Cops and Robbers

by Donald E. Westlake

  Nevertheless, good-looking women definitely still turn me on, and I can get a real letch for something tall and slender with a good figure and a good walk, all of which is a pretty good summation of Miss Emerson. I’d noticed her in the usual sexual way when I’d first walked into Eastpoole’s office, but then my mind had been distracted by the problems of dealing with Eastpoole, and in the normal course of events that would have been the end of it.

  Which was why I was so surprised and troubled at the sexual aura that hung between us now. It was a different sort of thing from my usual awareness, it was both stronger and unhealthier, and the most embarrassing thing about it was that I knew what was doing it. She was my prisoner. “Ah, me proud beauty, you are in my power!” It was that number. It wasn’t really true that she was my prisoner in the sense that I could do anything I wanted with her, but there was a feeling of that between us, of her actually being in my power and of me being in the role of the villain.

  And of course, I was in the role of villain, wasn’t I? I was there to commit, as I’d told her, a major robbery. Which helped to make the situation different from those rare times when I actually have had good-looking female prisoners in my control, in the course of my working life. In those instances I haven’t been the villain, I’ve been on the good guy’s side. Also, I’ve been limited by the rules of my profession and the laws of the land. None of which applied this time.

  Well, I wasn’t going to rape her, though God knows she had a body I would have liked to touch. But it was much more important to keep her calm than to satisfy irrelevant bodily urges of my own that I didn’t really want to have in the first place. So I wanted to talk to her, to ease her tension a little, but I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t just increase the sexual discomfort hanging around us, so for too long a time I walked beside her in silence; which couldn’t have been very reassuring.

  Finally I decided the best thing to do was to be brisk and businesslike, so I said, “I’m going to tell you exactly what we want. You’ll have to go into the vault alone, so I’ll tell you what to get from it.”

  She didn’t look at me. Facing front as she walked along next to me, she nodded and said, “Yes.” Her face showed strain, the skin stretched tight over her cheekbones, her eyes open a little too wide.

  I said, “We want bearer bonds. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Of course she knew what I meant, she worked here. “Right,” I said. “Now, we don’t want any of them with a face value over a hundred thousand dollars, and nothing under twenty thousand, and we want them all together to add up to ten million.”

  She gave me a surprised look then, but immediately faced front again and nodded and said, “All right.”

  I said, “Now, I know you’re going to be smart and do things right, but I just want to remind you. My partner’s in your boss’s office, and he can see the vault on one of the TV screens there, and the vault anteroom with the guard. If you try talking to the guard, or doing anything you shouldn’t in the vault, he’ll be able to see you.”

  “I won’t do anything,” she said. She sounded terrified again, and on the verge of tears.

  “I know you won’t,” I said. “I just thought I should remind you, that’s all, but I know you won’t do anything.”

  We’d been passing through one of the big offices with all the empty desks and crowded windows. Thirty or forty people in the room, all with their backs to us, looking out the windows at the parade going by. I was still marching along in time to the drums, whether I liked it or not, but Miss Emerson was walking in an erratic sort of way, quick steps and then an occasional slow step, no consistent rhythm at all. I supposed it was part of her nervousness that made her walk like that, and I did my best to adjust my speed to hers, though I still paced myself to the sound of the parade.

  In the doorway, leaving that office and entering a corridor that led away to the right, she suddenly stumbled. I automatically reached out to grab her arm and help her keep her feet, and she pulled away from me, terrified, wide-eyed. Keeping her balance by fear alone, she staggered backwards across the corridor and brought up against the wall on the other side.

  I followed her into the corridor, looked down to the right, and saw we were alone. “Take it easy,” I said, fast and low. I was afraid there was a scream in her throat just dying to come out. “Take it easy, nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Her right hand went up to her throat again, as it had in the office. I could see her forcing herself to take long deep breaths, to get control. She was really very good, she got hold of the reins herself and pulled the whole thing back together. I stood there, waiting it out, and finally she said, in a low voice, “I’m all right now.”

  “Of course you are,” I said. “You’re doing fine. There’s nothing to worry about, I promise you. All we want is money, and none of it is yours, so what’s there to be afraid of?” I grinned at her, spreading my hands.

  She nodded, and came away from the wall at last, but she wouldn’t respond to my grin, and as much as possible she avoided meeting my eye. How much of that was simple fear and how much the sexual overlay I don’t know, but there was no point trying to calm her entirely. It wouldn’t have been possible anyway, and all I really needed was her functional and rational.

  Which she was, again. We walked down the corridor together, and then she gestured at a closed door ahead of us and said, “That’s the anteroom.”

  Where the vault guard would be stationed. The vault itself would be just beyond. “I’ll wait out here,” I said. “Now, you know what I want.”

  Not looking at me, she nodded her head, a sudden jerky movement.

  I said, “Tell me. Take it easy, don’t get upset, just tell me what I said.”

  She had to clear her throat before she could talk. Then she said, “You want bearer bonds. Nothing over a hundred thousand dollars, nothing less than twenty thousand.”

  “Adding up to?”

  “Ten million dollars,” she said.

  I nodded. “That’s right,” I said. “And remember, my partner can watch you.”

  “I won’t do anything,” she said. She still didn’t look at me. “Should I go in now?”

  “Sure.”

  She opened the door and went inside, and I leaned against the wall to wait; either for ten million dollars or the roof to fall in.

  Joe

  When I pulled the chair over behind Eastpoole’s desk, it was strictly bravado. I didn’t plan on using it; the truth is, I was too tense to sit. If I couldn’t be up and moving around, I’d bust every blood vessel I had.

  Still, the best place to keep an eye both on Eastpoole and the television screens was from back around behind his desk. So I let him go on sitting there, and I stood behind him, leaning my back against the corner of the wall, between windows facing out in two directions, where I could watch what was happening both inside the room and out on the street.

  The arrangement of the TV sets was the same as the six out in the reception area. The one on the top right showed the reception area itself, with the two guards behind the counter there. The top middle, top left, and bottom right showed three different offices, two of which we’d gone through when we’d come in here. The bottom middle screen showed the vault, and the bottom left showed the anteroom that led to the vault.

  The vault was empty of people, and looked like a deep walk-in closet. You couldn’t see a door in any part that showed on the screen, so the door was probably directly under the camera. The three walls visible to the camera were all lined from floor to ceiling with letter-size file drawers. The open space in the middle of the room was only about six feet square, and there wasn’t any furniture in there at all.

  The anteroom wasn’t very big either. Where the camera was positioned, you could see the heavy vault door standing open in the far wall. A desk was to the left where the only guard was sitting, facing toward the camera. He had an ordinary wooden chair, without arms, and he wa
s sitting there reading the Daily News. There was nothing on his desk but a telephone and a sign-in sheet with a ballpoint pen. A second wooden chair stood beside the desk, and that was it for the furniture. The same as with the vault, the entrance must have been under the camera.

  After Tom and the secretary left, I took up my position behind Eastpoole, checked out the TV screens, and then took a quick gander out the window on my left, the one facing the street with the parade. The bands were still going by, thumping away, like the world’s longest half-time show. Way down to the right, blocks away, it looked like it was snowing; in July. That was the ticker tape and paper coming down, marking where the astronauts were. You couldn’t see them yet, they were still too far away.

  I checked out Eastpoole, then. He was sitting there with his head a little forward and down. His palms were flat on the desk in front of him, and I guess he was studying his fingernails. His shoulders were hunched just a bit, meaning it made him nervous to have me behind him. Which was really tough.

  People like this Eastpoole really irritate me. You see them driving Caddies, air-conditioned cars. I love to give them tickets, the bastards, but I know it doesn’t do any good. What’s twenty-five dollars to people like Eastpoole?

  I looked over at the television screens, and Tom and the secretary were just walking through one of the offices; the one on the top left. I watched them walk, and the secretary had a really nice ass. I like that kind of knit dress she was wearing, it shows a lot about a woman’s shape, and this one was built very nice indeed.

  I wondered if Eastpoole was getting into that. There wasn’t any point asking him; whether he was or he wasn’t, he’d deny it. And he’d give me a look, as though he couldn’t believe there were such animals as me running around loose. Oh, I know that type. He hired her for her shorthand, that’s what he did. Sure. Her shorthand, and his short arm.

  It was tough to wait here like this, with nothing to do. I had the urge to needle Eastpoole a little, maybe poke him in the shoulder to see if he was as nerved-up as I was. But I knew I shouldn’t do it, I shouldn’t do anything that might make him forget to be smart and cool and quiet. It wasn’t worth twenty years in a federal penitentiary to get a rise out of Eastpoole.

  Twenty years. That thought suddenly brought it home to me; we were doing it! The thing we’d been talking about, building up for, kidding around with, we were actually doing it, we’d passed the stage of maybe yes, maybe no. There weren’t any more maybes now. It’s like the first time you ski down a real hill on your own; all the chances for thinking it over are gone, and from here on the only thing you can think about is keeping your balance.

  I almost hadn’t done it. I came this close to not bracing Eastpoole at all. Coming in with him from the recption area, I kept thinking about just running the whole thing through as though it was a gag. I mean, actually look at the windows on the northeast corner, maybe give the employees a lecture about throwing offensive objects onto the people below—I had this whole thing worked out in my head where I’d give a whole speech about shit without ever quite using the word—and then just turn around and walk out again. Pretend that’s all I’d ever meant to do, that the whole robbery thing had never been anything but a gag anyway.

  If it hadn’t been for Tom there with me, that’s probably exactly what I would have done. But I could feel Tom there beside me, waiting for me to make the move, and I just couldn’t chicken out. Same as with skiing again; there comes that point, you’ve done your boasting, everybody’s watching you, and it suddenly doesn’t matter if you break your neck or not. You’ve got to do it, because if you don’t you’ve made a fool of yourself, and nothing is worse than that.

  Twenty years?

  Well, almost nothing.

  Movement on one of the television screens. I looked over there, and I was aware of Eastpoole tensing up right in front of me.

  The secretary had walked into the anteroom. She had her back to me, I couldn’t see the expression on her face. Any other time, honey, I’d love to see your ass, but right now it’s your face I want.

  At least I could see the guard’s face. He looked up and gave her a big smile. So far as I could tell, she didn’t say anything wrong to him, because the smile didn’t flicker for a second. She moved forward, bent over to sign the sheet of paper on his desk, and then walked on into the vault. I kept watching the guard, and he didn’t do anything wrong at all. He didn’t even bother to look at her signature, just opened his newspaper again the second she was out of the anteroom and into the vault.

  Now I could see her on the next screen. She walked into the vault, looked around, and glanced up at the camera. Yeah, honey, I’m watching.

  I looked at the screen showing the reception area. The two guards were both leaning on the counter, talking together. Neither of them was looking toward the screens.

  Back in the vault, the secretary was opening one of the file drawers. She started to finger through it, and pulled out a sheet of heavy paper like a high school diploma. She opened another drawer and rested the sheet of paper on top of the things in the drawer, then went back to the first one to select some more.

  I hoped she was getting the right stuff. I hoped Tom had gotten the point across to her and that she’d understood what it was we wanted. I didn’t want to get home later on and find out we’d gone through all this for a lot of paper we couldn’t use.

  It was taking her a goddam long time. She kept looking at paper after paper, and most of them she just shoved back into the drawer. What was taking so long? Come on, damn it, grab the paper, let’s go. We don’t want to miss the parade, that’s part of our scheme.

  I looked out the window again. The astronauts would be the wind-up of the parade, and that’s where the stream of ticker tape was coming down. It was closer, but still blocks away. But it wouldn’t take forever.

  I looked back at the screens again. The girl in the vault was still picking through the file drawer. “Come on,” I whispered, too low for Eastpoole to hear me. “Come on, come on.”

  But she kept doing it. The stack on the other drawer was getting pretty thick now, but she still wasn’t finished.

  We’d wanted too much, that was all. We should have settled for half of that. Five million, that would get us half a million each. Five hundred thousand dollars, who needs more than that? It’s nearly forty years of my salary. We’d been greedy, that’s what, and it was taking too long.

  Come on, bitch, come on!

  Movement. I looked at the screen on the top right, the reception area. An elevator door had opened there, and three uniformed patrolmen were coming out of it, moving toward the two guards behind the counter.

  I slapped a hand down on Eastpoole’s shoulder. He’d seen it, too, he was tensing up like fast-drying concrete. My throat was so dry my voice came out like steel wool. I said, “What’s going on?”

  The three cops stopped at the counter, one of them talked to the guards. A guard turned toward the telephone.

  I squeezed Eastpoole’s shoulder, clamping down on it. “What’s going on?”

  “I d-don’t know.” I could feel him trembling under my hand, the concrete was breaking up. He was frightened for his life, and he had a right to be. “I swear I don’t know,” he said, and sat there trembling.

  The guard was dialing. On the vault screen, that stinking bitch was still picking out papers, one at a time. All the other screens were fine.

  The phone rang, on Eastpoole’s desk. Eastpoole stared at it. His head was twitching.

  So was mine. I fought the goddam holster, I got my pistol into my hand. “By God,” I said, “you’re a dead man.” And I meant it. I thought we were both dead men, and if I was, Eastpoole was.

  Eastpoole lifted his hands. He stared at the telephone. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He really and truly didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.

  I kicked the chair out of the way that I’d dragged around behind the desk before. It went over on its side with a cra
sh, and Eastpoole jumped. I crouched down beside him, so I’d be able to listen on the phone and still watch the television screens. I pushed the pistol barrel against Eastpoole’s side. “Answer it,” I said. “And be goddam careful.”

  He had to take a couple of seconds to get some control, so he’d be able to move and talk. I let him have the time he needed, and then he reached out and picked up the phone and said, “Yes?”

  I could only make out about half the words the guard said to him. But it didn’t seem as though there was any tension in the voice, or any sense of excitement out there in the reception area.

  On the other hand, if they were here because they knew what was going on, they’d know we could see them on television, wouldn’t they?

  But how would they know? There hadn’t been any breakdowns, there wasn’t any reason for anything to go wrong.

  Eastpoole said into the phone, “But do they have to—? Well, one moment. One moment.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece, and turned to talk to me. “They’re here to check security for the astronauts,” he said.

  I kept watching the screen. I said, “What do they want?”

  “Just to station themselves at windows.”

  We didn’t want cops in here. What the hell was the matter with them, why didn’t they pick some other floor? Why didn’t they go on the roof, for Christ’s sake, that’s where your snipers come from. “God damn it,” I said. I felt like blowing up into a million pieces. “God damn it.”

  “I’m not responsible,” Eastpoole yammered, “I didn’t know they—”

  “Shut up, shut up.” I was trying to think, trying to decide what to do. He couldn’t refuse, that wouldn’t look right. “Listen,” I said. “They can do it, but not in this office. Tell them that.”