Beside him, the lieutenant’s eyes were unfocused. He wasn’t looking for or at anything, but was practicing once more the speech that he would never make to the captain. In its latest form it went: ‘Captain, it’s been three weeks. You’re letting the precinct go to hell, you’ve become obsessed with this missing bank, all you do is spend all the daylight hours, seven days a week, driving around looking for that bank. It’s gone, Captain, that bank is gone and we are never going to find it.’
‘But, Captain, even if you are obsessed and can’t get out of your obsession, I’m not. You pulled me off night duty, and I loved night duty, I loved being the man behind the desk at night in the precinct. But you put that idiot Schlumgard in there in my place, and Schlumgard doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, and morale is going to hell. If I ever do get my job back, Schlumgard will have undone everything I’ve tried to do.
‘But the point is, Captain, it has been three weeks. The New York City police stopped cooperating after four days, which means the bank could have been taken out of our jurisdiction anytime in the last two and a half weeks, which means it could be anywhere in the world by now. I know your theory, Captain, that the bank was hidden sometime that first night, that the crooks emptied the safe in the first day or two and went away and just left it there, but even if you’re right, what good does it do? If they hid it so well we couldn’t find it in the first few days, when we had search parties combing the entire Island, two of us are not going to find it by driving around in a car three weeks later.
‘Which is why, Captain, I feel I must tell you that I have come to a decision. If you want to go on looking for the bank, that’s up to you. But either you let me go back to my regular duties, or I’ll just have to talk to the Commissioner. Now, Captain, I’ve gone along with you on every –’
‘You say something?’
Startled, the lieutenant snapped his head around and stared at the captain. ‘What? What?’
Captain Deemer frowned at him, then faced the road again. ‘I thought you said something.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, just keep your eyes open.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The lieutenant looked out the side window, though without any hope. They were climbing a hill, and just ahead was the sign for McKay’s Diner. The lieutenant remembered the free cheeseburger he’d been promised, and smiled. He was about to turn his head toward the captain and suggest they stop for a snack when he saw the diner was gone again. ‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘That diner, sir,’ the lieutenant said as they drove by. ‘They went out of business already.’
‘Is that right.’ The captain didn’t sound interested.
‘Even faster than I thought,’ the lieutenant said, looking back at the space where the diner had been.
‘We’re looking for a bank, Lieutenant, not a diner.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The lieutenant faced front, began again to scan the countryside. ‘I knew they wouldn’t make it,’ he said.
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copyright © 1972 by Donald E. Westlake
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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