The Gremlin's Grampa

by Robert L. Fish

  The sight of the man with the submachine gun and the man relocking the front door unraveled the mystery. The fat man’s eyes widened; his mouth opened and closed again without making a sound. He looked like a guppy inhaling. The man with the submachine gun waved the weapon casually, bringing the fat man into the intimacy of the muzzle’s range. The fat man winced physically as the muzzle passed him; he took his hand hastily from the money in his bankbook, willing it to the gunman. The gunman paid him no further attention, but glanced instead at the camera mounted on a bracket high in one corner, as if wondering if the scene were being properly recorded. The camera eye stared back impersonally. The gunman turned back to his frozen hostages.

  In the vault below, Clarence Milligan, youthful manager of the Jerrold Avenue branch of the Farmers & Mercantile, looked up with an expression of profound annoyance on his usually pleasant freckled face. Mike, the guard, was well aware of the reason for the look. The orders were explicit; Mr. Milligan was never to be disturbed in the vault on Thursday afternoon until the Brink’s truck appeared at three-thirty. And bringing a stranger down to the vault while the shipyard payroll was being made up was an even greater breech of the rules. Mulligan looked up from the suitcase he had been bending over, saw the two men come down the last few steps, and shut the case firmly. He frowned through the bars of the locked vault gate.

  “What is it, Mike?”

  A pistol appeared over Mike Krysak’s shoulder, clarifying the situation. It was pointed at the manager’s forehead. The hand holding the pistol might have been carved by Henry Moore.

  “Open the gate.”

  The manager looked at the mask, now identifiable over Krysak’s shoulder. In the small, musty vault there was no possible hiding place from the demanding muzzle. The pistol was moved now, coming to rest against the guard’s sweating temple, as if the threat to the employee might have greater moral weight than the threat to the employer. Mike felt the sweat spread to his crotch. He hoped the character with the gun wasn’t one of those psychos who killed just for the fun of feeling a revolver buck and knowing they’ve taken a life; Mike had known one man on the outside and two on the force who felt like that. He also hoped his boss didn’t value the reputation of his branch’s record more than the life of his guard.

  But nobody broke any rules. The manager recognized the situation for what it was and reached out his hand, twisting the gate key in the lock, opening the vault to the intruder. His face was sullen, like a kid whose toy has been unfairly taken from him. The gunman could not have cared less. He shepherded Krysak into the vault ahead of him, waved the two men into the most distant corner with his pistol, and picked up the suitcase. He hefted it as if checking its weight and then managed to get it under one arm. It was a clumsy arrangement, for the suitcase was bulky, but at least it allowed him the use of both his hands. He backed from the room, making no attempt to search for further riches, apparently satisfied with the payroll. The key in the lock was removed and reversed, placed in from the outside; the gate was closed and the key twisted again, an awkward movement hampered by the suitcase under the gunman’s arm. The robber finally tugged the key free, dropped it in his pocket, and backed up to the steps, his pistol aimed steadily on the two men in the corner of the vault. He took the treads one by one, still alert, aware of the possibility of a weapon in the vault; then he came to the landing and turned, trotting swiftly up the rest of the flight, stowing his pistol in his jacket pocket, carrying the suitcase more comfortably.

  As he came into the view of the man with the submachine gun, he raised the suitcase and nodded his head. The man with the submachine gun returned the nod in satisfaction, and swept the hostages with a final threatening movement of the muzzle to indicate his desire for their continued co-operation. Satisfied that he would get it, he backed away evenly. The three bandits met at the front door of the bank; the machine gun was snapped back into the briefcase and the case closed. The man who had been standing guard at the door now brought out his pistol for the first time. He unlocked the door, raised the gun toward the frozen group in one final silent threat, and then the three men were out of the bank, running swiftly toward the curb and the waiting car.

  They had been in the bank exactly two minutes and fifty-six seconds.

  It was almost 3:01 exactly and Patrolman Thomas Wheaton was walking a bit more rapidly than usual down the block toward them or, rather, toward the car parked so illegally in front of a bank with its motor running. From force of diligent training Patrolman Wheaton was memorizing the license plate even as his hand moved automatically toward his holster, unsnapping the trigger guard, feeling the striated butt of the weapon so far used only on the target range. It was past banking hours, it was true, but parking with a running motor in front of a bank was illegal at any hour and called for a ticket at least.

  When the three men burst from the bank, running, one with a gun in his hand, Tom Wheaton’s mind at first refused to believe what he was seeing, but at the same time his body was responding to the months in the academy. His gun came up as he started running; he heard himself yelling. The gun in his hand kicked violently, firing first in the air.

  The suitcase and the briefcase were thrown into the already moving car, and two of the bandits piled in behind. The third turned to throw a quick shot in the direction of the pursuing cop before putting his foot into the vehicle. The bullet caught Patrolman Wheaton in the chest; he stumbled sideward and fell, but managed to keep his gun firing constantly toward the bank robbers. The third man had the misfortune of being just beyond the protection of the car’s still-open door; he caught two slugs, the first in the ribs and the second in his back as the first slug twisted him around. He stumbled away from the car and collapsed on the sidewalk, the gun skidding from his hand.

  The driver did not run. Instead he braked instantly. The two men in the back seat were out of the car and bundling their wounded companion back with them in seconds, scooping up the fallen gun at the same time. The car took off at once, burning rubber as it shot into Tolland Street, heading for the freeway.

  There was a final cough as Patrolman Wheaton’s gun fired one last time as he died. It ricocheted from the curb and dropped harmlessly into a catch basin.

  CHAPTER 2

  Thursday—3:50 P.M.

  Lieutenant James Reardon of the Homicide Division of the San Francisco police, stood numb-faced and watched the two white-jacketed ambulance attendants load Thomas Wheaton’s body onto a stretcher and raise it to slide it into the ambulance. The technical squad under the direction of Sergeant Frank Wilkins had come and gone; they had found remarkably little to do at the scene of the robbery and shooting. There had been no fingerprints. The photographer had taken pictures of Wheaton’s body from several angles, as well as the small bloodstained spot where the wounded bandit had fallen; samples of the blood has also been taken, but that was about all there had been to do. The bandit’s blood would be analyzed, but unless it happened to be so rare as to constitute a partial identification, it would be fairly useless. It could, of course, eventually save an innocent man from accusation, but as far as pinpointing the guilty, it was almost sure to be futile. At the moment Reardon would have laid odds the blood would be type O. The bullet that killed Wheaton would be removed at the morgue in the basement of the Hall of Justice for whatever good that might be; Saturday-night specials were seldom registered and therefore almost impossible to trace.

  The two ambulance drivers handled Wheaton’s body gingerly; their movements irritated Reardon. He felt like asking them why in hell they didn’t take at least equal care with men who were still alive, but he bit back the words. They were doing it out of respect for the dead cop, or out of what they conceived to be respect, and Reardon knew it. He also knew he was on edge; cop-killings put everyone on the force on edge. The doors of the ambulance were closed; the two attendants hurried to the front and climbed in, as if to remove themselves from the lieutenant’s critical glare as quickly as possible. Reardon wat
ched the ambulance careen around the corner. He still felt irritated. You’re too prone to irritation these days, he told himself and shook his head.

  Lieutenant James Reardon was a stocky man in his middle thirties. He had a rugged, yet remarkably sensitive face with sharp, intelligent gray eyes that seemed to probe a suspect at times more deeply than his pointed questions. His light-brown hair was already touched with gray at the temples; he often felt the world was passing him too fast. This was one of those times. He watched the ambulance escape and then walked over to the police patrol car parked before the bank. He leaned in to speak to the second-grade detective, sitting on the seat sideways, his feet on the sidewalk through the open door, listening to the radio.

  “What do we have, Don?”

  Detective Dondero said: “Boobly squinch.” He shook his head in disgust. “With those car descriptions, what are we looking for? About all we can figure is that they haven’t crossed either of the bridges so far. They’re checking close there.”

  “Unless they switched to a truck,” Reardon said. “And even then if they didn’t go north, it still leaves only the southern half of the state, not to mention the rest of the country. What about hospitals?”

  “They’re being notified right now, all the way down the Peninsula. It all takes time.” Dondero glanced over at the bloodstained sidewalk where the bandit had fallen. His voice was conversational, although his eyes were bitter. “On the other hand, let’s hope Wheaton killed the son of a bitch.”

  “I’d rather have him where he could talk,” Reardon said. He tilted his head toward the small crowd of spectators held back from the stained walk by a uniformed patrolman. “Check out that bunch for anything useful, Don. I’ll be inside.”

  “Right,” Don said, and climbed from the car.

  Reardon pushed his way into the bank. The second uniformed officer from the patrol car was inside, standing near the front door where he had been assigned. The people who had been in the bank at the time of the robbery were at the wide front window, the drapes now open again, staring into the street. The people in the street behind the police line dutifully stared back. The patrolman at the door looked at Reardon questioningly.

  “There’s an office in that corner, Lieutenant,” he said. “You want me to shoot them into you one at a time?”

  “No,” Reardon said. “I’ll take them all at once.” He walked to the center of the room, putting one hand on the stand-up table there. Beneath his hand, deposit and withdrawal slips were stacked in glass-sided cubbyholes. “All right, folks. Let me have your attention, please.” The faces turned reluctantly from the window, in no rush to get down to the job of facing the facts of the robbery and killing. “My name is Reardon, Lieutenant Reardon, and I’m from the Police. Now, what happened here?”

  They stared at him in silence, each waiting for the other to speak first, none wishing to merely state the obvious. Reardon recognized the silence; it was all too normal. He selected the uniformed guard and directed the question to him, noting the name on the tag.

  “All right, Mr. Krysak. What happened?”

  The guard looked unhappy and a bit nervous. After all, he was the guard, and the bank had been held up. And he had also let somebody take his gun from him, which was meat-head-play number one in the cops. Still, this was no time for skirting the truth.

  “I was going over to lock up for the day,” he said shamefacedly, “and I guess I wasn’t keeping my eyes open. Anyway, this guy was practically on top of me before I even noticed him. He had on a mask, but you couldn’t hardly tell it was a mask until he was right in front of you. It was one of those opaque plastic jobs, almost skintight, but it hid his face good. And he had a hat on, pulled down. And then he had this gun on me before I could do a thing.…”

  He brought his eyes up from the floor. Reardon waited patiently, no censure at all on his face, merely curiosity as to the facts. The guard looked back at him, reassured; besides, the worst part was over. He plunged ahead.

  “Well, he made me go downstairs where Mr. Milligan was making up the shipyard payroll like he does every Thursday. Then he made Mr. Milligan open up the gate to the vault and then he took the payroll and locked the two of us up in there and ran upstairs. I had my keys—he never even bothered to take them from me, see, and—”

  Reardon interrupted. “Who’s Milligan?”

  The young manager was just coming out of his office where he had been telephoning the bad news to the main office and the insurance department there. His face was pale beneath the red hair and freckles; he seemed to be thinking of the mark against his previously perfect record.

  “I’m Milligan,” he said. “I’m the manager here.”

  Reardon nodded. “How big was this payroll we’re talking about?”

  Milligan looked at the assembled faces as if the amount was none of their damned business, and then he shrugged. It would be in all the newspapers, anyway, not to mention radio and television. He said quietly: “Two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars and a little.”

  Reardon’s eyebrows rose. “That’s quite a haul. What was it in?”

  “Just a regular suitcase,” the manager said. “Brown plastic over a Fiberglas frame; a regular two-suiter. They bought it in a regular luggage-shop. The payroll was too big for a briefcase.”

  Reardon had his notebook out. “Any identification on the bag?”

  “The bank name was on it in gold leaf, where people usually put their initials, up on top. And the bag had a special lock; the shipyard accounting office has the other key.” Milligan shrugged. “But it wouldn’t be any great sweat to bust it open.”

  “Any marking on the money?”

  Milligan stared at him. “Why would we mark the shipyard payroll?”

  Reardon realized it had been a stupid question. He tried to recover. “What I meant was, what were the denominations?”

  “Oh.” The bank manager allowed him to save face. “I’ve the exact list in my office. I’ll get it.”

  He disappeared into his office to reappear in moments. Reardon took the proffered list, studied it, and shook his head. The largest bill was a fifty, the majority twenties, tens, fives, and singles. He looked up.

  “What about coins? Change?”

  “The Brink’s truck picked those up at our main branch,” Milligan said. “We’re not prepared to handle the silver. And the shipyard got the small change in quantity, anyway, not related to the payroll.”

  “I see.” Reardon wrote it down, wondering what good it would do. Still, somebody over him would be sure to ask. He looked up from his notebook. “What else did they take?”

  “Nothing. Not a damned thing,” Milligan said. He sounded almost angry at this neglect on the part of the robbers. “They didn’t try for anything else in the vault, and they made no attempt at the money in the teller’s cash drawers.” The reason for his apparently irrational anger became clear. He looked around at the others in the room as if they had all been accessories to the crime. His angry blue eyes came back to Reardon. “Those men knew exactly what they wanted, Lieutenant! They knew where it was and exactly when to come and get it! This thing was damned thoroughly planned. And it had to be with somebody’s help!”

  Reardon nodded. “It’s possible. Anyway, most robberies are planned, to one degree or another. Even when some youngster with a shopping bag shoves a threatening note to a teller, he obviously has given the matter some thought even if he doesn’t think as much as he should about the consequences. Who knew about the payroll? Other than the people here?”

  “I didn’t know about it,” the short fat man said instantly, protestingly.

  Reardon decided the fat man might as well serve as an example to them all. He swung around and stared at the fat man fiercely.

  “You come into the bank often?”

  “Sure. Every day, just before they close,” the fat man said. There was a slight tremor in his voice at being signaled out for attention. “I’ve got a liquor store across the s
treet down a block. I drop off whatever cash I take in by three. These days I don’t like to keep a lot of money around.…” He tried to remind himself he was completely innocent, but the lieutenant’s cold gray eyes made him doubt it. “I—”

  Reardon bored in. “You’ve seen the Brink’s truck in front of the bank every Thursday?”

  “I—no. I mean, yes, I guess. I mean I didn’t notice it. I didn’t notice it was Thursday, I mean …” The fat man was sweating. He listened to the echo of his words and realized how guilty they sounded. Damn it, he told himself, what am I getting uptight about? “Look, a lot of people probably see the Brink’s truck every Thursday.…”

  Reardon refused to stop leaning. “What did you think the Brink’s truck was doing here every Thursday?”

  “I—I didn’t think …”

  “You have a lot of customers from the shipyard?”

  “Well, sure, I’m the closest—”

  “They come in on Friday usually?”

  “It’s the big day, sure—”

  “Because people are thirstier on Friday than on other days?”

  “No, it’s not that—”

  “Could it possibly be because Friday’s payday?”

  “I guess—”

  Reardon glared at him. “What do you mean, you guess? Every Thursday you see a Brink’s truck pick up money and head for the shipyard. And every Friday your business booms because it’s payday at the yard. So how can you tell me you didn’t know the bank here was putting up the payroll on Thursday?”