Ed McBain (29 page)

The bank guard nodded.

"Good afternoon, sir," the bank manager said to Anson. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm carrying a gun," Anson whispered, "and I know how to use it. Get up from that desk and walk back to the vault with me. If anyone looks at you curiously, smile back at them. When we get to the vault, you'll open the door, and we'll go in together. If you so much as look crooked at anybody, you're a dead man. You understand?"

"I ... understand," the manager said. He estimated the distance between his foot and the alarm buzzer set in the floor under his desk, and then he estimated the distance between his heart and the gun the redheaded, mustached man held in his pocket. "I ... I'll do what you say," he murmured, and he rose from the desk. Anson walked with him to the locked door. The manager signaled to the teller nearest the door, and the teller pushed a button and the door clicked open. The manager and Anson walked back to the vault door. One of the tellers turned to look at the manager, but he smiled and nodded, and the teller went back to his work.

"Open it," Anson whispered.

The manager nodded weakly and began twisting the dials in the face of the huge steel door.

At 3:05, he swung back the door, and he and Anson stepped into the vault. The bank guard, the only other member of the bank's staff who knew that the bank was being held up, watched the manager and the redheaded man enter the vault, and he sighed deeply, and then smiled as he let a customer out of the bank.

Carl sat at the wheel of the car and glanced at his watch.

3:06.

He looked up at the light on the corner of Main and West Davis, and then he watched the sweep hand of his watch as it swung through sixty seconds. At 3:07, the light changed to green and Carl turned the corner and headed for the bank driveway at the end of the street. In four minutes, Anson would be coming out of that door with $500,000 worth of cabbage. In six minutes, Jeremy would be leaving the front of the bank. They'd be gone before anybody inside had sense enough to know what had hit them.

He drove leisurely down the street. There was a line of traffic on the other side of the two-lane street, but there was only one car behind him. He could see the A&P ahead, the driveway on its left. He threw the directional signal shaft up, saw the little light on the dashboard begin blinking intermittently as he prepared for his right turn. He saw the A&P truck then.

The truck had just pulled into the area in front of the driveway, ready to back into a space in front of the supermarket. Anson cursed silently and jammed on the brakes. The truck driver was taking all his damn sweet time, maneuvering the big lumbering machine into position against the curb, its nose jutting out so that it blocked the entrance to the driveway. Carl looked at his watch. 3:09. He had two minutes to get that damned car into the driveway. The man in the car behind him began honking his horn.

"Shut up, you damn fool," Carl said angrily.

It suddenly occurred to him that the man honking his horn behind him was attracting attention. And if anyone looked at Carl's car, they'd automatically figure he was getting ready to turn into the driveway. Where else could he be going? Why else was he waiting for the truck to back up in front of the supermarket?

He stepped on the gas at once, driving to the corner and making a U-turn against the stream of oncoming traffic. He drove down the street again, signaled for a left turn, and headed for the driveway as the truck backed into position in front of the supermarket. It was almost 3:11. Anson would be coming out of that rear door in a few seconds.

"Well, for Christ's sake, move it up a little," he heard the voice at the end of the driveway say.

"Move it where, you damn fool!" a second voice answered.

"Can't you see the driveway?"

"The hell with the driveway. You're backed up too close to this car. I can't get your doors open."

"Oh, hell!" Carl heard the second voice reply, and then his heart lurched into his throat when he heard the truck's motor whine into action again.

Anson stuffed the suitcase rapidly. Bills, more bills than he'd seen in his life. Crisp and green, and smelling of big cars and women and liquor and anything a man wanted.

"Get over there in the corner," he said to the manager.

The manager moved swiftly. Anson kept piling the stacked and bound bills into the suitcase. His hands moved rapidly, the gun dangling on his forefinger from its trigger guard. He slammed the suitcase shut and glanced at his watch. 3:10.

"Don't start yelling," he said to the manager. "Now that I've got the money, I'm more likely to kill for it."

He stepped quickly to the vault door, put the gun into his coat pocket, slammed the door and whirled the dials, and then walked rapidly to the rear door of the bank, not turning to look behind him.

Jeremy, at the entrance doors, saw Anson come out of the vault and head out of the building. He looked up at the clock on the wall over the tellers' cages. 3:11. Two minutes to go. Two minutes and he would be out of here.

Anson stepped into the driveway, closed the door behind him, and reached for the rear door handle of the car. He opened the door, tossed the suitcase onto the backseat, climbed in after it, and said, "Go, Carl."

"Go where? There's a truck at the other end of the drivel"

Anson whirled on the seat. He spotted the truck. Sweat broke out on his forehead. "Back up," he said. "As far as you can go. I'll get rid of the truck."

"How? What can you...?"

"I don't know! Move! Jerry's comin' out that front door in a minute and a half!"

Carl threw the car into reverse and backed down the driveway.

"More," Anson said.

"I can't go no more. We don't want to block the sidewalk."

"Okay." Anson was already opening the door. "I'll move the truck. As soon as you're clear, back into the street and over to the front of the bank. I'll catch you."

"How will you...?"

"Go!" Anson snapped, and left the car. He ran directly to the truck, around the front end, and then he climbed into the cab and threw the gears into reverse. He rammed his foot down onto the accelerator, felt the truck lurch backward, heard screams behind him, and then heard the sullen crunch of metal as the truck's doors struck the car parked behind. As he leaped out of the cab, he saw one of the bronze bank doors open, saw Jeremy starting down the steps, heading for the curb. Jeremy's face went pale and his eyes popped wide when he saw the empty space at the curb. He looked back at the bronze doors, and then he wet his lips, his eyes blinking furiously. The car! Where the hell was the goddamn car!

Anson's feet struck the pavement. He heard the car in the driveway grind into gear an instant before Carl stepped on the gas. Jeremy was about to panic, he could see that.

"Jerry!" he yelled. "This way! Quick!"

Jeremy's eyes darted to the street. He saw Anson, and he began to run instantly, and at the same moment the bronze doors swung open and the bank guard shouted, "Stop, thief!"

Jeremy turned blindly, his gun leaping into his hand. He fired at the guard, his head turned, his body moving forward on churning legs.

Anson's eyes widened.

"Jerry! For Christ's sake, watch..."

The car lunged out of the driveway, catching Jeremy on the run. Jeremy screamed, the gun in his hand bucking as his finger closed around the trigger again. He screamed again when the car knocked him to the pavement, and the wheels crushed his body flat.

The bank guard was down the steps now, his gun in his hand. Anson reached the car and pulled open the rear door. The guard sighted carefully, and then he squeezed the trigger as Anson climbed into the car. The shots erupted into the quiet of the small street. Two spurts of dust rose on Anson's back, and then the dust gave way before two rivers of blood. He fell backward, clinging to the center post as the car wheeled into the street and backed for its turn. He lost his grip then, toppling out of the car to fall facedown on the pavement, his back running blood.

The money,
Carl thought.
The money's still here in the car.
Then the windshield was shattering and he had only a second to realize those were bullet holes before his face crumbled and he lurched forward onto the wheel.

The big day was over.

Tomorrow was payday.

Let me tell you how I happened to change my name.

It wasn't that I got irritated by bosun's mates in the Navy stumbling over "Lombino" even before they got to the first vowel. It wasn't even editors calling the agency to ask for "that Italian guy up there." It was a novel titled
Don't Crowd Me,
and an editor named Charlie Heckelman at a paperback house called Popular Library.

Early in 1952, I had finished, and the agency was marketing, a mystery novel in which an advertising man on vacation in Lake George comes upon a dead body in his cabin and is subsequently blamed for the murder. This was a sort of Innocent Bystander story that became a sort of Man on the Run story, and the byline on it was one of my then still-pseudonyms, Evan Hunter. Well, we sent the book to Popular Library, and Charlie—with whom I'd had business lunches on many an occasion—called to say he liked the book a lot, and would like to buy it, but would like to meet Evan Hunter first to see if he'd agree to some revision suggestions. I ran into Scott's office and told him Charlie Heckelman wanted to meet Evan Hunter! Scott said, "So take Evan Hunter to meet him.
"

A few days later I went to Charlie's office, and he took one look at me and said, "Where's Evan Hunter?
"

"
I'm Evan Hunter," I said.

Well, after he got over his surprise, he told me the book was a good one, whoever had written it, and then explained
where he thought it could benefit from a few revisions. He said he thought he could publish it by December of that year if I could get the revisions to him fairly quickly. I told him I thought I could, and then I suggested—since the cat was now out of the bag—that we use the byline S. A. Lombino on it, which was the name I'd used in college on my weekly column for the school newspaper.

Charlie looked at me long and hard.

"
Well," he said, "it's your book, and you can put whatever name you like on it. But I have to tell you ... Evan Hunter will sell a lot more tickets.
"

So that's what it's all about, I thought. Never mind Grandpa traipsing all the way from Ruvo del Monte to Naples to get on a ship and sail steerage to America, never mind him getting his "first papers" here and later his citizenship, never mind all those bonfires celebrating freedom on election night, never mind all that Land of the Free and Home of the Brave oratory; if I put S.
A
Lombino on a novel, everyone will think it was written in crayon by a ditch digger or a gangster.

The very next week, I went downtown with a lawyer and got a court order that legally changed my name. I've been Evan Hunter since May of 1952, longer than I ever was Salvatore Lombino, longer than most of my readers have ever been on this earth. A sure affirmation of the correctness of my decision is that the Internet has never allowed me to forget that once upon a time, long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I was "that Italian guy" named Salvatore Lombino.

Which brings us to the story that follows.

By February of 1954, when "Runaway" was first published in
Manhunt,
the neighborhood I'd lived in until I was twelve
had changed drastically enough so that I could use it as the setting for the tale of an Innocent Bystander who becomes a Man on the Run. But even before the story was published, I had already changed the hero's name from Johnny Trachetti to Johnny Lane, radically changed the setting from Italian Harlem to what was then called Negro Harlem, expanded the story into a novel, and submitted it to Gold Medal Books, who published the longer version in July as
Runaway Black,
the new title I'd given the novel. I was enormously pleased when one reviewer thought the Harlem background rang so true because Richard Marsten was undoubtedly a black man!

But the tale does not end there.

Years later, when a new paperback edition of the book was being planned by a publisher who shall go unnamed, I received a proof of the cover, and was shocked to see that the word "Black" had been dropped from the title. The book was now simply called
Runaway,
even though the lead character was now black and the setting was now black Harlem. I thought I'd entered a time warp. So I asked them how come. They told me that
Runaway Black
was a "racist" title. Racist! I told them that I had proved my credentials forever with
The Blackboard Jungle,
wherein Gregory Miller, a black kid (later played brilliantly on the screen by Sidney Poitier)was the goddamn
hero,
and if they didn't want to use my title on the book, they could have their money back and forget publishing it altogether. Guess what? They took back their money.

This, then, is my first run at "Runaway," with its original title and its original setting (the neighborhood I grew up in) and its original Johnny Trachetti—an innocent bystander if ever I saw one.

B
ECAUSE THE NEIGHBORHOOD HAD INGRAINED FEAR SO
deeply inside him, he ran the instant he heard the shots.

He did not stop to wonder where the shots had come from. Shots meant trouble, and trouble meant cops, and in this neighborhood you ran when the cops came.

He cut down First Avenue, past the coal yards, past the corner bar, and then turned left on 119th Street, heading for Pleasant Avenue and then down toward the river. He didn't stop running until he reached a bench on the Drive, and then he sat and looked uptown to where the Triboro arched its silvery sleek back against the sky. There was a football game today at Randall's Island. He had seen the college girls, nubby-looking in their tweeds, and the men with pipes and porkpie hats, walking across the bridge earlier that day. They were like invaders from another world. They did not belong in the neighborhood, and he resented them.