Around six o’clock I got up, bathed, shaved, and dressed. I routed out Sam and had him make me some coffee, and fix up some bacon and eggs. I told him to stand by in case the men that were coming hadn’t had any breakfast. Then I went in the living room and began to march around it. It was cold. I lit the fire. My head kept spinning around.
Bight on the tick of seven the doorbell rang and there they were, Dyer and his two mugs. Dyer’s a tall, thin man with a bony face and eyes like gimlets. I’d say he was around fifty. The other two were around my own age, somewhere over thirty, with big shoulders, thick necks, and red faces. They looked exactly like what they were: ex-cops that had got jobs as guards in a bank. One was named Halligan, the other Lewis. They all said yes on breakfast, so we went in the dining room and Sam made it pretty quick with the service.
I gave it to Dyer, as quick as I could, about Brent being off for a couple of months, with his operation, and how he’d come in yesterday to get his stuff, and Helm had seen him go in the bank a second time, and not come out, and how Sheila had gone out looking for him late at night, and thought she saw the red light flash. I had to tell him that much, to protect myself afterward, because God only knew what was going to come out, and I didn’t even feel I was safe on Sheila’s end of it. I didn’t say anything about the shortage, or Sheila’s father, or any of that part. I told what I had to tell, and made it short.
“Now what I figure is, Brent got in there somehow just before we closed it up, maybe just looking around, and that he got locked in there by accident. However, I can’t be sure. Maybe—it doesn’t seem very likely—he’s up to something. So what I’d like you guys to do is to be outside, just be where you can see what’s going on. If it’s all quiet, I’ll give you the word, and you can go on home, If anything happens, you’re there. Of course, a man spends a night in a vault, he may not feel so good by morning. We may need an ambulance. If so, I’ll let you know.”
I breathed a little easier. It had sounded all right, and Dyer kept on wolfing down his toast and eggs. When they were gone he put sugar and cream in his coffee, stirred it around, and lit a cigarette. “Well—that’s how you got it figured out.”
“I imagine I’m not far off.”
“All I got to say, you got a trusting disposition.”
“What do you make of it?”
“This guy’s a regular employee, you say?”
“He’s been head teller.”
“Then he couldn’t get locked in by mistake. He couldn’t no more do that than a doctor could sew himself up in a man’s belly by mistake. Furthermore, you couldn’t lock him in by mistake. You take all the usual care, don’t you, when you lock a vault?”
“I think so.”
“And you done it regular, yesterday?”
“As well as I can recall.”
“You looked around in there?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And you didn’t see nothing?”
“No, certainly not.”
“Then he’s in there on purpose.”
The other two nodded, and looked at me like I must not be very bright.
Dyer went on: “It’s possible for a man to hide hisself in a vault. I’ve thought of it, many a time, how it could be done. You think of a lot of things in my business. Once them trucks are wheeled in, with the records on them, if he once got in without being seen, he could stoop down behind them, and keep quiet, and when you come to close up you wouldn’t see him. But not by accident. Never.”
I was feeling funny in the stomach. I had to take a tack I didn’t like.
“Of course, there’s a human element in it. There’s nothing in this man’s record that gives any ground whatever for thinking he’d pull anything. Fact of the matter, that’s what I’m doing in the branch. I was sent out there to study his methods in the savings department. I’ve been so much impressed by his work that I’m going to write an article about it.”
“When did he get in there, do you think?”
“Well, we found a spider. A big one.”
“One of them bad dreams with fur all over them?”
“That’s it. And we were all gathered around looking at it. And arguing about how to get it out of there. I imagine he was standing there looking at it too. We all went out to throw it in the street, and he must have gone in the vault. Perhaps just looking around. Perhaps to open his box, I don’t know. And—was in there when I closed it up.”
“That don’t hit you funny?”
“Not particularly.”
“If you wanted to get everybody in one place in that bank, and everybody looking in one direction, so you could slip in the vault, you couldn’t think of nothing better than one of them spiders, could you? Unless it was a rattlesnake.”
“That strikes me as a little farfetched.”
“Not if he’s just back from the mountains. From Lake Arrowhead, I think you said. That’s where they have them spiders. I never seen one around Glendale. If he happened to turn that spider loose the first time he come in, all he had to do was wait till you found it, and he could easy slip in.”
“He’d be running an awful risk.”
“No risk. Suppose you seen him? He was looking at the spider too, wasn’t he? He come in with his key to see what all the fuss was about. Thought maybe there was trouble … Mr. Bennett, I’m telling you, he’s not locked in by accident. It couldn’t happen.”
“… What would you suggest?”
“I’d suggest that me, and Halligan, and Lewis, are covering that vault with guns when you open the door, and that we take him right in custody and get it out of him what he was doing in there. If he’s got dough on him, then we’ll know. I’d treat him just like anybody else that hid hisself in a vault. I wouldn’t take no chances whatever.”
“I can’t stand for that.”
“Why not?”
For just a split second, I didn’t know why not. All I knew was that if he was searched, even if he hadn’t put his father-in-law’s money back in the cash box, they’d find it on him, and a man with nine thousand dollars on him, unaccounted for, stepping out of a bank vault, was going to mean an investigation that was going to ruin me. But if you’ve got to think fast, you can do it. I acted like he ought to know why not. “Why—morale.”
“What do you mean, morale?”
“I can’t have those people out there, those other employees, I mean, see that at the first crack out of the box, for no reason whatever, I treat the senior member of the staff like some kind of a bandit. It just wouldn’t do.”
“I don’t agree on that at all.”
“Well, put yourself in their place.”
“They work for a bank, don’t they?”
“They’re not criminals.”
“Every person that works for a bank is automatically under suspicion from the minute he goes in until he comes out. Ain’t nothing personal about it. They’re just people that are entrusted with other people’s money, and not nothing at all is taken for granted. That’s why they’re under bond. That’s why they’re checked all the time—they know it, they want it that way. And if he’s got any sense, even when he sees our guns, supposing he is on the up-and-up, and he’s in there by mistake, he knows it. But he’s not on the up-and-up, and you owe it to them other people in there to give them the protection they’re entitled to.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“It’s up to you. But I want to be on record, in the presence of Halligan and Lewis, that I warned you. You hear what I say, Mr. Bennett?”
“… I hear what you say.”
My stomach was feeling still worse, but I gave them their orders. They were to take positions outside. They weren’t to come in unless they were needed. They were to wait him out.
I led, driving over to the bank, and they followed, in Dyer’s car. When I went past the bank I to
uched the horn and Dyer waved at me, so I could catch him in the mirror. They had wanted me to show them the bank, because they were all from the home office and had never been there. A couple of blocks up Anita Avenue I turned the corner and stopped. They pulled in ahead of me and parked. Dyer looked out. “All right. I got it.”
I drove on, turned another corner, kept on around the block and parked where I could see the bank. In a minute or two along came Helm, unlocked the door and went in. He’s first in, every morning. In about five minutes Snelling drove up, and parked in front of the drugstore. Then Sheila came walking down the street, stopped at Snelling’s car, and stood there talking to him.
The curtains on the bank door came down. This was all part of opening the bank, you understand, and didn’t have anything to do with the vault. The first man in goes all through the bank. That’s in case somebody got in there during the night. They’ve been known to chop holes in the roof even, to be there waiting with a gun when the vault is opened.
He goes all through the bank, then if everything’s O.K. he goes to the front door and lowers the curtains. That’s a signal to the man across the street, who’s always there by that time. But even that’s not all. The man across the street doesn’t go in till the first man comes out of the bank, crosses over, and gives the word. That’s also in case there’s somebody in there with a gun. Maybe he knows all about those curtains. Maybe he tells the first man to go lower the curtains, and be quick about it. But if the first man doesn’t come out as soon as he lowers the curtains, the man across the street knows there’s something wrong, and puts in a call, quick.
The curtains were lowered, and Helm came out, and Snelling got out of his car, I climbed out and crossed over. Snelling and Helm went in, and Sheila dropped back with me.
“What are you going to do, Dave?”
“Give him his chance.”
“If only he hasn’t done something dumb.”
“Get to him. Get to him and find out what’s what. I’m going to take it as easy as I can. I’m going to stall, listen to what he has to say, tell him I’ll have to ask him to stick around till we check—and then you get at it. Find out. And let me know.”
“Do the others know?”
“No, but Helm’s guessed it.”
“Do you ever pray?”
“I prayed all I know.”
Adler came up then and we went in. I looked at the clock. It was twenty after eight. Helm and Snelling had their dust cloths, polishing up their counters. Sheila went back and started to polish hers. Adler went back to the lockers to put on his uniform. I sat down at my desk, opened it, and took out some papers. They were the same papers I’d been stalling with the afternoon before. It seemed a long time ago, but I began stalling with them again. Don’t ask me what they were. I don’t know yet.
My phone rang. It was Church. She said she wasn’t feeling well, and would it be all right if she didn’t come in today? I said yeah, perfectly all right. She said she hated to miss a day, but she was afraid if she didn’t take care of herself she’d really get sick. I said certainly, she ought to take care of herself. She said she certainly hoped I hadn’t forgotten about the adding machine, that it was a wonderful value for the money, and would probably pay for itself in a year by what it would save. I said I hadn’t forgotten it. She said it all over again about how bad she felt, and I said get well, that was the main thing. She hung up. I looked at the clock. It was twenty-five after eight.
Helm stepped over, and gave my desk a wipe with his cloth. As he leaned down he said: “There’s a guy in front of the drugstore I don’t like the looks of, and two more down the street.”
I looked over. Dyer was there, reading a paper.
“Yeah, I know. I sent for them.”
“O.K.”
“Have you said anything, Helm? To the others?”
“No, sir, I haven’t.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“No use starting anything, just on a hunch.”
“That’s it. I’ll help you open the vault.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See the front door is open.”
“I’ll open it now.”
At last the clock said eight-thirty, and the time lock clicked off. Adler came in from the lockers, strapping his belt on over his uniform. Snelling spoke to Helm, and went over to the vault. It takes two men to open a vault, even after the time lock goes off, one to each combination. I opened the second drawer of my desk, took out the automatic that was in there, threw off the catch, slipped it in my coat pocket, and went back there.
“I’ll do that, Snelling.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Bennett. Helm and I have it down to a fine art. We’ve got so we can even do it to music.”
“I’ll try it, just once.”
“O.K.—you spin and I’ll whistle.”
He grinned at Sheila, and began to whistle. He was hoping I’d forgotten the combination, and would have to ask help, and then he’d have a laugh on the boss. Helm looked at me, and I nodded. He spun his dial, I spun mine. I swung the door open.
At first, for one wild second, I thought there was nobody in there at all. I snapped on the switch, and couldn’t see anything. But then my eye caught bright marks on the steel panels of the compartments that hold the safe deposit boxes. Then I saw the trucks had all been switched. They’re steel frames, about four feet high, that hold the records. They run on rubber wheels, and when they’re loaded they’re plenty heavy. When they were put in there, they were all crosswise of the door. Now they were end to it, one jammed up against the other, and not three feet away from me. I dropped my hand in my gun pocket, and opened my mouth to call, and right that second the near truck hit me.
It hit me in the pit of the stomach. He must have been crouched behind it, like a runner, braced against the rear shelves and watching the time lock for the exact second we’d be in there. I went over backwards, still trying to get out the gun. The truck was right over me, like it had been shot out of a cannon. A roller went over my leg, and then I could see it crashing down on top of me.
I must have gone out for a split second when it hit my head, because the next thing I knew screams were ringing in my ears, and then I could see Adler and Snelling, against the wall, their hands over their heads.
But that wasn’t the main thing I saw. It was this madman, this maniac, in front of the vault, waving an automatic, yelling that it was a stick-up, to put them up and keep them up, that whoever moved was going to get killed. If he had hoped to get away with it without being recognized, I can’t say he didn’t have a chance. He was dressed different from the way he was the day before. He must have brought the stuff in the grip. He had on a sweat shirt that made him look three times as big as he really was, a pair of rough pants and rough shoes, a black silk handkerchief over the lower part of his face, a felt hat pulled down over his eyes—and this horrible voice.
He was yelling, and the screaming was coming from Sheila. She seemed to be behind me, and was telling him to cut it out. I couldn’t see Helm. The truck was on top of me, and I couldn’t see anything clear, on account of the wallop on my head. Brent was standing right over me.
Then, right back of his head, a chip fell out of the wall. I didn’t hear any shot at all, but he must have, because Dyer fired, from the street, right through the glass window. Brent turned, toward the street, and I saw Adler grab at his holster. I doubled up my legs and drove against the truck, straight at Brent. It missed him, and crashed against the wall, right beside Adler. Brent wheeled and fired. Adler fired. I fired. Brent fired again. Then he made one leap, and heaved the grip, which he had in his other hand, straight through the glass at the rear of the bank. You understand: The bank is on a corner, and on two sides there’s glass. There’s glass on half the third side too, at the rear, facing the parking lot. It was through that window that he heaved the grip. Th
e glass broke with a crash, and left a hole the size of a door. He went right through it.
I jumped up, and dived after him, through the hole. I could hear Dyer and his two men coming up the street behind me, shooting as they came. They hadn’t come in the bank at all. At the first yelp that Sheila let out they began shooting through the glass.
He was just grabbing up the grip as I got there and leveled his gun right at me. I dropped to the ground and shot. He shot. There was a volley of shots from Dyer and Halligan and Lewis. He ran about five steps, and jumped into the car. It was a blue sedan; the door was open and it was already moving when he landed on it. It shot ahead, straight across the parking lot and over to Grove Street. I raised my gun to shoot at the tires. Two kids came around the corner carrying school-books. They stopped and blinked. I didn’t fire. The car was gone.
I turned around and stepped back through the hole in the glass. The place was full of smoke, from the shooting. Sheila, Helm, and Snelling were stooped down, around Adler. He was lying a little to one side of the vault, and a drop of blood was trickling down back of his ear. It was the look on their faces that told me. Adler was dead.
IX
I started for the telephone. It was on my desk, at the front of the bank, and my legs felt queer as I walked along toward it, back of the windows. Dyer was there ahead of me. He came through the brass gate, from the other side, and reached for it.
“I’m using that for a second, Dyer.”
He didn’t answer, and didn’t look at me, just picked up the phone and started to dial. So far as he was concerned, I was the heel that was responsible for it all, by not doing what he said, and he was letting me know it. I felt that way about it too, but I wasn’t taking anything off him. I grabbed him by the neck of his coat and jerked him back on his heels.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”