Bank Shot

by Donald E. Westlake

  It wasn’t. By one-thirty in the morning he was losing four dollars and seventy cents. However, Fox occasionally dealt draw poker, jacks or better to open, and at one-thirty he did it again. In draw, each player anted at the beginning, so they started off with a thirty-five-cent pot. When no one could open and Fox had to deal out another hand, they all anted again. Still no one could open, and when Mulligan looked at his third hand and saw three sixes in it there was already a dollar five in the pot. To top it off, Fenton on his right opened, with a quarter, the maximum bid. Mulligan thought of raising, but decided to keep as many players in as possible, so just called. So did Garfield and Block. Two dollars and five cents in the pot now.

  It was time for the draw. Fenton, the opener, took three new cards; so he had only the one high pair, jacks or over, to begin with. Mulligan considered; if he took two cards, they’d all suspect he had trips. But he was known to be a man to try for straights and flushes, so if he took only one card they’d think he was at it again. In addition to the three sixes, he had a queen and a four; he threw away the four and said, ‘One card.’

  Garfield chuckled. ‘Still trying, eh, Joe?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Mulligan said and looked at another queen.

  ‘An honest three,’ Garfield said. So he, too, was starting with only a pair-probably aces or kings, hoping to just beat out Fenton’s openers.

  ‘A dishonest one,’ Block said. Which was either two pair, or an attempt to buy a flush or a straight.

  After the draw, the maximum bet was fifty cents, and that’s what Fenton bet. So he’d improved.

  Mulligan looked at his cards, though he hadn’t forgotten them. Three sixes and two queens – a very nice full house. ‘I believe I’ll just raise,’ he said and plucked a dollar bill from his shirt pocket and dropped it casually among the coins in the pot.

  Now there was three fifty-five in the pot. Mulligan had put in a dollar-forty, meaning he could win two dollars and fifteen cents if nobody called his raise.

  Garfield frowned at his cards. ‘I’m kind of sorry I bought,’ he said. ‘I’m just gonna have to call you, Joe.’ And put in his own dollar.

  ‘And I’m just gonna have to raise,’ Block said. He put in a dollar and a half.

  ‘Well, now,’ Fenton said. ‘I bought a second little pair, but I suddenly don’t believe they’ll win. I fold.’

  The pot now had four dollars and sixty-five cents in it that Mulligan hadn’t put in there. If he just called – and if he won – he would be within a nickel of breaking even on the night. If he lost, he would be down another two dollars and forty cents, all in one hand.

  ‘The hand of the night,’ Morrison said disgustedly, ‘and I’m not in it’

  ‘I’d just about trade places with you,’ Mulligan said. He kept staring at his hand and thinking. If he actually raised another half dollar, and got even one call, and won, he’d be ahead on the night. On the other hand …

  Well, what did those two have? Garfield had started with a high pair and had taken three cards and improved – meaning more than likely either triplets or a second pair. In either case, nothing to worry about. Block, on the other hand, had taken only one card. If he’d been buying to a straight or flush, and if he’d bought, Mulligan’s full house would beat him. But what if Block had started with two pair and had bought a full house of his own? Mulligan’s full house was based on sixes; that left a lot of higher numbers for Block to come up with.

  Garfield, sounding nervous and irritated, said, ‘Are you going to make up your mind?’

  It was, as Morrison had said, the hand of the night. So he ought to play it that way. ‘I’ll raise half a dollar,’ he said.

  ‘Fold,’ Garfield said in prompt disgust.

  ‘Raise you right back again,’ Block said, dropped a dollar in the pot, and smiled like the cat that ate the canary.

  A higher full house. Mulligan was suddenly very depressed. It couldn’t be anything else; it had to be a higher full house. But he’d come this far … ‘I’ll call,’ Mulligan said wearily and shoved in yet another half dollar.

  ‘King high flush,’ Block said, spreading the cards out. ‘All diamonds.’

  ‘By God!’ Mulligan cried and lifted his hand over his head to slap it down in the middle of the table with the full house showing; but just as his arm reached the top of its swing, he was suddenly jerked backward, up over the chair and onto the suddenly bouncing floor. And as he went flailing back, his legs kicked up into the under part of the table and sent it too flying; nickels and dimes and cards and guards exploded in all directions, and a second later the lights went out.

  17

  At this hour on a Thursday night there were three police dispatchers on duty down at the station house. They sat in a row at a long continuous table, each one equipped with three telephones and a two-way radio, all three facing a big square panel of lights built into the opposite wall. The panel was four feet on a side, edged with a wooden frame, and looked like the kind of thing hung in the Museum of Modern Art. Against a flat black background, sixteen rows of sixteen frosted red bulbs stuck out, each with a number painted on it in white. At the moment none of the bulbs were lit, and the composition might have been titled ‘Tail Lights at Rest’.

  At 1.37 a.m. a tail light lit up – number fifty-two. At the same time, a very annoying buzzing sound started, as though it were time to get out of bed.

  The dispatchers worked in strict sequence, to avoid confusion, and this squeal – which was what the fuzz called the buzz – was the property of the man on the left, who pushed a button that stopped the noise, at the same time saying, ‘Mine.’ Then, while his left hand reached for one of the phones and his right hand switched the radio to send, he quickly glanced at the typewritten list on the table in front of him, under a piece of glass, and saw that number fifty-two was the temporary branch of Capitalists’ & Immigrants’ Trust.

  ‘Car nine,’ he said, while with his left hand, still holding the phone receiver, he dialed the number seven, which was the captain’s office, currently occupied by the senior man on duty, Lieutenant Hepplewhite.

  Car nine was the regular patrol car past the bank, and tonight the men on duty were Officers Bolt and Echer. Bolt was driving, very slowly, and had driven past the bank just five minutes ago, not long before Joe Mulligan was dealt his three sixes.

  Echer, the passenger right now, was the one who answered the call, unhooking the mike from under the dashboard, depressing the button in its side, saying, ‘Car nine here.’

  ‘Alarm at C. and I. bank, Floral Avenue and Tenzing Street.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘It’s on the corner of both of them.’

  ‘Which bank.’

  ‘Oh. The temporary one, the new one, the temporary one.’

  ‘That one, huh?’

  Ambling, it had taken five minutes to come this far from the bank. Flat out, siren screaming, red light flashing, it took less than two minutes to get back. In that time, Lieutenant Hepplewhite had been informed and had alerted the men downstairs on standby, who were playing poker as it happened, though nobody had had a full house all night. ‘The colds are card,’ Officer Kretschmann said in disgust at one point, and the others hardly even noticed; he did that kind of thing all the time.

  Two other patrol cars, on beats farther away, had also been alerted and were rushing toward the scene. (The standby men alerted at the station house were not as yet rushing toward the scene, though they had stopped playing poker and had put on their jackets and guns; having been alerted, they were standing by.) The dispatcher who had handled the squeal was staying with it, answering no other calls until car nine should report.

  ‘Uhhhh,’ said the radio. ‘Dispatcher?’

  ‘Is this car nine?’

  ‘This is car nine. It isn’t here.’

  The dispatcher felt a sudden instant of panic. The trouble wasn’t there? He looked again at the red light, which was still lit even though the buzzer was off, and it was
number fifty-two. He looked at his typewritten sheet, and fifty-two was the temporary bank. ‘Well, it was there,’ he said.

  ‘I know it was here,’ said car nine. ‘I saw it only five minutes ago. But it isn’t here now.’

  The dispatcher was by now completely bewildered. ‘You saw it five minutes ago?’

  ‘Last time we went by.’

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ the dispatcher said. His voice was rising, and the other two dispatchers looked at him oddly. A dispatcher was supposed to stay calm. ‘Wait a minute,’ the dispatcher repeated. ‘You knew about this trouble five minutes ago and you didn’t report it?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ car nine said, and another voice behind it said, ‘Let me have that.’ Then it apparently took over the microphone, becoming louder when it said, ‘Dispatcher, this is Officer Bolt. We are at the scene, and the bank is gone.’

  There was silence from the dispatcher for several seconds. On the scene, Officer Bolt stood next to the patrol car, holding the microphone to his mouth. He and officer Echer both gazed at the place where the bank had been – Officer Echer in a glazed manner, Officer Bolt in an aggravated and brooding manner.

  The low concrete block walls were there, but above them was nothing but space. Wind blew through the air where the bank had been; if you squinted, you could almost see the structure standing there, as though it had become invisible but was still present.

  To left and right, wires dangled like hair from the telephone and power poles. Two sets of wooden steps led up to the top of the concrete black wall and stopped.

  The dispatcher, his voice nearly as thin as the air where the bank had been, finally said, ‘The bank is gone?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Officer Bolt said, nodding in irritation. From far away he could hear more sirens coming. ‘Some son of a bitch,’ he said, ‘has stole the bank.’

  18

  Inside the bank, everything was chaos and confusion. Dortmunder and the others hadn’t bothered about springs, shock absorbers, none of the luxuries; wheels had been their only concern. Since they were now moving pretty fast, the result was that the bank dipped and swooped and bounced pretty much like a kite at the end of a string.

  ‘I had a full house!’ Joe Mulligan wailed in the darkness. Every time he managed to get to his feet some chair or some other guard would come bowling along and knock him over again, so now he was just staying down, hunkering on hands and knees and bawling his announcement into the darkness. ‘You hear me? I had a full house!’

  From somewhere in the confusion – it was like being in an avalanche in an aquarium – Block’s voice answered: ‘For Christ’s sake, Joe, that hand is dead!’

  ‘Sixes full! I had sixes full!’

  Fenton, who had been quiet till now, suddenly shouted, ‘Forget poker! Don’t you realise what’s happening? Somebody’s stealing the bank!’

  Until that moment, Mulligan actually hadn’t realised what was happening.

  With his mind occupied on the one hand by his full house and on the other hand by the difficulty of simply keeping his balance in this bouncing darkness and not getting beaned by a passing chair, it hadn’t until just that instant occurred to Mulligan that this disaster was anything more than his own personal disaster at poker.

  Which he couldn’t very well admit, particularly not to Fenton, so he shouted back, ‘Of course I realise someone’s stealing the bank!’ And then he heard the words he’d just said and spoiled the effect by squeaking. ‘Stealing the bank?’

  ‘We need light in here!’ Dresner shouted. ‘Who’s got a flashlight?’

  ‘Get them Venetian blinds up!’ Morrison yelled.

  ‘I have a flashlight!’ Garfield shouted, and a spot of white light showed, though the confusion it revealed wasn’t much more informative than darkness. Then the light swooped down and away, and Garfield shouted, ‘I dropped the god-dam thing!’ Mulligan watched its progression, the bouncing white light, and if there’d been words under it they could have sung along. It seemed to be headed his way, and he braced himself to make a grab for it, but before it got to him it suddenly disappeared. Went out, or something.

  However, a few seconds later somebody at last got a venetian blind opened, and it was possible at last to see, in the illumination of streetlights whipping by outside. Intervals of darkness and light succeeded one another at great speed, like a flickering silent movie, but it gave light enough for Mulligan to crawl on all fours through the scattered furniture and sprawled guards and rolling nickels over to the tellers’ counter. He crawled up that and thus reached his feet. Feet braced wide, both arms stretched out across the counter and fingers gripping the inner edge, he looked around at the shambles.

  Down to his left, Fenton was also clinging to the counter, in the angle where it made a turn to go past the courtesy desk. Sitting on the floor with his back to the courtesy desk and his hands braced to both sides was Morrison, wincing at every bump. Across the way, clutching the neck-high windowsill where the venetian blind was up, hung Dresner, trying to make some sense out of the night scenes flashing past the window.

  What about the other direction? Block and Garfield were in a tight embrace in the corner where the counter – with the safe past it – met the wall of the trailer; sitting there, locked together, half buried under furniture and debris since the general trend of everything loose was to head toward the rear of the trailer, they looked mostly like a high-school couple on a hayride.

  And where was Fox? Fenton must have wondered the same thing, because he suddenly yelled, ‘Fox! Where’d you get to!’

  ‘I’m here!’

  It was Fox’s voice all right, but where was Fox? Mulligan gaped around, and so did everybody else.

  And then Fox appeared. His head emerged above the counter, down by the safe. He was on the other side of the counter. Hanging there, he looked seasick. ‘Here I am,’ he called.

  Fenton saw him, too, since he yelled, ‘How in God’s name did you get in there?’

  ‘I just don’t know,’ Fox said. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Block and Garfield were now coming back toward the middle space, both traveling on all fours. They looked like fathers who didn’t yet realise their sons had grown bored with piggyback and gone away. Garfield paused in front of Fenton, hunkered back, looked up like the dog on the old Victrola record labels, and said, ‘Shall we try to break out the door?’

  ‘What, leave?’ Fenton looked enraged, as though somebody had suggested they surrender the fort to the Indians. ‘They may have the bank,’ he said, ‘but they don’t have the money!’ He let go with one arm to gesture dramatically at the safe. Unfortunately, the bank made a right turn at the same instant and Fenton suddenly ran across the floor and tackled Dresner, over at the window. The two of them went crashing, and Block and Garfield rolled into them.

  Turning his head to the left, Mulligan, who had retained his grip on the counter, saw Morrison still sitting on the floor against the courtesy desk and still wincing. Turning his head to the right, he saw that Fox’s head was no longer on top of the counter, nor anywhere else in view. He nodded, having expected as much.

  From the scramble across the way, Fenton’s voice rose: ‘Get off me, you men! Get off me, I say! That’s a direct order!’

  Mulligan, his chest against the counter, looked over his shoulder at the rest.

  An awful lot of legs were flailing over there, and they still hadn’t sorted themselves out when suddenly the flickering light stopped, and they were in darkness again.

  ‘Now what?’ Fenton wailed, his voice muffled as though somebody possibly had their elbow in his mouth.

  ‘We’re not in the city any more,’ Morrison shouted. ‘We’re in the country. No streetlights.’

  ‘Get off me!’

  For some reason it all seemed quieter in the dark, though just as bouncy and chaotic. Mulligan clung to the counter like Ishmael, and in the darkness they eventually sorted themselves out across the way. Finally Fenton, panting, said, ‘A
ll right. Everybody present?’ He then called the role, and each of the six pantingly answered to his name – even Fox, though faintly.

  ‘All right,’ Fenton said again. ‘Sooner or later they’re going to have to stop. They’re going to want to get in here. Now, they may shoot the place up first, so what we have to do is all of us get in back of that counter. Try to keep a desk or some other piece of furniture between you and any outside wall. They have the bank, but they don’t have the money, and as long as we’re on the job they aren’t going to get the money!’

  It might have been an inspiring speech if it hadn’t been slowed down by all the panting Fenton was doing, and if the rest of them hadn’t had to hold onto the walls and one another for dear life while listening to it. Still, it did recall them all to their duties, and Mulligan heard them now crawling toward the counter, panting and bumping into things, but making progress.

  Mulligan had to go by his memory of the place, since he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Or wouldn’t have been able to if it was there and not clutching the counter. As he remembered the layout, the nearest entrance through the counter was down to his right, toward the safe. He moved that way, sidling along, keeping both hands firmly on the counter edge.

  He too was panting, which he could surely understand, given the exertion required simply to keep on his feet, but why should he be so sleepy? He’d been working a night shift for years; he hadn’t gotten out of bed yesterday until four in the afternoon. It was ridiculous to feel sleepy. Nevertheless, it would feel very good to sit down, once he got around behind this counter. Wedge himself in next to a filing cabinet or something, relax a little. Not actually close his eyes, of course – just relax.

  19

  ‘Calling all cars, calling all cars. Be on the lookout for a stolen bank, approximately eleven feet tall, blue and white …’

  20

  Dortmunder, Kelp and Murch were the only gang members present at the actual theft of the bank. Kelp, earlier that evening, had picked up a tractor-trailer cab without its trailer near the piers in the West Village section of Manhattan and had met Dortmunder and Murch with it on Queens Boulevard in Long Island City, just across the 59th Street bridge from Manhattan, shortly after midnight. Murch had done the driving after that, with Kelp sitting in the middle and Dortmunder on the right, resting his elbow on the open windowsill. Below his elbow read a company name: Elmore Trucking. The cab had North Dakota plates. Stuffed inside with them, amid their feet as they headed east out Long Island, were a twenty-five-foot coil of black rubber garden hose, several lengths of thick heavy chain and a carpenter’s tool kit.