Help I Am Being Held Prisoner

by Donald E. Westlake

  Whenever I could manage to refocus my eyes from Billy Glinn’s awesome profile, I could see directly across the street and through the big windows of Fiduciary Federal Trust right into the brightly lighted yellow interior, where absolutely nothing was taking place. Most of the employees had gone home by now, leaving the uniformed guard standing by the door, and possibly three people moving around behind the teller’s counter, finishing the bookkeeping for the day. Everything normal. Damn. Damn. Damn.

  Ten to five.

  Five to five.

  Five.

  Five oh five.

  I saw it when it started, and I froze at once—all except the twitch in my cheek—trying not to give it away that I’d noticed anything. But the guard just inside that glass door had suddenly jerked, as though he were a puppet operated by strings and somebody had just jostled his operator’s elbow. I watched him turn, look, peer this way and that through the interior of the bank, then suddenly dash over to one side and bend over by the desk where I had filled out my twenty-five dollar check.

  I knew what he was doing. I also understood why the bank official in the dark gray suit suddenly came dashing out from behind the counter, waving his arms and obviously shouting angrily in the general direction of the guard, who had now straightened up again, holding a wastebasket.

  Phil and Jerry and Billy continued to chat together, about football and robbery and the mangling of bodies. I tried to remain very quiet, to appear to be looking at nothing in particular. The longer I could stall their discovery of what was happening, the more comfortable I would feel.

  Let me get away with it, God. You let me pull all those minor ones where it didn’t matter, now let me get away with this one. Please.

  The guard was running toward the door, holding the waste-basket out to one side away from his body. He was just about to unlock the door when the official shouted again, apparently stopping him. The guard turned back, seemingly now doing some shouting of his own, and a brief spirited exchange took place, at the end of which the guard suddenly faced the door again, and this time stared out suspiciously at the sidewalk dotted with pedestrians.

  I could imagine what the official had said. Something along the lines of, “This could be a trick, to get us to open the door.” Right; suspicion, that’s what I wanted, suspicion and paranoia and outright fear. Come on, I thought, let’s get on with it.

  A woman employee had now come out from the rear part of the bank, and was standing there waving her hands in front of her face as though brushing away gnats or mosquitoes. The male official turned to her, gave an order of some kind, and she hurried away again.

  Good. Fine.

  The guard was still standing near the door, holding the waste-basket out away from himself. He seemed to be asking the official what he should do with it, and from the stances and expressions of the two men the answer he got was more colorful than satisfactory. Insubordination of some sort seemed about to take place over there, when all at once they both turned to look at something else, something new, over by the side wall to the right. The guard dropped the wastebasket, and he and the official both ran over to this new thing. The woman also came hurrying back into view, apparently with some sort of report.

  Yes. Yes.

  Then the damn boy showed up with our coffee, breaking the thread of conversation among the other three, and while he was putting the cups down Jerry glanced casually out the window, paused, frowned, and said, “What the hell?”

  “Hm?” Phil looked at him, followed his gaze out the window, and did some frowning of his own. “Now what?” he said.

  It was quarter after five, much later than I’d hoped for. The commotion was in no way big enough over there, but we still did have fifteen minutes before Joe Maslocki and Eddie Troyn would be showing up in the typewriter truck. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for them to arrive just before hell really broke loose, not realize anything was wrong, and actually stop the truck, get out, approach the bank. I didn’t want that, didn’t even want to think about it.

  Come on!

  The boy had departed, back into the mists of Lethe. Billy, who had now also been attracted to the activity going on across the street, said, “What’s happening over there?”

  “They’re running around with wastebaskets,” Jerry said.

  Indeed they were. The woman had come forward and picked up the wastebasket by the door, and the guard had now picked up a second one from over on the right. There was a certain amount of milling about, all three of them talking at once over there, and then they were augmented by a fourth person, another official in a dark suit, who apparently drowned all the rest of them out by insisting on being told what was going on. Explanations, displays of wastebaskets, finger pointings in various directions, everybody talking at once.

  Phil said, “What the fuck?”

  Come on come on come on.

  General expressions of disgust over there, more arm wavings as though brushing away flies. The guard and the woman hurried toward the rear, carrying the wastebaskets. The new arrival moved to something on a side wall and fiddled with it—probably a thermostat, turning on air-conditioning or something like that.

  No. No no no, don’t deal with it that simply. Make trouble, make a lot of noise and ruckus, call the—

  A siren. A blessed siren, from the distance. Five twenty-two by the luncheonette clock, five twenty-one by the clock high on the rear wall of Fiduciary Federal Trust, and here at last came the police. The woman did go call them, as I’d hoped. As I’d hoped.

  “There’s something wrong,” Phil said. “Goddam it, there’s something wrong.”

  Billy said, “Phil, I hear a siren. I think maybe we oughta get out of here.”

  “It’s not us,” Phil told him. “Sit tight, don’t draw attention to yourself. It’s some other damn thing. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t us.”

  The police car arrived, not traveling very fast at all. Not in comparison with the driving I had seen—and done—last night. The siren switched off but the revolving red light stayed on, and the police car stopped next to a fire hydrant in front of the bank. The two cops got slowly out, hitching their gunbelts, adjusting their hair under their hats, and walked across the sidewalk to the bank.

  Now there was some sort of delay. The first official gestured and shouted through the glass door, but didn’t open it, and the two cops could be seen to not enjoy that treatment at all. They stood with their hands on their hips and their heads cocked to one side, expressing dangerous irritation.

  The guard came trotting back, and it turned out he was the one with the key who could unlock the door. He did so, and the cops started in. Almost at once they recoiled, as though they’d walked into cobwebs. They made brushing gestures in front of their faces. Reluctantly they entered the bank, and even more reluctantly they permitted the door to be closed again behind them.

  Five twenty-four.

  Five twenty-five.

  The police car with its circling red light attracted shoppers and homeward-bound workers, who began to mill on the sidewalk, some looking at the empty police car but most looking in the windows at the bank. It became increasingly difficult to see what was happening inside there, but then the door opened again and one of the cops stood there, just outside the doorway, leaving the door open. He appeared to be answering the eager questions of the crowd.

  Phil said, “Jerry, go take a walk over there. Find out what’s going on.”

  “Right.”

  Five twenty-seven. I watched Jerry cross the street and mill with the other pedestrians.

  I should say something, I should make a comment. It wasn’t natural to be silent, not when everybody else had made a remark. My throat kept wanting to close, but I forced it and my mouth both open, and said, “Sure must be something, huh?”

  “It’s gonna screw us up,” Phil said bitterly, “I can feel it. Unless those cops take off away from there we’re shit out of luck.”

  Take off?
No no, they couldn’t do that. It was five twenty-nine, all they had to do was stay one minute more and it would be all over. Joe and Eddie would arrive, they’d see the police car and the crowd and the commotion, and they’d drive right on by. They’d have to, there wouldn’t be any choice.

  Five thirty. No typewriter truck drove by.

  Five thirty-one. Still no typewriter truck. Jerry came strolling back across the street.

  Five thirty-two. Red truck, where are you? Jerry entered the luncheonette and sat down. The second cop came out of the bank, went to the police car, got in, spoke on his radio.

  Phil said to Jerry, “So what’s the story?”

  “Stink bombs,” Jerry said.

  Phil gave him such a look of disgust it was almost as though he could smell the things from here. He said, “Stink bombs!”

  “That’s right,” Jerry said. “Some clown put these chemicals in plastic cups, with lids on them, and put them in the wastebaskets over there. The chemicals ate through the plastic and pow. You wouldn’t believe the smell that’s coming out of that door.”

  “Stink bombs,” Phil said. “Even if we do get in there, we’ll have to smell the fucking things.”

  No. We can’t get in there, we can’t. Red truck, red truck, hurry up.

  Jerry said, “How do you feature a jerk like that?”

  “I’d like to get my hands on him,” Phil said. “Those cops gonna hang around long?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jerry said. “I think that one’s calling in now, find out what they should do. They don’t want to be there, I’ll tell you that.”

  Five thirty-five. The cop in the police car finished talking and got out. I tried to judge from his walk, from the set of his shoulders, from the angle of his head, what the decision had been. He walked in his slow stately cop tread around the front of the police car and across the sidewalk toward his partner.

  God damn it, red truck!

  “Practical jokers,” Jerry said. “They oughta be against the law.”

  The red truck; I almost fainted with relief. It drove slowly past, and I could see Joe and Eddie in the cab, gawking toward all the commotion in front of the bank. That’s right, Joe, that’s right, Eddie, it’s all loused up. You can’t do it, give it up, put the truck back. By God by God by God, we’re not going to rob that bank!

  “There they go,” Phil said. “That tears it.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Jerry said.

  “God damn,” I said.

  Billy said, “There was one time, I was with a drilling crew down in Venezuela, we had one of those practical jokers. Liked to hang a bucket of water up over a door so it’d drop on you when you come through.”

  “I hate those fucking people,” Phil said.

  “We caught up with this one, after a while,” Billy said. “Funny thing, you never would of guessed he was the one. Last guy you’d think of.” He grinned at all of us when he said that. He seemed to grin for a long time at me.

  Jerry said, “What did you do with him?”

  “Hung him up over a door,” Billy said. He nodded. “Pretty well took care of the problem,” he said.

  24

  We met in the trophy room, all eight of us, to talk things over.

  The trophy room was next to the supply area, just off the basketball courts, a large paneled rectangle with glass-fronted cabinets containing the trophies our teams had won from one another or in league competition with amateur groups from outside the prison. Also on the walls, protected in glass frames, were the uniform shirts with the numbers that had been retired in honor of outstanding athletic performance; there was 2952646, a baseball pitcher with a 27-5 win-loss record in the 1948 season, and next to him the unforgettable star quarterback 5598317, and across the way Stonevelt’s only four-minute miler, 4611502.

  Most of the floor space in the trophy room was taken up by a long library table or conference table, surrounded by a dozen all-wood captain’s chairs. Teams generally were given their pre-game pep talks and post-game lectures in this room, with these visual indications of past excellence surrounding them to spur them on. What we were having now was something like a post-game lecture, following a game that had been very badly lost, except that no one was lecturing. Everybody was simply griping, and I had to keep reminding myself to do my share.

  Joe Maslocki said, “When I saw that fucking police car in front of that fucking bank I couldn’t fucking believe it.”

  “When I saw your faces,” Bob Dombey said, “when you all came back, I knew right away something went wrong.”

  Billy Glinn cracked his knuckles. Billy never talked much at meetings, but he cracked his knuckles a lot, and I didn’t like the sound of it. I wished he’d stop it.

  “Stink bombs,” Phil said. He said it every ten minutes or so, and every time he said it he sounded even more disgusted than the time before.

  “We had practical jokers in the army,” Eddie said severely. “The men knew what to do with them.”

  I didn’t want to hear what the men did with them. I said, “It’s a goddam shame, that’s what it is. All that work, all that setting up, for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing,” Max said. “We can still do it, Harry.”

  I said, “What? But everybody gets paid tomorrow. All that extra money in the bank, all that Christmas money, it’ll all be gone.”

  Max said, “There’ll be more.”

  “That’s right,” Jerry said. “The end of the month, same thing. Two weeks’ worth of paychecks.”

  I said, “But without all the Christmas Club money and everything.”

  Billy cracked his knuckles.

  Joe said, “There’ll still be plenty. There won’t be as much, but there’ll be enough.”

  I was going to have to go through all this all over again? “That’s wonderful,” I said, and Billy cracked his knuckles.

  “We’ve got the laser,” Max said. “We’ve got the typewriter and Eddie’s uniform and the key to the truck. We’ve got the guns. We’ve got everything we need.”

  “We just stash it all,” Joe said, “and give it another shot two weeks from now.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  Eddie said, “There’s nothing wrong with the concept of the operation. It isn’t the first time in history an incursion had to be delayed because of unforeseen circumstances.”

  Billy cracked his knuckles.

  “Some unforeseen circumstances,” Jerry said ruefully, and shook his head.

  “Stink bombs,” Phil said. There was so much disgust in his voice this time I half expected him to throw up on the table.

  “There’s nothing worse than a practical joker,” Bob Dombey said.

  Joe said, “You can say that again.”

  “One time in New York City,” Bob said, “I was walking south on Madison Avenue, and a perfectly respectable looking man in suit and tie stopped me and asked me if I’d mind helping him a minute. I said of course not. He had a length of string, and he said he was an architectural engineer charged with redesigning the facade of the store on the corner. He asked me if I’d just hold one end of the string against the storefront for a minute while he measured the distance across the front and down the side. He said there was a time element involved and his partner must have been stuck in crosstown traffic, and that was the only reason he was asking. So I said yes.”

  Joe said, “I would have told him to fuck off.”

  “He was very persuasive,” Bob said. “I held the string, and he backed around the corner, paying string out as he went. This was at lunch hour, crowds of people going by, I never expected a thing.”

  Jerry said, “What happened?” He looked fascinated.

  “I must have stood there five minutes,” Bob said. “That’s a long time when you’re just standing on the sidewalk holding a piece of string, with people bumping into you. I began to feel like a fool. So finally I followed the string around the corner, and there I found a perfect stranger holding the other end of it. A m
an with a briefcase.”

  Max said, “Who was he? The partner?”

  “It turned out,” Bob said, “he was another victim, just like me. We became a bit short-tempered with one another before we found that out, though. We did some yelling at one another. A whole crowd of people was standing around us.”

  It was hard to imagine scared-weasel Bob Dombey yelling at a man with a briefcase, but it must have happened; Bob’s face was getting red with indignation just thinking about it. He was almost squaring his shoulders.

  Jerry said, “I don’t get it. What happened?”

  “This fellow,” Bob said, “did the same thing to both of us.”

  “Which fellow?” Jerry’s face was as crumpled up as a throw rug in his effort to understand. “The one with the briefcase?”

  Bob shook his head. “No, the first one. He approached me with his story, and then he went around the corner and told the same story to the man with the briefcase. Once he had two victims holding the two ends of his string, he simply left.”

  Jerry shook his head. “I still don’t get it,” he said. “What’s the point? Where’s his profit?”

  I felt I could safely enter the conversation at this juncture. “Practical jokers aren’t out to make a profit,” I said. “There’s no point to it at all. The trick is its own reward.”

  Jerry turned his crinkled face to me. “You mean they do it just for the fun of it?”

  “Right.”

  “What fun?” He turned back to Bob. “Did this guy stick around to see what happened?”

  “No,” Bob said, “he just left.”

  I put in my oar again. “Practical jokers don’t have to actually be present when their trick springs itself,” I said. “In fact, most of them prefer not to be. They just set up their little time bombs and go away.”

  “Like the stink bombs,” Phil said. More disgusted.

  “Right,” I said, and Billy cracked his knuckles. I really wished he wouldn’t do that.

  “You know,” Max said, “we got one of those birds right here in this prison.”

  Jerry turned to him. “Yeah? Who?”

  “I wish I knew,” Max said. “The son of a bitch put Saran Wrap on one of the toilets in C Block.”