One Endless Hour

by Dan J. Marlowe

  Barton and Mace were on their feet, rubbing their wrists. Everyone else except Shirley Mace was on the mattress floor, bound wrist and ankle. Harris speedily added her to the lineup. Ellen had thrown off her blanket and was staring defiantly at her family. Sometime since I had seen her on the bed in her room, either she or Dahl had removed her panties. The girl was as naked as Rachel.

  "More bare pelt on the loose around here tonight," Dahl commented, seeing my expression. I kept a grip on myself. This was no time for a discourse on adult juvenile delinquency. For an instant I debated the wisdom of leaving Dahl with the group. I had committed myself to Harris, though. The gambler would be disturbed by a last-minute reversal of roles. "Harris and I are leaving now with these two," I told Dahl, nodding at the men. "Hold the lid on here till we get back. We'll take Mace's Rambler and leave your rental job in the driveway. If we're not back by nine twenty, go for yourself."

  "I read you loud an' clear, cousin," he declared.

  We climbed the basement steps with me in the lead, Barton and Mace in the middle, and Harris bringing up the rear. "Do you have your key to the bank's side entrance?" I asked Mace.

  "It's on the Rambler key ring," he answered.

  "Make sure of it," Harris warned. "You wouldn't like what happens to the people downstairs if it isn't."

  Neither Mace nor Barton said anything. I wasn't sure that they caught the bloodthirsty reference to the hostages. We went out to the street. It was getting light. I put the two men in the back after Mace made sure that the bank key was on the key ring. Harris sat in front, watching them, although I think both he and I were convinced by that time there was no fight in either.

  "I did the right thing!" George Mace burst out as I pulled away from the house. "She was mine! She is mine! She's my responsibility! How can your wife say we should have put her in a home, Tom!"

  Barton said nothing. He looked like a man who had his own troubles. I drove through the quiet streets to the downtown area and parked Mace's car in its usual slot on the bank parking lot.

  "We know there's no burglar alarm on the side door because the cleaning people have to get in at odd hours," Harris told Barton and Mace. "But the first man who makes an unexplained move inside has had it."

  It was still dark enough so that I doubted anyone on the street could see us as we approached the bank. I handed Mace the Rambler key ring and motioned to him to open the bank door. Harris had his hand inside his jacket on the butt of his gun.

  Mace unlocked the door. We all filed inside, our footsteps echoing cavernously in the stillness. I watched closely, but neither man made a move toward the alarm switch in the desk just inside the entrance about which Shirley Mace had warned me. "Take them into their offices and tie them up again," I said to Harris. "Each in his own office."

  When he led them away, I stationed myself where I could watch the parking lot and the approach to the side door. Nothing moved in the steadily increasing light. "There's a coffee percolator all loaded and ready to go in Barton's secretary's office," Harris reported when he returned. "Should I make coffee?"

  "If you like. Don't forget the sign for the front door."

  "I'll get it up in time." Harris glanced at his watch. "I wish we didn't have this long a wait."

  I wished it, too, but there was nothing we could do about it. I explained to Harris the necessity for keeping incoming bank personnel away from the desk near the entrance. I didn't tell him how I knew about the alarm. We checked the space available, and decided to place the bank employees in a lounge just off the rest rooms as fast as they appeared for work. The lounge had only one entrance and a door that could be locked from the outside.

  Then there was nothing to do but wait.

  We divided up into thirty-minute shifts the task of keeping an eye on the side entrance approach to prevent surprise. During my off periods I sat in one of the smaller offices. The sight of a roll of Scotch tape on the desk reminded me of something I had intended to do previously.

  I rummaged around in the desk until I found an empty box of medium-stiff cardboard of the type in which new checkbooks are mailed out, and a sheet of wrapping paper. I folded the paper several times and slipped it into my jacket pocket. In that desk and the one in the adjoining office I found address labels, a pen that wrote with India ink, loose stamps, and the roll of tape. I tore the top label from the pad and printed an address on it: DR. SHER AFZUL, STATE HOSPITAL, RAIFORD, FLORIDA. In one corner I added FIRST CLASS MAIL. I put label, stamps, and tape in the box, then put the box in my jacket pocket along with the wrapping paper.

  I settled down to wait again.

  ***

  At eight thirty A.M. I released Barton from the chair into which he was tied and took him into the lobby. Using Harris's dog chain, I fastened Barton by one ankle to the leg of a heavy customers' desk. All employees entering the bank would see Barton standing there and assume that everything was all right until the instant that either Harris or I intercepted them and put them into the lounge.

  At 8:35 Harris took up a position just inside the door, behind it so that he would be invisible each time it opened. At 8:41 there was the sound of a key in the lock. The uniformed bank guard whose duty it was to unlock the side door each morning entered. With him was a white-haired woman carrying an umbrella. "Good morning, Mr. Barton," she called across the lobby as the door closed behind them. "Nice to see-" Her voice deteriorated to a choked gasp as Harris stepped out with his gun leveled.

  He took them to the lounge. The guard put up no opposition. I took Harris's place just inside the door. Three more people arrived at 8:44. I took them to the lounge while Harris took my place at the door. After that it was a shuttle service. We took them in groups as fast as we could make the round trip. I took time out only to send Harris to the front entrance to tape up his sign: BANK EXAMINERS HERE. OPEN AT 10:00 A.M. TODAY.

  At 8:58 the rush was over. "You take it here," I told Harris. "I'll take Barton and Mace to the vault. Lock this door each time you have to leave it. Latecomers will think somebody forgot the latch. They'll rattle the door, which will give you time to get back to it. Now give me your knife."

  He handed it over. I released Barton from the leg of the table and took him with me while I cut Mace free from his bonds. "No mistakes," I said as I walked them to the door of the vault. "You both have more riding on this than I do."

  Mace rubbed his hands together nervously. Neither man said anything. There was a red light on above the vault door. I watched it. At eight seconds after nine by my watch the red light went out and a white light came on. I didn't need to say anything to Barton. He stepped up to the vault door with its huge combination dial. He spun the dial once right and once left with his body shielding his movements, then backed away. Mace moved in and did the same, then took hold of the door handle and tugged. The massive door slid open silently on its oiled tracks.

  "Inside," I said to them. I followed them into the steel-lined room. A metal cart with seven canvas sacks on it was just inside the door. It was the cart we had seen used for unloading the armored car two weeks in a row. I dug my toe into the sacks. Three were heavy, obviously filled with coin. I pushed them off the cart onto the vault floor. The others I slit with the knife near the wax-impressed seal on the locked cord around the necks of the sacks, just enough to get my hand inside. Two sacks contained bundles of canceled checks, two contained neatly wrapped packages of greenbacks. I shoved the sacks with the cancelled checks onto the floor. "Is this vault vented?" I asked.

  "Yes, it is," Barton replied. It was the only thing I'd heard him say since we left the Barton home.

  "Then relax until they come and get you here."

  I pushed the cart outside, swung the monstrous door closed, and spun the dial. I rolled the cart through the lobby to where Harris was still waiting just inside the side door. "One latecomer still due or else there'll be an absentee today," he reported. He eyed the cart. "That's it?"

  "That's it. Skip out and drive Mace
's station wagon alongside this door."

  It took him only a moment. I pitched the two sacks into the station wagon. It was a critical moment if anyone walked around from the front of the bank, but nothing happened. I kicked the cart back inside, set the latch so no one could get in without a key, and slammed the door. Harris drove us out of the bank parking lot. My watch said 9:08.

  I fumbled around inside a sack until I found two packages of fifty-dollar bills, each wrapped a hundred bills to the package. I showed them to Harris before taking my prepared box and wrapping paper from my jacket pocket. "Paying off a bill," I explained. He nodded, his eyes swivelling back to the roadway. It wasn't until later that I realized he thought I meant the Schemer.

  I crammed the bills inside the box, wrapped it in the paper, sealed it, applied the address label and the stamps, which covered one whole side, and Scotch taped the whole thing again. I dropped the parcel in my pocket. When I looked up, we were within a block of the Mace house. "I'll get Dahl," I said. "You switch the sacks into the rental car and leave Mace's car in the driveway."

  "Right," Harris said. He parked in front of the house, leaving the driveway unobstructed.

  I walked up the driveway and went in the back door. I knew something was wrong the instant I entered the kitchen. The basement door stood open, and I could hear a feminine voice talking in the front of the house.

  I drew my gun and crept through the dining room and living room. In the front hallway, Ellen Barton, nude, was gabbling into the telephone. "-Barton's daughter," she was saying. "They must be at the bank. Bank, do you understand? Stop telling me to speak more slowly! There were three of them."

  She hadn't heard my approach. I reached her in two jumps and sapped the back of her pretty neck with the butt of the gun. A corner of my mind wondered if I would recognize this girl with clothes on. The telephone receiver clattered and banged to the floor as she fell forward in a loose-limbed sprawl over the telephone table, then slid to the carpeting, unconscious.

  I sprinted toward the basement stairway. At the foot of the stairs the stockade door stood wide open. I slid to a stop in the entrance. Thelma Barton, Shirley Mace, Tommy Barton, and Margie Barton were still lined up in a row against a wall, tied wrist and ankle.

  Rachel Mace was not.

  The four against the wall stared bug-eyed at the naked idiot girl crouched above Dick Dahl's prostrate figure, her hands at his throat. She was crooning softly to herself. Dahl's face was blue-black. To one side a tilted camera tripod and a smashed movie camera indicated how he had been spending his time.

  Rachel looked up at my entrance. She drooled at me as I charged her. She fastened a hand like a steel claw on my ankle. With fantastic strength she began to pull me down onto the mattress. I swung the gun at her head. It crashed against her temple and she crumpled. The steel claw fell away. I took a closer look at Dahl and changed my mind about trying for a pulse indication. Dick Dahl was gone.

  I couldn't remember if there was anything incriminating on his film aside from what he'd been shooting here. With Dahl one never knew. I grabbed up the smashed camera, jerked out the film cartridge, jammed it into my pocket, and threw the camera down. "Don't leave us here with her!" Shirley Mace screamed at me as I started for the door. "She'll kill us all!"

  I kept on going. I knew the police would be there before the idiot regained consciousness. And after the police saw what had happened, Rachel Mace would be someone else's responsibility from that day forward, not the Maces'.

  The early-morning rain had renewed itself in a steady drizzle as I ran down the driveway to the rental car Harris had parked at the curb. "Dahl won't be coming," I said as I slid into the front seat. "It just became a two-way split."

  Harris paled. "The police!" he guessed.

  "No, but they'll be right along. Drive to my VW in front of the tourist home." Harris started up the car like a sleepwalker. I looked into the back seat. There were no sacks. "Where's the money?"

  "In the trunk," Harris said. He appeared to be having difficulty in swallowing. He turned two corners and pulled in behind my car. "What do we do now?"

  "Get onto the highway leading into Philadelphia. You know the route. I'll follow you. If we become separated, take a room in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel and wait for me. Leave the car in the hotel garage." I punched him on the arm. "We'll lick this thing yet."

  "Yeah," he said, but his attempted smile was wan.

  I opened the door of the rental car. "Stay within the speed limit," I warned him, and ran for the VW. Harris moved away as I started it up. I followed him, but not too closely. At the first traffic light I inched into the curb and dropped my package addressed to Dr. Afzul into the gaping maw of the curbside mailbox. When the light changed, I slid in behind Harris again.

  One loose end bothered me. Harris was now driving Dahl's rental. His own was parked downtown near the bank. If things had gone properly, we'd have gone back for it. Now the police would find it eventually, with the risk that the rental clerk might be able to identify Harris. We couldn't venture downtown again, though.

  The homes in the residential area thinned out. As we approached open country, I pulled off my red wig. I reached into the glove compartment, took out the black one, put it on one-handed, and fastened the tabs. I threw the red wig into the glove compartment. I'd take care of a makeup change during my first gas stop.

  When the trees began flying by too rapidly, I looked down at the speedometer. Harris was driving too fast. I backed off my accelerator, and he drew away from me at once. It was panic scraping at his nerves. I could see the rental swaying from side to side on the rain-slick road as he forced it. In minutes he was out of sight, a curve or two ahead of me.

  I felt no sense of shock when I saw fresh heavy black skidmarks in the middle of a sharp curve. I came out of the turn myself to find the rental across the road with its driver's side wedged solidly against a big tree. A puff of smoke or a cloud of dust still was poised above the crumpled hood. The car had hit so hard parts of it had exploded from the frame. Pieces of metal were still rolling in the street. As I braked the VW, a tongue of flame licked up over the back of the rental, and burning gasoline trickled down the rain-washed gutter.

  I pulled off onto the shoulder and ran across the street. I could hear the ominous sound of crackling flames. The whole car was catching fire, the back end the worst. One look into the driver's side was enough to show that it made no difference to Preacher Harris whether anyone got him out or not. His neck was broken, wrenched completely around on his left shoulder. Blood was running from a corner of his mouth.

  I reached in through the smoke, wincing, and snatched the car keys. The money was locked up in the trunk. I dashed to the rear of the car and tried to force the key into the burning trunk. The heat drove me away. I tried it again, but as I did I heard the words of Dr. Afzul in the hospital as though on a tape recorder: "Do not get burned again, at least not in the same areas. What I do this time, no one can do a second time."

  But the money was in the trunk.

  I tried it again.

  The flames were roaring viciously, and they drove me away.

  I gave up.

  I stood there for what seemed minutes, just a few yards away, watching the bank loot burn up. Then another car pulled around the same curve and brakes screeched as the driver saw the burning wreck. I threw the rental's car keys back into the front seat and ran across the wet street to the newcomer. "Call an ambulance!" I yelled at him to get him away from the scene. He nodded and gunned his car ahead down the road.

  I got into the VW, made a U-turn to reverse direction, took the first left to angle back onto the Philadelphia highway, and was at the Bellevue-Stratford in half an hour.

  It hadn't really sunk in that no one was going to meet me there.

  14

  It was six months before I found out what actually happened at the Mace house that night.

  I stayed in a motel for three days after checking out of the hotel t
he next morning. When I felt sure the initial heat was off, I drove to Texas. I worked for three months as boss in a sawmill in Sweetwater. Then for a change of pace I went up to Hugo, Oklahoma, and worked a couple more months as assistant on a survey crew. One reason I stayed with it so long was that I needed the money. Another was that I needed a breather to assess what the bungled job had done to my nerve.

  Then I moved on to the west coast. In Los Angeles I found a back-street film processor who agreed to develop the cartridge of color film I'd scavenged from Dick Dahl's movie camera. The processor almost backed out when I insisted upon going into the darkroom with him. He finally went through with it. I was taking no chances on him making a duplicate negative on spec since he knew I would hardly come to him with anything legitimate.

  So almost six months to the day after the fiasco I rented a projector and sat down in my motel room one night. There were no surprises at the opening of the film. It started with views of the wide-hipped woman in the airport parking lot. Then it shifted abruptly to a vacantly staring Rachel Mace, who somehow managed to appear more naked than any female without clothing I had ever seen.

  Then suddenly a pinpoint-eyed Ellen Barton was doing a dance of the seven veils in front of the lens, without any veils. Dahl hadn't been able to resist the chance to film the two nude girls. The camera, which had been handheld previously, suddenly shifted to a new, higher perspective. It was now on the tripod I had seen, I decided.

  And I found that I had seriously underestimated Dick Dahl. He walked into focus in front of his own camera without a stitch on. He coupled with the willing Ellen for some time, then turned his attention to Rachel. I could see the idiot's pleased reaction at the attention turn to doubt and then to anger. I saw the unbelieving look on Dahl's face when those terrible hands clamped down on him. And I watched Rachel Mace strangle Dick Dahl to death while Ellen Barton stood by, laughing.