There were times when Johns thought of himself as another Gauguin. Like Gauguin he had a good business, a good wife, children, and a position in the community. And like Gauguin he felt he was worth more than that.
He wanted to be free. He realized, at last, that no woman, no place, could thrill him for very long. To truly live he had to be free. But unlike Gauguin it was not a desire to paint that drove him on. It was simply a desire to live well and with adventure. And to do that he needed a great deal of money.
The obvious answer was his bank. There were two problems: to steal the money and to get away without being caught. To steal the money would require a careful plan if he was not to be caught before he even left the bank. And to get away with it would require an even better plan.
So John S. Johns began to study the people around him. He had always been a student of human nature, and it had helped him establish a record of never making a bad loan at the bank. The first thing he decided was that his wife, Maude, could be counted on not to care where he was if he timed the move to coincide with one of her Girl Scout or PTA weekends. His children would not even be aware that he had gone away for a long period.
Marion would do anything he asked as long as he took her with him to live in some cottage with his pipe and slippers in her hand. Only his golf cronies, and his other bachelor friends would miss him unless—he was sent out of town on business.
His plan had already begun to take shape when he turned his attention to the bank. Old Moss, the president, was a man of remarkably suspicious nature who could be counted on to jump instantly to an obvious conclusion if he remotely suspected a man of dishonesty. It would make no difference how long Moss had known the man. In fact the longer the president had known a man, the more he would be inclined to suspect that he was capable of committing any crime, from arson to murder.
The executive vice-president, Joseph Sackville, was John S. Johns’ immediate superior. And Sackville was a business snob. The one important thing in Sackville’s life was his position at the bank. The executive vice-president considered himself a partner and not an employee of old man Moss. What Moss did, Sackville would want to do. The executive vice-president could be counted on to reject any task that Moss would reject.
Finally, the only other man with full access to the vault, Head Teller Meade Lewis, was a wizened bachelor who still dreamed of being a woman chaser. That Lewis had never had any success with women only seemed to make the man more of a Casanova.
There was not a female in the bank under forty who had not been asked to go out by Meade Lewis. Marion was no exception, and John S. Johns began his plan with Marion and Meade Lewis.
As he had expected, Marion made only a faint protest when he outlined what he had in mind.
“But John, I don’t know if it’s right.”
“If you mean is it criminal, yes it is,” he said, “but it is right. It’s right for us, darling. I can’t take living this way much longer. A man and woman in love should not have to resort to deception. We’ll go to some quiet place, take a small house, and live for each other. If there was any justice, such happiness would not be denied us.”
“But why the money, John?”
“I won’t lie to you, darling. We couldn’t remain free to live our own lives for a week without a lot of money. They’d track me down, call me a wife-deserter. With money I can pay our way, pay off detectives if I have to. It will be like a real honeymoon, darling.”
“A honeymoon? Oh, John, that’s all I want.”
“You hate all this hiding as much as I do,” he said.
“I do, dear, I hate it,” Marion said. “All right, for us.”
“It won’t take long, darling,” he said, and he explained his plan. He did not, of course, tell Marion of the two major problems he knew he would have to solve.
The complete escape that would mean the end of John S. Johns, and how not to have to take her with him. She would do what he asked only as long as she thought it meant the two of them and domestic bliss forever. He intended to solve that problem. But he did not tell her that. What he told her was that she would have to convince Meade Lewis to go away with her for a long weekend in New York.
“That won’t be hard,” he said. “Let him take you out, a few kisses in the dark. Maybe a little more, you understand? Not all the way. We’ll save that for New York. It will make him very eager to go. He has to be eager enough to take Saturday morning off.”
“I don’t know that I can do it, John,” Marion said.
“Try hard, dear.”
Meade Lewis fell for the bait as eagerly as expected, and within two weeks Lewis was calling Marion every day. A month before the weekend he had selected, Johns made a side trip to Mobile while he was in St. Louis on bank business. He took a flight on a small, unscheduled airline to Vera Cruz, Mexico. He noted every detail of the flight, especially that the plane crossed the Mexican coast from the Gulf exactly twenty minutes before landing at Vera Cruz.
Satisfied, he booked on the flight for the future and returned to St. Louis. In St. Louis he bought a thirty-eight calibre pistol and a small chest parachute. He bought a souvenir cushion cover of St. Louis, and a special electronic device that induced a heavy impulse in wires by remote control. The electronic device cost him a lot of money, but it was the most important part of his plan. It would set off the bank alarm. The cushion cover was to hide the parachute.
He chose the last weekend in July. The bank would be full of payroll money. The children would be away. Maude would be on her three-day Girl Scout week-end in the woods. He gave Marion her final instructions.
“Leave the bank as usual at four-thirty P.M. on Friday,” he said. “I’m giving you Saturday morning off to go to Lake George, a long weekend. That won’t surprise old Moss, because he knows I’m against our still being open on Saturday mornings. You’ll catch the five o’clock train to New York. You’d better take only one suitcase, for you’ll have to carry a small one of mine.”
And he smiled to himself. Marion would carry the parachute hidden in its cushion cover. Ironic, since it would play a role in his escape from her. But it was an added precaution in case anyone looked in his bags.
“In New York check into the Commander under an assumed name. Tell Lewis to take the six-thirty train; you’ll be waiting at the station. He has to take the six-thirty or he’ll miss you. That’s important. Take him to some hotel, not the Commander, and stay with him until Saturday night.
“Keep him indoors as much as possible, and make sure he’ll wait in the room Saturday night when you leave for Idlewild. Some sleeping pills perhaps. At Idlewild take the jet for New Orleans. Go straight to a small airport in Mobile, Alabama—I’ll write it down for you. I’ll be there waiting.”
“Stay with him overnight? Oh, John.”
“I know it; it torments me too, darling,” he said. “But you’ll have to keep him with you, because he mustn’t come back here or even call.”
He had already checked his remote control device on the bank alarm. It worked perfectly, and it would be no problem to explain to the outraged police that he had opened the door after the alarm was set—a simple oversight. It was all in order.
That Friday morning John S. Johns went into the vault and gathered $500,000 in unlisted bills and placed them in a safe part of the vault. It was his job to supervise the making up of the payrolls for Monday. Payroll lists had the serial numbers noted down, and he carefully falsified enough lists to make the $500,000.
Marion went home on schedule, and at precisely half past four John S. Johns went into the vault and removed a series of bills in various denominations from a listed payroll. There were only four people left in the bank at five o’clock. Old man Moss and Sackville were in their offices behind closed doors.
Meade Lewis was working over his final tally when John S. Johns walked up to him. The head teller’s coat hung in its usual place, for Lewis was old-fashioned and wore a blue bank jacket when he worked.
&nb
sp; “Meade,” Johns said. He was pleased when Lewis almost jumped out of his skin. Quite obviously the head teller had heard rumors of Johns and Marion, and had jumped out of guilt.
“Sorry to bother you,” Johns said, “But I seem to be off on my count on the Augustino payroll. Would you check me?”
Lewis looked at the clock nervously. “Well, I do have to leave soon, John. I’ve got tomorrow off you know. I’m going to visit my brother in Chicago.”
John S. Johns wanted to laugh. It was the story he had told Marion to have Lewis tell everyone. The plan was as smooth as silk. He said, “I’ll finish the tally for you, how’s that?”
“Okay, John,” Lewis said. “That’s fair enough.”
The moment Lewis entered the vault, Johns quickly took the wallet from the head teller’s coat and replaced all the money with bills from the Augustino payroll. He could be sure now that Lewis’ fingerprints would be on the vault where the Augustino payroll was. He had wiped his own clean already. By the time Lewis returned and said the payroll checked fine, he had completed the tally and was back at his own desk.
At exactly five-thirty old Moss walked from his office to the vault. Sackville was with him as usual. The president said, “Lewis, Johns, check the vault.”
The old man watched them like a hawk as they checked the money in the vault. It was, of course, all there. The president grunted and waved them out of the vault as he stepped to the time-lock mechanism. The old man set the lock for the next morning, Sackville standing beside him. Johns pressed the remote control in his pocket. The alarm went off with a startling clangor.
The president leapt back and turned away from the vault with a startled exclamation.
Sackville turned with Moss. “What the devil! That damned alarm company is a gyp outfit!” he muttered angrily. “This has happened before—”
Lewis stared toward the alarm. The president and the executive vice-president started to walk toward the door. The alarm rang on.
Johns stepped to the time lock and changed it to open in two hours. Then he called out, “Sir! The vault!”
“What?” The old man turned. “Very good, Johns. You can close it now. It’s set. Sackville’s right. I’m going to call that alarm company and tell them what I think of them!”
With a smile to himself, Johns closed the vault door. There was no more to do now but wait.
The alarm people came and went. Meade Lewis left for his train, after explaining to Moss again that he was going to visit his brother in Chicago. Johns told Moss and Sackville that he was leaving, and mentioned also that with his wife away he would have to eat at the Club.
Moss and Sackville went into their offices to clean up the last of their work. Johns walked to the door, opened it, closed it loudly, and crouched in a dark part of the bank under a desk.
Moss and Sackville left side by side after setting the door alarm. Johns waited another ten minutes. Then he walked to the vault and waited until he heard the time lock open. When he had the $500,000, plus the Augustino payroll, in his briefcase, he reset the time lock for the correct time in the morning. At the door he disconnected the alarm, opened the door, reset the alarm, and left.
He went straight home, packed the money in his large suitcase under the false bottom, and put the case back into his closet. Then he drove to Meade Lewis’ apartment and packed all of Lewis’ clothes into suitcases. He drove to the river and threw the suitcases into the water. Then he went to the Club for a quiet dinner. He made sure everyone saw him. After dinner he went home and slept peacefully.
In the morning he arrived at the bank at his usual hour, a half an hour before the vault would open. It was Sackville who ran shouting from the vault. The police arrived in two minutes led by Adam Bone, the Chief of Police. By then old man Moss had jumped to his conclusion exactly as Johns had hoped he would.
“I tell you it’s Lewis! I never trusted him! I tell you to find Lewis and do it now! Brother in Chicago! Four of us closed that vault. Three of us are here. I don’t know how he did it—that’s your job. But he did it as sure as I’m standing here.”
The brother in Chicago, of course, knew nothing of a visit from Lewis. It did not take the police long to find out that Lewis had gone to New York, that the head teller had actually paid for his ticket with a bill from the missing Augustino payroll, and that all his clothes and small personal belongings were gone.
They noticed that Marion was missing, too, and the Chief was suspicious. But a call to Lake George showed that a Marion Astor had indeed checked in at a hotel there. A small additional safeguard. The woman Johns had paid would not stay quiet long, but Marion would not be around him long.
“Okay,” the Chief of Police said. “It looks like Lewis, all right. His prints are on the vault where the Augustino payroll was lifted. I’ve got New York searching.”
“They could have trouble finding him,” Johns said. “We don’t have a picture. He’ll be in hiding, false name and all.”
“Well,” the Chief said. “Maybe one of you should go down there and help out.”
The president jumped at the idea. “Excellent, Bone. A little action at last.”
John S. Johns said, “You should stay here, sir. Perhaps Mr. Sackville—”
And Sackville reacted according to plan. The executive vice-president bristled, glared at Johns, and said, “We’ve too much to do here, Johns. Moss and I have to get new payrolls ready, and check with Federal Reserve. You know that. I think you better be the one to go.”
If it had not worked, John S. Johns would have found another way to leave Jamesville. But it was all working as planned, and he smiled when the Chief of Police offered to drive him to the station.
“I’ll be glad to go,” Johns said. “My wife’s away. Just let me pack a toothbrush, Chief Bone.”
Under the eyes of the Chief of Police, Johns took down the suitcase full of money, opened it, made sure that the Chief saw it was empty, and packed it with a few odd clothes. He made sure the Chief saw his closet full of clothes, too. The Chief seemed convinced.
In New York he checked into a hotel, not the Commander. He checked the money at the East Side Terminal, validated the ticket he had bought weeks ago under a false name, and took a taxi to Police Headquarters.
The Police had not found Lewis yet. Johns looked at suspects for three hours. An hour and a half before his plane was due to leave, he stood up.
“I think I’ll get a bite to eat,” he said. “Then I better try to get some sleep. You know where to reach me.”
“Go ahead, Mr. Johns,” the Detective-Captain said. “Probably nothing of importance will come up before morning.”
Johns left the police and went back to his hotel. He went up to his room and put in a call to Jamesville. He called Chief Bone and told him to tell old man Moss to call New York. He lighted a cigarette and waited. The call came through in ten minutes.
He told the bank president that the police thought they had Lewis, but that it had turned out to be a false alarm. He was an insurance company executive with the same name. After he hung up he went down to the desk.
“I’m going back to Jamesville,” he told the clerk. “If the police call, tell them something came up but I’ll be back in the morning. I’ll keep the room. My bags are still up there.”
All the way to Idlewild he grinned to himself in the taxi. The money was in his hands, and the parachute was inside the souvenir cushion cover in Marion’s suitcase. The story he’d told the clerk should hold the police until late tomorrow even if they found Lewis and heard his story.
If they checked the call that was supposed to have sent him back to Jamesville, it had really come from Jamesville. It would take them at least until noon tomorrow to believe Lewis and begin to figure it all out. And by then he would be over the Gulf of Mexico. He fingered the pistol in his pocket. Once he was over the Gulf, it wouldn’t matter how much they found out.
The shots still echoed in John S. Johns’ ears as he ran for the plane. He
made the plane and went aboard. He settled in his seat in the grimy twin-engined aircraft. There were only six other people on the unscheduled flight. Mobile to Vera Cruz. He did not look at his fellow passengers; they were not going to be around him for long.
He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes to keep from laughing out loud. It had all worked like clock-work. Marion was dead, he was free, and by now perhaps they had found out what he had done. But it made no difference now.
At worst they were looking for him in New York. At best they had not even found Lewis yet. Stupid Meade Lewis could still be waiting in some hotel room for Marion to come back. But it did not matter. Nothing mattered as the DC-3 took off into the Gulf of Mexico that Sunday morning.
He was prepared to use force if anything came over the radio to tell the pilot to stop him. But nothing came over, and he waited patiently until it was time to make his last move.
The plane would cross the Mexican coast when it was exactly twenty minutes from Vera Cruz. Johns had checked the route carefully on his earlier trip to Mobile. But to make sure, he rang for the steward-co-pilot. They did not carry a steward or stewardess on a flight like this. He had made sure of that too. The co-pilot looked annoyed.
“What do you want?”
“I’m afraid I’m not feeling well,” he said. “Are we on schedule?”
“Ten minutes behind,” the co-pilot said. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid it’s my heart. But I think I can hold out if we’re in Vera Cruz in less than an hour.”
The pilot looked concerned. “You’re sure?”
“Thirty minutes to Vera Cruz?” Johns said.
“On the nose,” the co-pilot said. “No trouble from here on.
The co-pilot turned to go. Johns clutched at his heart and groaned. The co-pilot turned back to him. Johns gasped out, “Back there—the washroom! Pill!”
“Hold on,” the co-pilot said.
Helped by the co-pilot, John S. Johns staggered back to the washroom. Inside he turned and hit the co-pilot with all his strength with the butt of his pistol. The co-pilot went down.
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