I Would Rather Stay Poor

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘Risks? What kind of risks?’

  ‘Any kind of risk,’ she said and smiled. ‘For instance, if I were in your position as manager of a bank, I know I would be awfully tempted to steal all the money you must handle.’

  He studied her, feeling a surge of excitement go through him.

  ‘You would be making a very serious mistake,’ he said. ‘To take money from a bank is easy enough if you are employed by the bank, but getting away with the money is another thing. That, let me tell you, is nearly impossible. What’s the good of stealing the money if you’re caught and can’t spend it?’

  ‘Yes… but if you happen to be clever and you think long enough about it, there must be some way that would be safe.’

  He poured some of the brandy into the saucepan, then set fire to it. As the flames shot up, he turned off the gas.

  ‘We’re about ready,’ he said. ‘Will you serve the soup?’

  It wasn’t until after nine o’clock when the old people and Alice were watching the television and while Kit was washing up that Calvin came into the kitchen again. He picked up a cloth and began to wipe the dishes.

  ‘You should have a washing-up machine,’ he said. ‘You need one here.’

  ‘There are lots of things I need,’ she returned without looking at him. ‘Most of all I need money.’

  They worked in silence for several minutes, then she said, ‘That payroll… three hundred thousand dollars! What a sum of money to own!’

  Plate in hand, tense, he stared at her.

  ‘What do you know about the payroll?’

  ‘Only what everyone else in Pittsville knows about it. It arrives every Thursday evening and is lodged in the bank, then it is taken to four factories on Friday morning and the lucky people get their money.’ She pulled the stopper out and let the water drain out of the sink. ‘Like a lot of people, every Thursday night, I dream of that money and imagine what my life would be like if it belonged to me.’

  ‘Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be locked up in a cell for fifteen years?’ Calvin asked quietly.

  She took off her apron and hung it up.

  ‘Yes, I’ve even thought about that.’ She stretched, arching her breasts at him. She yawned. ‘I’m tired. Thank you for helping me. I’m off to bed… good night.’

  He watched her leave, then he wandered into the empty lounge. He lit a cigarette, sat down and glanced through a magazine without seeing anything he was looking at. In the room down the passage came the sound of gunfire, then hard metallic voices. There was a gangster movie being shown on television; both Miss Pearson and Major Hardy were gangster movie addicts. He sat staring blankly at the magazine for twenty minutes or so, then getting to his feet, he went up the stairs and to his room.

  No light showed under Kit’s door. He brushed his teeth, undressed and put on his pyjamas. Then he moved silently to the communicating door. He had no doubt that now the door would be unlocked.

  He had thought she might be easy and his instinct had proved right. A woman didn’t surrender to a kiss as she had done unless she was ready to go the whole way.

  With a heavily beating heart, his thick fingers closed around the door handle. He turned it gently and pushed. It came as a shock when the door didn’t yield. It was still locked.

  He moved back, staring at the door. His blue eyes gleamed viciously, but only for a moment, then he shrugged and got into bed. He turned off the light.

  He lay in the darkness, his mind busy.

  So she wasn’t to be had all that easily, he said to himself. Well, never mind, all my life I have had to wait. What I don’t get today, I’ll get tomorrow.

  If I were in your position as manager of the bank, I know I would be tempted to steal all the money you must handle, she had said. Had she been joking? If he could dream up a safe way to get that payroll, he would have to have help. Could he rely on her?

  Impatiently, he turned on the light and groped for a cigarette.

  This was something he must think about.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1

  A few minutes before half past five the following evening, Calvin came out of his office and walked over to where Alice was sitting on her stool at the counter, checking her till.

  ‘Nearly through?’ he asked, his staring blue eyes examining her.

  She smiled nervously at him.

  ‘I’m all through now, Mr. Calvin.’

  ‘Suppose we go down to the vault and you explain what it’s all about?’ he said. ‘I don’t want to look dumb when the money does arrive.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She unlocked a drawer under the counter and took out a key.

  ‘You have your key?’ she asked, getting off the stool.

  ‘I have it.’

  He followed her down the steps and into the vault. It felt chilly down there. He looked around. Stacked from floor to ceiling on three sides of the room were black steel deed-boxes: each with a name painted on it in bold white lettering. The boxes contained the private papers, the wills, the house deeds of many of the bank’s customers. Facing him was the steel door of the safe.

  ‘This is a pretty old-fashioned set-up, isn’t it?’ he said, waving to the deed boxes. ‘We should have proper safes for each individual customer.’

  ‘There are no valuables in the boxes,’ Alice said. ‘It’s all paper. People like to keep their papers with us in case they have a fire at their homes.’

  Calvin again looked at the deed-boxes. There must be, he thought, over two hundred of them. The sight of them gave him a vague idea which he filed away in his mind to think about later.

  ‘Tell me about the electronic eye device,’ he said. ‘Where is it?’

  She pointed to a steel grill that looked like a ventilator set high up near the ceiling and facing the safe door.

  ‘It’s behind that grill’

  Calvin moved back and looked thoughtfully at the small grill. It was set in a steel frame and cemented in. He could see it would take a lot of shifting and while anyone struggled to shift it the alarms would be sounded.

  ‘What’s to stop anyone cutting the electric leads?’ he asked. ‘This set-up seems pretty unsafe to me.’

  ‘The leads are cemented into the walls and floor,’ Alice told him. ‘There is a separate generator. It is in the safe.’ She unlocked one of the complicated locks. ‘Will you unlock the other please?’

  He unlocked the other lock and then opened the safe door. The safe was the size of a large closet. On the floor stood a small but powerful generating plant.

  ‘The leads run under the floor and up the wall to the electronic eye,’ Alice explained. ‘The eye is so sensitive that if anyone tried to get at the leads to cut them the alarm would go off.’

  ‘Why isn’t the alarm sounding now?’ Calvin asked.

  He saw her hesitate, then she said, ‘I’m sure it is all right to tell you, Mr. Calvin. After all, you are in charge here now. I was told not to tell anyone. It is so arranged that when we turn the lights off in the bank, the electronic eye comes into operation. So long as someone is in the bank with the lights on, the alarms can’t go off.’

  Calvin ran his fingers through his sand-coloured hair.

  ‘Is that such a hot idea?’

  ‘The insurance people accepted it,’ she said. ‘You see, if the lights are on in the bank, they can be seen across the road by the Sheriff or by Mr. Travers. There is always someone there who can see any light on in the bank.’

  ‘What happens in the summer when you don’t have the lights on?’

  ‘We always keep a light on. It can be seen as the ceiling is so dark.’

  Calvin shrugged.

  ‘Well, so long as the insurance people are satisfied.’

  Leaving the safe door open, they went upstairs into the bank to await the arrival of the money.

  After some minutes, they heard the sound of a car pulling up outside the bank.

  ‘That will be Sheriff Thomson,�
�� Alice said and went to the bank door and opened it.

  Calvin joined her.

  Although he had been in Pittsville now for some days, he had yet to meet the sheriff and he was curious. He watched a tall, bulky man, wearing a ten-gallon hat and a dark suit get out of the dusty Packard. Sheriff Thomson didn’t look his seventy-five years. He was still powerful, his sun-tanned face was lean and his eyes clear. He had a straggly moustache and his white hair was long. He looked like a character out of a Western movie.

  He came up the path to the bank, followed by Travers.

  Not over dangerous, Calvin was thinking. He’s an old man and probably not too quick mentally. The other is just a hick kid. These two needn’t worry me if I decide to have a shot at grabbing this money.

  Alice introduced him and the sheriff shook hands. Travers stood half way up the path, his hand on his .45. He nodded to Calvin.

  ‘The truck won’t be long, Mr. Calvin,’ the sheriff said, suddenly aware of this big, fleshy-faced man confronting him: aware in a way that made him look searchingly at Calvin. He thought: I don’t know if I like this fellow. There’s something about him… that mouth… those staring eyes… could be a devil with women.

  He said, ‘Any news of Mr. Lamb?’

  ‘Nothing very encouraging, I’m afraid,’ Calvin said and abruptly switched on his charm. He had become aware of the sheriff’s scrutiny. ‘Won’t you come in, Sheriff?’

  The sheriff was startled by Calvin’s sudden transformation. When this man smiled, the sheriff, like Travers, wondered why he had been uneasy at the first sight of him. Now the frank, friendly smile quite won him.

  ‘I’ll hang around here,’ he said, then he looked at Alice. ‘Everything all right with you, Miss Craig?’

  Alice blushed as she said, ‘Yes, thank you, Sheriff.’

  They stood chatting while Travers kept watch on the passing traffic. Then out of the gathering dusk came the armoured truck, escorted by two out-riders.

  Calvin was quick to see how alert everyone was. Although they had been doing this chore now every week for the past five years, there was nothing slack about the operation. While the drivers opened up the back of the truck, the out-riders and Travers kept watch, hands on guns. Two men, also armed, got out of the truck when the steel doors were opened. They came swiftly up the path, carrying two heavy wooden cases. They went past Calvin, behind the counter and down into the vault.

  The sheriff closed the bank doors. Alice turned the key in the lock, then they and Calvin went down into the vault where the two men had set down the boxes on the floor of the safe, near the generator.

  The taller of the two men bent over the generator. He pressed a button which started the generator humming.

  ‘All set,’ he said, and the two men moved out of the vault.

  Alice and Calvin locked the vault door, watched by the sheriff. The whole operation hadn’t taken more than three minutes. The two men left and the truck drove away.

  The sheriff regarded Calvin with a satisfied smirk.

  ‘Pretty smooth, huh?’ he said. ‘Doesn’t give any bad boys much chance to grab the money, does it? You can lock up now. So far as you’re concerned, Mr. Calvin, you can have a dreamless sleep tonight.’

  But Calvin didn’t have a dreamless sleep. He scarcely slept at all. His mind was too occupied for sleep. He told himself he mustn’t even think about this thing until he had seen the whole operation. So far, providing the electronic eye really worked, he could see no weakness in the security measures. But this he was sure of: if the money vanished the Federal agents would know it had been an inside job. Suspicion would be immediately centred on Alice and himself. No one in their rights minds would believe a girl like Alice with her nervous personality would ever aspire to steal three hundred thousand dollars. The limelight of suspicion would fall directly on him. It wouldn’t take the Federal agents long to find out he was in debt and struggling to keep up his wife’s alimony payments. They would start on him and maybe, sooner or later, he would crack. Even if he didn’t, even if they couldn’t prove he had taken the money, he would never dare spend it. They would be watching him all the time, and as soon as he began to spend the money, they would pounce on him.

  The fallowing morning, at nine o’clock, the armoured truck again appeared outside the bank. From it came four accountants from the out-lying factories to collect the money: with them were the four guards. Everything moved like clockwork. The four men were introduced to Calvin by the sheriff, then with Alice joining them, they all went down to the vault while the four guards stood outside the bank, alert and watchful. Calvin and Alice unlocked the door of the vault and two of the four accountants produced keys and unlocked the wooden cases.

  The sight of all that money in small bills turned Calvin’s mouth dry. He stood to one side watching the four men as they counted the money, each taking the amount needed for their particular payroll, putting the money in their briefcases.

  While they counted the money, the sheriff stood at the head of the stairs. The out-riders and the two guards with Travers guarded the entrance to the bank. Within fifteen minutes, the four accountants had collected their money and had gone.

  During the day, Calvin continued to think about the money, but he always came back to the same impossible snag: if he took the money, he would immediately become suspect No. 1. He knew this to be fatal.

  That evening, while Alice, Miss Pearson and the major had settled down to watch television, and after he had heard Flo leave, he went into the kitchen.

  Kit was pressing a dress. She looked up and smiled at him.

  ‘Television isn’t interesting you?’ she asked, moving the dress on the ironing board.

  ‘Television seldom interests me,’ he said, leaning against the wall and watching her. ‘Am I in the way?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Tomorrow is Saturday,’ he said, his blue eyes intent. ‘What does one do in a place like this on Saturday?’

  She shrugged as she moved the damp cloth into position.

  ‘Nothing very exciting… there are a couple of movies on at Downside if you can bother to drive that far.’

  ‘Would you come with me?’ he asked, watching her. ‘Being on one’s own isn’t much fun.’

  She folded the cloth and put it away.

  ‘Thank you, but I can’t tomorrow.’ She looked directly at him, the irritating amused expression in her eyes. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t be a good thing for the local bank manager to be seen with me in Downside. People have the habit of gossiping here.’

  He scowled.

  ‘Yeah… I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I guess I’ll be able to kill time somehow. Is there a golf course handy?’

  ‘There’s quite a good one at Downside. At least, Major Hardy says it is good… I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll take a look at it.’

  She held up the dress, examined it critically, then folding it, she moved towards the door. As she passed him, he put his hand gently on her arm.

  ‘You said the other night, you could be tempted. I have an idea that might tempt you.’

  She disengaged her arm, her brown eyes suddenly alert.

  ‘What idea?’

  He hesitated, wondering if he could trust her. ‘Just how badly do you want money?’ he asked, staring at her.

  ‘I want it,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Again he hesitated, then urged on because he was sure he couldn’t do this thing alone, he said, ‘I’m talking about the payroll. Didn’t you say if you were in my place you would be tempted to steal it?’

  She stared at him for a long moment, her face suddenly expressionless, then she said quietly, ‘Did I? You mustn’t believe everything I say.’

  ‘Why not? You say something… you must mean what you say.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ She moved away, putting the ironing board back into a closet. ‘I must get on. I have a lot to do before I go to bed.’

  She was moving to
the door when he said, ‘Let’s talk about it tonight. Will you come to my room?’

  She paused in the doorway and looked searchingly at him. For a long moment she seemed to hesitate, then she nodded.

  ‘Yes… all right.’

  She went out of the kitchen. He waited a few moments, then he went to his room. He sat down, loosened his tie, lit a cigarette and began to think.

  He was still thinking when he heard Kit come upstairs and enter her room. There was a long pause while he waited expectantly. The lock of the communicating door clicked back and the door swung open.

  She came into the room, closing the door behind her. Calvin sat motionless, watching her as she walked to an armchair and lowered herself into it.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, looking at him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You say you want money,’ Calvin said. ‘Will you tell me why?’

  ‘That’s not difficult. I want it to get out of this dreary town. I want it so I don’t have to slave for the rest of my days. I want it so my daughter can live a decent life instead of working in the box office of a third-rate movie house. I want it so I can take her away before she is stupid enough to marry a small-time deputy sheriff with no future and no hopes of making any money. I want it to give her the opportunity to have the right clothes and right background to hook a rich husband.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t your daughter marry a deputy sheriff?’ Calvin asked.

  ‘If she does, she’ll have to remain in this narrow-minded, gossip-ridden town for the rest of her days. She’ll have to scrape for money as I have done when I was fool enough to marry a man who lived here. I know what it means. I’m going to take her away if it is the last thing I do.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to leave here. Maybe she even wants to marry this guy. Maybe she’s even in love with him.’

  Kit made an impatient movement with her hands.

  ‘She’s too young to know her own mind. Once I can get her away from here, show her how the world really lives, she won’t want to marry that small-time boy.’

  ‘Just how far would you go to get your hands on big money?’ Calvin asked.