Dog Day Afternoon (10 page)

He stood by the driver’s window. “Start it up. Get the air conditioning going. We don’t have to die while we’re waiting.”

He watched with a certain distaste as Eddie fumbled with the Mustang’s controls and finally got it started and adjusted the levers to produce cool air inside the car. Then Joe walked around to the opposite door and got in. They rolled up the windows as the cool air started to flow. In a few minutes, the three of them sitting on the front seat, they began to feel almost comfortable. Joe checked the time. Two thirty-five.

“Okay, Eddie. Take this street to the Boulevard. Not fast. Just a nice average slow speed. Watch the lights.”

The Mustang took off with a jackrabbit start, then settled down. They reached Queens Boulevard and turned right. Two forty.

Littlejoe indicated the next turn after a mile of careful driving. Eddie could handle a car, but he was jumpy. A car cut in on him from the left-hand lane, and he jammed on his brakes so abruptly that both Joe and Sam lunged forward until their faces almost hit the dashboard. “Easy!”

Two forty-five.

They turned left off the Boulevard. In the distance Littlejoe could see the big five-story building that housed the bakery. The one-story bank building hadn’t come into view yet. He watched Eddie’s face as they waited through a full, long red light. Something was perking inside the tub of lard. Cool he wasn’t. Sam, on the other hand, was ice. His profile was completely still. Nothing moved but his eyes, which shifted slowly now and then from the traffic to his watch.

Two fifty.

So much depended on the timing of the entry, Littlejoe reminded himself. Too early and the damned guard would keep the door open long enough for one more customer. Too late and he’d give them a hassle as they tried to enter. And the guard was the only one with a gun, wasn’t he?

Joe could see the bank now and, across from it, the tavern where he’d sat at this time yesterday and had his brainstorm, the idea of moving up the whole job one week to avoid all the loose ends that were going to trip him up. Another red light. Eddie had started to drive so slowly now that a cop might stop him as a menace to traffic.

Two fifty-five.

Joe handed Sam his hat and glasses and put on his own. They looked at each other and laughed. He reached into the glove compartment and handed Sam a nine-slug magazine. He watched the kid tuck it away in his jacket pocket. Then he gave him the .45 automatic, blue steel, engraved wooden plates on the butt, a motto in Italian on a curved bunting held in an eagle’s beak.
“Honore e patria.”
Shit, yes.

Two fifty-seven.

The Mustang came to a halt at the curb near the bank. The carbine, in its long, flat white cardboard box, now lay across Joe’s knees. There was no string or ribbon on the box.

Now Joe opened the car door. The two of them left the dusty Mustang and moved without haste to the bank door. From the inside, the black guard was also moving toward the door. Their intentions were opposite, as were their movements.

Littlejoe pushed open the door and ushered Sam in ahead of him. The kid had tucked the flat Colt into his waistband and buttoned his jacket over it, but the bulge was obvious to Littlejoe. He carried the white florist’s box under his arm, negligently. Both of them were inside by the time the guard reached the door.

Three.

Littlejoe glanced around the bank. Not a single customer. Great break! He watched the guard lock the door. He was a short, chunky Negro well past sixty, with unevenly gray hair and a face that had been punished over the years, perhaps in the boxing ring. He walked in a funny way, ducklike, as if his joints hurt.

Past the guard, Littlejoe watched the grimy Mustang pull away from the curb and disappear along the street. If he’d been the religious kind, this would have been the moment for praying that Eddie kept his cool and followed the plan to the letter. It was time now for Littlejoe and Sam to do their part.

Sam had gone up to a glass-topped table, as agreed on, and was messing around with a bank pen and some deposit slips. Joe moved quickly behind the guard. He shifted the box top to let the muzzle of the carbine peek out. It looked like the mean little eye of a pig, or the crazy eye of a caged ape. He let the guard see it.

Three five.

Terrible things were happening to the guard’s face. It had gone blank at first on seeing the muzzle. Now, as Joe unsnapped the guard’s holster and removed his .38 Police Positive, the man’s eyes turned up in his head, showing a rim of white and pink. He seemed about to faint. Joe dropped the guard’s revolver in the white box.

Sam glanced at the two of them, kept on playing with papers. None of the bank employees had bothered to look up yet. They probably wouldn’t, Joe figured, until some unusual noise was made.

Three seven.

Joe went to the Venetian blind in the corner and lowered it to the sill of the window. Then he reached inside the florist’s box and brought out a spray can of black paint. He turned to the camera over the front door and covered the lens with a blast of black. As he moved toward the remaining television camera, a balding man seated at one of the bank desks looked up with a practiced smile. “Can I hel . . . ?”

His mouth stayed open as Littlejoe squirted the second camera lens, opaqueing it. Then he dropped the spray can onto the carpeted floor and laid the white box on the man’s desk. He lifted out the carbine and worked its bolt. In the sudden silence, the click was deafening. He glanced at Sam, who brought out the .45 and aimed it at the guard.

The smile died on the balding man’s face. “What?”

“Okay,” Littlejoe said, “this is a stickup.”

One of the tellers let out a shrill yip. Joe swiveled the carbine on her. “Do that one time more and you get it in the guts.” Again he trained the gun on the man at the desk, who seemed to be the manager.

“No alarms. No funny stuff. Nobody presses the Holmes button or you get it between the balls and the bellybutton, twice, and these are dumdum slugs. Your colon will be sprayed all over this lobby.”

The man started to raise his hands over his head and get to his feet at the same time. “Hands down!” Joe snapped. “No problems, shithead, no smart moves or you get it anyway.” He shoved the muzzle of the carbine into the man’s gut and watched his eyes bug in pain. He looked a little like Don, come to think of it. Not exactly the same, but that same banky way all these middle-aged guys got after a while. This one seemed calmer, however.

“Tell the people,” Joe commanded.

“Uh, look,” the manager began in a raised voice, “you can see what’s happening. Nobody press any alarms, please. This man seems to know the routine. I see he’s drawn the blind. He’ll kill me if any of you do anything he doesn’t like. So, please . . .” He ran out of words.

Littlejoe nodded encouragingly. “Nice work. Tell them the rest.”

“The, uh . . . ? Oh. Look, people, clear out your cash drawers and put the money on the counters.” The manager’s eyes darted this way and that, as if making sure this command was being obeyed with good discipline. Joe contented himself for the moment with watching him. He had the kind of face that gave off its own warning signs.

Sam moved quickly along the counters, scooping up the money in a wastebasket, which he brought to Joe. “Keep your eye on the guard,” Joe warned him. “He’s gonna faint or something stupid. He’s an old guy.”

“He has a bad heart,” the manager cut in.

“Shoulda thought of that before he got this job,” Joe said. He upended the wastebasket on the manager’s desk. Tens and twenties, loose and in wrapped packs, slid out. “Now, this is the important part, Mr. . . . uh . . . ?” Joe looked questioningly at the manager.

“Boyle.”

“Mr. Boyle, this is where you star. I want you to go over this cash and pick out the bundle of marked money. Then I want you to show me the markings, so there’s no doubt.”

The manager frowned. “It’s not that easy.”

“That’s why I picked you for the job.” The muzzle of the carbine buried itself an inch in Boyle’s abdominal flab.

“Right.” He had a round, easy-going sort of face, Littlejoe noted: the kind of guy who might sing in the church choir or maybe captain the bowling team, typical Irish face with the long upper lip and big chin and fuzzy eyebrows.

“Here.” Boyle handed over a packet of twenties. “See this here, next to the signature?” As if patiently teaching an employee a lesson, he produced a loose twenty and showed Littlejoe that the small green dot next to the Secretary of the Treasury’s signature was only on the special packet of bills.

“That’s the only pack that’s marked?” Joe asked.

“The only one. Now, look. You have a lot of money here, maybe ten grand. It’s what you came for. We cooperated. We didn’t give you any trouble. We played your rules. Now you’re leaving, right?”

Joe eyed him for a moment. Boyle didn’t seem to be kidding. He looked as if he couldn’t wait for them to leave but was determined to be polite till the bitter end. Littlejoe rummaged around in the piles of money.

“Chickenfeed, Boyle. There’s maybe four grand here, if that.” Nobody spoke. “Mr. Boyle,” Joe said, drawling out the man’s name as if it was something shamefully amusing. “I think it’s time we visited the vault.”

“The v—” Boyle’s voice choked off in mid-word. He nodded miserably.

“Everybody out from behind the counter,” Joe called. He waited till they had formed a small group near him in the lobby. Then he moved slowly past the bank employees. There were three of them, all women, two tellers under thirty and one older woman, not bad-looking, who had been working at another desk, using an adding machine.

Joe turned to Sam. “They don’t look natural from outside,” he said. “Move them toward the back, behind that floor sign there. The guard too. Never mind his heart. Keep them all back there, sort of out of sight. You stand behind them so nobody sees you from the sidewalk. This won’t take long.”

He followed Boyle into the rear of the bank. He’d expected a smallish vault, hardly more than a walk-in, but he hadn’t expected one quite this small. Evidently the only business the branch did was consumer stuff. The bakery payroll was probably its only big commercial account.

“Okay, Boyle. The payroll cash.”

Boyle’s wide, easy mouth opened, then closed. “Ellen,” he called. “Bring your key.”

A thin girl almost as young as Sam appeared after a moment. She held up one key while Boyle removed a similar one from his pocket. He nodded to Ellen, who inserted her key in one of the two locks on the vault door.

“Easy,” Joe said. “Don’t turn that key till his is in the other lock.”

Boyle nodded. “You really do know the routine.” He started to fit his key into the lock. Nothing about his face or his movement told Joe anything unusual except that Boyle was moving slowly to avoid upsetting him.

Just as the key touched the steel of the lock, Littlejoe’s arm shot out. “Son of a bitch!” he yelped, grabbing the key.

He held it under Boyle’s nose. “You motherfucker, this is the spur key. Did you really think you could get away wi—”

Boyle’s eyes went wide with horror. “Christ! I didn’t mean to do that. Honest. Look.” He pulled out an identical key. “No spur. It was a mistake, I swear it was.”

Littlejoe pocketed the key with the almost invisible projection, like a spur, that would have triggered an alarm if used. “Boyle,” he said, “you’re cute. You’re gonna cute yourself to death. Now put in the right key and turn them both at the same time. No more comical stuff.”

Boyle heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m not kidding, it was a mistake. You have to believe me. All I want is to give you the money and say good-bye. Nothing personal,” he added, grinning weakly.

He twisted both keys simultaneously and, turning a handle, swung the polished steel gate wide open. Littlejoe could hear Ellen crying softly, but his eyes remained on Boyle. Once cute maybe twice cute. “The payroll, Boyle.”

“Okay.” The manager stepped into the vault. “I don’t know how you knew, but you just hit the jackpot.”

“Fucking ay right I did.”

Boyle rummaged around inside a plain steel cabinet. “Ellen? Where did you have Wells Fargo put the—” His light blue eyes looked up from the cabinet at the girl, and when they did, his voice stopped short. “Ellen?”

She started to sob audibly. “There isn’t any money.”

“What?” Littlejoe shouted. He was aware that Boyle had also shouted the same question at the same time.

Now the girl began to break up. “Th-the delivery was ch-changed, Mr. Boyle. Th-they changed it l-last week. Don’t you r-remember, Mr. Boyle. Oh, dear God, there’s a pain—” She broke off, clutching at her left breast, her eyes wide.

“That’s right,” Boyle said. “Delivery’s Friday morning now.”

“No money?” Littlejoe yelled at him.

Ellen slumped to the floor of the vault, sobbing and choking on her sobs. “Oh, sweet Jesus, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Boyle.”

Joe watched her for a moment. She was too young for this sort of hysterics. He nudged her with the toe of his boot. “Calm down,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“She’s afraid you’re going to shoot us,” Boyle explained.

Littlejoe turned on him. “What the hell am I gonna do with your chickenshit four grand? Is that the best this rotten bank can come up with? Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am gonna shoot somebody.”

They stared at each other, Boyle’s forehead damp with sweat. Abruptly, from somewhere in the distance, a telephone began to ring.

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