Donald Westlake - Bank Shot

“One for all and all for one,” everybody mumbled.

Herman X spread black caviar on black bread and handed it across the coffee table to Susan. “I know I have expensive tastes,” he said, flashing his frankest smile at his guests, “but the way I think, we pass this way but once.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” George Lachine said. He and his wife Linda were the token whites at this dinner party, Susan and the other three couples all being black. George was in OEO somewhere — not in fund disbursement, unfortunately — but it was Linda that Herman had his eye on. He still hadn’t made up his mind whether he would finish this evening in bed with Linda Lachine or Rastus Sharif, whether he felt tonight straight or gay, and the suspense was delicious. Also the fact that neither of them had shared his bed before, so it would be a new adventure in any case.

Susan gave George an arch look and said, “I know your kind. Grab all you can get.” Herman thought it unlikely that Susan really wanted George; she was probably just trying to make Linda angry, since she knew Herman’s intentions in that area.

And she was succeeding. While George looked flustered and flattered, Linda gave Susan a tight-lipped look of hate. But she was too cool, Herman noticed, to say anything right now. That pleased him; people being themselves always pleased him. “A dinner party,” he had once said, “should be nothing but undercurrents.”

This one was. Of the ten people present, practically everybody had been to bed at one time or another with everybody else — excluding the Lachines, of course, who were in process of being drawn in right now.

And himself and Rastus. How had he let that fail to happen for so long? Herman glanced over at Rastus now and saw him indolently whispering something to Diane, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Rastus Sharif; he’d chosen the name himself, of course, as representative of the full range of his heritage, both slave and African, and in doing so had made himself a walking insult to practically everybody he met. Black and white alike had trouble bringing themselves to call him “Rastus.” Looking at him, Herman thought the delay had probably been caused by his own admiration and envy; how could he go to bed with the only person on earth he didn’t feel superior to?

Mrs. Olaffson suddenly appeared in the living-room doorway. “Telephone, sir.”

He sat up. “My call from the Coast?” He was aware of the conversations halting around him.

Mrs. Olaffson knew her part: “Yes, sir.”

“Be right there.” Standing, he said, “Sorry, people, this may take a while. Try to have fun without me.”

They made ribald comments in return, and he grinned as he loped from the room. He had given it out that he was employed in “communications,” sometimes making it seem as though he meant book publishing and sometimes motion pictures. Vague but glamorous, and no one ever inquired more closely.

Mrs. Olaffson had preceded him to the kitchen, and on the way through he said, “Study door locked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind the fort.” He patted her pink cheek, went out the apartment’s rear door and down the service stairs two at a time.

As usual, Mrs. Olaffson’s timing had been perfect. Just as Herman stepped out onto the sidewalk of Central Park West the grimy green-and-white Ford rolled in to the curb by the fire hydrant. Herman pulled the rear door open and slid in beside Van; as he shut the door, Phil, the driver, started the car moving again.

“Here you go,” Van said and handed him his mask and gun.

“Thanks,” he said and held them in his lap as the Ford headed south toward midtown.

There was no conversation in the car, not even from the fourth man, Jack, who was the newest, on only his second caper. Driving along, Herman looked out the side window and thought about his dinner party, the people there, the way he would spend the latter part of the night, and the menu for dinner.

He had planned the menu with the greatest of care. The cocktails to begin had been Negronis, the power of the gin obscured by the gentleness of vermouth and Campari. The caviar and pitted black olives to nosh on while drinking. Then, at the table, the meal itself would start with black bean soup, followed by poached fillet of black sea bass and a nice bottle of Schwartzekatz. For the entree, a Black Angus steak sautéed in black butter and garnished with black truffles, plus a side dish of black rice, washed down with a good Pinot Noir. For dessert, black-bottom pie and coffee. For after dinner drinks, a choice of Black Russians or blackberry brandy, with bowls of black walnuts to munch on again in the living room.

Phil pulled to the curb on Seventh Avenue in the upper forties. Herman and Van and Jack got out and walked away around the corner. Ahead of them, the Broadway theater marquees shouldered one another to be seen.

Ahead on the right was the new rock musical Justice! It had been panned on the road, it had come into town fully expecting to be a disaster, it had opened last night, and every last New York critic had given it a rave. The line for advance sale tickets had been around the block all day; the producers hadn’t expected the cash in-flow and hadn’t prepared for it, so the day’s receipts were spending the night in the theater safe. Well, part of the night. One of the brothers in the chorus had passed the word to the Movement, and the Movement had quickly assigned Herman and Phil and Van and Jack. They’d met late this afternoon, looked over the brothers’ maps of the interior of the theater, worked out their plot, and here they were.

One usher stood in the outer lobby. He was short and stocky and wore a dark-blue uniform. He gave Herman and Van and Jack a supercilious look as they came in through the outer doors and said, “Can I help you?”

“You can turn around,” Van said and showed him a gun. “Or I can blow your head off.”

“Good Christ,” the usher said and stepped back into the doors. He also put his hand to his mouth and blanched.

“Now, that’s what I call white,” Herman said. His own gun remained in his pocket, but he had taken out the mask and was putting it on. It was a simple black mask, the kind the Lone Ranger wears.

“Turn around”, Van said.

“Better do it,” Herman said. “I’m gentle, but he’s mean.”

The usher turned around. “What do you want? Do you want my wallet? You don’t have to hurt me. I won’t do any —”

“Oh, be quiet,” Van said. “We’re all going inside and turn left and go up the stairs. You first. Don’t be cute, because we’re right behind you.”

“I won’t be cute. I don’t want to be —”

“Just walk,” Van said. He gave off such an aura of weary professionalism that his victims almost always fell all over themselves to do what he wanted; not wanting to expose themselves as amateurs to his jaundiced eye.

The usher walked. Van put away his gun and donned his mask. Jack and Herman were already masked, but a casual observer watching them walk across the dark rear of the theater behind the usher wouldn’t have realized they had masks on.

A herd of people onstage were shouting a song: “Freedom means I got to be, I got to be, I got to be, Freedom means I got to be. Freedom means you got to be, you got to be …”

The stairs were carpeted in dark red and curved to the right. At the top was the loge, and Van poked the usher to make him move to the right, behind the seats and through another door and up a narrow flight of stairs that wasn’t carpeted at all.

In the room were six people. Two women and a man were counting money at tables with adding machines. Three men were wearing the uniform of a private protective service, including holstered pistols. Van stuck his foot around the usher’s and gave him a shove as they entered the room, so the usher cried out and went sprawling. It distracted everyone long enough for Van and Jack and Herman to line up in a row inside the door, guns in their hands and masks on their faces, establishing that they were already in control.