Bank Shot

by Donald E. Westlake

  ‘Sure,’ Kelp said. He adjusted the beam. ‘I was shielding it with my body,’ he said.

  ‘Well, don’t shield it from me.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kelp said.

  ‘And don’t breathe down the back of my neck like that.’

  ‘Right,’ Kelp said. He moved half an inch.

  Suddenly into Herman’s head came the replay of a television commercial from a few years back: Sure, you’re irritable. Who wouldn’t be? But don’t take it out on him. Take … Take what? What was the product? Sounds like it should have been pot, but it probably wasn’t.

  The distraction of that chain of thought was a pleasant interlude, three or four seconds long, which calmed him perhaps as much as the forgotten product would have done. Herman took a deep, slow breath, to calm himself even more, and returned his attention to the task at hand.

  He was squatting right now like a Masai warrior in front of a black metal box emerging from the ground directly in front of the hitch end of the bank. Power and water and sewer lines terminated in this box, and it was Herman’s simple job at the moment to remove the padlock from the lid and open the box. And it was taking too long.

  ‘Normally,’ Herman said, speaking more gently than before, but still with a rasp of irritation he couldn’t quite get rid of, ‘I’m very good at locks.’

  ‘Sure,’ Kelp said. ‘Naturally.’

  The padlock clicked and jittered in Herman’s long, thin fingers. ‘It’s just that safe,’ he said. ‘It’s shaken my self confidence.’

  ‘You’re still the best,’ Kelp said. Not in a boosting way, but conversationally, as though commenting on the weather.

  The padlock skittered away from Herman’s fingers and tick-ticked against the metal lid. ‘I’m also very good at self-analysis,’ he said. His voice quivered again with barely controlled rage. ‘I figure out just where I’m at. And –’ his voice rising, speeding up –‘it doesn’t do a goddam bit of good!

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Kelp said. He patted Herman on the shoulder.

  Herman flinched away from the touch like a horse. ‘I am going to get this thing,’ he said grimly and sat down on the ground in front of the box. Legs folded tailor-fashion, he leaned over the box till his nose was almost touching the lock.

  ‘I’m having a little trouble,’ Kelp said, ‘keeping the light on the work.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Herman said.

  Kelp knelt beside him and beamed the light principally at Herman’s right eye, which was glaring at the lock.

  The problem was, they didn’t want to break it. In the morning, they would tell the trailer-court owner or manager that they’d found the thing unlocked and just hooked everything up themselves. If he saw his padlock in normal condition, he probably wouldn’t raise a fuss. But if he found it broken, he might not believe the story, and then he might make trouble.

  That was the problem about why the padlock had to be picked rather than plucked. The deeper problem, Herman’s continuing inability to pick it, was very simply caused by that son-of-a-bitch safe. Half a dozen small tools from his black bag were already spread across the box lid, and he was poking away at the padlock’s keyhole with yet another small tool right now – the other end of which was currently endangering his eye-and he just couldn’t keep his mind on what he was doing. He’d slip the tool into the padlock and his eyes would glaze as his mind drifted back to consider once again the safe inside the bank. He had no saw or drill – including the diamond tip – that would get through that metal. He had stripped away the combination plate and mechanism, but it had led nowhere. He had tried peeling the door and had bent his favorite medium-length bar. An explosion strong enough to rip open the safe would also destroy everything inside it and would probably open the trailer up like an avocado at the same time.

  What it came down to was the circular hole. For the circular hole, you attached a suction clamp to the side of the safe, with a central rod extending straight out. An L-shaped arm swung from the rod, with a handle at the elbow and a clamp at the wrist for drill bits. A bit was put in place, so that it scraped against the side of the safe, and then the handle was turned in a large circle, over and over and over again. As each bit was worn away, a new one was added. It was the slowest and most primitive kind of safe-cracking, but it was the only thing that could possible work against that goddam blasted son of a bitch –

  The padlock. His mind had drifted again, and he’d just been sitting there on the ground, poking aimlessly into the keyhole with the small tool. ‘God damn it,’ he muttered, and clenched his teeth, and gripped the padlock so hard his fingers ached.

  The thing was, sometimes you had to go back to basics. Herman knew the most sophisticated ways to get into safes and vaults and had used them all at one time or another. The E.L.D., for instance, Electronic Listening Device; attach it to the front of the safe, put the earphones on and listen to the tumblers while you turn the combination. Or ways of putting just a little plastic explosive in two places at the edge of the door, where the hinges are on the inside, and then going next door and setting them off by radio signal and coming back to find the door lying on its face on the floor and not a sheet of paper wrinkled inside. Or –

  The padlock. He’d done it again.

  ‘Rrrrrrr,’ Herman said.

  ‘Here comes somebody.’

  ‘That was me growling.’

  ‘No. Headlights.’ Kelp switched off the flashlight.

  Herman looked around and saw the headlights turning in from the highway. ‘It can’t be Murch already,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ Kelp said doubtfully, ‘it is almost four o’clock.’

  Herman stared at him. ‘Four o’clock? I’ve been at this, I’ve been here for …? Give me that light!’

  ‘Well, we’re not sure it’s them yet.’ The headlights were slowly approaching past the darkened trailers.

  ‘I don’t need the goddam light,’ Herman said, and while the headlights came up close enough to show the car behind them, and the car parked, and Murch got out, Herman picked the padlock by feel alone, and when Kelp next turned the flashlight on, Herman was putting his tools away. ‘It’s done,’ he said.

  ‘You got it!’

  ‘Of course I got it.’ Herman glared at him. ‘What do you sound so surprised for?’

  ‘Well, I just … Uh, here’s Stan and Victor.’

  But it was just Murch. He strolled over and gestured at the black box and said, ‘You get it open?’

  ‘Listen,’ Herman said angrily, ‘just because I’m having trouble with that safe …’

  Murch looked startled. ‘I just wanted to know,’ he said.

  Kelp said, ‘Where’s Victor?’

  ‘Here he comes now,’ Murch said and gestured with his thumb toward the court entrance as another pair of head-lights made the turn. ‘He really hangs well back,’ Murch said. ‘I was surprised. I almost lost him a couple times.’

  Dortmunder had come out of the bank and now walked over to say, ‘There’s a hell of a lot of talk out here. Let’s keep it down.’

  ‘The padlock’s open,’ Herman told him.

  Dortmunder glanced at him and then looked at his watch. ‘That’s good,’ he said. There was no expression in either his face or his voice.

  ‘Look,’ Herman said aggressively, but then didn’t have anything else to say and just stood there.

  Victor came over, walking slightly lopsided and looking stunned. ‘Boy,’ he said.

  Dortmunder said, ‘Let’s go inside where we can talk. You boys be able to fix things up out here?’

  Kelp and Murch would be doing the tie-in of power and water and sewer lines. Kelp said, ‘Sure, we’ll work it out.’

  ‘You’ve got some bent pipes there,’ Dortmunder said, ‘where we ripped them when we took the bank.’

  ‘No problem,’ Murch said. ‘I brought some pipe in the car. We’ll rig something up.’

  ‘But quiet,’ Dortmunder said.

  ‘Sure,’ Murch said.

>   The efficiency all around him was making Herman nervous. ‘I’m going in and work on that safe,’ he said.

  Dortmunder and Victor came along with him, and Dortmunder said to Victor, ‘Did Stan tell you the situation?’

  ‘Sure. Herman’s having trouble getting the safe open, so we’re going to stay here for a while.’

  Herman hunched his shoulders and glowered straight ahead, but said nothing.

  As they were climbing up into the bank, Victor said, ‘That Stan really drives, doesn’t he?’

  ‘That’s his job,’ Dortmunder said, and Herman winced at that one, too.

  ‘Boy,’ Victor said. ‘You try to keep up with him … boy.’

  Inside the trailer, May and Murch’s Mom had set up a couple of flashlights on pieces of furniture so there was some light to work by and were now cleaning the place up a little. ‘I think we’ve got a full deck of cards here,’ Murch’s Mom told Dortmunder. ‘I just found the three of clubs over by the safe.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Dortmunder said. He turned to Herman. ‘You want any help?’

  ‘No!’ Herman snapped, but a second later said, ‘I mean yes. Sure, of course.’

  ‘Victor, you go with Herman.’

  ‘Sure.’

  May said to Dortmunder, ‘We need you to move some furniture.’

  While Dortmunder went off to join the spring-cleaning brigade, Herman said to Victor, ‘I’ve made a decision.’

  Victor looked alert.

  ‘I am going,’ Herman said, ‘to attack that safe by every method known to man. All at once.’

  ‘Sure,’ Victor said. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘You,’ Herman told him, ‘will turn the handle.’

  26

  ‘Frankly,’ May said, the cigarette bobbing in the corner of her mouth, ‘I could make better coffee than this if I started with dirt.’ She dropped a seven of hearts on the eight of diamonds Dortmunder had led.

  ‘I took what they had,’ Murch said. ‘It was the only place I could find open.’ He carefully slid a five of diamonds under the seven of diamonds.

  ‘I’m not blaming you,’ May said. ‘I’m just commenting’

  Murch’s Mom put down her coffee container, frowned at her hand and at last gave an elaborate sigh and said, ‘Oh, well.’ She played the jack of diamonds and drew in the trick.

  ‘Look out,’ Murch said. ‘Mom’s shooting the moon.’

  His mother gave him a dirty look. ‘Mom’s shooting the moon, Mom’s shooting the moon. You know so much. I had to take that trick.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Murch said calmly. ‘I got stoppers.’

  May was sitting by the partially open door of the trailer, where she could look out and see the blacktop street all the way down to the court entrance. It was now ten after seven in the morning and fully light. Half a dozen seedy cars had left here in the last half hour, as residents went off to work, but no one had as yet arrived to question this new trailer’s presence – neither a trailer-court manager nor the police.

  While waiting, May and Murch’s Mom were running a rousing game of hearts in the pseudo-breakfast nook they’d set up by the door toward the front end of the trailer, farthest from the safe. Back at the other end, hidden behind a new floor-to-ceiling partition created from sections of counter, Herman was working away steadily at the safe, assisted by the men in groups of two. Kelp and Victor were back there with him now, while Dortmunder and Murch were sitting in at the card game. At eight o’clock, the men would switch.

  So far, there had been two small crump sounds from the other side of the counter as Herman had tried minor explosions which had failed to accomplish anything, and occasionally there was the whir of a power tool or the buzz of a saw intermixed with the steady rasp of the circular drill, but up till now very little seemed to be happening. Ten minutes ago, when Dortmunder and Murch had finished their six-to-seven shift, May had asked them how things were going. ‘I won’t say he hasn’t made a dent in it,’ Dortmunder had said. ‘He’s made a dent in it.’ And he’d rubbed his shoulder, having spent most of the previous hour turning a handle in a large circle.

  In the meantime, the bank had been made mote livable and homelike. The electricity and bathroom were both working, the floor had been swept, the furniture rearranged and the curtains put up on the windows. It was only too bad the bank hadn’t come equipped with a kitchen; the hamburgers and doughnuts Murch had brought back from the all-night diner were almost edible, but the coffee was probably against the anti-pollution laws.

  ‘Anything?’ Dortmunder asked.

  May had been gazing toward the street, thinking about kitchens and food and coffee. She switched her attention to Dortmunder and said, ‘No, I was just daydreaming.’

  ‘You’re tired, that’s why,’ Murch’s Mom said. ‘We all are, staying up all night. I’m not as young as I used to be.’ She played the ace of diamonds.

  ‘Ho ho,’ her son said. ‘Not shooting the moon, huh?’

  ‘I’m too clever for you,’ she told him. ‘While you big-mouth, I get rid of all my dangerous winners.’ She had taken her neck brace off, despite her son’s complaints, and was now hunched over her cards like a gambling squirrel.

  ‘Here comes somebody,’ May said.

  Dortmunder said, ‘Law?’

  ‘No. The manager, I think.’

  A blue-and-white station wagon had just turned in at the entrance and stopped beside the small white-clapboard office shack. A smallish man in a dark suit got out of the car, and when May saw him start to unlock the office door she put down her cards and said, ‘That’s him. I’ll be back.’

  Murch said, ‘Mom, put the brace on.’

  ‘I will not.’

  They still didn’t have steps for the trailer. May clambered awkwardly down to the ground, flipped a cigarette ember away from the corner of her mouth and lit a new one as she walked down the row to the office.

  The man at the sloppy desk inside had the thin, nervous, dehydrated look of a reformed drunk – the look of a man who at any instant may go back to sleeping in alleys while clutching a pint bottle of port. He gave May a terrified stare and said, ‘Yes, Miss? Yes?’

  ‘We’re moving in for a week,’ May said. ‘I wanted to pay you.’

  ‘A week? A trailer?’ He seemed baffled by everything. Maybe it was just the early hour that was getting to him.

  ‘That’s right,’ May said. ‘How much is it for a week?’

  ‘Twenty-seven fifty. Where’s the, uh, where do you have your trailer?’

  ‘Back there on the right,’ May said, pointing through the wall.

  He frowned, bewildered. ‘I didn’t hear you drive in.’

  ‘We came in last night.’

  ‘Last night!’ He leaped to his feet, knocking a pile of forms slithering from the desk to the floor. While May watched him in some amazement, he raced out the front door. She shook her head and stooped to pick up the fallen papers.

  He was back a minute later, saying, ‘You’re right. I never even noticed it when I … Here, you don’t have to do that.’

  ‘All done,’ May said. Straightening, she put the pile of forms back on the desk, causing some sort of seismic disturbance, because another stack of papers promptly toppled off the desk on the other side.

  ‘Leave them, leave them,’ the nervous man said.

  ‘I think I will.’ May moved over to let him get back to his seat behind the desk, and then she sat in the room’s only other chair, facing him. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘we want to stay for a week.’

  ‘There’s some forms to fill out.’ He started opening and slamming desk drawers, doing it far too rapidly to see anything inside them in the milliseconds when they were open. ‘While you’re doing that,’ he said, opening and closing, opening and closing, ‘I’ll go hook up the utilities.’

  ‘We already did that.’

  He stopped, with a drawer open, and blinked at her. ‘But it’s locked,’ he said.

  May took the padloc
k out of her sweater pocket, where it had been stretching the material even worse than her usual cigarettes. ‘This was on the ground beside it,’ she said and reached forward to put it on a pile of papers in front of him. ‘We thought it might be yours.’

  ‘It wasn’t locked?’ He stared at the padlock in horror, as though it were a shrunken head.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘If the boss …’ He licked his lips, then stared at May in mute appeal.

  ‘I won’t tell,’ she promised. His nervousness was making her nervous, too, and she was in a hurry to get finished with him and out of here.

  ‘He can be very …’ He shook his head, then glanced down at the open drawer, seemed surprised to see it open, then frowned at it and drew out some papers. ‘Here they are,’ he said.

  May spent the next ten minutes filling out forms. She wrote that the trailer had four occupants: Mrs Hortense Davenport (herself); her sister, Mrs. Winifred Loomis (Murch’s Mom); and Mrs. Loomis’ two sons, Stan (Murch) and Victor (Victor). Dortmunder and Kelp and Herman did not exist on the forms May filled out.

  The manager grew gradually calmer as time went by, as though slowly getting used to May’s presence, and was even risking shaky little smiles when May handed over the last of the forms and the twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents. ‘I hope your stay at Wanderlust is just great,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, I’m sure it will be,’ May said, getting to her feet, and the manager suddenly looked terrified again and moved all his extremities at once, causing great land shifts of paper on his desk. May, baffled, looked over her shoulder and saw the room filling with state troopers. May stifled a nervous start of her own, but she didn’t need to; the manager’s contortions had riveted the troopers’ attentions.

  ‘Well, bye now,’ May said and walked through the troopers – there were only two of them after all – toward the door. The thump behind her was either the padlock or the manager hitting the floor; she didn’t turn to see which, but kept going, and strode hurriedly up the gravel drive toward the bank. As she approached it, she saw it suddenly rock slightly on its wheels, and then settle down again. Another of Herman’s explosions, she thought, and a few seconds later a puff of white smoke came out a vent on the trailer roof. They’ve picked a Pope, she thought.