9:41

by Iannuzzi, John Nicholas;

  Let me digress to tell you that even now that you see me, I am disguised. I do not usually wear glasses as I do now, and I do not have quite so aquiline a nose. These clothes are not quite to my taste and are rather shabby to be sure. And when I walk, I shall walk with a limp and a cane, neither of which I rely upon in my ordinary gait. Nevertheless, whenever I followed a truck, I would disguise myself by donning something, or using something, that was quite conspicuous, determining, that if this one thing was conspicuous, then the rest of what I had with me would be unnoticed. On some occasions, I wore a ridiculous and big red hat, on others I stuffed my jacket with a pillow to give me the effect of a deformed hunchback. On another occasion I rode a bike with knicker bockers on; this was an ordeal, because I had to ride my bike to keep up with the truck, which was quite tiring. Once I even acted the part of a blind man, with my Russian wolfhound Marunata playing the part of the guide dog. To proceed; after a series of disguises and sorties, I decided that the Bank of the Manufacturers Trust Company might be perfect. Are you familiar with the branch of this bank that is on 18th Street and Fourth Avenue? Oh, no. Well, it’s a bank; and what more is there to say. One day, very inconspicuously, I opened a bank account there under the name of Maurice Seigal, … not a very original name, but then, not a very original fellow, this Seigal, … rather dirty and unshaven with a definite foreign accent and smell of garlic, … but he was useful in determining how the guards from the armored car entered the bank and how they removed the money, their hands grasping rather perfunctorily the handle of their weapons in their holsters, feeling rather like western sheriffs, and playing their parts to the hilt, their eyes darting from side to side of their eye sockets as they walked to the door, and out to the truck where another guard was standing, his hand on his pistol, watching the crowds in the streets, … and especially a rather delightful young girl with the most exquisite and undulating … ah well, … even these guards had not bad taste, … but is it taste that makes one realize that the obviously magnificent is magnificent? At any rate, … the guards put the money in the truck and would drive away, … and it was as simple as that. Life is rather simple when one brushes aside the filigree of nonsense that surrounds it … The truck would after it left the bank, travel down to the East River Drive, … taking approximately three minutes to get to the highway. There is no worry of the guards stopping for coffee or hot dogs on this trip, … which is an occurrence I have had to sit through almost as many times as I followed those trucks. But with the money in the truck it was forbidden to stop. So this of course was very convenient and opportune to note precisely the time it took for the truck to get to the highway, since the route had to be direct and constant. Now I digress again for the sake of clarity. I determined which truck would carry the most money by the amount they took out of the bank in their cloth bags, … and of course the locations of the bank, not only in reference to its physical locale, which could either hamper or assist my plan, but also with the thought of people and business surrounding it that would use the bank facilities. I deemed it prudent to find a highly commercial area, but not so intense a commercial area as to be either crowded with people or to be so efficient as to use too many checks and nonnegotiable securities. Approximating as best I could, which method had always been quite accurate, I found that this particular bank handled nice, tidy sums of currency and each Thursday they transferred three hundred thousand dollars to another bank in the downtown area. I would have actually thought seriously of tampering with this other bank, but it was impossible to calculate when the truck would arrive since traffic—is almost overpowering at all times, and the truck might—become stuck in traffic and ruin all my plans. You’ll see clearly in a moment exactly why precise timing was so important in this little plan of mine. Hmm, … to wait a few more minutes. I shall have to get out of this car in approximately two minutes and start fixing a flat on the rear tire of this car. You’ll notice the car is already tilted at an angle, … I have already jacked the rear end, just to save time. That’s how I’m going to stop the tow truck, you see. An old man, an old crippled man, begging for assistance, … how could these kindly truck drivers refuse … their conscience would bother them for months. Well, perhaps we can conceive of a driver who would pass an old man mercilessly, … but not easily when the old man is standing directly in front of the tow truck. He’d have to run him down, … an old crippled man. Notice also that this thoroughfare is only large enough for one truck or car to pass through, … now that I have this disabled car I’m sitting in blocking half the road. What purpose stopping the tow truck? Well, when I stop them, or rather when this decrepit creature stops them and walks around to the driver’s side, leaning on the truck constantly for support so that they cannot drive away, when I, I mean he, moves to the side, … when he moves to the side, he will ask in very supplicating, oh most compassionate tones, that the driver should assist him. I won’t print what our driver might say here, for it might be somewhat offensive to delicate eyes, … but, in a less bleeding tone, I will, after leaping on the running board, and pressing this small but very effective revolver in his direction … Oh he’ll be alone, … he and the tow truck, … and me, of course. Forgive me if I dawdle a bit as I go through this, but I am thinking and rechecking as I explain to you, considering all the remote possibilities. Do you recall what I told you about not having to recheck my path. It’s true. I doubt I have made any errors or mistakes, … but this same restless brain that drives me in quest of adventure also insists incessantly that it be active, … and therefore I consider again the plot since it would be inappropriate right now to be thinking of anything else but the tow truck and the armored car which is now stuck on the road somewhere up ahead. Oh yes, … I’m sure the van is stopped somewhere ahead on the highway, feeling very safe in the open sunniness of the roadway, with cars streaming by quickly, whooshing air behind them, and men laughing and smiling mockingly, in the vicious way men have, … and they say to each other, “boy, some guys could come over here with guns and they’d be sitting ducks in that truck”, … they only contemplate this jokingly, for they would not be so timorous as to attack that truck, not with the drivers sealed in behind a bullet-proof enclosure, guns in their holsters, and a rifle on the wall, … further, the openness makes it even riskier, … for the police will be driving past often, … the police may even stop and ask if the guards need help, … and they’ll reply no, the repair truck is on the way, … and the police will drive away, … or even if they stay there, it won’t matter to the repairman as he fixes the truck. It will certainly add to the protectedness and the comfortableness of the driver and guards in the armored car. Now you understand that I know all of these things because I have foreordained the paths of all my pawns. Were you here early this morning during the slumber hours, … approximately one-thirty in the morning. Well unfortunately, very, very unfortunately, there was a nasty accident in front of the Allied Armored Car Corporation. Two cars collided, when one car turned and crossed over the path of the other car. It was quite an accident, … and thank goodness no one was hurt. They were old cars, … about as old as this one, so there was no great loss … but it certainly did stir up no little excitement in front of the garage. The night watchman, good soul, called the police. How fortunate for the drivers of those cars, one of which actually turned over, … that they were in front of a place from which they could make a phone call. At that dreary hour of the morning in this deserted area there are not very many people about, … nor are there many phones available. Nevertheless there was a great deal of noise and confusion, … and the night watchman, good fellow that I said he is, was hopping about, helping the two drivers out of the wrecks, … and in the midst of this pandemonium it was not very difficult for me to slip unnoticed inside the garage. You see the accident was not really an accident and it was not unfortunate for my purpose. It certainly looked like an accident though. I had bought the cars, and had found two young men in a bar, … two not so bright, but very avaricious y
oung men in a bar, and hired them to stage an accident for the sake of tests which the Consolidated Insurance Company was making. We, … we the insurance company, that is, wanted to check on the visibility, and the ability to stop, and the force of impact, and the damage to car and driver and all sorts of nonsensical and sundry other data which I used to persuade my gloriously greedy youth that this was very important and necessary investigation. I assured them that the cars were well enforced with roll bars on the inside, … which are steel bars that brace the top of the car to absorb the shock of impact as the car turns over. And I further assured them that an additional hundred dollars apiece, additional to the other hundred dollars apiece I had already pressed into their absorbing hands, would be theirs if they would cooperate in this humanitarian cause. They said, “Certainly Mr. Malone”, … and a very respectable Mr. Malone I was, an insurance agent, clothed in a conservative suit and hat, and dark rimmed glasses and a large profuse moustache. I escorted my collaborators to the warehouse, … the one right over there, where I had the two cars parked. I had bought these cars separately, at two very different and very separated junk dealers, with two different disguises, and I had the protective steel added in at two very different and also very separated welding shops, with two additional disguises. It’s not really that difficult to disguise a mechanic in a coverall with grease smeared on his face. One had a cap, and one glasses, and one a brush moustache, and one a cigar and a most disgusting habit of spitting punctuating, … so much so that the man in the welding shop told him to refrain from his expectoration, … he used different wording of course, but it approximated the meaning. So here were the cars and the night and the spot and the plan and the drivers. The drivers would be able to distinguish each other by little red lights that I had mounted behind the grill of each car, … so as they rode at each other from opposite directions on the street, they would be sure not to become involved with any interloping other car. I told one, … a red-headed fellow, to turn up Cornelia Street, … that’s the side street that immediately skirts the Allied garage, … and I told the other fellow to drive right into the side of the turning car. I was to be at the scene, camera in hand, to record with pictures our results, and to write reports. The anxious youth were quite thrilled and happy and impatient, since no one had ever asked them to go out and wreck a car purposely, … and pay them two hundred dollars besides. Their pleasure was imposing … they were very happy to be of service to such a worthy cause. About another minute and a half I should say and the tow truck will be upon me. Now let me see, … ah yes, … these two cars were driven rapidly and were smashed into each other, … and the din was deafening, the roar resounding, … and the night watchman jumped in fright and ran to the street, which of course was my cue to enter the garage. Very quickly I went into the small office which was used by the dispatcher during the day and the night watchman at night and from which he had just run. Smoke was still rising from a cup filled with coffee. There was a time clock on a counter which was used to punch the time on index cards made up as record for each truck. This Allied Corporation is a very efficient corporation to be sure, … so efficient, that they knew always where their tucks were, and what time they should be back, and which truck was at which bank, and all sorts of information that was most helpful, and soon to be detrimental, to them. They were even so efficient as to have the cards already made out for the following day, with the number of the truck that was to be at each particular pick-up designation. This was of course so the mechanic during the day, could check over each truck when it came in from its daily run, and insure that nothing would go wrong with it the next day, … because, though the trucks were unassailable, it wasn’t good policy to let them break down on the streets.

  Number One Hundred and Seventy Four, was the number of the truck to be used for the Manufacturers Trust Company, Union Square Branch; was very convenient. I left the office, and passed to where the trucks were standing quietly, passively, slumbering in the shadowy dim light of the garage. As I passed across the garage I could hear the excitement of the crash that had just occurred outside, and in the distance the wail of police sirens stirring up the silent night. I’m sure the two boys in the cars were quite surprised to find no photographer, and though I didn’t intend to puzzle them too much, I had to, for now they couldn’t tell anyone anything except that they were conducting experiments for a Mr. Malone of the Consolidated Insurance Company. Everyone looked at them dazedly, I’m sure, and no one knew what was happening, no one except me, and I was inside and had lifted the cover from the motor compartment of truck #174, and had quickly pulled out the wire that runs from the coil to the distributor, or from the distributor to the coil, depending from which end you begin. This is the wire along which the electric charge of life for the engine runs constantly. Nevertheless, I pulled the wire, inserted a little mechanism I am quite proud to have invented, into the hole in the coil from which I had pulled the wire, and put the wire back in a similar hole in the top of this little mechanism. The little mechanism? Well, it was, and is, merely a sort of junction switch and timer. You see, the spark would travel across this switch just as it would across just the wire, but, … the timepiece was rigged like an alarm clock switch; at a predestinated hour it would release, noiselessly of course, and the switch would break the circuit, and no juice would pass from the coil to the distributor and then, of course, the truck would stop running. Rather cleverly simple, wouldn’t you say? It took approximately ten seconds for me to install the device, and then I carefully closed the hood, and through a side window, checking first the street outside, I jumped to the ground and went home for a happy and relaxed night’s sleep. Out in front of the garage all the people concerned were probably still scratching their heads with unknowingness; and the two boys felt duped, and were quite disappointed about their money. Since, though, I had told them I would give them another hundred dollars apiece, I mailed two crisp one hundred dollar bills from Grand Central Post Office to their addresses, which I had gained as information for the Consolidated Insurance Company.

  The stage was now somewhat set. Knowing that the truck was to arrive at the bank at approximately 10:30 Ante Meridian, and that it took approximately five minutes to load the money into the van, and since it took approximately another three minutes for them to attain the highway, … therefore eight minutes from the time of their arrival, I set the timing mechanism on my little invention for 10:40, allowing two minutes just for the sake of safety. In the added two minutes, the truck could reach and drive onto the highway. It doesn’t matter to which point on the highway they drive since they couldn’t possibly be any further away than across the lane as I approached with the tow truck. Oh yes, I will be manning the tow truck. You see, after I point the revolver at the driver, I persuade him to drive me to my favorite warehouse, which as I’ve already noted has not been used for many weeks, and to which I have made a key, and which is therefore completely at my disposal, and which contains such sundry items as I might need for this adventure. Items like rope, and tear gas? Well, I’ll tell you in a minute. At any rate, after I take the tow truck and the tow truck driver into the warehouse, I bind the driver, not too tightly of course, and lock him in an office. Then, out of his sight, I don my grease monkey’s suit, change my glasses for a bandage across the bridge of a twisted nose, chomp on an Italian cigar, which I wouldn’t light for all the money in the world, and drive off to rescue the disabled truck. Of course they would have called the garage for assistance; what else were they to do, push the truck, or leave it there? No! Allied has a remarkably rapid and efficient repair service, for obvious reasons. It is quite a large force of repair trucks, and repairmen, which of course also adds facility to my effort to appear as a new hired man, and with grease on my face, and a conspicuous bandage, and a cap pulled down far on my head, no one could delineate me from Barney Oldfield.

  Have you ever had a car repaired? And have you ever balked to the mechanic before he fixed it, and have you ever come bac
k about closing time when the mechanic was washed up, and did you find it difficult to recognize him? Well, this, I am sure, would work in my favor.

  Now let me see what else there is—the accident, and no one can recognize me, or any of the five men I portrayed in masterminding the accident, and no one knows I, shall I say, tampered with the truck, and the truck is running smoothly, or was, I should say, and the tow truck is out on a routine run. I am completely non-involved. Anything I did not think of? The truck getting stuck in traffic? No, I told you, that’s why I selected this particular bank, no traffic. What shall I do to the truck when I get to it? Why I intend, not seriously of course, to try and fix it. The driver and the guards will be inside protectively guarding their money: theirs so to say, and not anyone’s but mine shortly. I’ll open the hood and pretend I’m working with the engine, and ask the driver to step on the starter, … and the engine will crank over and over, and it, unfortunately, will not start and then I’ll tell them I think it’s a broken piston. No, what’s the matter with me? With a broken piston, the engine would not crank over. Let’s see, what could be wrong, not points, I shall certainly have a spare set in my tool case, not the starter engine, it wouldn’t crank over in that case either. Hmm, perhaps a cracked rotor, no I’d have one of those too. A cracked coil, I should have a spare one, no, not really. I could have one, but I don’t. That’ll be it, a cracked coil. Now, if I can’t start their engine, then I had better pull them to the garage quickly, wouldn’t you agree? It’s not good to leave an armored car on the street, or even highway. And besides, they’ll have to exchange the contents of the van to another better running van to finish delivery and they wouldn’t do this on the highway. I’ll tow them down the highway toward the garage. Will they suspect this new man.