Max Collins: Hard Cash

Today was December 24.

The bank was on the corner of Second Street and Iowa Avenue. The panel truck was parked on Second Street. Traffic was less than heavy, more than sparse; at any rate, the Toys for Tikes van attracted no undue attention. The morning was clear, crisp-cold; no overcast sky today; no threat of snow.

At 7:28 a man who looked remarkably like a younger version of Rigley rounded the corner from Iowa Avenue on foot, having left his car in the riverfront parking lot a block down and across the four wide lanes of Mississippi Drive. The man’s name was Shep Jackson. He was a vice-president at the bank; technically, his job was that of auditor. He wore an expensive-looking gray topcoat with a black fur collar. He had short dark hair and a tanned complexion. As he walked, he looked at himself in the reflecting glass of the modern double doors between the first and second pillars and the big curtained window between the second and third. He stopped at the employees’ entrance, the furthermost door, which opened onto a vestibule that joined the stairway to bookkeeping and the side door to the bank lobby. Keys were needed to open both doors, but the outer one he left unlocked, while the lobby door he locked behind him.

The vault’s time lock was set for 7:30, at which time Jackson would dial the combination, whirl the wheel, and open the vault.

Inside the vault was a shiny silver wall of drawers the cast and gloss of newly minted coins, separately locked drawers that held the trays of money for the teller cages, drafts, trust vouchers, money orders, securities, and so on. There was a small inner safe, built into the lower half of the shiny silver wall. The bulk of the bank’s money was in the interior safe. Just under $400,000, Rigley said.

The second safe, the one inside the vault, had its own time lock. At 7:45, Jackson would have four minutes to dial a combination and open the safe. From 7:30 to 7:45, Jackson would busy himself with the menial task of turning off the night alarms and emptying the small night depository vault up front, which would contain twenty-five or so locked, separate bags of coin and cash and checks left by merchants for overnight safekeeping. These he would carry to a teller’s window and leave. That would give him five or six minutes to sit at his desk, relax, have a smoke, and wait for the time lock on the vault’s interior safe to go off.

Jon looked at his Dick Tracy watch. “Seven thirty-eight, Nolan,” he said. “Better get going, don’t you think?”

“Another minute,” Nolan said.

They waited.

Nolan hadn’t told Jon the reasons for going with December 24, Christmas Eve morning, but Jon could figure them out for himself. The bank ran a skeleton crew on December 24; barely half the regular personnel would be on hand. Furthermore, if all went as planned, it would all be over before any (or at least many) of the bank employees had even showed up, the exception being Shep Jackson, who had to be there early to open the vault. Most people resent having to work on a holiday, even on a near holiday like December 24, so it was unlikely anyone would show up early today, and possible most of them would come dragging in five or ten minutes late. Also, the bank vault was overflowing at this busy shopping time of year; the Friday before the weekend was probably one of the biggest days of the season for local merchants. And, of course, there were the Santa Claus suits, which were to keep anybody from getting a look at Nolan and Jon’s true appearance, to keep anybody from realizing the Port City bank was being robbed by the same people again. Jon hadn’t been surprised when Nolan said the robbery would be Monday, because if it was any later than Monday, using the Santa Claus suits would be crazy. Although, sitting here in his false whiskers and red padded suit, Jon felt pretty crazy as it was.

“Okay,” Nolan said. “Let’s go.”

Nolan opened the rear doors of the van as Jon pulled up alongside the bank; Rigley got out first and Nolan, in his Santa Claus suit, followed. They went in the employees’ entrance. Through the glass door Jon saw Rigley working the key in the side lobby door. When Nolan and Rigley were both inside, Jon turned right on Iowa and drove past the bank and into the bank’s customer-only parking lot.

The lot was behind the bank and bordered by the alley, across from which were big empty buildings, a hotel, warehouses, reclaimed for urban renewal. Jon parked in the far corner of the lot, by the rear door to the bank, a metal door at the top of half a flight of metal steps. Nolan would be coming out that door in ten minutes. It would have been a nice way to go in, but it could only be opened from inside; somebody inside had to look through the peephole and unbolt the door and let you in. So Nolan and Rigley had gone through the front.

The lot was recessed, the bank having a neighboring building that extended clear to the alley’s edge, meaning the lot was open to view only on the Iowa Avenue side. Directly across from the lot was another, public parking lot, presently empty. But down the street half a block was a cafe. A police car was parked outside the café.

Jon slumped behind the wheel of the van, sweating in his Santa Claus whiskers and suit despite the cold, wondering what prison was like.

Nolan had a laundry bag in one hand and a .38 in the other. The laundry bag was empty. The gun wasn’t. He stood silently beside Rigley in front of Shep Jackson’s desk, at the rear of die bank, near the vault. The bank was silent, too, and dark, only the lights in the rear having been turned on as yet.

Jackson was wearing a money-green sportcoat and pale green slacks, the latter approximating the shade his complexion had turned to a moment before. He had the same sickly handsome look as Rigley, only younger, of course, like someone who had stepped out of an Arrow shirt advertisement. He’d been sitting at his desk, feet propped up, smoking a cigarette, reading yesterday’s Wall Street Journal . He had stood as the bank president and Santa Claus approached; he had smiled, a smile at first amused, then puzzled, and finally not a smile at all, because Santa Claus had a gun.

Three minutes remained before the time lock on the inner vault safe would go off.

“Shep,” Rigley said, emotionlessly, “there is a man at my house holding a gun to my wife’s head. There’s a man with a gun outside, waiting. And, of course, there’s this man. They want the money in the vault. They came to my house this morning and brought me here; one of them stayed behind to hold my wife hostage. I will be leaving with them. I’m a hostage, too.”

“Oh, my God,” Jackson said, touching his cheek.

“Take it easy, Shep,” Rigley said. “I’ve been robbed before. The bank has. My experience is that if we follow instructions, no harm’ll come to anyone. They want the money, and that’s all. But if we don’t follow their instructions, my wife will be killed, and quite possibly so will I.”

Nolan was pleased with Rigley’s words, but not with his performance. There was a mechanical quality to it, a coldness, like a bad actor reading off cue cards. Fortunately, Jackson seemed too unnerved to notice.

“At eight-thirty, Shep, you’ll open and conduct business as usual. This man is going to take all of the money in the vault safe, but will leave the tellers’ money alone. So you should be able to carry on as if all was normal. Sometime around midmorning, they intend to release my wife and me, they say, and you’ll be contacted. I will contact you. And at that time you can call the authorities. But until then any effort to do otherwise, I have been assured, will result in my wife’s death and my own. So please keep everyone away from the alarms. Now. I think the time lock should be open and you can give this man what he’s after.”