Bank Job

by Robert L. Fish

  “Names? No,” Holden said, thinking, “I don’t remember as I do. One of them—the guy he talked about the most—I remember he called Will. Not Bill or Billy, but Will. I don’t recall the others. But he ought to have lots of stuff around the house. Letters, for instance; I know they all corresponded pretty regularly. And I know he has pictures, for sure. He showed them to me more than once, the four of them posing in front of that helicopter. They called it ‘The What Four?’ with a big question mark after it.” The sheriff’s voice was more curious than angry. “You really honest-to-God figure those friends of his had anything to do with this?”

  “I really honest-to-God do,” Reardon said. The time for temporizing was past; the sheriff merited and needed the truth. Even as he said so, Reardon was more than ever convinced he was right. “Sheriff, did any of the others ever come down to Florida to visit George?”

  “Not to my knowledge, and I’m sure I would have known. Hell, he’d of had them up to our house, I’m sure.” There was a brief pause. “Why?”

  “No reason. I just wondered if maybe anyone down there knew them by sight,” Reardon said.

  “I don’t think so. But why would they do it? Any of them? Rob a bank, I mean?”

  “I have no idea,” Reardon said. “We’ll find out when we catch them. How soon can you start getting something for us on the others? Names and addresses, if possible, but even pictures might speed things up. I’m checking through the army, but that may take weeks. You can teletype any photos through the Orlando Barracks. Tag them for me.”

  “I’m on my way right now,” Holden said. He sounded more alert, with a definite job ahead of him. “Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment,” Reardon said, and then heard himself say, to his own consternation, “Have you told your wife yet?”

  There was a long silence at the other end. Finally the sheriff said, “Not yet.”

  Reardon was sorry he had asked. “I’ll wait to hear from you then,” he said, his voice expressionless.

  “You’ll hear from me,” the sheriff said quietly, and hung up.

  Reardon put the phone down and looked at Captain Tower. The captain also hung up. There was silence for several moments, then Tower spoke.

  “What was the boy worth? Three million dollars? That would make a fair motive.”

  For a moment Reardon didn’t understand. Then he frowned in disbelief. “You mean, the sheriff?”

  “I’m merely pointing out that three million dollars constitutes a lot better motive than you can prove for that gun crew you’re sold on. And the sheriff is the one who stands to gain the most—him and his wife.”

  Reardon looked at the other a moment, trying to figure out if the captain was actually serious. Then he shrugged.

  “Three things, Captain. One, Mullin could have left his entire fortune to the Elks for all we know, maybe for new pool tables. Two, how could the sheriff have possibly arranged for Wheaton to have shot Mullin?”

  “And three?”

  “Three, among other things, it would mean I was wrong,” Reardon said with a grin, and turned back to the papers on his desk.

  CHAPTER 11

  Friday—6:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  In the gathering dusk of the early evening the bushy orange trees on either side of the narrow private dirt road bent back slightly under the rushing passage of the sheriff’s heavy swaying car. Fom the speeding vehicle the diagonal aisles between the geometrically spaced trees flashed past with angled bars of gold where the setting sun had an opportunity to strike the tilted windshield. Sheriff Holden’s mind was blank to all except the terrible fact of Cracker’s death and the thought that eventually he would have to report the tragedy to his wife. The fact that the land through which he was driving now belonged, in all probability, to Marie and himself occurred to him, but only on the periphery of his consciousness. The important thing was that Cracker’s death be explained and in some way avenged, and even more important, that Marie be informed as painlessly as possible.

  His large knobby hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. The day had been hot and the approaching evening promised little relief from the swelter, but it was neither the heat nor the humidity, but rather the inexorable pressure he was exerting on the wheel that caused the dampness on his palms. The trees ahead marched on endlessly, flowing greenly, rising and falling with the slight rolling of the terrain. Behind him dust spurted fiercely from his wheels, swirling madly in dust devils for a moment before settling down onto the graying grass. Cracker dead! It was hard to believe.…

  The break in the grove came at last. The sprawling modern ranch-style house stood on a knoll in the center of a grassy enclave; the Spanish-tiled roof caught the rays of the lowering sun and set them scattering. A swimming pool at one side of the house glinted behind its screened enclosure. It all looked very normal. Holden started to slow down, prepared to bring the car in a circle to park before the walk, and then he jammed on his brakes, staring in surprise. Smoke was eddying from the chimney, lazing up in faint wisps in the hot still air. Smoke? A fire on a torturously hot day like this? Holden’s jaw tightened; he tramped on the gas, bringing the car to the front of the house, skidding it to a halt. A moment later he was out of the car and running up the walk.

  The front door had been jimmied open; it sagged on bent hinges. Holden brought out his gun, clicking the safety off with his thumb. He pushed the front door back carefully.

  “Anyone in there come out with their hands high! This is the Law!”

  His own deep voice came echoing back to him, making the silence within even more silent. He knew he was too late, but he repeated the warning nonetheless and then pushed into the house, his revolver ahead of him and steady. He edged his way down the quiet hallway, his weapon ready, until he could see into the living room. The ashes in the fireplace were too distant for analysis but they looked low and almost burned out; the fire had obviously consumed its fare some time before. Holden edged to the doorway where he could see the room in its entirety, and then went on down the hall, checking out the whole house room by room.

  The kitchen appeared intact, still shining copperly from the daily woman’s last visit; a clock on the cupboard counter ticked loudly in the still room. The bedrooms also seemed untouched, although several of the dresser drawers had not been completely closed, indicating they had not escaped examination. The family room, however, presented a different picture. The books neatly aligned on the shelves had not been disturbed, but the drawers beneath had been rifled completely, their contents strewn about in all directions. Holden took a deep breath and put his gun away, knowing he was alone. He studied the devastation a moment and then left it to return down the hall to the living room and the fireplace.

  The ashes were still sending up tiny curls of smoke, but whatever the intruder had burned was now reduced to fine powder. Holden took the poker and gently trailed it through the ashes to see if he could find any bit large enough for identification, but the gray ash merely streamed gently over the prong as he worked it through. He judged the fire had been set no more than an hour before and cursed the time he had wasted with old Tom Hoxford at the bank. It looked as if that Lieutenant What’s-his-name out on the coast was right and that the pictures of that gun crew were what somebody had wanted to destroy. Obviously the Pentagon would eventually come up with the information, but it would probably be sometime before they did, which would give somebody some breathing room at least. And then it suddenly occurred to Holden that whoever had destroyed those pictures probably didn’t even know that the lieutenant out there had seen any connections between the helicopter crew and the bank robbery. Just being careful, Holden thought, clenching his jaw in a combination of anger and frustration.

  He went back to the family room—the Florida room in that state—dusting his hands on his whipcords. Although he was sure it was useless he went through each drawer and examined every bit of debris lying scattered about on the floor. There was nothing to be found of
any use to either him or to Lieutenant What’s-his-name. With a muttered curse he walked over and picked up the phone and was not greatly surprised to find the leads neatly snipped at the wall box. He dropped it on the floor and went out to his car, reaching in for his microphone.

  “Hello, Duane? Sheriff Holden here. I’m out at Cracker’s place.”

  “Find anything, Sheriff?”

  “Somebody busted in here,” Holden said heavily, “and went through the place. Offhand, I don’t think they took anything, but they burned some papers in the fireplace. I’m pretty sure I know what they burned. Anyway, I want someone out here to go over the place for fingerprints, though I bet dollars to doughnuts he’ll be wasting time. Tell them to look mainly in the bedrooms, around the dresser handles, and in the family room.”

  “Right,” Duane said, and scribbled it down.

  “And better send out a carpenter, too. They got in by prying the hinges off the front door. And tell the phone company the wires have been cut. Inside, on the phone in the family room. Get going on that stuff. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Back?” At the county courthouse Duane frowned at the phone. “You going someplace, Sheriff? Ain’t you going to wait for the fingerprint man I send out?”

  “I can’t,” Holden said, and wiped sweat from his forehead. He took a deep breath, picturing the task ahead of him. “I wish to God I could, Duane, but I can’t. I’ve got to go home.…”

  Friday—7:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  The darkness of his home gave Holden a brief hope that Marie might be out shopping or visiting the neighbors and that the moment of truth might be postponed. But when he turned his key and opened the front door he saw a band of light under the door to the kitchen and knew there was no escape. He dropped his wide-brimmed hat onto a chair in passing and pushed through into the lighted kitchen.

  Marie was at the sink, peeling potatoes, a large motherly-looking woman in her early forties. Her dark hair, up in a bun, outlined a face that was remarkably like that of young Cracker, Holden thought with a pang, despite their great differences in ages. Holden remembered that Marie had raised the Cracker after their mother had died, and wished he didn’t have to be the one to break the news. Marie turned to him with her usual generous smile.

  “Have a good day, dear?”

  Holden grunted and went to the cupboard. He took down a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He poured exceptionally large doses in each glass and shoved one a bit brusquely along the counter in the direction of his wife. Marie looked at him in surprise.

  “Something wrong, dear?”

  Holden upended his glass abruptly, swallowing the whiskey like water in one great draught. It burned down his throat, choking him a moment, but it spread welcome warmth throughout his body. He straightened, clearing his throat, feeling the burning, looked up and said, “Cracker’s dead.”

  “What?”

  It wasn’t until he saw the look of incredulous shock that appeared on Marie’s face that he even realized he had blurted the words out. All the openings he had contrived, all the easy build-ups to the tragic fact had somehow fled. Holden looked at his wife somberly, relieved, at least, that the worst part was over.

  “George is dead.”

  She stared a moment. “George? Dead?”

  “Yes,” Holden said, and picked up her drink, offering it.

  She stared at him a moment longer and then stumbled to the kitchen table. Her hand found a chair and dragged it around; she sank into it unbelievingly. Holden carried the drink to her, offering it again. Her hand waved it away, unaware it was doing so.

  “How? When? Where?”

  Holden said firmly, “Drink this,” and held the glass to her stiff lips until she had managed to swallow it all. She coughed, made a face, and wiped her mouth.

  “Was—was it an auto accident?”

  “It’s complicated,” Holden said, wondering how to be more diplomatic in explaining the tragedy than he had been in announcing it. “What happened is he—he was shot—”

  There was a sharp intake of breath, a hand to a bosom. “Hunting? Oh, my God! I told him …”

  Holden made up his mind. He pulled a chair up beside her and sat down, reaching out to take her hands in his. The familiar worn fingers lay quiescent in his, unnaturally cold.

  He said quietly, “You’re going to hear a lot of things, honey, a lot of stories. Don’t you believe any of them—” Marie started to interrupt but he shook his head stubbornly. “No. No, honey. Just listen. You’re going to hear he was shot trying—trying to rob a bank out on the West Coast—no, no! Listen! It’ll undoubtedly be in the papers tomorrow and on the radio and the TV, because George was a big man in the state of Florida, but don’t you believe one word of what they’re saying. We’ll get it all straightened out. We’ll get down to the bedrock truth, don’t you fret your head. Don’t you believe what you hear, what people say.”

  Marie stared at him. “They’re saying that George robbed a bank?”

  “It’s complicated,” Holden said, and wished he could release his wife’s hands long enough to get himself another drink, but he knew he couldn’t. He gripped her icy hands more tightly.

  “George was shot—robbing a bank?”

  “We’ll straighten it out,” Holden said, feeling the scratchiness in his throat. “Don’t listen to anything they say. The police lieutenant out in San Francisco thinks those friends of his from the army, you know, the crew he was with in Vietnam, might be involved in the thing, but somebody went out to George’s house a few hours ago, I guess, and burned all his papers and letters and the pictures he kept in the family room—”

  Marie was still able to hear only half his words.

  “George’s friends from the army? You mean, his friends? His crew? The ones I’ve got the picture of—?”

  Holden stared. His grip on her hands tightened. “Picture? What picture?”

  “The one George sent me from Vietnam, don’t you remember?” Marie asked. “The first one he sent when he took that other man’s place. The one with the four of them pretending to be trying to lift the helicopter off the ground—” Suddenly the dam burst and she was leaning forward, crying bitterly, her face buried uncomfortably in her husband’s shirt, her fingernails digging into his rough hands frantically.

  “Picture!” Holden said softly, his eyes narrowing. “Old Cracker’s going to hang those bastards yet!” And he freed one hand to stroke his wife’s hair gently.

  Friday—10:30 P.M. Pacific Standard Time

  The ringing of the telephone merely brushed the edge of Reardon’s wonderful reverie. He was sitting beside Jan on the sofa, his arm about her shoulders, watching a supposedly comic police drama on the tube, and the odd combination of almost constant screeching tires and bursting gunfire, interspersed with gales of canned laughter, had been enough to lull the lieutenant into a lovely daydream.

  The wedding had been a huge success, with Jan looking beautiful in her own inimitable way and he—if he had to say so himself—not looking as badly as he would have imagined in a cutaway (although he could not bring himself to picture himself in a top hat, wedding or not.) There had been a good deal of rice-throwing, with Dondero throwing overhand, and then he and Jan had driven off in the red Charger. He couldn’t remember whether Captain Tower had been the minister or an usher, but he knew it was a subservient spot. The honeymoon was in Hawaii, where they had arrived by ship (with the cruise itself a pleasure to be savored more fully in future daydreams). At the moment he was on a surfboard bearing down masterfully on a lonely cove of a deserted beach, with Jan in a bikini waiting there, watching his skillful approach. It was a marvelous feeling being in two places at the same time. From Jan’s position, leaning indolently on the sand like the label on a tuna-fish can, he saw himself strong, bronzed, athletically erect on the dancing surfboard; while at the same time from his position ably balanced on the board he saw his own tanned feet anchored firmly on the Fiberglas and felt the rise
and sweep of the surf as it bore him shoreward. He could see Jan on the beach and knew she had a picnic basket full of goodies hidden someplace around—probably behind one of the swaying palm trees—and that among those goodies would be several bottles of iced beer. He could feel himself rising to conquer a huge roller, holding down its crest, the foam under his toes offering the ultimate challenge as he rode it to the very end in a sweeping curve down its face, and then he felt himself deposited neatly on the beach as if delivered by Western Union. He wasn’t even wet. And Jan was now spreading a blanket for their snack—or for some reason—when the telephone rang. He hadn’t known they had telephones on this particular deserted beach.

  “Darling,” Jan said over her shoulder, “the phone’s ringing.”

  Reardon came to earth with a start. “What?”

  “I said the telephone’s ringing.”

  “Oh,” Reardon said a bit sheepishly, and came to his feet. He padded over to the stand in his stockinged feet and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Lieutenant? Communications. I have a Sheriff Holden on the line for you. From Florida.”

  “Oh, yes. Put him on.” Reardon pulled up a chair and dropped into it, wriggling his toes pleasurably. Jan had turned down the volume of the television and was now watching the actors as they silently and hilariously shot each other. Reardon looked up, remembering at least one facet of his daydream. “Honey, how about a can of beer?”

  He watched her smile at him and move toward the kitchen, her rounded hips swaying slightly. She would look very trim in a hula skirt, Reardon decided, and found himself back on the beach watching Jan doing a slow hula to an excellent accompaniment of soft ukeleles. The girls forming the semicircle about her couldn’t hold a candle to her. Jan turned as she danced, looking back at him over her shoulder, a sexy glint in her eye. Didn’t hula dancers wear bras?

  “Hello, Lieutenant?”

  Reardon sighed and tore himself away from the swaying palms. “Oh. Hello, Sheriff. Any luck?”