This was an Outfit operation, a rambling cream stucco structure two stories high. It was in a dry county where liquor is illegal, in one of the forty-nine states in which gambling is illegal, and in one of the fifty in which prostitution and narcotics are illegal.
The only legal activity going on in the Club Cockatoo was dancing. On the first floor was the bar, where every drink ever heard of in New York City was available—at a price a little higher than in New York City. The waiters and bartenders had decks of marijuana for sale; the stronger drugs had never really caught on in that part of the country. Upstairs were the beds, and the maidens who manned them. And downstairs were the games. It was a good operation, profitable and safe. The local law was well-greased, and there had been no problems. Not until tonight.
No building is safe from robbery, if a professional can get his hands on the blueprints. There were a few basic flaws in this particular building—from a robbery-proof viewpoint—that the Outfit had never considered before, but would have an opportunity to consider tonight.
The side door. It led to a short hallway, which, in turn, led to the bar. This hallway also opened onto a flight of stairs which led down to the gambling room. A man going down these stairs would find himself in another hallway with a barred window on his left and the main gambling room to his right. Directly across the hall, he would see the doors to the rest rooms. Turning to the right and entering the main room, he would see that it was filled with tables of various kinds, and that along one wall there was a wire wicket, like a teller's cage in a bank, except that the wire enclosure extended to the ceiling. Behind this were the cashiers, with drawers full of money and chips. And behind the cashiers was a wall with a door in it. Turning around and going back to the hallway and thence to the men's room, he would discover that the men's room and the cashiers' space shared a wall, and that the door he had already noticed led into the men's room. This door was kept locked; it could be unlocked from either side only by a key. Each cashier had a key which he was required to turn in when going off duty. The arrangement had been designed as a convenience to the cashiers, who worked long hours and were permitted an occasional beer.
And the office. It was behind the cashiers' wicket, to the left of the men's room. The door to the office was about eight feet to the left of the private door to the men's room. This door was not kept locked; because the cashiers used it fairly often, clearing checks, bringing money in or taking money out, coming on or going off duty. The office was windowless, having an air-conditioner high on the outside wall, and the door to the cashiers' space was its only entrance. The three men who worked in the office were armed.
Rico and Terry entered the club and stopped at the bar long enough for a bottle of beer, then they went downstairs to the gambling room. They entered the men's room. Each went quickly into a stall and closed the door, and then they both put on rubber masks which covered their faces completely. The masks had two oval eyeholes and two round nostril holes, and for the rest were flesh-colored rubber, loosely fitted to the contours of their faces. They put their hats on over the masks and waited. Patrons came and went.
They waited forty minutes before they heard the sound of a cashier's key. They heard a door open and close, they heard footsteps on the floor. They came out of the stalls.
They each had guns now—stubby English .32's. The cashier was a small, bald man with spectacles which reflected the light. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his forearms were thin and pale and almost hairless.
There was one other customer in the room, washing his hands at one of the sinks. Terry, the pock-marked man, pointed a gun at him. “Come over here.”
Rico went over to the cashier. “Turn around. Put your palms against the wall.” Then he patted pockets till he found the key.
They marched the cashier and the customer into adjoining stalls and made them kneel down. The cashier was silent, but the customer kept babbling they could have his wallet without killing him. Rico and Terry sapped them and lowered them gently to the tile floor. If there were no killings and no injuries needing hospital care, there would probably be no official squawk from this job. The club wouldn't be making any reports to the law if it could avoid it. And the customer would probably be paid off if he raised a stink on his own. If the job was clean and quiet, the law would never hear about it at all.
They closed the stall doors and went to the private door. Rico unlocked it and led the way through. They had the guns in their pockets now, their right hands tucked into the same pockets.
To the right was a long table. Felt-lined boxes full of chips were stacked up on the table, and empty ones were under the table. To the left was another table which held adding machines, telephones, and a few single-drawer filing cabinets for three-by-five cards. Beyond that table was the door to the office. In front stretched the counter and the wire cage. All but one of the cashiers had their backs to them. This one sat at the table to the left, running an adding machine. He looked over when Rico and Terry came through the doorway, and his eyes widened. He was the only one who could see the masks; the other cashiers were facing away and the customers and stickmen beyond the wire mesh were too far away to see what was happening. Anyone looking through the wicket toward the dim area by the back wall wouldn't realize that those pale expressionless faces weren't faces at all.
Speaking softly, Rico said to the man at the adding machine, “Come here. Be nice and quiet.” There was a steady flow of noise from beyond the wire, the rustle of conversation and the clatter of chips. None of the other cashiers heard Rico's voice.
The man at the adding machine slowly got to his feet. He understood now, and he was terrified. He was blinking rapidly behind his glasses, and his hands gripped each other at his waist. He came over slowly.
Rico said, “Stand in front of me.” Rico pulled out the gun and showed it to him. “My partner has one, too.”
The man nodded convulsively.
“What's your name?” That was part of his pattern, Rico always wanted to know the name. He said it was psychological, it calmed the victim down and made him less likely to do something stupid out of panic, but that was just an excuse, something Rico had thought up. He wanted to know the name, that was all.
“Stewart. Rob—Robert Stewart.”
“All right, Bob. We're cleaning this place. We want to do it quiet, we don't want your customers all shook up. And we don't want the cops coming down here and seeing all the wheels and everything. You don't want that either, right?”
Stewart nodded again. He was staring at Rico's mouth, watching his lips move behind the rubber mask, making it tremble.
“Now, Bob, the three of us are going to walk into the office. Smile, Bob. I want to see you smile.”
Stewart stretched his lips. From a distance, it might look like a smile.
“That's the way. Now keep smiling while we go into the office.” Rico tucked the gun away into his pocket again, but kept his hand on it. “Here we go, Bob.”
Stewart turned around and led the way to the left, Rico following him, and Terry bringing up the rear. They walked into the office, Stewart smiling his strained smile, and Terry closed the door and leaned against it. Rico pulled his gun out again, shoved Stewart to the side, and said, “I'm looking for heroes.”
A man was squatting in front of the safe, his hands full of stacked bills. A second man was at the desk, a pencil in his right hand, his left holding a telephone to his ear. A third man was at a table entering figures in a ledger. They all looked up and froze.
Rico pointed the gun at the man holding the phone. “Something just came up. I'll call you back.”
The man with the telephone repeated the words and hung up. The man at the safe kept licking his lips and glancing at the safe door. He was trying to build up the courage to slam the door. Rico pointed the gun at him. “You—what's your name?”
“What?” He'd been concentrating on the gun and the safe door, and he couldn't understand the questio
n.
“Your name. What's your name?”
He looked over at the man at the desk, appealing to him. The man at the desk said, “Tell him.”
“J—Jim.”
“All right, Jim. Stand up straight. That's good. Take two steps to your left. Very nice, Jim.” Rico took two canvas sacks from under his coat and handed them to Stewart. “What you do, Bob,” he said, “you go over and empty that safe. Put all the loot in these sacks. Jim, you give Bob that money you're holding. You—” he pointed the gun again at the man at the desk. “What's your name?”
“Fred Kirk.” He was a heavy, florid man, probably the manager, since he was the only one who didn't seem to be frightened.
“All right, Fred. If that phone rings, say you can't talk now. You've got a problem here. You'll call back.”
“You won't get three miles.”
“Quiet now, Fred.”
“Don't you know who runs this place? You guys are crazy.”
“No more talk, Fred. Don't make me put you to sleep. You—” He turned to the man at the ledger. “What's your name, partner?”
“Kelway. Stanley Kelway.” His quavering voice was high and thin.
“Now, don't get upset, Stan. You just keep making them entries.”
“I can't.” Kelway was perspiring heavily. He kept moving his hands, shifting the pen back and forth from one to the other.
“Too nervous, Stan? All right, just sit there easy.”
Stewart came back with the two canvas sacks, both bulging now, nearly too heavy for him to carry. He held them out to Rico, but Rico shook his head. “Oh, no, Bob, you'll carry them. Fred, you'll wait till Bob gets back before you make a fuss or Bob won't be coming back. You wouldn't want a corpse on the property, would you, Fred?”
Kirk glowered.
“All right, Bob, let's go.”
Terry went first, opening the door and stepping out quickly, looking both ways. The cashiers still worked along, unconcerned, their backs to the action. Beyond the mesh, the customers and the stickmen concentrated on their own business. Terry moved to the right. Stewart followed him, carrying the sacks. Rico backed out, closed the door and pocketed the gun.
There were two customers in the men's room and when they saw the masked men they raised their hands without being asked. Rico closed the door and said, “Bob here is an employee. Aren't you, Bob?”
Stewart nodded.
“Bob will come back in a minute and explain the whole thing. In the meantime, he'd like you to stay right here and not raise any sort of fuss. For your own good, that is. And for his. Isn't that right, Bob?”
Stewart nodded again.
“You don't have to keep your hands up like that, boys. Just stay here and wait. It'll only be a couple minutes. But if you try to leave here too soon, you might just possibly get shot. Isn't that right, Bob?”
Stewart licked his lips. “Do like they say,” he said. “They got guns. Just do like they say.”
“Don't worry,” said one of the customers.
Terry, Rico, and Stewart left the men's room, crossed the hall, and went up the stairs. Terry opened the side door and checked outside, then nodded to Rico. He never talked during a job, unless it was absolutely necessary. Rico did all the talking for both of them.
Rico took the two sacks from Stewart. “All right, Bob,” he said. “You did that real well. You can go back downstairs now.”
Stewart hurried back downstairs. His shoulders were hunched, like he believed he would be shot anyway.
Rico and Terry went over and got into the Buick. Rico got behind the wheel and Terry sat beside him. The canvas sacks were on the floor between Terry's legs. Rico backed the Buick out of the slot and headed for the highway. They both still had the masks on.
Terry turned, looking back at the club. Just as Rico reached the road, Terry saw the side door open and four men come running out. Two of them pointed frantically at the Buick. Terry said, “They spotted us.”
“Good for them,” said Rico. He spun the wheel and the Buick cut left, then leaped down the highway. Behind them, the four men were piling into a Chrysler Imperial. Rico accelerated and the Buick streaked along. He switched off the headlights as soon as he saw the station ahead. “Here they come, Rico.”
“Sure.”
Rico cut the wheel and switched off the ignition, and the Buick slid silently up beside the orange Volkswagen.
They were out of the Buick before it had completely stopped. They grabbed the sacks and jumped out. The sacks they tossed behind the front seat of the Volkswagen. Hats and masks followed. Then they both got into the car, slamming the doors.
The Chrysler Imperial shot by, and went about a hundred yards further down the road before its brakes began to squeal. Rico started the VW, spun it around in a tight turn, and aimed it toward town. It didn't shift like a Volkswagen, and, above sixty miles an hour, it didn't sound much like a Volkswagen any more. Two more cars came boiling out of the Club Cockatoo and roared by the little orange car without a glance. Everybody knows a VWs no good as a getaway car.
This wasn't the operation Rico had ordered the VW for, but just before he'd picked up the car he'd received the letter from Parker about hitting the syndicate. The Club Cockatoo had been bothering him for seven years, and he felt relieved when he discovered a justifiable reason for knocking it over. He combined the plan he already had with the orange car he'd just picked up, brought Terry into the deal, and did the job immediately, before Parker could tell him everything had been straightened out. He drove along now pleased with Parker, pleased with the car, pleased with the operation, pleased with the world.
By morning, they were nearly six hundred miles away from the club, so they stopped to see just how much they'd taken.
3
“Eighty-seven Grand!”
Bronson stared at the telephone. He didn't believe it. It was a bad dream.
The voice at the other end was saying, “Just two guys, Mr. Bronson. They came in and did the job like they'd been practicing it for ten years.”
“Where the hell was everybody? Asleep?”
“Mr. Bronson, these guys were smooth. They came in and—”
“God damn it, Kirk, don't give me a lot of crap! How many employees you got?”
“Thirty-seven, Mr. Bronson.”
“Where the hell were they?”
“All working, Mr. Bronson. Most of them didn't even know what was going on. They sapped a cashier and a customer, and held—”
“They sapped a customer? How much did that cost me, Kirk?”
“Half a yard. He—”
“Another five hundred. Pretty goddamn expensive, Kirk.”
“We didn't want any stink, Mr. Bronson. We—”
“How many people know about this, Kirk?”
“Just me and maybe seven employees and three customers. I called—”
“Three customers?”
“Two more saw them on the way out. But I straightened that out, Mr. Bronson. And then I called Marty Keller, and he said I should call you direct.”
“He gave you the number, huh?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bronson. He said you'd want to hear about it right away.”
“All right. All right. I'll be sending somebody down there—hold on a second.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bronson.”
Bronson thought a minute, rubbing his hand over his face. “Quill. Jack Quill. He'll be down there in a couple days.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bronson. I'm sorry about this, Mr. Bronson, but they pulled it off so smooth and quick, and we never ran into nothing like this before.”
“All right, Kirk.”
“I could maybe of tried to make a play for them before they got out of the club, but I figured then there'd be shooting, maybe a customer killed or something, and that would of been even worse. I figured we'd pick them up after they got outside, but they just disappeared on us. We found the car they used, but they—”
“All right, Kirk. You tell Quill
all about it.”
“Yes, sir. I'm sorry, Mr. Bron—”
“Good-by, Kirk.”
Bronson hung up, then picked his cigar from the ashtray and puffed on it a while, staring at the opposite wall. So it wasn't crap after all. Parker could do it. Somehow or other, he could talk a bunch of heavy armor people into going after organization targets. God damn him! How the hell could they guard against a thing like that?
The Outfit: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels) Page 7