Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

All enduring that I’d been driving along, so I was two or three blocks past the booth, but he didn’t tell me to turn till he made sure we had it straight, about the booth and how it figured in. Then he told me turn right, run back to Wilkens again, then circle around to come in past the bank the way I had the first time. He said, “Now, like before, take a right turn and stop. Right now, stop.” So I did, stopping on the cross-street beyond the bank and around the corner from it. When I’d pulled up the brake, he said, “An hour from now, while they’re all gathered around the booth, I’ll have you stop like this so I can get out and walk back to them, fumbling my money in my moist little fist like I want to make a call. Except what I really want is to listen to what they’re saying and notice how they act. They shouldn’t suspicion me — after all, they won’t see any car or have any idea where I came from, but if they do I want to know it. Then if everything’s OK, I watch them troop down to the bank, and we know it’s all clear. Or we know that it’s not. Either way is important.”

“All right, I have it now.”

“Drive on. Get on Wilkens again.”

I drove five or six blocks on Wilkens, headed east, at lease as I think, that is, toward the center of town, and when he told me to turn, I did, to my left. After some blocks he told me to turn right, and I was on a through street, a sign saying Frederick Road. He said, “OK, now, run five or six blocks, until I tell you to stop, then take a right. But in the first block of the cross-street take it slow — there’s something else for you to look at.”

I did just as he said, but all I could see was the end of an alley that ran in between the block, parallel to Frederick Road. But it turned out that was what he meant, and he told me, “Cast your eye up the alley; slow down as you pass and look up it. Tell me what you see.”

“...Blue car is all. Blue sedan.”

“That’s right. That’s what we’re looking for. Now stop and let me out, then half-circle the block to stop at the far end of the alley. I’ll meet you there, but if I don’t show, Bud’ll take over, and you’ll do whatever he says.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m having a look at that car.”

So he dropped off and I half-circled the block, but when I drove up to the alley’s end, he came out of it, and when I stopped he got in. He had me do it all over again, turn into the cross-street I’d turned into the first time, but this time made me turn into the alley and park back of the blue. He said, “It’s all clear in the other car, no stakeout waiting or anything, but I want you to have it down pat, how to park, how to do it quick, so we can switch cars fast, with no hang-ups.” So I did it all as he said, slipping in back of the blue, setting the brake, checking distances, and so on. He said, “Took us two weeks to find this spot, but it’s worth its cover in hundred-dollar bills. The beauty part is those buildings, the ones on each side of the alley. They none of them have back windows. With luck we’ll make our switch without being seen by anyone, and then we just vanish. No one sees us, no one catches our number, no one has anything on us.”

Rick asked, “That car, is it hot?”

“Chuck, both of us have cars, Bud and I, up north where we live, but on something like this you dare not use your own. Yes, the car’s hot. This car is hot. Both cars are hot.”

“...Where do I come in?”

“Don’t worry, I’m coming to you.”

By now I was back on Frederick, so we were headed back where we had started from. Pal went on: “OK, Chuck, now let’s get you straightened out. Your job is a double job. You hold the basket, this one in front of the seat, while the girl pitches money in it. I’ll pick one of the girls, one of the woman tellers, and make her handle the money. And while you’re doing that you’ll watch her feet, that she don’t play us tricks. We face all kinds of dangers, but one of them is the floor, which has all kinds of stuff on it, triggers and buttons and pedals, that she can kick and that will bring in the cops. So that’s your double job, to hold the basket at her, while she pitches the money in, and watch her feet like a hawk, that she doesn’t play us tricks. OK, then, so you both get the picture: soon as I see them go down from the phone booth to the bank, and count ’em and join up again in the car, we go have ourselves something to eat, sandwich or bun or whatever, and a cup of coffee to calm us down. Then, nine-thirty, we drive back to the bank and Beautiful parks out front. She stays there while we’re inside. Then Bud goes in and throws the gun down on them all — makes them put up their hands and line up in a row. Then we come in, you and I, Chuck, me with my drawn gun, you with the basket here, this one that you see on the floor. I make the tellers open their carts, or buggies, as they’re called. They’re rollaway carts, little cabinets on wheels, with steel drawers in them, that they keep right at their sides, in under the shelf back of their windows. Each teller has his own key, and each drawer opens separate. I call them up one by one and make them do it quick. Then one by one I send them out in the middle, where Bud takes charge of them — makes them lie on the floor, face down, with their hands stretched in front of their heads. When the carts are all open I call up the girl, the one that you’re to watch, and she goes down the line, opens the cart drawers, throws the money into your basket, and then when she’s done, goes out and lies down with the others. If, while we’re doing all that, customers happen to come, Bud takes care of them, making them lie down too. When the girl is done, we’re done, and boy, we get out of there fast. You first, Chuck, with the basket, me next, and Bud last, still covering that bunch on the floor. We hop in the car and Beautiful gives it the gas. Then in the car we transfer it, the dough you’ve got in the basket, to the bag here that you see, so we can handle it easy. Then Beautiful pulls in to the other car, we switch both bags to it, then out. And then we split in the car, say good-bye, and that’s that. Everything clear, now?”

“What do I do if she does make a pass with her feet?”

“You grab her, that’s what.”

“How can I, with both hands holding the basket?”

Pal was annoyed, but Bud said, “It’s a point, don’t smack it out. With both his hands full it could mean that second’s delay that could ruin us.”

“OK, Chuck, take a one-hand grip on the basket.”

“I can’t if it starts getting heavy.”

They figured on that for a while, everyone quite annoyed, and then Bud said, “Can’t he kick her? Fetch her one in the shins? If she gets wandering feet?”

Rick said: “OK, that ought to do it.”

Pal asked him, “How do you feel?”

“I feel good, Mr. Pal.”

“He don’t look so good.”

That was Bud, and Pal twisted around so he was facing Rick. Then: “Chuck, are you all right?”

“I said I felt good. Yeah, I’m OK.”

“You’re kind of pasty under the eyes.”

“It’s something I have now and then when I’m nervous, like I want to throw up. It don’t mean anything.”

I said, “Rick, how you do is swallow.”

“Beautiful, you’re talking to Chuck.”

“Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry.”

“That’s all the name he has. Remember it.”

For some time nothing was said, and I kept driving along. Then Pal asked Bud, “What do you think?”

“I think we do or we don’t.”

“OK, then. We do.”

At 8:25 exactly, with Rick still doing his best and hanging on somehow, I stopped on the cross-street after driving past the bank and taking the right turn. Pal got out and walked back, and I commenced watching behind, for what I could see on Wilkens, through the rear window, though the bag standing up in between made it I had to stretch my neck. But there was nothing to see, and I told Bud, “There’s no traffic back there — on foot, of people walking, or out in the street, of cars.” He said, “Yeah, this time of day things are slack. We took note of that already. It’s another thing in our favor.” I said it over again to Rick, hoping it might relax him, so the nervousness might pass, and it seemed to help, just a little. Anyhow, he said, “Yeah, Mandy, that’s good.” Then Bud snapped at him that I was Beautiful, and Rick said, “Yeah, that’s right, I forgot.” In ten minutes, though it seemed a lot longer than that, Pal was back, telling me, “OK, Beautiful, drive on.” Bud said, “OK, spill it, what happened?” “Nothing, nothing at all. I walked up like I wanted to the booth, counting the silver in my hand, and the guy inside nodded, holding up one finger, meaning he’d only be a minute. I stepped aside, like I was not in any hurry, and a girl went on talking about what a chance one of the downtown tellers was taking, shacking up with her boss weekends at a motel. She paid no attention to me and none of them did. It’s just like we hoped it would be.”