The banker had told Mugs that he usually kept eighty to a hundred thousand in cash on hand. The railroad used a lot of it to pay its workers, and local ranchers paid their drovers in cash too. They all got greenbacks in brown envelopes on payday.
“I’m gonna quit doing the express train robbery,” he told J. J. “The railroad wanted too much to repair everything. So I’ll just keep the rest of the session in the classrooms, and let the lawmen tell stories.”
“Your crime school sure is a big boost for Rock Springs,” the banker said.
“I got a lot of special guests this time,” Mugs said. “Seven of the twenty sent me up the river. Between them, they cost me fifteen years. So I want to show them a lot of consideration.”
“You’re an amazing man, Mugs. Taking kindly to the lawmen who put you in the slammer.”
“Well, they’ll learn from my school,” Mugs said. “I hope they’ll be better at their task when we’re done.”
“No doubt about it,” the banker said.
The time of the next session finally arrived, and Mugs dutifully headed for the Union Pacific station to welcome the arriving lawmen. The westbound train huffed in, and Mugs sound found himself shaking the paw of Muttonchop Ames, and then Filibuster Smith.
“Well, well, well,” said Smith.
“Reception this eve. Just settle yourselves in any of the rooms at that schoolhouse over yonder,” Mugs said.
“You gonna teach me something I don’t know?” Ames said.
“Naw, mostly I sit back and let you gents teach each other.”
Ames smiled. “Where’s the nearest watering hole?”
Mugs pointed. In fact he pointed this way and that, and in six or eight directions, because that was Rock Springs for you.
The next train brought Cyrus Maguire and Amos Turk, and he shook hands with these two, who remembered Mugs.
“Well, well, well,” said Turk. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“Same as ever,” Mugs said.
They all laughed.
The next train deposited Bailey Bain, Joe Studebaker, and Marley Drake on the station platform, and several other lawmen Mugs hadn’t met. But he welcomed them all, steered them to the orphanage, told them to take a room and be ready for the reception that evening.
“Liquid refreshments?” Drake asked.
“Anything that can be smoked or drunk,” Mugs said.
They all wandered off cheerfully, and most spent the remainder of that opening day inspecting Rock Springs saloons with an expert eye. Any lawman worth his salt could examine a saloon, know what sort of clientele it had, and who to arrest.
The opening reception was scheduled for the cocktail hour, so Mugs made sure the orphanage was well supplied with bottles.
“Gents,” he said, when all had wandered into the orphanage dining area, “this here is our local sheriff, Barney Stoopnagle. He’s our host this evening. We always start our course of instruction with a bank robbery, and he’ll tell you exactly what will happen. We’re going to divide our forces into two teams: the robbers and the lawmen. The only rule is to use blanks in your revolvers. No one gets hurt. Out of all this you will take away with you a fine, subtle, brilliant grasp of bank robbery that will equip you to stop real bank robberies in their tracks, simply because you’ll know exactly what the criminals will do next.
“Now I’m going to appoint the two teams. The bank robbers will include Filibuster Smith, Cyrus Maguire, Amos Turk, Muttonchop Ames, Bailey Bain, Joe Studebaker, and Marley Drake. The rest of you will be on the lawman team, attempting to stop the bank robbery and thwart the getaway. And with that, gents, I give you Sheriff Stoopnagle.”
Barney stood up, did a few aw shucks, and began welcoming the lawmen to Rock Springs. “We’re glad you’re here,” he said. “You improve our crime rate. When twenty lawmen are bunking in the old orphanage, we don’t even see a cat being tortured by a brat.”
Mugs sighed happily, vanished from the room, made his way swiftly to the darkened bank, let himself in with a key he had snagged, opened the vault with the combination he had memorized, removed the packets of real greenbacks fresh from the Treasury and placed these in a Gladstone bag. He replaced these with phony packets, each with a real greenback top and bottom, but otherwise stacked with Typhoid Mary’s toy money. These he returned to the vault. The cash trays for the tellers’ wickets had been readied for the next morning’s heist, and he mixed a few real greenbacks in with the fake stuff, closed the vault, left the bank, headed for the express office where he shipped the Gladstone to a certain address in the Principality of Monaco, using a tag he’d nipped weeks earlier, and watched briefly as the eastbound huffed its way out of Rock Springs. He was back at the reception thirty-four minutes later, having missed his goal by four minutes, for which he scolded himself.
He was about eighty thousand dollars richer.
He soon was mixing and mingling with all those fine lawmen, who spent a bibulous evening getting to know one another. In time, the evening grew ripe, and it was time to shut things down.
“Gents,“ he said, “tomorrow we’ll do the exercise. Pay attention and learn what you can about bank heists and how to prevent them. Everything’s ready. The getaway horses will be in place, ready for the horse-holder. Choose your lookout, decide how you’ll knock over the bank. Take notes. I’ll be with my friend Sheriff Stoopnagle in his offices, awaiting your results. He or I can act as a referee if needed. But this is all your baby, and don’t forget to enjoy yourselves. It’s not everyone who gets to play a bank robber.”
With that, all those fine officers of the law headed for their bunks, save for a few who wished to go a round or two more in the local saloons.
Mugs slept soundly.
The next morning, the whole town was ready to get in on the fun. The heist began at nine, and before long some brats were tossing strings of Chinese firecrackers under the getaway horses, causing equine panic, so most of the horses bolted, leaving the horse handler at a loss to fetch them back for the getaway.
The robbers barged into the bank, revolvers drawn, bandannas covering their nostrils, and soon swept piles of greenery into their canvas sacks, all of it gotten from the two cash drawers in the teller cages. But the tellers fought back, using billy clubs to whack at fingers and wrists. J. J. Jones pulled out his old Navy Colt and began blasting away, the wads whacking into the foreheads and chins of the robbers. A shoeshine boy walked in during the robbery, and offered to shine the boots of the robbers, and when they said they were busy, he started jeering at them.
Jones calmly reloaded, pouring powder down the cylinders, following with fresh wads, and putting caps over nipples, and then began blasting away at Cyrus Maguire, who had taken his fancy, and managed to put a wad into Maguire’s eyebrow, which reddened and swelled.
Town merchants set up a trip line on the bank stairs, so when the bank robbers poured out, they tripped, and went bounding down the stairs, topsy-turvy, spilling some toy money, which the good citizens of Rock Springs promptly commandeered. Joe Studebaker landed on his nose and it dripped red. Marley Drake began banging away at citizens, and was making fierce noises when two merchants jumped him from behind, knocking him flat. They stole a handful of toy money and scattered it like confetti. Little girls snatched it up.
After that, the thirteen other academy students, acting as lawmen, captured the bank robbers, hogtied them, and hauled them off to the orphanage while half the citizens of Rock Springs hooted. It sure was a rout.
The getaway horses, still spooked, were finally corralled and returned to the livery barn, and Rock Springs settled down to a quiet summer day. Mugs and Sheriff Stoopnagle meandered over to the classrooms to begin course instruction. The first day would include train robbery, mugging, purse snatching, pickpocketing, and drinks at five.
Mugs addressed the students.
“Well, we’ve had our fun, and now it’s time to get busy with some serious stuff. Let’s start with train robbery. Have any o
f you dealt with a train robbery?”
“Yep,” said Amos Turk. “They robbed a baggage car, walked through the passenger cars lifting cash and jewelry, and rode off.”
“How’d you deal with it?” Mugs asked.
“Formed a posse and shot the bastards.”
“How did you know where to go?”
“They’d quit their horses, flagged an eastbound freight, hopped the caboose, and we figured it out. Crooks are lazy.”
“Doesn’t sound very bright,” Mugs said.
J. J. Jones burst into the classroom, looking wild-eyed and crazy. “We’ve been robbed. The bank’s been robbed,” he cried, waving a packet of bills.
The lawmen laughed. Plainly, this was the last act of the morning’s fun.
“Sirs,” Jones cried. “I am not funning you. My bank’s been robbed. My tellers discovered it. The vault’s been ransacked. Fake packets. The real money’s gone. Eighty thousand dollars, our entire cash reserves, give or take a few bills.”
It was hard for all these lawmen, who’d been cavorting at the bank only a short while before, to come to grips with it. But Jones was not fooling.
“Where have you looked?” Mugs asked.
“Everywhere!”
“Might the cash have been left in the tellers’ trays?”
“No, sir. Those were emptied.”
“Was the money left in the vault, or put elsewhere for safekeeping?” Mugs asked.
Sheriff Stoopnagle rose. “All right, I’ll look into it,” he said. “You gents stay out of it. I don’t want twenty hothouse flowers messing me up. Someone around Rock Springs is a crook and I will find him. Mr. Jones, I’ll have the cash back to you shortly.”
Chapter Eight
They watched the huffy old sheriff leave with J. J. Jones in tow. There might have been twenty top lawmen sitting there, but the sheriff wanted no part of them. He was going to solve it his own way.
Mugs was enchanted.
“We’ve got a real case. And you’re going to solve it,” he said. “Maybe we can do it right here, in this classroom.”
“Fat chance,” said Filibuster Smith.
“If twenty top law dogs can’t solve it, you should turn in your badges,” Mugs said.
That got them. A swift change of mood in the room told Mugs that all twenty were raring to go.
“All right. We need to reconstruct the crime and build a list of suspects,” Mugs said.
“You’re the expert,” Filibuster Smith said.
“Now, just to put things on the table, let’s do the suspects. I am your prime suspect. I’m the most notorious criminal in the country. I could use the loot. But you’re all suspects too. You were present during the heist. Some of you emptied the tellers’ cash trays. Others of you were milling around. Some might be accessories, some worse. So we now have twenty-one names, and you’ll be investigating yourselves and me.”
“Cut the crap, Birdsong,” said Joe Studebaker. “We’ll be looking at you, not us. We’re the law.”
“You have a point. Actually, the prime suspects are the two tellers. Someone got into the vault, took real cash, and put the fake packets in there, the ones with toy money inside, and real bills outside. That makes it an inside job. But they still needed someone to take away the real stuff during the heist.”
“Sure, and maybe J. J. Jones robbed himself,” Muttonchop Ames said.
“I’ve given you my offhand thoughts, so I’ll let you wrestle with it. That’s what a crime school is for,” Mugs said. “Who wishes to officiate here, before the group?”
This was going to be a joy.
No one volunteered. But then Cyrus Maguire rose. He peered around, seeing no opposition, and headed for the front of the classroom, while Mugs slipped to one side.
“I think I know who done it, but I’m not saying,” Maguire began. “You all got your theories. You’re all gonna spill them. I’ll start with you, Smith.”
“I haven’t got any theories,” Smith said. “What I want is to go over there and look around, but Stoopnagle’s taken over. So I’ll just keep my trap shut.”
“No, you gotta give me a theory,” Maguire said. “What kind of cop are you, anyway?”
“When was the last time the safe was open? We don’t even know that,” Smith said. “Mugs, when did you bring them the toy money for the heist?”
“Yesterday afternoon, before the reception here,” Mugs said. “It was printed at our job printer, the Tattler.”
“Ah, so we have more suspects. Who runs the Tattler?”
“Typhoid Mary. I don’t know her last name and don’t want to know.”
“So now we have two tellers, her, and you, right?”
“Especially me,” Mugs said. “I live with her, if you get the drift.”
“Birdsong, you’re a true peckerhead,” Tork said.
“Never pay cash for anything,” Mugs replied. “She was dying to print the fake bills for me. She could hardly wait. She was ready to print more than we needed. She’s also printed all them Wanted Dead or Alive posters I autograph and sell. She can’t stay away from me, and begs for more work.”
“Mugs, you’re a turd,” Studebaker said.
“Anything to improve my reputation,” Mugs said.
Bailey Bain stood up. “It had to be done before we even got here,” he said. “Someone got into that safe and took the real bills and left the fakes. That happened before we got off the trains. Whoever did it knew that the stupid heist you staged here would cover for the real crime. And maybe throw some suspicion on us. I don’t figure it’s the tellers. It’s Jones, and his bank was probably in trouble, and he was looking for a way out of the box.”
Filibuster Smith looked annoyed. “I’m sure you got it all wrapped up, Bain,” he said, a certain withering tone in his voice.
“Well go to hell, Smith.”
“Now, we’ll have none of that,” Maguire said. “We’re going to solve this here heist and you’re going to cooperate. What’s your idea, Studebaker?”
“I ain’t got any. If you let me talk to those tellers, and look at the safe, and figure out a few facts, maybe I’ll come up with something. Meanwhile, any of you who spout ideas are simply full of shit.”
“Yeah, I second that,” said Manley Drake. “We’re sitting on our butts in a classroom. I don’t care what Stoopnagle says; let’s get out there and do a job.”
“He’s the law,” Maguire said.
“I don’t give a crap,” Drake said. “We’re all law. Let’s go.”
The students all agreed, and were soon trooping toward the bank, intent on collecting a few facts before arresting anyone, or having Stoopnagle arrest anyone. A crowd had collected at the bank building, but the sheriff wasn’t letting anyone in.
When the lawmen started to enter the building, Stoopnagle shouted at them to get out.
“Deputize us, Stoop,” Maguire said. “Then you can give us orders we got to follow, and you got twenty lawmen working on angles you want looked at.”
Stoopnagle paused, thinking about it. “I’ll maybe deputize half a dozen,” he said.
“I want to grill them tellers,” Muttonchop Ames said. “I want to shake them till their teeth rattle.”
“I’ve already done that,” Stoopnagle said, quietly. “I’ve known both of them for years. I know their families. I know their brothers and sisters. And I know damned well that neither of them had a thing to do with this. It’s you outsiders I’m looking at. There’s lawmen gone bad, happens all the time, and that’s what I’m looking into. And that’s why I’m not sure I want to deputize any of you.”
“Don’t deputize me,” Mugs said. “I’m running a school.”
Stoopnagle stared at him. “Especially you. In fact, you come on in here. I want to talk to you, Birdsong.”
“Glad to oblige.” Mugs turned to Maguire. “You’re in charge. You run the crime academy while I alibi myself.”
Mugs laughed to beat the band.
Maguire se
emed pleased with his appointment. “All right, we’re going to see who or what left Rock Springs last night,” he said. ”We’re going to talk to the post office, the express office, the livery barn, and the railroad depot.”
Mugs watched Maguire take over, and then drifted into the bank, with the sheriff right behind him.
“Well, well, well,” Stoopnagle said. “You show up, and we’ve got a heist. First bank robbery in Rock Springs. What do you say to that?”
“Gimme the third degree,” Mugs said.
“Don’t get smart with me, punk. You printed up that funny money you brought into this bank. You set up all this ruckus of a fake heist that wasn’t. So spill the beans, and maybe you’ll only do twenty at Rawlins, not thirty.”
“It was all for my reputation,” Mugs said. “You can’t be the foremost bandit, robber, crook, killer, gunman, purse snatcher and cherry picker without keeping up the game.”
“So, how’d you do it?”
“I wish I knew,” Mugs said. “Some things are so routine I can’t even remember them.”
“Cut it out.”
“I think maybe I’ve got it all stashed behind a brick wall at the orphanage, and after they let me out in ten years, I’ll retire,” Mugs said. “I’ll go live in the Sandwich Islands. Go check brick walls for fresh mortar.”
“Cut it out. Who done it?”
“Well, who could crawl into the vault?”
“That don’t hold water. Things got so busy around there anyone could have.”
“Anyone being the people who knew what a stack of new bills looks like?”
“You got the brains, I don’t,” Stoopnagle said. “Vault’s open most of the time, right?”
“Do you ever get claustrophobic in bank vaults, Barney? I was trying to knock over a bank in Canada with a stand-up vault, and I got so scared the door would swing shut on me that I botched the job.”
“You couldn’t hardly get into this one, I guess.”
“This is a big safe, Barney. A vault’s built in and they import the door from Pittsburgh. I tried to get a job with the vault door company once, testing their doors, but they didn’t want me, so I said how do you know it’s theft proof if no one tries it out? And they said beat it. I said I’d send back results, and I did. When I knocked over the bank in Calumet, Illinois, I sent them a letter saying a drill and some nitro did it.”
Mugs Birdsong's Crime Academy Page 5
