Эд Макбейн - Let’s Hear It For The Deaf Man

“Correct. The moment I see you leaving the vault to head back for Mr. Alton’s office, I will step outside the bank and set the second phase of the plan in motion.”

“This is where we come in,” Angela said, and smiled. Utterly impossible , the Deaf Man thought, and returned her smile.

“Yes,” he said pleasantly enough, “this is where you come in. If you’ll all look at the diagram again, you’ll see that a driveway comes in off the street on the right of the bank, runs around the rear of the bank, and then emerges into the street again on the left. The driveway was put in to accommodate the car teller’s window. It is only wide enough to permit passage of a single automobile. Two things will happen the moment I step out of the bank. First, John and Rudy, in Car Number One, will drive up to the teller’s window. Second, Angela, in Car Number Two, will park across the mouth of the driveway, get out of the car, and open the hood as though searching for starter trouble.”

“That’s so no other cars can get in the driveway after Rudy and John pull up to the teller’s window,” Angela said.

“Yes,” the Deaf Man answered blankly.

“Meanwhile,” Kerry said, and the Deaf Man was pleased to see that he had managed to generate some sort of enthusiasm for the project, “ I’ll be in the manager’s office, tying him up and sticking a gag in his mouth.”

“Correct,” the Deaf Man said. “John?”

“I’ll get out of the car at the teller’s window and smash the glass there with a sledge hammer.”

“Which is precisely when the alarm will go off. You won’t hear it. It’s a silent alarm that sounds at the 86th Precinct and also at the Security Office.”

“But I’ll hear the glass smashing,” Kerry said, and grinned. “Which is when I open the door leading from the manager’s office to the tellers’ cages, go through the gate in the counter, and jump through the busted window into the driveway.”

“Yes,” the Deaf Man said. “You get into the car, and Rudy, at the wheel, will drive around the rear of the bank and out into the street again. I will meanwhile have entered the car Angela is driving, and we will all go off together into a lucrative sunset.”

“How long does it take the police to answer that alarm?” Rudy asked.

“Four minutes.”

“How long does it take to drive around the bank?”

“A minute and a half.”

The group was silent.

“What do you think?” the Deaf Man asked. He had deliberately chosen nonthinkers, and he fully realized that his task today was one of selling an idea. He looked at them hopefully. If he had not completely sold them, he would replace them. It was as simple as that.

“I think it’ll work,” John said.

“So do I,” Rudy said.

“Oh, how can it miss?” Angela said in her whiny voice, and the Deaf Man winced.

“Kerry?” he asked.

Kerry, of course, was the key man. As he had rightfully pointed out, he was the only one of the group who would actually be inside the bank, holding a gun, committing a robbery. The question Kerry asked now was the only question he should have asked; the Deaf Man was beginning to think he had chosen someone altogether too smart.

“How come you don’t go into the manager’s office and stick the gun in his back?” Kerry asked.

“I’m known at the bank,” the Deaf Man said.

“How?”

“As a depositor.”

“Why can’t a depositor also be somebody who’s asking for financing on a housing development?”

“There’s no reason why he couldn’t be. But my face has been recorded by the bank’s cameras many times already, and I don’t wish to spend the rest of my life dodging the police.”

“What about my face?” Kerry asked. “They’ll know what I look like, won’t they? What’s to stop them from hounding me after the job?”

“ You’ll be in disguise.”

“You didn’t mention that.”

“I know I didn’t,” the Deaf Man said. He hadn’t mentioned it because he hadn’t thought of it until just this moment. “You will grow a mustache and shave your head before the job. As far as they’ll ever know, the bank was robbed by a Yul Brynner with a hairy lip.” Everyone laughed, including Kerry. The Deaf Man waited. They were almost in his pocket. It all depended on Kerry.

Kerry, still laughing, shook his head in admiration. “I got to hand it to you,” he said. “You think of everything.” He took a long swallow of the drink, and said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sounds good to me.” He raised his glass to the Deaf Man and said, “Count me in.”

The Deaf Man did not mention to Kerry that his next logical question should have been, “Mr. Taubman, why don’t you shave your head and grow a mustache?” or that he was extremely grateful to him for not having asked it. But then again, had the question come up, the Deaf Man would have thought of an answer. As Kerry had noted, the Deaf Man thought of everything, even when he didn’t think of everything. Grinning now, he said to the others, “May I count all of you in?” and turned away not three seconds later to mix a fresh round of drinks in celebration.

The second photostat of the Japanese Zero came in the afternoon mail, just as Carella was leaving the squadroom. Carella studied it solemnly as Meyer tacked it to the bulletin board alongside the five other stats. Then he picked up the manila envelope in which it had been delivered and looked again at the typewritten address.

“He’s still addressing them to me,” he said.

“I see that.”

“And still spelling my name wrong. It’s Stephen with a p-h , not Steven with a v .”

“ I didn’t even know that,” Meyer said.

“Yeah,” Carella said, and then turned to look at the row of stats again. “Do you suppose he knows I have twins?”

“Why?”

“Because that’s all I can figure. He’s addressing the stuff to me, he’s putting it on an entirely personal level. So maybe he’s also duplicating it because I have twins.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” Carella paused. “What do you think?”

“ I think you’re getting slightly paranoid,” Meyer said.

Sanford Elliot was working when Carella went over with his search warrant. The long wooden table at which he sat was spattered with daubs of wax. A round biscuit tin was near his right elbow, half full of molten wax, a naked electric light bulb shining into its open top to keep it soft. Elliot dipped into the can with fingers or wire-end tool, adding, spreading, molding wax onto the small figure of the nude on the table before him. He was thoroughly engrossed in what he was doing, and did not look up when Carella walked into the studio from the front of the shop. Carella did not wish to startle him. The man may have figured in a murder, and a startled murderer is a dangerous one. He hesitated just inside the curtain that divided the studio from the front, and then coughed. Elliot looked up immediately.

“You,” he said.

“Me,” Carella answered.

“What is it this time?”

“Do you always work in wax, Mr. Elliot?”

“Only when I’m going to cast something in bronze.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t give art lessons,” Elliot said abruptly. “What do you want?”

“This is what I want,” Carella said, and walked to him and handed him the search warrant:

IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS STATE TO ANY POLICE OFFICER IN THIS CITY:

Proof by affidavit having been made this day by Detective Stephen L. Carella that there is probable cause for believing that certain property constitutes evidence of the crime of murder or tends to show that a particular person has committed the crime of murder: