Donald Westlake - Bank Shot

“I see those flaaaaag draped coffins, I hear the loved ones in their cottages and on the farms of America —”

“Like, really, wow.”

Captain Deemer glowered at them all through the remaining slit of his right eye. A bellowed shut up might attract their attention — all three were talking at the same time now — but did he want them to shut up? If they stopped arguing with one another, they’d just start talking to the captain again, and he wasn’t sure he wanted that.

In the middle of the melee the phone rang. Captain Deemer was aware of Lieutenant Hepplewhite answering it, but that didn’t have much interest for him, either. More tub caulking, he supposed, this time in the ears of his officers.

But then Hepplewhite shouted, “Somebody saw it!” and the argument stopped as though somebody had switched off a radio. Everybody — even the captain — stared at Hepplewhite, sitting there at the desk with the phone in his hand, grinning at them with happy excitement.

Gelding said, “Well? Well?”

“A bartender,” Hepplewhite said, “closing up for the night. He saw it go by, about quarter to two. Said it was going like hell. Said there was a cab off a big tractor-trailer rig pulling it.”

“Quarter to two?” the captain said. “Why the hell didn’t he report it till now?”

“Didn’t think anything of it. He lives in Queens, and they stopped him at a roadblock going through. That’s when he found out what happened and told them he’d seen it.”

“Where was this?”

“On Union Turnpike. They’ve got a roadblock set up there, and —”

“No,” Captain Deemer said. Patiently he said, “Where did he see the bank?”

“Oh. Up by Cold Spring.”

“Cold Spring, Cold Spring.” The captain hurried to the map, looked at it, found Cold Spring. “Right on the county line,” he said. “They’re not trying to get off the Island at all. Heading the other way, up toward Huntington.” He spun around. “Get that out to all units right away, Lieutenant. Last seen at one forty-five in the vicinity of Cold Spring.”

“Yes, sir.” Hepplewhite spoke briefly into the phone, broke the connection, dialed the dispatcher’s room.

Gelding said, “You seem pleased, Captain. This is a good sign, eh?”

“The best so far. Now if we can only get to them before they open the safe and abandon the bank —”

“I don’t think you have to worry too much about that, Captain,” Albert Docent said. In the heat of the argument his bow tie had become twisted, but now he was calm again, and straightening it.

Captain Deemer looked at him. “Why not?”

“I was telling you about the advances that have been made in safe construction,” Docent said. He glanced at Wallah, who said nothing, and looked at the captain again to say, “Given any force that will open that safe without destroying the contents, whether nitroglycerine, acid, laser, diamond-tip drill, any of the safe cracker’s arsenal of equipment, it will take those thieves a minimum of twenty-four hours to break it open.”

Captain Deemer broke into a broad smile.

“Captain,” said the lieutenant. He was excited again.

Captain Deemer turned the broad smile on him. “Yes, Hepplewhite?”

“They found the seven guards.”

“Did they! Where?”

“Asleep on Woodbury Road.”

The captain was already turning toward his map, but he stopped and frowned at the lieutenant. “Asleep?”

“Yes, sir. On Woodbury Road. In a ditch beside the road.”

Captain Deemer looked at Albert Docent. “We’re going to need twenty-four hours,” he said.

“Oh, I can do it,” Herman said. “That isn’t the question.”

“Tell me the question,” Dortmunder said, “because I’m dying to ask it.”

They had come to rest now. Murch had delivered them to an open slot in the rear of the Wanderlust Trailer Park, a kind of nomadic village far out on Long Island. The owners of the Wanderlust lived elsewhere, in a proper house, and so wouldn’t be aware of the freeloader until tomorrow morning; as for the occupants of the other mobile homes here, some of them might have been awakened by the sound of the truck engine going past their units, but it isn’t unheard of for people to arrive or leave a trailer park in the middle of the night.

Murch had now departed with the truck cab, which he would ditch about fifteen miles from here, at the spot where they’d already stashed the Ford station wagon that would be their getaway car. May and Murch’s Mom had finished giving the place a gloss of hominess, and the idea now was that Herman would have been working on the safe since they’d left the football stadium and would have it open by the time Murch got back with the Ford. Only now Herman was saying he wouldn’t.

“The question,” Herman explained, “is time. This is a newer safe than I’ve seen before. The metal is different, the lock is different, the door is different, everything is different.”

“It’ll take longer,” Dortmunder suggested.

“Yes.”

“We can wait,” Dortmunder said and looked at his watch. “It isn’t even three o’clock yet. Even if we’re out of here by six, six-thirty, we’re still all right.”

Herman shook his head.

Dortmunder turned and looked at May. They were still moving around by the light of flashlights, and it was hard to read May’s expression, but it wasn’t hard at all to read Dortmunder’s. “I been kept out of mischief,” Dortmunder said.

“That’s one thing for sure.”

“Herman,” May said, coming forward, the cigarette bobbing in the corner of her mouth, “Herman, tell us. How bad is it?”

“Lousy,” Herman said.

“How lousy?”

“Terrible lousy. Rotten lousy.”

“How long would it take to open the safe?”

“All day,” Herman said.

“That’s wonderful,” said Dortmunder.

Herman looked at him. “I’m as happy about this as you are. I take pride in my work.”

“I’m sure you do, Herman,” May said. “But the point is, sooner or later you could open it.”

“Given time. The original idea was I’d have all the time I wanted.”

Dortmunder said, “We couldn’t find a place to put this goddam thing under cover. All we could do was this — paint, curtains on the windows, put it in a trailer camp. They’ll find the thing this morning, but we should have it camouflaged enough so we’re clear and home and dry before they do. If we leave no later than six, six-thirty.”

“Then we leave without the cash,” Herman said.

May turned to Dortmunder. “Why do we have to leave?”

“Because they’ll find this thing.”

Murch’s Mom came forward, carrying the flashlights. “Why will they?” she wanted to know. “It’s like The Purloined Letter , we’ve got a trailer hidden in a trailer camp. We’ve changed the color, we put license plates on, we put curtains on the windows. How are they gonna find us?”

“Sometime in the morning,” Dortmunder said, “the owner or the manager of this place will come along, and he’ll know this trailer doesn’t belong here. So he’ll come knock on the door. And then he’ll look inside.” Dortmunder waved an arm to indicate what that owner or manager would see.

Murch’s Mom already knew what the interior looked like, but she obediently flashed her light around anyway and said, “Mmmmm.” Not very encouraging. Mobile homes come in a lot of different styles, colonial and French Provincial and Spanish and Victorian, but no one so far has decided to live in a trailer done up as Suburban Bank.

May squinted past cigarette smoke and said, “What if we pay rent on it?”