James Cain - The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction

“I think so.”

“And you done it regular, yesterday?”

“As well as I can recall.”

“You looked around in there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you didn’t see nothing?”

“No, certainly not.”

“Then he’s in there on purpose.”

The other two nodded, and looked at me like I must not be very bright.

Dyer went on: “It’s possible for a man to hide hisself in a vault. I’ve thought of it, many a time, how it could be done. You think of a lot of things in my business. Once them trucks are wheeled in, with the records on them, if he once got in without being seen, he could stoop down behind them, and keep quiet, and when you come to close up you wouldn’t see him. But not by accident. Never.”

I was feeling funny in the stomach. I had to take a tack I didn’t like.

“Of course, there’s a human element in it. There’s nothing in this man’s record that gives any ground whatever for thinking he’d pull anything. Fact of the matter, that’s what I’m doing in the branch. I was sent out there to study his methods in the savings department. I’ve been so much impressed by his work that I’m going to write an article about it.”

“When did he get in there, do you think?”

“Well, we found a spider. A big one.”

“One of them bad dreams with fur all over them?”

“That’s it. And we were all gathered around looking at it. And arguing about how to get it out of there. I imagine he was standing there looking at it too. We all went out to throw it in the street, and he must have gone in the vault. Perhaps just looking around. Perhaps to open his box, I don’t know. And — was in there when I closed it up.”

“That don’t hit you funny?”

“Not particularly.”

“If you wanted to get everybody in one place in that bank, and everybody looking in one direction, so you could slip in the vault, you couldn’t think of nothing better than one of them spiders, could you? Unless it was a rattlesnake.”

“That strikes me as a little farfetched.”

“Not if he’s just back from the mountains. From Lake Arrowhead, I think you said. That’s where they have them spiders. I never seen one around Glendale. If he happened to turn that spider loose the first time he come in, all he had to do was wait till you found it, and he could easy slip in.”

“He’d be running an awful risk.”

“No risk. Suppose you seen him? He was looking at the spider too, wasn’t he? He come in with his key to see what all the fuss was about. Thought maybe there was trouble... Mr. Bennett, I’m telling you, he’s not locked in by accident. It couldn’t happen.”

“...What would you suggest?”

“I’d suggest that me, and Halligan, and Lewis, are covering that vault with guns when you open the door, and that we take him right in custody and get it out of him what he was doing in there. If he’s got dough on him, then we’ll know. I’d treat him just like anybody else that hid hisself in a vault. I wouldn’t take no chances whatever.”

“I can’t stand for that.”

“Why not?”

For just a split second, I didn’t know why not. All I knew was that if he was searched, even if he hadn’t put his father-in-law’s money back in the cash box, they’d find it on him, and a man with nine thousand dollars on him, unaccounted for, stepping out of a bank vault, was going to mean an investigation that was going to ruin me. But if you’ve got to think fast, you can do it. I acted like he ought to know why not. “Why — morale.”

“What do you mean, morale?”

“I can’t have those people out there, those other employees, I mean, see that at the first crack out of the box, for no reason whatever, I treat the senior member of the staff like some kind of a bandit. It just wouldn’t do.”

“I don’t agree on that at all.”

“Well, put yourself in their place.”

“They work for a bank, don’t they?”

“They’re not criminals.”

“Every person that works for a bank is automatically under suspicion from the minute he goes in until he comes out. Ain’t nothing personal about it. They’re just people that are entrusted with other people’s money, and not nothing at all is taken for granted. That’s why they’re under bond. That’s why they’re checked all the time — they know it, they want it that way. And if he’s got any sense, even when he sees our guns, supposing he is on the up-and-up, and he’s in there by mistake, he knows it. But he’s not on the up-and-up, and you owe it to them other people in there to give them the protection they’re entitled to.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“It’s up to you. But I want to be on record, in the presence of Halligan and Lewis, that I warned you. You hear what I say, Mr. Bennett?”

“...I hear what you say.”

My stomach was feeling still worse, but I gave them their orders. They were to take positions outside. They weren’t to come in unless they were needed. They were to wait him out.

I led, driving over to the bank, and they followed, in Dyer’s car. When I went past the bank I touched the horn and Dyer waved at me, so I could catch him in the mirror. They had wanted me to show them the bank, because they were all from the home office and had never been there. A couple of blocks up Anita Avenue I turned the corner and stopped. They pulled in ahead of me and parked. Dyer looked out. “All right. I got it.”

I drove on, turned another corner, kept on around the block and parked where I could see the bank. In a minute or two along came Helm, unlocked the door and went in. He’s first in, every morning. In about five minutes Snelling drove up, and parked in front of the drugstore. Then Sheila came walking down the street, stopped at Snelling’s car, and stood there talking to him.

The curtains on the bank door came down. This was all part of opening the bank, you understand, and didn’t have anything to do with the vault. The first man in goes all through the bank. That’s in case somebody got in there during the night. They’ve been known to chop holes in the roof even, to be there waiting with a gun when the vault is opened.

He goes all through the bank, then if everything’s O.K. he goes to the front door and lowers the curtains. That’s a signal to the man across the street, who’s always there by that time. But even that’s not all. The man across the street doesn’t go in till the first man comes out of the bank, crosses over, and gives the word. That’s also in case there’s somebody in there with a gun. Maybe he knows all about those curtains. Maybe he tells the first man to go lower the curtains, and be quick about it. But if the first man doesn’t come out as soon as he lowers the curtains, the man across the street knows there’s something wrong, and puts in a call, quick.

The curtains were lowered, and Helm came out, and Snelling got out of his car, I climbed out and crossed over. Snelling and Helm went in, and Sheila dropped back with me.

“What are you going to do, Dave?”

“Give him his chance.”

“If only he hasn’t done something dumb.”

“Get to him. Get to him and find out what’s what. I’m going to take it as easy as I can. I’m going to stall, listen to what he has to say, tell him I’ll have to ask him to stick around till we check — and then you get at it. Find out. And let me know.”

“Do the others know?”

“No, but Helm’s guessed it.”

“Do you ever pray?”

“I prayed all I know.”

Adler came up then and we went in. I looked at the clock. It was twenty after eight. Helm and Snelling had their dust cloths, polishing up their counters. Sheila went back and started to polish hers. Adler went back to the lockers to put on his uniform. I sat down at my desk, opened it, and took out some papers. They were the same papers I’d been stalling with the afternoon before. It seemed a long time ago, but I began stalling with them again. Don’t ask me what they were. I don’t know yet.