One Endless Hour

by Dan J. Marlowe

  "The chick would slow him down," he asserted cheerfully. "They love bein' on film, with or without clothes. Ninety-eight percent of 'em, anyway."

  "What about the two older women?"

  "Never know when you can blend alfresco shots like that. Cut to a pair of lesbians frolickin' on a bed an' you've saved some footage."

  "You mean you'd show innocent people in the kind of stuff you film?"

  "Don't get shook, cousin. There's two hundred million people in this country, an' a lot of them look like other people. I never been sued yet." He sank down into a chair. "What time's Harris gonna get here? I got to get back to New York."

  "If that's the case, what are you doing here at all with a job in prospect?":

  "I'm here to do a quick job, cousin, an' then cut out."

  "It's not that kind of a job," I began, and stopped at the sound of a knock at the motel door. Dahl did his disappearing act again while I opened it. None of us wanted to be seen together by anyone who could identify us as a pair or a group afterward.

  The man at the door was tall, slim, and dapper. He had deep-set eyes, and there was a touch of gray in his brown hair. He wore a dark suit and carried a Panama with a conservative band in one hand. "I'm Harris," he said.

  "Drake," I returned, letting him inside. Dahl emerged from the bathroom when I closed and chain-latched the door.

  "Hiya, cousin," he greeted Harris, who nodded. "How've the dominoes an' celluloids been treatin' ya?"

  "Not too well," Harris said with a faint smile. His voice was as low-keyed as his personality.

  "I could use a touch, too," Dahl said promptly. He looked at me. "So how about gettin' down to business?"

  "A sandwich?" I suggested to Harris.

  He shook his head. "I had lunch on the plane."

  Dahl was energetically shoving chairs together in the center of the room. "Let's go, cousins," he urged, plunking himself down into the easy chair and leaving straight backed chairs for Harris and me. "Time's money an' all that silt."

  Harris and I seated ourselves, and I talked for ten minutes. I told them everything except the name and location of the bank. I went over in detail the Schemer's dossiers on the bank operation and the personal lives of the bank's chief officers.

  "The bank manager has three children, the assistant manager none," I concluded. "If we go to the assistant manager's home at three A.M. and take him and his wife to the manager's home, we'll have the two key employees -the ones with the bank vault combination-under our thumb, plus a ready-made group of hostages in the persons of the wives and children, who will assure the two men's good behavior. We'll take the men to the bank before daylight on Thursday morning, and after that it will be-"

  "Hold it," Dahl interrupted me. "Thursday morning? And today's Monday? I can't hang around here that long."

  "I'm not talking about this Thursday. Or even next Thursday. It might take a month to set the job up properly."

  Dahl rose to his feet. "Count me out, cousin. I've got other perch to fry."

  The mild-looking Harris was apologetic when I turned to him. "I can't hold off for a month, either. Financially, I mean."

  I would be shaving it close to the bone myself, but I damn well wasn't going to put my head into the lion's mouth without pulling as many teeth as possible. "Why don't we relax and go over this again and work out what we have to do to make-"

  "Listen, why the horsing around?" Dahl interrupted again. "What's the matter with setting something up right now and knocking it over in the next hour?" He said it challengingly.

  "Not in the next hour," Harris said after a glance at his watch. "Banks close in the next fifteen minutes. But what about tomorrow morning?"

  I might not have gulped, but I felt like it. Both men were looking at me. "What about this job?" I temporized, indicating the Schemer's file folder.

  "You set it up an' we'll be back in a month an' knock it over on its back, too," Dahl said confidently. Harris nodded. "We'll work out the split to cover your time," Dahl continued. His tone turned silky. "If you come in with us on a job in the mornin'."

  I vibrated on the brink of flat refusal. I wanted nothing to do with a walk-in. They were always high-risk operations with uncertain returns. But there was my own empty pockets to consider. A walk-in with three men stood a better chance than a walk-in with one man. And if I said no, I lost these two prospects for the Thornton job and would have to start all over again.

  "I'd want you both on the ground a week beforehand," I said at last. "For the big one, I mean."

  "We're in, if you're in," Dahl said. "Right, Preacher?"

  The taciturn Harris nodded.

  "So we each scout a location tonight, meet here in the mornin' at eight, take a vote, get the job done, an' be halfway home by noon," Dahl declared. His eyes were focused on me. "You aboard, cousin?"

  "All right," I said reluctantly. "What about a car for the job? Pick up a rental?"

  "Naaah," Dahl said disdainfully. "Not for a quickie like that. Leave the wheels to me." He tapped himself on the chest. "Dick Dahl, Boy Car Thief. I never saw a piece of iron I couldn't roll."

  "Eight o'clock tomorrow morning, then," I said.

  "Great!" he enthused, and went out the door like a brigantine under full sail.

  In my own mind, eight o'clock committed me to nothing. If I didn't like the sound of what I heard in the morning, I'd cut out. Harris eyed me while he waited for an interval to elapse before he followed Dahl from the motel room. "You don't like it," he said in his quiet voice.

  "I won't like it if one of us doesn't come up with a likely-looking opportunity."

  "I scouted a bank across the District line a year ago," he said. "Near Rockville. I'll take another look at it tonight. But we'll find something." He left the room.

  One thing about Preacher Harris, I reflected as I walked to the window and parted the draperies to watch him cross the motel yard: in any crowd I'd ever seen he could blend as the Invisible Man. Nothing about him clashed with his surroundings.

  I went back to the armchair that Dahl had preempted and ran through the situation again. Number one, although I didn't like it, I desperately needed the cash myself. And number two, if I cancelled out and went back to the Schemer for new partners there was no guarantee I'd do any better, and I'd have lost valuable time. I tried to convince myself that I was spoiled because I'd been so used to calling all the shots myself and picking my own partners.

  I certainly didn't care for a job in Rockville, though. Rockville was in the jurisdiction of the Montgomery County Police who, although not numerous, tended to react quickly over a wide area. The District cops, in contrast, were more plentiful in their ten-square-mile enclave but often got in each other's way.

  Harris's suggestion reminded me of something, though. A few years ago, when Bosco Sheerin had been my partner-before an irate husband returned home unexpectedly one evening and discovered Bosco in the intimate embrace of the husband's wife and sent both Bosco and the wife to join the angels-we had cased a job in the District of Columbia. It was a branch bank located near the intersection of Piney Branch Road and Georgia Avenue. This placed it only two miles from the northern border of the District, assuring a quick crossover into Maryland if it seemed convenient. Other escape routes abounded.

  I sat there trying to remember why Bosco and I had finally decided against trying it. Police patrols? It seemed unlikely that the area was any more heavily patrolled than any other section of the nation's capital. I couldn't recall why we had abandoned the project. If not too much had changed in the interval, though, it was a bank I knew something about, which was a hell of a lot better than taking on one stone-cold. I rose from my chair and checked the Yellow Pages in the phone book to make sure the branch bank was still in the same location.

  It was, and I went outside to my car and drove across Key Bridge to the District. I followed M Street and Rhode Island Avenue to Logan Circle, then traveled north on Thirteenth Street. I turned eastward on Decatu
r and moved over onto Georgia Avenue. The area seemed very much the same. Above Brightwood, it consisted principally of used-car lots, cleaning establishments, and aging restaurants.

  I looked to my left at the Piney Branch Road intersection. A filling station took up the northwest corner. Just beyond it on Georgia Avenue was the bank, not a particularly prepossessing building. The same wide alley I remembered still served as part alley, part parking lot between the bank and the neighboring A&P store. At the present hour in the afternoon the alley was congested, but it was less likely to be so in the morning.

  I drove past the bank in the flow of traffic. In the first mile beyond it the area turned from commercial to seedy residential. A mile from the Maryland line I made a U-turn at the east gate of Walter Reed Army Hospital and wheeled back to the bank. It still looked all right. Alternative exits and escape routes were plentiful. It was hard to imagine being cornered by patrol cars after pulling off the job.

  I turned into the alley and drove along its length, reverifying that a left turn at its upper end led out to Piney Branch, bypassing the traffic light at the Georgia Avenue intersection. There was a new warehouse-type building at the end of the alley, but nothing else appeared changed. It was hard to escape the feeling that a quick run down the alley and out onto Piney Branch would be the best way of losing pursuers in the teeming morning traffic. And if by some chance the Piney Branch exit were blocked, it was just as easy to turn right at the end of the alley, beyond the new warehouse, and double back onto Georgia Avenue, there to head north or south as the situation dictated.

  I was still sour on the idea of a hit-and-run job with so little advance preparation, but I had to admit that for the first time in a long time I had little choice.

  I drove back to Virginia and the motel room, made a couple of sketches of escape routes from the bank, and went to bed although it was still daylight.

  ***

  I was glad that Preacher Harris arrived at the motel in the morning before Dick Dahl. "What about it?" I asked him bluntly. "Is this your usual style of operation?"

  "No, it isn't." Harris had on a fresh shirt and tie and looked even more conservative than he had the previous day, if that were possible. "But I need the cash." It was his turn to become blunt. "You're afraid of it?"

  "Not as much as I was last night. I went out and scouted one I'd looked over some time ago."

  "You liked it for today?"

  I handed him my sketches and a large-scale map of the District. "Take a look at this. It'll go like a player piano," I said, turning on the hard sell.

  He sounded relieved. "Good. I took another look at the setup in Rockville and didn't think as well of it."

  So I hadn't needed the hard sell. Harris sat down in a chair and spread the map and sketches on his knees. He was still studying them when Dahl arrived. Dahl carried a briefcase, which he tossed onto the bed. "Everything set?" he inquired breezily after I chain-latched the door. He opened the briefcase and took out three Halloween masks. "Greatest little deceivers in the world, boys." He looked at Harris in his chair. "What'cha got there?"

  "Drake sized up a job after we left here yesterday" Harris said. "It looks good."

  "Fine with me," Dahl said. He looked and sounded completely indifferent as to which job it was. "So long's I'm out of town by noon. With the kind of operation I've got in New York, things tend to go to pieces if I'm not there to keep my finger on the button. Where do we take our shot?"

  I let Harris tell him as a means of checking Preacher's absorption of the details. Watching Dahl, I got the impression he wasn't even listening closely. He kept nodding his head and glancing at his watch. "All right," he interrupted Harris's very sound explanation of the elements involved. "Let's put it on the road."

  "Do we split up right after the job?" Harris asked me.

  "We sure as hell do," Dahl replied before I could say anything. Since his statement echoed my own sentiment, I kept my mouth shut. I picked up the map of the District and showed it to Dahl. "We'll park my car on Military Road, halfway between Georgia Avenue and Thirteenth Street so we can approach it from either direction if there's pursuit. We'll meet-"

  "There won't be no pursuit," Dahl said confidently. "We'll be gone like big birds. I'll go into the bank first an' herd the customers away from the cages an' the tellers out of them. Either one of you can come in next an' stand by the entrance to control the action. The third man in cleans out the cages an' is first man out an' the getaway driver."

  I looked at Harris, who shrugged as much as to say it was simple enough to work. "What about a weapon for the man at the entrance who's controlling the action?" I asked. "A handgun won't do it."

  "There's a riot gun in the trunk of my car," Dahl said.

  "Bring it along." I marked an "X" on the District map. "Harris will ride with me, and we'll park here on Military Road, a mile beyond the viaduct where it drops down off Georgia Avenue. Dahl, you park in Brightwood, steal a car and pick us up, and we'll return you to your car after the stolen car gets us from the bank to my car on Military Road."

  "Nothin' to it," Dahl said. "Let's go, cousins. You bring the briefcase. I'll bring the riot gun in the stolen car."

  "Pick us up at nine fifteen," I told Dahl. "You leave here first."

  "Like I've already gone," he said. He walked to the door, took off the latch, opened the door a crack and peered out, gave us a wave of his hand behind his back without looking around, and went out.

  "Well, the Schemer said he had nerve," I said.

  Harris didn't reply. He went to the bed, stripped a pillowcase from a pillow, folded it neatly, and tucked it into the briefcase. "I'll take the cages," he said. "You take the entrance."

  "Fine with me. Walk out to the highway now while I check out of the motel."

  Harris looked like any businessman on his way to work, briefcase in hand, when I picked him up ten minutes later. We had plenty of time. I drove slowly. Harris sat quietly, eyes straight ahead. I had no idea whether he was thinking about the job or the next whirl of the roulette wheel.

  We had eight minutes to spare when I parked on Military Road. There was no conversation. Tension pressed downward from the roof of the car like something tangible. Harris took a package of gum from his pocket, peeled off a wrapper, and crammed a stick into his mouth. He offered the package to me, but I shook my head. It was a long eight minutes.

  In the rearview mirror I saw a sleek white Oldsmobile draw up behind us. Dahl waved from behind the wheel. Harris and I got out of the VW and walked to the Olds. "Didn't even have to jump the switch," Dahl said cheerfully. "Found two in a row with the keys still in 'em. I took the one with the most horses."

  Harris was staring at a blanket-wrapped bundle on the front seat beside Dahl. Alongside it was a bright-checked sport coat with one red sleeve and one blue one. "What the hell is that thing?" Harris demanded, pointing at the coat. "Camouflage," Dahl grunted. "It gives the animals somethin' to look at besides my height, weight, an' peculiar arrangement of molecules." He picked up the coat and began to struggle into it while still seated behind the wheel.

  "You sit in back," I said to Harris. I got into the front seat with Dahl. The blanket-wrapped bundle was the riot gun. A half dozen loose shells were in the blanket, too. While I was loading the short-barreled, pump-type shotgun, Harris leaned over the front seat and placed two Halloween masks between us. I watched the road until no cars were corning toward us, then tried on the mask to make sure I could breathe properly. It wasn't too bad. There were sticky tabs at the temples-almost at the same place as my hairpiece tabs-and one under the chin to hold the mask in place.

  I removed the mask. When I looked toward Dahl, he was grinning broadly. "What's the good word, cousin?" he asked. He was a bizarre-looking figure in the outrageously flamboyant jacket and the ever-present movie camera once again slung around his neck.

  "Roll it," I told him. I gave him directions that would bring us into the bank alley from the Piney Branch Road exit. It
was a short run. We turned smoothly into the exit when I pointed it out and headed up the alley the wrong way. Without my saying anything, Dahl turned the Olds around and headed it in the direction from which we'd come. There were only two cars in the alley. No chance of getting hemmed in by a car pulling in too tightly.

  We put on our masks. Dahl was first out of the car. With the psychedelic jacket, the mask, and the camera, he looked like a freak pitchman for a carnival show. I carried the riot gun beneath the blanket draped over my left arm. My watch said nine twenty-two A.M. as we walked single file toward the bank's front entrance. There wasn't a soul in sight in the alley.

  Dahl pushed on the revolving glass door and entered. Harris and I were right behind him. I took up a station just inside where I could watch the entrance and the bank's interior, including the offices on the mezzanine. I looked for a guard but couldn't see one. I let the blanket drop to the floor, exposing the riot gun.

  There were half a dozen women tellers in the cages, plus three customers on the bank floor, a man and two women. A single man was visible on the mezzanine. Beyond the line of tellers' cages a low railing separated a row of bookkeeping machines from the bank lobby. "Everybody inside the railing!" Dahl's voice boomed out.

  For an instant there was a hush, broken by two or three stifled shrieks as his role was recognized. "You, up there!" I called to the man on the mezzanine. "Don't move!" He didn't. There were gasps and another shriek as my voice called attention to me and to the riot gun. Dahl drove the three customers through a gate in the low railing, then herded them and the women tellers away from the cages, which were so high they hid him from my view.

  Harris was already inside the railing. Steel clattered and banged as he opened, emptied, and slammed cash drawers. The man on the mezzanine remained wide-eyed and motionless. I had looked at the large wall clock at the back of the bank when we entered. Now I looked again. A minute and a half had gone by.