Bank Shot

by Donald E. Westlake

Murch was standing by the open rear of the truck when they came out. He had the flashlight in his hand again, but tucked it away in his jacket pocket when he saw them. ‘I heard you coming,’ he said.

  They were still rolling the wheels over from the gate to the truck. ‘What?’ shouted Dortmunder, over the racket.

  ‘Forget it,’ Murch said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Forget it!’

  Dortmunder nodded.

  They loaded the wheels into the back of the truck, and then Dortmunder said to Murch, ‘I’ll ride up front with you.’

  ‘So will I,’ Herman said very fast.

  ‘We all will,’ Kelp said, and Victor said, ‘Darn right.’

  Murch looked at them all. ‘You can’t fit five people up there,’ he said.

  ‘We’re going to,’ Dortmunder said.

  ‘It’s a floor shift.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Kelp said.

  Herman said, ‘We’ll manage.’

  ‘It’s against the law,’ Murch said. ‘Two people in the front seat of a floor-shift vehicle, no more. That’s the law. What if a cop stops us?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Dortmunder said. He and the others turned and headed for the cab, leaving Murch to shut the rear doors. Murch did and came round to the left side of the cab to find the other four all jammed into the passenger seat like college students in a phone booth. He shook his head, made no comment, and stepped up behind the wheel.

  The only real problem was when he tried to shift into fourth; there seemed to be six or seven knees in that spot. ‘I have to shift into fourth now,’ he said, speaking with the even patience of somebody who has decided he isn’t going to run amok after all, and a lot of grunting and grumbling took place from the mass beside him as it retracted all its knees, leaving him just enough room to move the shift lever into high.

  Fortunately, there weren’t many traffic lights on the route he’d worked out, so he didn’t have to change gears very often. But the jumble beside him gave a four-throated groan every time they went over a bad bump.

  ‘I am trying to figure out,’ Murch said conversationally at one point, frowning out the windshield as he spoke, ‘how this up here can be better than that back there.’ But he wasn’t surprised when no one answered him, and he didn’t repeat the remark.

  The bankrupt computer-parts factory that Dortmunder and Kelp had found was at last up ahead on the left. Murch drove in there and around to the loading platform of the back, and they all got out again. Herman got his bag of tools from the interior of the truck, unlocked the loading platform door, and by the light of Murch’s flashlight they cleared enough space in the rubble for the two sets of wheels. Then Herman locked the place up again.

  When it was time to go, they found Murch walking around the interior of the truck, shining his flashlight in the corners. ‘We’re ready,’ Kelp told him.

  Murch frowned at them, all four standing on the loading platform looking in at him. ‘What’s that funny smell?’ he said.

  ‘Whiskey,’ Kelp said.

  ‘Canadian whiskey,’ Herman said.

  Murch gave them a long look. ‘I see,’ he said very coldly. He switched off the flashlight, came out on to the platform and shut the rear doors. Then they all got into the cab again, Murch on the left and everybody else on the right, and headed back for where they’d left their cars. Kelp would bring the truck back to where he’d picked it up.

  They drove for ten minutes of grunting silence, and then Murch said, ‘You didn’t offer me any.’

  ‘What?’ said the hodgepodge beside him.

  ‘Never mind,’ Murch said, aiming at a pothole. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  15

  At twenty after four on Sunday morning, the world still dark with Saturday night, a police patrol car drove slowly past the temporary headquarters of the local branch of the Capitalists’ & Immigrants’ trust. The two uniformed patrolmen in the car barely glanced at the trailer containing the bank. Lights were always kept on in there at night and could be seen through the slats of the Venetian blinds over all the windows, but the patrolmen knew there was no money inside the trailer, not a dime. They also knew that any burglar who thought there was money in there would be sure to trip the alarm when he tried to get in, on matter what method he chose; the alarm would sound down at the station house, and the dispatcher would inform them on their car radio. Since the dispatcher had not so informed them, they knew as they drove by that the C. & I. Trust trailer was empty, and therefore hardly looked at it at all.

  Their confidence was well placed. The entire trailer was wired against burglary. If an amateur were to jimmy open a door or smash the glass in a window, that would naturally sound the alarm, but even a more experienced man would be in trouble if he tried breaking and entering around here. For instance, the entire floor of the trailer was wired; should a man cut a hole in the bottom to come in that way, he too would trip the alarm. Same with the roof and all four walls. A sparrow couldn’t have gotten into that mobile home without alerting the people down at the station house.

  The patrolmen, as they drove by, paid more attention to the old bank building across the way There had already been some thievery of building materials from over there, as well as vandalism, though why anybody would want to cause damage to a building that was being torn down anyway was a puzzlement. Still, theirs was not to reason why, so they shone their spotlight over the façade of the old bank building as they passed, saw nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary, and drove on.

  Murch let them get a block away and then stepped down from the cab of the truck parked just around the corner on the side street, next to the end of the trailer. Tonight’s truck, marked ‘Hoity Toity Garment Delivery,’ had been much more thoroughly inspected by Kelp before making delivery, and Murch had now had last night’s conundrums explained to him, so tonight everybody was in a much better mood. Murch, in fact, apologetic for having given the group a bumpier ride home than necessary last night, was going out of his way to be cheerful and helpful.

  In the back of the garment delivery truck, in addition to Dortmunder and Kelp and Herman and Victor, were the two sets of wheels for the trailer, now much changed. The boys had spent Saturday afternoon at the defunct computer-parts plant, putting new tires on the wheels and building up the undercarriages with plywood and two-by-fours to get them just the right height. By now they weighed almost twice as much as before and filled most of the interior of the truck.

  Murch, having opened the rear doors, said, ‘The cops just went by. You should have a good half hour now before they come back.’

  ‘Right.’

  It took all five of them to get the wheels down onto the ground and drag them over to the trailer. Dortmunder and Murch unhooked the wooden lattice that closed off the end of the trailer, moved it to one side, and then all five of them shoved and heaved the two sets of wheels into place – one way back near the Kresge’s wall, the other up near the front end. Then Murch wrestled the lattice back into position by himself, left it unhooked, and went off to sit in the cab of the truck and keep an eye on things.

  Under the trailer, the four of them had taken out pencil flashlights and were looking around for the jacks. There was one jack folded up against the trailer bottom near each corner, and one man to each jack. They were held up there by clips screwed into place, but each man was also equipped with a screwdriver, and it didn’t take long to get the things unclipped, fold them down, and crank them till the bottom plates – which looked like duck feet – were placed firmly on the brick rubble underneath. All of this was being done in a space three feet high. It would have been easier if they could have moved around on their knees, but the brick rubble made that impossible, so they waddled around like ducks themselves, in tune with the appearance of the jack plates.

  Once they had all whispered back and forth that they were ready, Dortmunder started a rhythmic slow counting, doing one turn on his jack crank with each number: ‘One … two �
�� three … four …’ Each of the others turned at the same rhythm, the idea being that the trailer would be lifted straight up, with no canting or angling that might inadvertently set off an alarm. For a long time, though, the trailer didn’t lift at all. Nothing happened except that the duck feet crunched deeper and deeper into the brick rubble.

  Then, all at once, the bottom of the trailer went sprong! It was like an oven cooling and the metal side contracting. They all four of them stopped turning, and while Dortmunder and Victor froze, Herman and Kelp both lost their balance from astonishment and unexpectedly sat down hard on the rubble. ‘Ow,’ whispered Kelp, and Herman whispered, ‘Damn.’

  They waited half a minute, but nothing else happened, so Dortmunder said softly, ‘Okay, we’ll go on. Twenty-two … twenty-three … twenty-four …’

  ‘It’s coming!’ Victor whispered excitedly.

  It was. All at once illumination from the corner street-light made a thin crack between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the concrete block wall along the front.

  ‘Twenty-five,’ Dortmunder said. ‘Twenty-six … twenty-seven …’

  They stopped at forty-two. There was now nearly two inches of air between trailer bottom and concrete block top.

  ‘We’ll do the back wheels first,’ Dortmunder said.

  This was difficult. Not because it was complicated but because space was tight and the undercarriage was heavy. A broad metal strip was already mounted beneath the trailer at each end, to take the undercarriages. The strips contained bolt holes, but they hadn’t been able to judge ahead of time where to put the corresponding holes in the built-up undercarriages, so now they had first to position each undercarriage and mark the location of the bolt holes and then move the undercarriage – without ramming it too hard or too often into any of the jacks – and place it so Herman could make the holes with a battery-operated drill. Then they put the wheel assembly back against the metal strip, propped it up with extra rubble stuffed under the tires, and put on the bolts and washers and nuts, six bolts to each undercarriage.

  It took an hour to get this far, and twice in that time the patrol car ambled by. But they were too busy to notice, and since they were using their flashlights sparingly and shielding the light as much as possible the police also remained unaware of them.

  Finally they had the wheels on, and the ground beneath smoothed again, and now they went back to the jacks. When all four of them were ready, they started cranking back down, Dortmunder giving the count again, beginning with ‘one’, not ‘forty-two’.

  There was no sprong on the way down, and the count ended at thirty-three. They clipped the jacks back into place and restored the screws, and then Dortmunder crawled out from under to check the relationship between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the concrete block wall. They had blown the tires up extra hard, figuring they could let a little air out in order to lower the trailer an inch or so if need be, but as it turned out they didn’t have to. The weight of the trailer was enough to use up practically all the leeway they’d left so that there was maybe half an inch at the lattice end of the front wall and practically no space at all down at the Kresge end, where the safe was. Maybe an eighth of an inch.

  Dortmunder checked the back, and it was the same there, so he went down to the open end and called softly, ‘It’s okay. Come on out.’ They’d been waiting in there to be told to let air out of this tire or that.

  They came out, Herman carrying his black bag, and while Dortmunder and Victor hooked the lattice back in place Herman and Kelp went around front to finish the job. Herman had a tube of tub caulk, the rubbery stuff that squeezes out soft and never does entirely harden, and while he moved along the wall, squirting this into the crack between the trailer and the concrete blocks, Kelp followed him, smearing dirt onto the caulk to make it blend into the concrete. They did the same thing in the back and then joined the others, who were already in the truck. Murch, who had come out of the cab for the purpose, closed the doors behind them and trotted back up front to drive them away from there.

  ‘Well,’ Dortmunder said as they all switched on their pencil flashes so they could see one another, ‘I’d say we did a good night’s work.’

  ‘By golly!’ Victor said excitedly. His eyes sparkled in the light. ‘I can hardly wait till Thursday!’

  16

  Joe Mulligan stumbled on his way into the bank and turned to glare at the top step. This was the seventh consecutive Thursday he’d been on this job; you’d think by now he’d know the height of the steps.

  ‘What’s the matter, Joe?’

  It was Fenton, the senior man. He liked the boys to call him Chief, but none of them ever did. Also, even though they didn’t have to be on duty till eight-fifteen, Fenton was always on the job no later man eight o’clock, standing right by the door to see if any of the boys were going to be late. Still, he wasn’t such a bad old bird; if you did happen to be late any time, he might give you a word or two on the subject himself, but he wouldn’t ever report it to the office.

  Mulligan tucked down his dark-blue uniform jacket, readjusted his holster on his right hip, and shook his head. ‘Getting stumble-footed in my old age,’ he said.

  ‘Now me, I feel like I got a spring in my step tonight,’ Fenton said, grinning, and he rocked up onto the balls of his feet for a second to show what he meant.

  ‘I’m glad for you,’ Mulligan said. As for himself, he would be very pleased – as always on these Thursday nights – when it came around to nine o’clock and the last of the bank employees had gone home and he could sit down and relax. He’d spent a lifetime on his feet and believed there would never be a spring in his step again.

  He had arrived tonight at eight-fourteen, according to the clock on the wall up behind the tellers. All the other guards were here already except Garfield, who tromped in a minute later – just under the wire – smoothing that Western-marshal mustache of his and looking around as if he hadn’t decided for sure whether to guard the bank or hold it up.

  Mulligan had by this time taken up his usual Thursday-evening post, against the wall near the pretty girl at the courtesy desk outside the counter. He’d always been partial to pretty girls. He was also partial to her chair and liked to be the nearest one to it.

  The bank was still open and would be until eight-thirty, so for the next fifteen minutes it would be very crowded, what with its normal complement of employees and customers added to by the seven private guards, Mulligan and the other six. All seven wore the same police-officerlike uniform, with the triangular badge on the left shoulder reading Continental Detective Agency. Their shields, embossed with C.D.A. and their number, were also policelike, and so were their gun belts and holsters and the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson Police Positive revolvers within them. Most of them, including Mulligan, had been police officers at one time and had no trouble looking natural in the uniform. Mulligan had been on the force in New York City for twelve years but hadn’t liked the way things were going and had spent the last nine years with Continental. Garfield had been an M.P., and Fenton had spent twenty-five years as a cop in some city in Massachusetts, retired on half pay, and was working for Continental now as much to keep himself occupied as to augment his income. Fenton was the only one with any additional insignia on his uniform; the two blue chevrons on his sleeves meant he was a sergeant. The C.D.A. had only the two uniformed ranks, guard and sergeant, and used sergeants only where a job called for more than three men. They also had an Operative classification, which was for plainclothes work, a job toward which Mulligan did not aspire. He knew that being a Continental Op was supposed to be glamorous, but he was a flat-foot, not a detective, and content to remain so.

  At eight-thirty the regular bank guard, an old man named Nieheimer, not a C.D.A. man, locked both bank doors and then stood by one of them to keep unlocking it again for the next five minutes or so, letting the last customers out. Then the employees did their closing paperwork, put all the cash away in the safe,
covered the typewriters and adding machines, and by nine o’clock the last of them – that was always Kingworthy, the manager – was ready to go home. Fenton always stood by the door to watch Kingworthy out and be sure the manager locked up properly on the outside. The way the system worked, the alarm could be switched on or off only with a key on the outside; once Kingworthy left, the guards inside couldn’t open either door without sounding the alarm down at police headquarters. For that reason, all seven guards brought lunch bags or lunch buckets. There was also a men’s room at the front end of the trailer, the end farthest from the safe.

  Nine o’clock. Kingworthy left, he locked up, Fenton turned and said what he said every Thursday night: ‘Now we’re on duty.’

  ‘Right,’ Mulligan said and reached for the courtesy desk’s chair. Meanwhile, Block was going down to get the folding table from where it was stored by the safe, and the others were all heading for their favorite chairs. Within a minute, the folding table was set up in the customer area of the bank, the seven guards were in seven chairs around it, and Morrison had pulled the two fresh decks from his uniform pocket – one deck with blue backs, the other with red – and they were all taking handfuls of change from their pockets and slapping them down on the table.

  Seven cards were dealt around, with the high card to be the first dealer, and that turned out to be Dresner. ‘Five-card stud,’ he said, put a nickel in the pot and started to deal.

  Mulligan was sitting with his back to the safe, facing the front of the trailer; that is, the part with the officers’ desks. The tellers’ counter was to his right, the two locked doors to his left. He sat with his legs spread wide, both feet flat on the floor, and watched Dresner deal him a five of hearts up. He looked at his hole card, and it was the two of spades. Morrison bet a nickel – it was nickel limit on the first card, dime after that, twenty cents on the last – and when it came around to Mulligan he very quietly folded. ‘I don’t believe this is going to be my night,’ he said.