Eight Black Horses

by Ed McBain

  Drits wanted her for Christmas.

  He looked at the clock hanging on the wall across the store and wished this job would never end.

  * * * *

  This was what burglars called a lay-in job.

  One guy went in the store, he hid himself someplace inside the store, stayed there till they locked up and went home. Then the lay-in man knocked out the alarm, let his partner in, and together they ripped off the joint. Only this wasn’t going to be a burglary, this was going to be an armed robbery. And Charlie wasn’t going to wait till the place was locked up because then he’d never get the fuck out of here. In every other respect, though, it was a lay-in job. Charlie here in the men’s room on the sixth floor of Gruber’s, waiting for the store to chase all the customers out. Then down the hall to the cashier’s office, and Merry Christmas, ladies.

  Not many people realized that a lot of department stores had their own vaults, same as banks. The vaults were necessary because department stores did a big cash business, and most of them stayed open later than the banks did. So what did you do with all that cash once the banks were closed? What you did, you had a vault ol’ your own, with security just like a bank’s, and you kept the cash locked up overnight till you could go deposit it. Some department stores had armored cars picking up the cash to take to a security vault overnight, but Lizzie Turner had told them that Gruber’s didn’t have any armored cars coming around for any pickups. Gruber’s had us own vault with its own safe inside it.

  Tomorrow was Sunday.

  Under ordinary circumstances Saturday’s cash receipts would be tallied in the cashier’s office early Monday morning, and then a pair of Gruber’s armed square-shields would take it to the bank for deposit.

  But tomorrow was not only Sunday, it was also Christmas Day.

  Which meant that Monday, December 26, was the legal holiday, and the banks would be closed then, too. If all went well, Dennis figured that nobody would even realize the store had been robbed till Tuesday morning, when the cashier’s office was opened again.

  Charlie was sitting on a toilet bowl with his trousers down around his ankles. He had been sitting on the toilet bowl for close to half an hour now, listening to the traffic in and out of the men’s loom on Gruber’s sixth floor. He was not expected to make his move until six forty-five.

  Lizzie had told them that the security in the cashier’s office was very good, better than some banks had. Two different combinations on the two steel doors that led into the vault, another on the safe itself. No windows in the vault. Just the two desks, the various adding machines and computers and such, and the big walk-in safe on the far wall. After the store closed at six, it normally took a half hour at most for each department head on the separate floors to tally his or her cash register receipts, put them into zippered plastic bags, and carry them up to the cashier’s office on the sixth floor.

  Lizzie said that she and her assistant then put the plastic bags of cash in the safe, triggered the safe alarm, and triggered the alarms for both vault doors before they left the office at a little before seven each night. It was rare that any employee, including all the managers, were still in the store after seven. The employees all left by the employee’s entrance on the ground floor. The security officer there watched them while they punched out at the time clock. When all employees had punched out, the security officer set the store’s external alarm.

  She had told them all this while they were laying out the job.

  Nice girl, Lizzie. Smart, too. Quit Gruber’s early in October, was laying low now till it was time to split the money. That would be tomorrow morning. Christmas Day for the three of them. Christmas in Charlie’s room at the Excelsior the minute Dennis arrived with the...

  A loudspeaker on the wall suddenly erupted with the sound of a woman’s voice, startling here in the men’s room.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Gruber’s will be closing in twenty minutes,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘We ask you to kindly complete your shopping before six o’clock. Thank you and Merry Christmas.’

  Charlie looked at his watch.

  He rose then, pulled up his undershorts and his trousers, belted the trousers, and reached for the suitcase he’d tucked against one side of the stall.

  He checked the lock on the door again and then opened the suitcase.

  * * * *

  A huge red banner trimmed in gold hung from a flagstaff and flapped in the wind outside Gruber’s side street entrances. Greetings were stitched in gold to the banner, one beneath the other:

  MERRY CHRISTMAS

  FELIZ NATAL

  JOYEUX NOEL

  BUON NATALE

  Under the banner, and closer to the curb, a man in a Salvation Army uniform stood alongside an iron kettle hanging from a tripod. A sign affixed to the tripod read:

  A cassette player blared ‘Silent Night.’

  The man in the Salvation Army uniform was wearing a hearing aid in his right ear, but no one could see it because he was also wearing ear muffs.

  ‘God bless you,’ he said to a man who dropped a quarter into the kettle.

  * * * *

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Gruber’s will be closing in fifteen minutes,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘We ask you to kindly complete your shopping before six o’clock. Thank you and Merry Christmas.’

  * * * *

  In the sixth-floor men’s room Charlie looked at his watch again. He had already fastened the pillow to his own not-insignificant potbelly and had put on the red trousers and the black boots, and now he was slipping into the red tunic. He buttoned the tunic. He tightened the wide black belt around his waist and then put on the beard and the red hat with the white fur trim. He would give the beard a final adjustment at the mirrors over the sink before he left the men’s room. He reached into the suitcase again, took out the big canvas sack with merry Christmas lettered on it in green and red, and then picked up the gun with the silencer on it. He tucked the gun under the tunic, over the pillow and his own potbelly.

  Outside the stall someone was pissing in one of the urinals.

  * * * *

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Gruber’s will be closing in live minutes,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘We ask you to kindly complete your shopping before six o’clock. Gruber’s will be open again on Tuesday, December twenty-seventh, at which time all items in the store will be on sale at thirty- to fifty-percent savings. Thank you and Merry Christmas.’

  The sidewalks outside Gruber’s looked like an oriental bazaar.

  Aware of the fact that the store would close at six o’clock and further aware that this was Christmas Eve and late late shoppers might be willing to plunk down a few bucks for that last last-minute gift, the street vendors were out in droves, the overflow spilling from the choicer locations at the avenue entrances to here on the side street. Standing to the right of the Salvation Army kettle was a Puerto Rican man with a wide variety of wrist watches for sale, all of them displayed on a folding case set up on a folding stand. If the Law showed and the man did not have a vendor’s license, he would fold the case and the stand, like an Arab folding a tent, and disappear into the night just as swiftly. The Deaf Man assumed all the watches were stolen. Otherwise, why was the man selling them for five dollars apiece?

  ‘Fi’ dollar!’ the man shouted. ‘Bran’ new wriss washes, fi’ dollar!’

  On the Deaf Man’s left, shouting over the strains of ‘Silent Night’ coming from the Deaf Man’s cassette player, another sidewalk entrepreneur was displaying on a moth-eaten army blanket two dozen or more scarves in various brilliant colors.

  ‘All silk!’ he shouted to the passersby. ‘Take your choice, three dollars apiece, four for ten dollars, all silk!’

  On the corner, where side street and avenue intersected, a man sold hot dogs from a cart. Another man sold pretzels. A third man sold 100% Fresh-Squeezed Orange Juice and Italian ices.

  Up the avenue the bell in the tower of the Church of the Ascension of Christ began tol
ling the hour two minutes too soon.

  * * * *

  The personnel manager came into the sixth-floor Toy Department at two minutes to six. Santa was sitting alone on his throne. The personnel manager—whose name was Samuel Aronowitz—went over to him and said, ‘We won’t be getting any more little girls and boys tonight, Santa. Come on, let’s have a drink.’

  Santa sighed forlornly.

  They walked down the hall past the bewildering array of signs pointing in every direction of the compass: MANAGER’S OFFICE, CASHIER’S OFFICE. CREDIT OFFICE. RETURNS. PERSONNEL OFFICE. TOY DEPARTMENT. SANTA CLAUS. TELEPHONE OFFICE. REST ROOMS.

  As they entered the personnel office, Aronowitz heard the woman’s voice over the loudspeakers again.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is now six o’clock. If you are still in the store, we advise you to use the Fourth Street exit. We take this opportunity now to wish you all a Merry Christmas from Gruber’s uptown, downtown, all around the town. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.’

  ‘That was in our radio ads,’ Aronowitz said.

  ‘Sir?’ Drits said.

  ‘The “uptown, downtown, all around the town” line. Very effective. Come in, come in, what would you like to drink? I have scotch and gin.’

  ‘A little scotch, please,’ Drits said.

  * * * *

  In the cashier’s office Molly Driscoll and Helen Ruggiero both looked at the clock at the very same moment. Molly was the cashier. She had been the cashier since the middle of October. Helen was the assistant cashier and was angry that she had not been promoted to cashier when Liz Turner left the job.

  It was now a quarter past six, and all but Better Dresses, Housewares, Major Appliances, Juniors, and Luggage had already delivered their zippered bags containing receipts from cash registers all over the store, dropping them into the little steel drawer set into the wall at right angles to the vault’s outer steel door. Both steel doors to the vault were closed and locked. The safe door was open. They would lock that and set the alarm on it after the last of the receipts were in.

  Helen and Molly were very eager to get the hell out of here.

  Molly wanted to hurry home to her husband and three kids.

  Helen wanted to hurry over to her boyfriend’s apartment. He had told her he’d bought some very good coke that afternoon.

  ‘What’s keeping the rest of them?’ she asked.

  * * * *

  ‘Mr. Drits, I want to thank you personally for the splendid job you did for Gruber’s,’ Aronowitz said. ‘Your warmth, your patience, your obvious understanding of children—all added up to the best Santa we’ve ever had. Would you care for another drink?’

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you,’ Drits said.

  ‘It was my hope, Mr. Drits, that you would come back to work for us again next year. Frankly we have a difficult time hiring convincing Santas.’

  ‘I’d be happy to come back next year,’ Drits said, accepting the drink.

  Provided I’m not in Castleview, he thought.

  * * * *

  In the locked stall in the men’s room Charlie looked at his watch again.

  Six-thirty.

  Fifteen minutes before he made his move.

  He was beginning to sweat behind the fake beard.

  * * * *

  On the sidewalk outside the store the Deaf Man looked at his watch.

  Twenty-five minutes to seven.

  ‘Four dollar!’ the Puerto Rican yelled. ‘Bran’ new washes!’

  ‘Silk scarves, all of them silk, two dollars apiece, four for six dollars!’ the other man yelled.

  ‘Si-uh-lent night,’ the cassette player blared, Mio-uh-lee night...’

  * * * *

  The man at the rest room sinks was singing ‘Silent Night’ at the top of his lungs.

  In the locked stall Charlie looked at his watch again.

  Six forty-two.

  ‘Allllll is calm,’ the man sang, ‘alllllll is bright...’

  * * * *

  In the cashier’s office Helen looked at her watch and said, ‘So where’s Better Dresses?’

  * * * *

  It was six forty-five.

  Charlie had to make his move.

  The man at the sinks was still singing.

  ‘Round yon vir-ih-gin, mother and child...’

  Charlie waited. The man stopped singing. Charlie heard the sound of the water tap being turned on. He looked at his watch again. He couldn’t wait a moment longer.

  He came out of the stall.

  He was looking at Santa Claus.

  Santa Claus was washing his face.

  His beard rested on the sink top.

  Santa turned from the sink.

  Charlie was looking at Arthur Drits, who’d served time at Castleview when Charlie was also a resident up there. A short-eyes offender.

  ‘Hey, man,’ Drits said, looking surprised.

  Drits was surprised because he was looking at a Santa Claus just like himself. He hadn’t known there were two Santas in the store. Charlie, forgetting he was wearing a beard, thought Drits looked surprised because he’d recognized him. Charlie ran out of the men’s room before Drits could take a better look.

  * * * *

  Molly closed the safe door and pressed the buttons that set the alarm.

  Two-four-seven, four-six-three.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ she said.

  ‘Finalmente,’ Helen said.

  * * * *

  When Drits came out of the employees’ entrance of Gruber’s, he was wearing his beard again. Made him feel good, wearing the beard, all dressed up like Santa, best damn Santa the store had ever had—who was that fuckin’ imposter in the men’s room? What made him feel even better was the quantity of scotch he’d drunk in Aronowitz’s office. Very nice scotch. Nice and warm in his little round potbelly.

  There was a man selling two-dollar watches on the sidewalk.

  There was a man selling scarves at a dollar apiece.

  There was a Salvation Army guy standing near a big black kettle.

  ‘Here!’ the Salvation Army guy said.

  Drits looked at him.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ Drits said.

  ‘Where’s the bag?’ the Salvation Army guy whispered.

  Drits figured he was nuts.

  He threw him a finger and walked up the street.

  * * * *

  Molly and Helen were about to leave the cashier’s office when the inner steel door opened.

  They were looking at Santa Claus.

  ‘Merry Christmas, ladies,’ he said, and shot them both between the eyes.

  The silencer worked fine.

  * * * *

  The Deaf Man was confused only momentarily.

  Of course, he thought, the real Santa. Or at least the store’s Santa.

  He looked at his watch.

  Five minutes to seven.

  Charlie should be coming out that door any minute now.

  He glanced toward the corner where the side street intersected the avenue. A uniformed cop was just turning the corner.

  ‘You!’ the cop yelled at the Puerto Rican selling the hot watches.

  * * * *

  The security officer at the door to the employee’s entrance thought he’d seen Santa leave already.

  ‘Two of you, huh?’ he said to Charlie.

  Charlie was at the time clock. The canvas sack with the red and green merry Christmas lettered onto its side was bulging with the money he’d taken from the safe. He lifted Helen Ruggiero’s card from the rack and punched her out.

  It was almost seven o’clock.

  ‘Two of us, right,’ he said.

  ‘Well, have a Merry Christmas, Santa,’ the security officer said, chuckling at his own little joke.

  ‘You, too, Mac,’ Charlie said, and stepped out onto the sidewalk, where suddenly all hell broke loose.

  * * * *