Bank Shot

by Donald E. Westlake

  ‘This’ll be a bigger explosion than before,’ Herman warned. ‘I want you to know that.’

  Dortmunder stopped figure-eighting. Voice flat, he said, ‘Will we survive it?’

  ‘Oh, sure! Not that big!’

  ‘That’s all I ask,’ Dortmunder said. ‘My wants are simple.’

  ‘Take me about five minutes to set up,’ Herman said.

  It took less. Four minutes later, Herman made everybody get around on the other side of the partition from the safe, explaining, ‘This might throw a little metal around.’

  ‘Good,’ Dortmunder said. ‘I feel like doing the same thing myself.’

  They all waited out in the main part of the bank while Herman, out of sight, did his final bit of work. After a few seconds of silence, they watched him back slowly into view around the end of the partition, holding a length of wire in each hand, gently drawing the wires after him. He looked at the others over his shoulder. ‘Everybody set?’

  ‘Blow the damn thing,’ Dortmunder said.

  ‘Right.’ Herman touched the exposed ends of the wire together, and from the other side of the partition came a Krack! The bank rocked, much more than with the earlier explosions, and a stack of empty plastic coffee containers fell off the desk over in the corner where May had left them. ‘Got it,’ Herman said, smiling all over his face, and a bit of gray smoke came curling around the edge of the partition.

  They all crowded around the partition to look at the safe, and damn if it didn’t have a round hole in the side. Kelp shouted, ‘You did it!’

  ‘God damn!’ Herman cried, delighted with himself, and everybody pummeled him on the back.

  Dortmunder said, ‘Why’s the smoke coming out of there?’

  They all got quiet again and looked at the wisp of smoke curling up from the hole. Herman said, ‘Wait a minute now,’ and stepped forward to take a quick look around on the floor. Then he turned to Dortmunder, outraged, and said, ‘You know what happened?’

  ‘No,’ Dortmunder said.

  ‘The goddam metal fell inside’ Herman said.

  Kelp had gone over to look in the hole, and now he said, ‘Hey. The money’s on fire.’

  That caused general panic, but Dortmunder pushed his way through the mob and took a look inside, and it wasn’t as bad as all that. The hole in the side of the safe was perfectly round and about a foot in diameter, and inside there was a round piece of black metal the same size, like a midget manhole cover except much thicker, and it was resting on stacks of money, and it was setting them on fire. Not very much, just browning and curling them around the edge of the circle. However, a couple of little flames had already puffed into life, and if left to themselves they would spread and eventually all of the money would turn into ashes.

  ‘Okay,’ Dortmunder said, partly to calm the people behind him, partly to challenge the fates. He took off his right shoe, stuck it in through the hole and began to slap the fire out.

  ‘If only we had water,’ Victor said.

  Murch’s Mom said, ‘The toilet tank! We haven’t flushed since we left the trailer park, the tank should still be full!’

  That had been another problem, four hours stuck in here without toilet facilities, but now this one too turned out to be a blessing in disguise. A coffee-container brigade was set up, and pretty soon Dortmunder could put his shoe back on and pour water on the smoldering bills instead. It took only four containers, and the last ember was out.

  ‘Wet money,’ Dortmunder grumbled and shook his head. ‘All right, where’s the plastic bags?’

  They’d brought along a box of plastic garbage-can liner bags to carry the money in. May got them now, pulled one out of the box, and Dortmunder and Kelp started filling it with charred bills, wet bills and good bills while May and Victor held the bag open.

  And then Murch’s Mom shouted, ‘We’re moving!’

  Dortmunder straightened, his hands full of money. ‘What?’

  Murch came running around the partition, looking much more agitated than Dortmunder had ever seen him. ‘We’re rolling,’ he said. ‘We’re rolling down the goddam hill, and we’re out of control!’

  30

  Kelp pushed the door open and watched countryside going by. ‘We’re going out on the road!’

  Behind him, Herman shouted, ‘Jump! Jump!’

  How fast were they going? Probably no more than five or ten miles an hour, but to Kelp’s eyes the pavement going by beneath his feet was just a blur.

  But they had to jump. There were no windows in the front of the bank, so they couldn’t see where they were headed, whether they were going to crash into something or not. They weren’t going very fast yet because the slope wasn’t at all steep here, but the bank was angling toward the road, and down a ways farther the hill did get a lot steeper, and then they’d go too fast to jump. So it had to be now, and at this door Kelp was first.

  He jumped. Off to his right, uphill, he was aware of Victor jumping from the other door. Then Kelp hit the pavement, lost his footing, sprawled and rolled over twice. When he sat up, he had a new big tear in his right trouser knee, and the rest of the gang was spread out downhill, all sitting and lying on the pavement in the rain, with the bank rolling on away from them, on the road now and picking up speed.

  Kelp looked the other way, to see how Victor was doing, and Victor was on his feet already and hobbling back toward the diner site. Kelp couldn’t figure that out for a second, and then he realised Victor was going after the Packard. To give chase, to get the bank back!

  Kelp got to his feet and limped off in Victor’s wake, but hadn’t even reached the gravel driveway yet when the Packard came tearing up and squealed to a stop beside him. He climbed in, and Victor gunned the motor again. He was going to stop for Dortmunder, who was next, standing there with the plastic bag full of money in his hand, but Dortmunder urgently waved them on, and Kelp said, ‘Don’t stop, Victor, they’ll come along in the van.’

  ‘Okay,’ Victor said and tromped on the accelerator.

  The bank was far away down the long slope. It was rainy, it was mid-afternoon, and they were far out on Long Island, three things that helped to give them an empty road when they needed it. The bank, whizzing down the exact middle of the two-lane road, straddling the white line, happily met no traffic coming the other way.

  ‘It’s gonna go over at that curve,’ Kelp said. ‘It’ll crash down there, but we should have time to get the rest of the money out.’

  But it didn’t go over. The curve was banked, angled properly, and the bank rolled around it with no trouble at all – around and out of sight.

  ‘God damn it!’ yelled Kelp. ‘Catch up with it, Victor.’

  ‘I will,’ Victor said. Hunched over the wheel, his attention fixed on the road ahead, he said, ‘You know what I think happened?’

  ‘The bank started to roll,’ Kelp said.

  ‘Because of the explosion,’ Victor said. ‘That’s what I think did it. You felt the way that made it rock. It must have started it, and we were on top of a hill, and once it was moving it just kept going.’

  ‘It sure did,’ Kelp said. He shook his head. ‘You can’t believe how irritated Dortmunder is going to be,’ he said.

  Victor snapped a glance at the rear-view mirror. ‘Not behind us yet,’ he said.

  ‘They’ll be along. Let’s worry about the bank first.’

  They reached the curve, spun around it, and saw the bank well out in front. There was a small town at the base of the hill, a little fishing community, and the bank was headed straight for it.

  But Victor was gaining. Also, as the road leveled out at the bottom, the bank began slowly to lose its momentum. When it ran the red light in the center of town it wasn’t doing any more than twenty-five miles an hour. A woman crossing guard blew her whistle at the bank as it went through the light, but it didn’t stop. Victor slowed, seeing the woman in her policelike uniform and white crossing-guard belt, and seeing the red light, but as he reached the i
ntersection the light turned green and he accelerated again. The woman had whistled herself breathless, and as they went by she was standing in the rainy gutter, panting, her shoulders heaving, her mouth open.

  ‘It’ll stop soon,’ Kelp said hopefully. ‘There isn’t any slope here at all.’

  ‘That’s the ocean,’ Victor said, nodding ahead.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  The end of the street was a pier, jutting out a good thirty feet into the water. Victor caught up with the bank just before it trundled out onto the pier, but it didn’t matter; there was no way of stopping it. One fisherman in yellow rubber slicker and rain hat, sitting on a folding chair, looked up and saw the bank coming and leaped straight from his chair into the ocean; the bank, en passant, flipped his chair after him. He had been the only occupant of the pier, which now the bank had to itself.

  ‘Make it stop!’ Kelp cried as Victor slammed the Packard to a halt at the beginning of the pier. ‘We’ve got to make it stop!’

  ‘Noway,’ Victor said. ‘There’s just no way.’

  The two of them sat in the Packard and watched the bank roll inexorably out along the rumbling boards of the pier to the very end and quietly, undramatically, roll off the outer edge and drop like a stone into the water.

  Kelp groaned.

  ‘One thing,’ Victor said. ‘It was beautiful to watch.’

  ‘Victor,’ Kelp said. ‘Do me one favor. Don’t say that to Dortmunder.’

  Victor looked at him. ‘No?’

  ‘He wouldn’t understand,’ Kelp said.

  ‘Oh.’ Victor looked out the windshield again. ‘I wonder how deep it is out there,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, maybe we could swim down to it and get the rest of the money.’

  Kelp gave him a pleased smile. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘If not today, maybe sometime when the sun’s shining.’

  ‘And it’s warmer.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Unless,’ Victor said, ‘someone else sees it there and reports it.’

  ‘Say,’ Kelp said, frowning out the windshield again. ‘There was somebody on the pier.’

  ‘There was?’

  ‘A fisherman, in a yellow raincoat.’

  ‘I didn’t see him.’

  ‘We better take a look.’

  The two of them got out of the car and walked through the rain out onto the pier. Kelp looked over the edge and saw the man in the yellow raincoat climbing up the scaffolding along the side. ‘Let me give you a hand,’ he called and knelt to reach down to him.

  The fisherman looked up. His face looked astonished. He said, ‘You won’t believe what happened. I don’t believe it myself.’

  Kelp helped him up onto the pier. ‘We saw it go,’ he said. ‘A runaway trailer.’

  ‘It just come right along,’ the fisherman said, ‘and threw me in the ocean. Lost my chair, lost my tackle, damn near lost myself.’

  ‘You kept your hat anyway,’ Victor pointed out.

  ‘Tied under my chin,’ the fisherman said. ‘Was there anybody in that thing?’

  ‘No, it was empty,’ Kelp said.

  The fisherman looked down at himself. ‘My wife told me,’ he said. ‘She said this wasn’t no day to fish. I’ll be goddamned if she wasn’t right for once.’

  ‘Just so you didn’t get hurt,’ Kelp said.

  ‘Hurt?’ The fisherman grinned. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I come out of this with the kind of fish story you just can’t top. I wouldn’t care if I got a broken leg out of it.’

  ‘You didn’t, did you?’ Victor asked.

  The fisherman stomped his booted feet on the planks of the pier; they squished. ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘Fit as a fiddle.’ He sneezed. ‘Except I do believe I’m coming down with pneumonia.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to get home,’ Kelp said. ‘Get into some dry things.’

  ‘Bourbon,’ the fisherman said. ‘That’s what I need.’ He glanced away toward the end of the pier. ‘Damnedest thing I ever saw,’ he said and sneezed again and went off shaking his head.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ Kelp said. He and Victor walked out to the end of the pier and stared down into the rain-spattered water. ‘I don’t see it,’ Kelp said.

  ‘Here it is. See it?’

  Kelp looked where Victor was pointing. ‘Right,’ he said, catching a glimpse of the thing, like a blue-and-white whale down there in the water. Then he frowned, peering at it, and said, ‘Hey, it’s moving.’

  ‘It is?’

  The two of them squinted in silence for ten seconds or so, and then Victor said, ‘You’re right. It’s the undertow, taking it away.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Kelp said.

  Victor looked back toward shore. ‘Here comes the rest of them,’ he said.

  Kelp reluctantly turned and saw the other five getting out of the horse van. They came trailing out onto the pier, Dortmunder in the lead. Kelp put a sickly smile on his face and waited.

  Dortmunder came up and looked into the water. ‘I don’t suppose you two are out here for a tan,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Kelp.

  Dortmunder nodded at the water. ‘It went in there, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Kelp said. ‘You can see it …’ He pointed, then frowned. ‘No, you can’t any more.’

  Victor said, ‘It’s moving.’

  ‘Moving,’ Dortmunder echoed.

  ‘Coming down the hill,’ Victor said, ‘the wind shut the doors again. I don’t suppose it’s completely airtight, but it is closed up pretty good, and it must have just enough air in it to make it buoyant enough not to be stuck in the mud or the sand on the bottom. So the undertow’s moving it.’

  The others had come up by now. May said, ‘You mean it’s going away?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Victor said.

  Kelp felt Dortmunder looking at him but wouldn’t acknowledge it. He kept staring into the water instead.

  Murch’s Mom said, ‘Where’s it going to?’

  ‘France,’ Dortmunder said.

  Herman said, ‘You mean it’s gone for good? After all that work?’

  ‘Well, we got some of the money anyway,’ Kelp said and looked around with the sickly smile on his face again. But Dortmunder was already walking away along the pier toward the shore. One by one, the others followed him, and the rain rained down all around.

  31

  ‘Twenty-three thousand, eight hundred twenty dollars,’ Dortmunder said and sneezed.

  They were all in the apartment, his and May’s. Everybody had changed clothes, with May and Murch’s Mom both in clothing belonging to May, and all five men in Dortmunder’s clothes. They were also all sneezing, and May had brewed up a lot of tea with whiskey in it.

  ‘Twenty-three, almost twenty-four thousand,’ Kelp said brightly. ‘It could have been worse.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dortmunder said. ‘It could have been Confederate money.’

  Murch sneezed and said, ‘How much is that apiece?’

  Dortmunder said, ‘First we pay off the financier. That’s eight thousand, leaving fifteen thousand, eight hundred twenty. Divided by seven, that’s two thousand, two hundred sixty bucks apiece.’

  Murch made a face as though something smelled bad. ‘Two thousand dollars? That’s all?’

  Herman and Murch’s Mom sneezed simultaneously.

  ‘We’ll spend more than that in medical bills,’ Dortmunder said.

  Victor said, ‘Still, we did the job, you have to admit that. You can’t call it a failure.’

  ‘I can if I want to,’ Dortmunder said.

  ‘Have some more tea,’ said May.

  Kelp sneezed.

  ‘Two thousand dollars,’ Herman said; and blew his nose. ‘I spill that much.’

  They were all in the living room, sitting around the money, the charred bills and wet bills all stacked in different piles on the coffee table. The apartment was warm and dry, but the smell of wet clothes and disaster filled the air from the
bedroom.

  Murch’s Mom sighed. ‘I’ll have to start wearing that brace again,’ she said.

  ‘You lost it,’ her son told her accusingly. ‘You left it in the bank.’

  ‘So we’ll buy a new one.’

  ‘Another expense.’

  ‘Well,’ Kelp said, ‘I guess we might as well divvy the-loot and go on home.’

  ‘Divvy the loot,’ Dortmunder echoed and looked at the paper on the coffee table. ‘You got an eye dropper?’

  ‘It isn’t that bad,’ Kelp said. ‘We didn’t come out of it empty-handed.’

  Victor got to his feet and stretched and said, ‘I suppose this would be more like a celebration if we’d gotten the rest of the money.’

  Dortmunder nodded. ‘You could say that.’

  They split up the cash and departed, everybody promising to send back the borrowed clothes and reclaim their own. Left to themselves, Dortmunder and May sat on the sofa and looked at the four thousand, five hundred twenty dollars left on the coffee table. They sighed. Dortmunder said, ‘Well, it did give me something to think about, I have to admit it.’

  ‘The worst thing about a cold,’ May said, ‘is the way it makes the cigarettes taste.’ She plucked the ember from the corner of her mouth and flipped it into an ashtray but didn’t light a new one. ‘You want some more tea?’

  ‘I still got some.’ He sipped at the tea and frowned. ‘What’s the percentage of tea and whisky in this thing?’

  ‘About half and half.’

  He drank a little more. The warm steam curled around his nostrils. ‘You better brew up another pot,’ he said.

  She nodded, starting to smile. ‘Right,’ she said.

  32

  ‘It’s on the Island,’ Captain Deemer said. ‘It’s somewhere on this goddam Island.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lieutenant Hepplewhite said, but faintly.

  ‘And I’m going to find it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The two of them were alone in the unmarked patrol car, a black Ford, radio-equipped. The captain was driving, and the lieutenant was beside him. The captain hunched over the wheel, his eyes constantly moving as he drove back and forth and up and down and all over Long Island.