperation, Hank got off his stool, shoved his paperback into his hip pocket and opened the grilled, judas window. He saw a tall, good-looking man, wearing a peak cap with the yellow and black I.B.M. badge on it, regarding him.

“Yeah?”

“Delivering a calculator,” Chandler said brisky. “You’ve got trouble, haven’t you?”

Hank stared at him, his alert mind immediately suspicious. “You psychic or something? It’s only just this moment broken down.”

“Had a call from Mr. Lewis,” Chandler said and shoved the delivery note through the judas window.

Rita came over and took the delivery note from Hank. She saw Regan’s stamp on it and that was enough for her.

“For heaven’s sake! Let them in! Let’s get this thing working again,” she said, then rushed back to her desk where the red lights were flashing.

Hank unlocked the door.

“Okay… come on in.”

The heat in the room had risen sharply.

“Miss Watkins,” one of the girls complained, “can’t we get something done? It’s so hot here…”

“All right… all right,” Rita snapped. “Give me a minute…” Chandler and Wash were now in the vault. They set down the big carton on a desk. As they did so, Mish, with excellent split-second timing, replaced the fuse to the air conditioner.

With a protesting growl, the machine started up again.

“There you are,” Rita said, waving her hands. “It’s on again.”

Chandler, very tense, but his hands steady, half lifted the lid of the carton. Maisky had made it easy for him. The lid lifted easily. As he slid his hand into the carton, groping for a gun, Hank moved over, a puzzled, suspicious expression on his lean face.

Bic had already returned to his stool. Now the air conditioner was working, he was happy to return to his dreams.

Wash stepped forward, blocking Hank off, his back to him. He was having difficulty in breathing. Sweat dripped down his black face.

Chandler’s hand found the gun. He whipped it out of the carton, then took a quick step away from the desk. Well rehearsed, Wash leaned forward, getting out of Chandler’s range of fire. He reached into the carton, grabbed up a gas mask and with shaking hands, put it on.

Chandler was yelling, “None of you move! This is a stick-up. Hear me? None of you move!”

Hank froze, his eyes widened as Wash, now with his gas mask on, whirled around, gun in hand. Bic sat motionless on his stool, his fat face stricken with alarm. Very slowly, he raised his hands above his head.

Rita, calm, slid her foot towards the hidden alarm button under her desk. She found and pressed it, not knowing that ten minutes before the raid, Mish had removed the fuse that controlled the alarm system.

Swearing under his breath, Chandler had trouble in getting his mask on, but he got it on finally while the two guards were threatened by Wash’s gun. Then Chandler rapped the head of the gas cylinder hard on the desk.

The result startled him. The cylinder seemed to jump in his hand. A cloud of white vapour suddenly filled the room. Dropping the cylinder, Chandler started back.

Maisky had told him the gas would operate in ten seconds. He hadn’t believed this was possible. Hank was standing right in the middle of the cloud as it exploded out of the cylinder. He went down as if his legs had become boneless, slamming against Chandler and sending him staggering.

Rita Watkins, also near the congestion of gas, went next. Her hand started to her throat, but failed to complete the journey. She spread across her desk, her skirts riding up over her thighs, her long hair cascading into a wastepaper basket full of discarded memos.

The other girls collapsed almost simultaneously. The last to go was Bic Lawdry. With bulging eyes and a limp hand groping for his .45, he struggled off the stool, then his legs gave way and he crashed down on the floor at Wash’s feet.

Chandler stood for a long moment staring through the goggles of his mask, feeling sick and frightened, then seeing Wash was already taking up handfuls of neatly packed $500 bills, he pulled himself together and joined him.

Working like madmen, they quickly filled the carton. Even in his panic, Chandler realised that Wash was much calmer than he was. The negro was stacking the bills fast, but with care, using every available inch of space in the carton.

Seven minutes later, the carton was full. Chandler replaced the lid.

“Come on… let’s get out of here!” he said, his voice muffled, his face, under the mask, streaming with sweat.

Wash motioned to the rack containing the $5 bills. Chandler had forgotten Maisky’s instructions. He ran to the rack and taking several bundles of money, wedged them into his hip pockets and in the pockets of his blouse. Wash followed his example.

Unable to carry more, the two men looked at each other and nodded.

They were aware of three blinking red lights on Rita’s desk. Chandler was aware too of Rita’s long legs and her white thighs as she sprawled across the desk.

They caught hold of the carton, startled by its weight, then, opening the steel door, they edged out into the passage.

By this time the air conditioner had cleared the gas, and they paused to rip off their gas masks.

Fifteen yards down the passage, Perry, his broad back blocking Regan’s view of the vault door, continued to listen to the old man’s story of a gambler who, having lost all his money, had offered his mistress on the next spin of the wheel.

“With his luck running so bad,” Regan said, grinning, “I’d have taken the bet. She was quite a chick. Mind you, I like ’em built big, and this chick was the original feather bed.” He shook his head. “They threw him out and the chick as well… a darn shame.”

Leaving the gas masks on the floor, Chandler and Wash, Wash walking backwards, moved down the corridor, carrying the carton.

Perry glanced over his shoulder.

“Well, I guess the boys have fixed it,” he said. “Glad to have talked to you, mister… a privilege. You sure have been interesting. I’ll get the truck open.”

He walked into the hot, still night and opened the truck. Maisky, dying little deaths, heard the doors open. He started the car’s engine.

Regan adjusted his spectacles and looked at Chandler as he and Wash moved past him.

“Taking the old one away… it’s snarled up,” Chandler said, sweating under the load. “They’re happy now… so long, mister.”