by Dave Norem
It took Cramer two mornings above the ceiling to get both combinations. Only two managers knew the combination to each lock, so two of the four had to arrive before opening every day. He heard the first two complaining about it when they met in front of the vault. They opened it early, so they could return to their offices.
John had gone in through the bathroom in the evening and climbed to the ceiling. After the cleaning crew was gone, he moved to an office and snoozed until an OK beep from the walkie-talkie jarred him awake. He knew the alarm was disabled and ignored the key-switch when he eased open the emergency door to let Cramer in with the camera and the heavy TV.
Both of them hoisted the two items above the ceiling and John balanced the TV on top of the wall until Cramer was in position. When he gave the thumbs up, John slid the tile back into place, cleaned up what little debris had fallen, and left the store. He went to the downspout and pulled the cable down, moved the switches to ‘ON’ and stuffed the wires back up into the downspout at 3:45AM. Cramer had used the same process to turn it off at 3:30.
Several hours later John went back into the store before the noon rush and entered the men’s room; then locked the door. He lifted the ceiling tile over the toilet and saw Cramer waiting a few feet away.
John whispered, “Wait for a minute after I leave before coming out. You don’t want them to think we’re two queers, do you?”
Cramer dropped down and winked at him as he arched his back to get the kinks out. He whispered back, “If someone’s out there just slap your hip pocket like you’ve dropped your wallet, then duck right back in.”
The coast was clear, and John went back through the store and out.
When Cramer caught up with him he said, “I didn’t get them both. One of those men is so nearsighted his head blocked the dial. I think they’re all nearly blind. They never had a clue that we’d even been there and there was no talk of anything going on out in the store.”
“Shit,” John replied.
Cramer shrugged. “I had plenty of time and when they stepped out to smoke I bent the fixture base slightly, so the camera is at a better angle. We’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow when you come down I’ll let you leave first.” They both laughed.
The next day Cramer got the second combination, but they decided to wait two more nights before doing the job. They needed time to get a truck and to rest up some from the long hours they’d spent under stress.
That evening they drove up to Roanoke, Virginia and followed a rig that was obviously towing an empty trailer. It was the second one they’d followed. The first one became too risky when the driver parked his rig at a private residence in the suburbs. This time they had better luck. The northbound driver parked his rig at a large truck stop along US 11, and shortly thereafter left in a taxi. “That’s the one,” said John, “he’s gone to a whorehouse.”
Cramer nodded, “There are several of them around here too.”
He drove slowly around the rig and dropped John off behind it. John exited the car while he was still rolling and within minutes pulled out onto the highway driving the rig. Cramer, who’d been waiting at the end of the lot, went the other way for a few miles before turning back. They left the rig near Reidsville, North Carolina in an abandoned barn that they’d found a few days earlier.
“It was almost too easy,” John said. The passenger-side wing-vent was open and the keys were over the driver’s sun-visor.”
Cramer laughed, “Well we know where he was headed.”
The next afternoon Cramer boosted a Ford Falcon convertible from the back row of a used car lot in Danville, Virginia while the master-salesman was taking a hot-looking woman for a test drive in a Pontiac GTO. The keys and a rabbit’s foot on a chain were hanging in the ignition of the Falcon.
They had previously spotted an off-street stand-alone loading ramp between two buildings that were behind a Farmers’ Co-Op in Winston-Salem. They met there forty-five minutes after the Co-Op closed, John driving the truck and Cramer the Falcon. Cramer stopped to let the top down on the Falcon, while John stopped short of backing all the way up to the dock, so he could open both trailer doors. A minute later, Cramer drove the car up and into the trailer and climbed out over the trunk lid. In another two minutes, they were gone.
John dropped him off on the north side of the city, where he’d left the rental car. Afterwards he drove the truck back to the barn and stayed with it, while Cramer remained in Winston-Salem.
The next night John drove the rig to the Go Mart shortly after the store closed and parked it at the first dock, next to the ramp where the trash was piled.
They were now on their second rental car and Cramer had parked it in the Red*Spot parking lot earlier. He meandered over to the store and made another entry through the men’s room, glad it was almost over. Despite changes in clothes and hair styles, a few people were starting to look twice at him: probably at John too. It was a Friday night and almost all of payday’s cash sales should be in the vault.
Despite the extra work, discomfort and hours, the rest of the job went as planned. John stayed in a sleeper compartment behind the locked-down cab of the second truck over, until after the midnight cruiser went past. It barely slowed down, but he wouldn’t have shown himself if the cop had stopped to check out the trucks. Cramer had already told him that this truck was probably clear for the night. He’d seen the driver leave in a car with a woman and two kids.
He left the truck and went to the downspout where he quickly snagged the cable with a short piece of coat hanger wire, pulled it down, and disabled the alarm. He pushed the cable back up into the pipe and returned to the dock. Next, he signaled Cramer who had already opened the offices and vault.
Cramer let him in through the emergency exit and they quickly moved the boxes of bills out of the vault and loaded them into buggies. John unscrewed the bulb from the back-hall light just enough to make it go out, and then they both pushed buggies through the offices and aisles, along the back of the store and on around to the shipping dock.
They had hoped to kick a hole through a sheetrock wall on the side of the counting room opposite the vault doors, negating use of the buggies and exposed hall. Now they found that all the walls on the receiving and counting rooms were papered-over heavy plywood. Despite the delay, and having to check the windows each time, they had it all transferred to the dock door by 1:30.
When the last of the bills were loaded into a buggy, they pulled down the ceiling tiles in front of the vault and retrieved the camera and the Heath TV. They loaded them into a buggy too, but left the alarm wires in place. Cramer would remove the switches and rewire them outside; then shove them back up the downspout on his way out to the rental car.
“With the alarm armed and the phones working they’ll think it’s an inside job for sure.” Cramer laughed at his own statement.
They inched the dock door up only a few inches to look for lights and listen for motors or voices. Everything appeared normal, so John raised the door enough for Cramer to rollout. Within a minute, he beeped his transmitter with an OK signal and John opened the door all the way. Cramer was back in seconds and they loaded all of the cash in the trunk of the Falcon and put the television behind the seat on the passenger’s side. The camera went with John. They closed and padlocked the trailer doors with a new Go Mart padlock and went their separate ways.
Within an hour-and-a-half, they were back at the Co-Op in Winston-Salem and unloading the Falcon. Cramer had passed it by earlier and seen three men push-loading a Harley Davidson motorcycle up the ramp and into a medium-heavy van. He had called John on the walkie-talkie to warn him off.
They drove on and met at a large truck stop for coffee and food. There, they had a good laugh about the obviously stolen motorcycle. Their hot tractor-trailer, stolen Falcon and thousands of dollars in cash were sitting right out in the open under the floodlight
s. So were twenty or more other rigs and a number of cars.
Cramer drove back past the Co-Op first to make sure it was all clear, then signaled to John with the walkie-talkie.
After unloading the Falcon, they parked it behind one of the buildings in a long-unused, livestock stall next to the one with the rental car. John headed out with the truck before it drew attention, and Cramer stayed behind to transfer the money and equipment to the rental car.
Afterwards, he wiped down the entire Falcon and left it parked down the street with the keys in it. Once they had wiped down a vehicle, they drove it wearing gloves. Their intent was for the cops who would eventually find it, wherever it was, to think it had been joy riders who had stolen it.
John parked the truck in another abandoned barn. This one was south of the Winston-Salem area, near Lexington. He left the keys above the visor where he’d originally found them, and had just finished wiping it down when Cramer arrived.
They transferred their take to regular suitcases they had purchased several days before from a different chain store; then wiped down the money cases, even though they would only be keeping them for a short while. The new padlock and hammer went with them too. They would be pitched into the brush along the highway.
When they were finished, Cramer backed down the lane with the headlights on, while John followed on foot brushing across their tracks with tree branches. Dawn would soon be breaking, and dew was settling on the path behind them as he worked. Not a single vehicle had passed during their short time there.
They drove north on US 52, back to Winston-Salem and then west on US 421—which john was familiar with in Indiana. They crossed the Yadkin River and found a deserted back road down to its bank. After donning gloves again, they pitched the opened money cases into the fast-moving water and watched most of them float south. A couple of them landed upside down and sank within fifty yards.
Cramer shielded his eyes from the bright morning sun. “Some will make it for miles, but sooner or later they’ll all sink from hanging up or hitting something.”
“Unless a fisherman finds them first,” John said. “There are no money-markings on them and they’d make great boat storage boxes for anchors, rope, food, tools, camping gear or what-have-you.”
Later they went south on US 21 to Statesville, and then west again on US 70. They counted their take in a motel room in Asheville and stashed some in separate, previously set-up safe-houses and safe-deposit boxes. They had one hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars, their highest cash take ever, and with the least amount of people.
“Don’t forget Wimpy’s part in this,” John reminded.
“I haven’t. We also had about ten-grand in expenses out of my pocket and probably two out of yours. I haven’t actually counted it up yet and it may not be quite that much.”
John waved him off, “Don’t bother, your guess is good enough for me and plenty small enough for this haul. You put more work into this one too. Keep the ten and I’ll forget about the two. We’ll still have over fifty grand each after giving some to Ivins for Wimpy’s part.”
“Take the two and let’s give Ivins twenty grand and tell him the obligation to Wimpy is closed. Future plans and safe-house-fees will be on a case-by-case basis.”
John agreed, “Let’s also tell him that if the woman shows up to give her some of it, and get a way to contact her. I like her work and will probably have something for her in the future even if you don’t.” They tapped knuckles together and traveled on to Horace Ivins’ house in Dayton.
Horace was glad to see them when they arrived, even before finding out about the job. He said, “The woman came by looking for Wimpy just two days after you were here. I told her that Wimpy had been killed in a car wreck down by Knoxville. She took it hard, so I told her to come back in an hour and I would get some money out of the bank for her.
I gave her five hundred out of my stash. I wouldn’t touch yours no matter what. This perked her up some when she came back, but then she asked for the plans Wimpy had. He must have told her that I was his safe house,” he finished.
“Go on,” John said.
“I told her that I’d let the plans out and if I got anything out of it I’d give her half. She wasn’t very happy about losing the plans, but she did give me a phone number and a name. She asked who had the plans, but I wouldn’t tell her. I told her that I didn’t have any way to get in touch with you either. I think she lives in Sharonville, Ohio but I doubt that Maude is really her name; she’s too good looking. Is all of this alright?”
They told him what his share would be and what their thoughts were on it.
“How do I get in touch with you?”
“You don’t,” John replied.
“No problem—it’s better if I can’t.”
Cramer just looked at him for a few seconds before speaking. “We’re giving you twenty-grand to split with her. We want her name and number. We’re going to tell her exactly what you got from us so there won’t be any misunderstanding. How you work it out is between you two.”
John raised a hand and stated, “Consider your finder’s fee a part of what you’re getting today. This case is closed out. We don’t want any books kept on this—open or closed—or on anything else we’re involved in.”
“Right,” Cramer nodded in agreement.
Horace beamed, “I’m happy as a lark on this whole thing and agree with everything you’ve said. I came out of this a thousand times better than I expected. You guys are great.”
“At least five thousand times better,” Cramer corrected.
They got him to write down Maude’s name and number and stashed some money of their own, giving him another hundred each for using the stash.
Cramer grinned at him, “We only pay for the stash when we bring money in. If we have to take it out, we can’t afford to pay.”
Horace held his hands up in a placatory gesture. “It works for me.”
After they left Horace, and before parting, they discussed the job. It was over, and they had come away clearing more than fifty thousand dollars each. “It was a damned good haul with low risk and no violence or confrontations of any kind. We need more like that one,” John stated.
“Not for a while though, I’m flush. Don’t call for a few months unless you really need me.” Cramer paused and then held up one hand. “There’s one other thing I want you to do. Meet this Maude in person. You’re ugly and married and I might hit on her; or at least she’d think I was. Feel her out and find out who put her up to this in the first place. See if she has a man or a family in her life. We need to know if there are any potential partners, or if she works alone. Give her only the basics on how we work. Oh, one other thing, just give her my Cleveland name and number, not yours. You’re going into hibernation after that.” He lowered his hand.
“There’s no need to tell me the part about how much to disclose and yes I’ll do it for you—Ladies Man. Now give me another five hundred for doing all that.”
“Fucker,” Cramer laughed. “That’s part of the two-grand expenses you’ve already gotten.
They both laughed and mock shoulder-punched in the car: to a good conclusion.
Three days later John contacted the elusive Maude. They met over lunch at a Sharonville restaurant-and-lounge near the Autolite spark-plug factory, where she claimed to work as a production supervisor on second shift. Horace’s opinion was justified. Based on first-impression looks and manner, she was out of Wimpy’s league.
John told her of the windfall she was to get a piece of from Horace Ivins for the set of documents. She was excited about the money and claimed to have thought up the Go Mart robbery on her own. As he suspected though, she couldn’t come up with a reason why or a way to accomplish the task.
She had a backup, whom John had spotted almost immediately. A tall bespectacled man with graying blond hair combed straight
back in a Mike Ditka style had been watching them closely in the back-bar mirror from the adjacent lounge.
When John confronted her, she confessed to having a male friend who had envisioned the robbery. They had assumed that Wimpy would let them be in on it as part of the gang, for a full cut. John told her to wave her friend over and he would explain why that would never have happened.
The man’s name was Dennis Mulder and he was an industrial electronics technician, now working in the local GE Power Systems plant. Mulder was of sufficient intelligence to concept a major robbery, but had no contacts, experience, or wherewithal to accomplish it. He was also a foul-mouthed braggart who belittled the woman he was with. When he couldn’t accept the critique, an irritated John said, “Amateur fool.”
Mulder grabbed John’s shirtfront, “motherfu___.”
It was as far as he got before John broke the little finger on his left hand. Mulder tried to punch with his right, but John caught his fist with his other hand. He kept his grip on two fingers of the left and increased the pressure, forcing Mulder to bend forward and grab the table for support. Without taking his eyes from him, John handed Maude a card with Cramer’s contact information. As he rose to leave, he told her, “If you ever get free of this jerk and want some creative work of your own, call this man.”
Mulder stayed bent over the table when he left, cursing under his breath and holding his damaged left hand clasped in his right. Maude had already shouldered her purse and was halfway to the door.
Cramer laughed when he called later that night. “Thanks Pal, you saved me from another beating. Do I need to worry about this guy?”
“Hardly, talk and ideas are all he’ll ever be. She might be worth following up on for you though—but give it a while—maybe a year.
“Thanks again, maybe you’ll be ready yourself by then too.”
“Could be,” John replied.
CHAPTER 20