Handsome Harry

by James Carlos Blake

  Lamm used to say it was good luck to spot a pretty girl just before a heist, John said. That’s what Dietrich told me.

  Then seeing two of them must mean double good luck, I said. Especially getting a look at that much of them.

  Piss on Dietrich, Red said. We make our luck.

  We went around the block once more and then I pulled into an angled parking spot two doors away from the bank. Shouse parked a few spaces from us and stayed in the Hudson, and Charley and Russell came over and joined us near the entrance to the bank. Red was the outside man. He stood by the Studebaker to watch the street and the bank door and make sure nobody double-parked behind us and blocked us in.

  Russell had the stopwatch. Punch it, I said to him, and we went in.

  There were a dozen or so citizens in the place. Russell posted himself by the front door and kept an eye on the stairs to the basement, where we knew the guard had already gone to tend the furnace and have a smoke. If he’d been dumb enough to come back up with a gun in his hand, Russ would’ve shot him before he made it to the top step.

  I pulled the .45 and called the stickup and said for nobody to press any buttons. Eyes went big and mouths fell open and a woman said My God, it’s them.

  Fat Charley brandished the stockless tommy gun and told everybody to keep their mouths shut and be reasonable, then bunched them all against a wall out of sight of the sidewalk windows.

  Most of the good folk were terrified, but a busty brunette with a sexy mouth was staring at me like I was some movie star. I gave her a big smile and she blushed but couldn’t keep from smiling back. I went into the cage by way of the door, but John did his Douglas Fairbanks number and vaulted over the railing, then looked at the brunette and winked—and she really lit up.

  John ordered the tellers to get all their cash out on the counters and leave the drawers open, then he followed me into the vault. Cohen had said the vault door would be unlocked—and it was. He’d said the bank’s own cash wouldn’t be more than six or seven grand, that most of its holdings were in negotiable bonds and we’d find them in a file drawer labeled INSTRUMENTS on the left side of the vault—and we did. The cash drawer was directly below it and held packets of mostly twenties. John bagged the greenbacks while I grabbed up the bonds.

  According to Cohen, the Quarry money would be in the bottom left drawer on the other side of the vault. We went over to the drawer and I opened it.

  It was empty.

  John swore and said it looked like somebody’d been pulling Sonny’s dick.

  I tried the drawer to the right. Nothing but ledgers. The next one was full of document files.

  Hell with it, John said, we gotta get a move on. Let’s clean out the cage and scram.

  As he started for the vault door, I opened the drawer above the bottom left one. There was a black valise in it. I took out the bag and opened it and said Whoa there, junior, lookee here.

  John came over and took a gander, and said Ooooh yeah.

  The valise was filled with banded packets of cash. Packs of fifties and hundreds.

  He held my sack open and I put the valise in it. It seemed like we’d been in the vault an hour. We hustled out with our sacks under our arms and Charley called out to get the swag on the counters but Russell was looking at the stopwatch and said No, let’s go.

  We’d planned it for five minutes but did it in four fifty-six. Not bad at all, considering the extra time we’d spent in the vault. That’s what I mean about time losing meaning in a bank heist. Without somebody in the crew holding a stopwatch, you’d have no idea how long the job was taking. All you’re aware of while you’re pulling it off is the hard pump of blood and adrenaline. But like I said, we were one smooth team, the best there was.

  Exactly four minutes after we’d entered the bank Red had got in the Studebaker and started the motor and then moved over to the passenger side. Shouse had the Hudson running too, and as soon as we came out he backed out of the parking slot and pulled up to us and John and I slipped Russell the money and he got in the car and Shouse drove away. Charley and John got in the back of the Studebaker and I slid behind the wheel again and I drove away nice and smooth and followed Shouse out of town.

  By the time the cops showed up at the bank we were long gone. And by the time they put up roadblocks around Greencastle we were already way beyond them. I headed for Mansfield to dump the Studie and switch to the Auburn, and Shouse went to Clinton to pick up his own car.

  As we whizzed down the highway we were whooping and laughing and slapping each other on the shoulder, making bets over how much the haul would total. Fat Charley said it was the neatest job he’d ever worked, notwithstanding the pirate-movie theatrics of an individual he would allow to remain nameless.

  Red turned to glare at John. Goddamnit, he said, you pull that acrobat shit again?

  The question caught John cold. What’s eating you guys, he said.

  I swear to God, Red said, if you’d busted a leg, I woulda been all for leaving your ass back there.

  John said he didn’t get what Red was bitching about. I ain’t gonna bust a leg, he said.

  What makes you so sure, Red said. You got steel bones? Rubber bones?

  What the hell, John said, the jumps were just for fun, to give the rubes a show, give them something to tell their grandkids.

  Red said to fuck the rubes and their grandkids, it was a dumb-ass risk.

  Charley said he was logically obliged to concur with Red.

  It wasn’t just risky, Red said, it was showing off. It was kid stuff. Unprofessional.

  Once again, Charley said, I must sadly agree with Mr. Three Digits.

  John looked like he thought maybe they were pulling his leg. I kept my eyes away from his in the mirror, but I could feel his gaze boring into the back of my neck.

  He said You too, Pete?

  They’re right, John, it’s not smart.

  He was quiet for another minute, then said Well hell, if that’s the way you boys feel about it, I won’t do it anymore. I sure don’t want anybody thinking I’m un-fucken-professional.

  Everybody laughed and Charley said he thought Red would feel better if John made that a promise.

  It’s a promise you can put in the goddamn bank, John said.

  Red said In the bank? Not on your life, buster. Banks get robbed.

  According to the next day’s newspapers, the Greencastle bank said we’d made off with $76,000—fifty-six in negotiables and twenty in cash. The actual sums we counted out in the Terre Haute boardinghouse were ten thousand in bonds and fifty-five in cash, an even fifty of it from the black valise. A veritable trove, as Fat Charley phrased it. And a nice break for Sheetz, too, since it qualified him for a one-quarter cut.

  The newspapers now called us the Terror Gang, which made it sound like we were burning and pillaging and raping instead of simply robbing banks. Damn newspapers always overplay everything, making mountains out of molehills and devils out of imps. They’re never satisfied unless they’re scaring the bejeezus out of the citizens, and they were doing a fine job of it in our case. The state was crisscrossed with roadblocks, vigilante groups were patrolling the countrysides, the National Guard was on high alert and ready for action.

  Matt Leach was in the news again too. He called us the Dillinger Gang and said we’d make a bad mistake before long, and as soon as we did he’d come down on us with both feet. A photograph of him talking on the phone was my first look at him. Tall and thin and sort of pinched up, like both John and Mom had described him. He looked almost skeletal and gave the impression of a well-dressed undertaker.

  Russell wanted to know what made Leach think we were the Dillinger Gang.

  Red laughed. I bet John called him up and told him it was, he said. Who else in this bunch likes seeing his name in the papers so much?

  Go to hell, John said. The crazy bastard has it in for me is all. He wants me getting most of the heat.

  It’s that badman name, I said. It sells a lot more
papers than any of ours.

  Charley said I was right, but he thought there might be another reason too. He suspected Leach was trying to sow discord among us by means of his vaunted expertise in psychology.

  By referring to John as our leader, Charley said, the good captain could be hoping to bruise Pete’s pride and inspire friction in the ranks.

  I said if that was so, then the man was even dumber than he looked. For all I cared he could call us the Mutt and Jeff Gang. I meant it. I never cared a crumb about celebrity. Red was right about John, though. He tried not to show it but you could see how much it pleased him to have us called the Dillinger Gang. That’s how he was. Johnny Fairbanks.

  But Red had given John an idea. We gathered around the telephone and he placed the call. He told whoever answered that he had a hot tip on the Dillinger Gang for Captain Matt Leach.

  When Leach came on the line, John said This is Dillinger, you Hoosier bastard. The gang wants to send their regards.

  He held the mouthpiece toward us and we all said in unison Hel-loooo, you b-b-b-bastard!

  John held out the receiver so we could hear Leach stammering in a fury and we all laughed like hell. Then John said into the phone I’ll keep in touch, pal, and hung up.

  When we were ready to clear out of Terre Haute, Red’s Auburn refused to start. Cueball was a pretty good shade-tree mechanic and thought the problem was a worn timing chain. He said he could make the repair but it might take three weeks or more to get the parts he’d need. Red said for Cueball to let him know when he got it running again and he’d come back for it, then had me drive him to a car lot where he bought another Auburn, a five-year-old green roadster in fine shape except for a slightly crooked front fender.

  One thing I can say in favor of the newspapers: They were a big help to us by pointing out where the cops were setting up a lot of their roadblocks. We started back north by routes that would bypass them, the other guys heading back to Shytown while John and I made for East Chicago.

  But of course the cops don’t tell the papers everything, and the papers don’t always get the facts right anyway, and we hit a surprise roadblock at a bridge over the Kankakee.

  We didn’t see it till we came around a curve in the road, and then it was too late. There were motorcycle cops posted near the curve, ready to brace anybody who pulled off the road and tried to turn around. There was nothing for it but to join the line of cars waiting to be inspected at the near end of the bridge. We were in our road disguises, and they’d served us well so far, but they suddenly felt inadequate.

  We took out our pieces and thumbed off the safeties and held them hidden under our overcoat flaps, ready for come-what-may.

  The first few cars in line got passed through, but the Dodge directly ahead of us had three guys in it, and the cop checking the car suddenly pulled his gun on them and called for the other cops to come over.

  The guys in the car were ordered to get out and put their hands on the roof. Two cops kept them covered while two others patted them down.

  After about ten minutes the cops realized they’d made a mistake, and they let the guys go. There was a long line of cars behind us by then and some of the citizens were leaning on their klaxons at the delay.

  One of the cops signaled me forward, and I pulled up to him and said For a minute there, we thought you boys had your man.

  The cop said yeah, he did too, one of the guys in the Dodge had been the spitting image of Dillinger. He bent down and peered past me at John.

  Christ, he said, everybody’s starting to look like that son of a bitch.

  Then he stepped back and waved us through.

  It was cold and drizzly gray when we got to East Shy, but Sonny Sheetz was in bright spirits. He congratulated us on a job well done. As always, Cohen and Captain Kidd were in the office too.

  I opened my satchel and dumped the swag on the desk.

  Yes, yes, yes, Cohen said.

  I told them the Quarry cash had been in a different drawer than the one they’d said. Either Sheetz’s man had been in error, or the Quarry’s man had taken it on himself to put the valise in a different drawer for some reason.

  Hazards of the trade, Sheetz said with a sad shake of the head. You simply couldn’t depend on the accuracy of information or on people behaving predictably. He commended what he called our self-possession and initiative.

  Neither he nor Cohen bothered to count the take. I told them it came to sixty-five grand. Sheetz said that was excellent, then looked up at the ceiling and did some arithmetic in his head, moving a finger in the air like he was writing figures, then said he figured his cut at $16,250.

  That was the number I’d come up with. He nodded at Cohen, who raked all the bonds to his side of the desk and then counted some of the cash out of the pile and added it to the bonds, then pushed the rest of the cash over to us.

  Our end was $48,750. Christ almighty, we were rich. And we hadn’t been out of M City a month.

  Feel free to count it yourself, Sheetz said. I won’t be offended.

  I would’ve counted it if John hadn’t been so quick to say there was no need. You took our word, we’ll take yours, he said, and started putting our money in the satchel.

  It’s always a pleasure doing business with you boys, Sheetz said. You’re not only good, you’re lucky.

  We’re the best there is, John said, clasping the satchel shut. We make our own luck.

  We stood up and put on our hats.

  Glad to hear it, Sheetz said, but just the same, you boys be careful out there. And do let’s stay in contact.

  Do let’s, John said.

  Captain Kidd watched us go out the door, his face as impossible to read as Russian.

  We got back to Chicago late that night and cut up the take. The next day we went on a spending spree and John finally bought himself a car, a Terraplane coupe, and that night we all went out together and had a high time.

  We dined in one of the finest steakhouses in the city and then hit a half-dozen clubs all over the Loop. Jesus, we were jazzed. We laughed like lunatics at every wisecrack everybody made. The girls knew all the latest dances, and before the end of the evening so did we. I was cutting a rug like a real smoothie. I couldn’t get enough boogie-woogie. Patty, who was practically a dance pro, said all us guys were good, but she thought John was so good he could’ve done it for a living. John grinned and blew her a kiss across the table. Billie patted his cheek and said It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, and this fella’s got plenty of swing.

  It was a night that had everything—even the pleasure of saving a lady in distress. That happened when I found out the cigarette girl had run out of my brand and I went out to the car to get a fresh pack from the glove box. I was making my way back along the rows of cars in the parking lot and I heard a guy saying something about stupid no-good bitch and then the sound of a slap and a woman started crying. I spotted them two rows over. The guy was holding her against the side of a car and smacking her good. She was whimpering with each hit and trying to protect her face with her hands. Another guy was standing there watching.

  I cut over to their row, moving fast and quiet, and they never saw me till I grabbed the hitter from behind by the wrist and tripped him down to his knees and pivoted hard and wrenched his arm out of its socket with a pop he’ll never forget. It’s a pain that’ll take your breath away, believe me—I felt it once in a fight with the hacks in M City. All he could manage was a raspy moan before I rammed a knee into his chin, cracking his teeth together and laying him out. The other guy hooked me hard in the ribs and I covered up and took the next one on top of the head and the way he yelped I knew he’d busted his hand. I grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him back against a car and pulled the .45 and whacked him on the head with it. He dropped to all fours and I hit him with the gun again and that was all she wrote. The winner and still champeen…me.

  The woman wasn’t really hurt—slightly bloody nose, puffed lip, that was about
it. She was a leggy thing, but even without the bruises her face would’ve been a little blurred at the edges, like she’d had one too many rough nights. I holstered the gun and gave her my hanky to put to her nose and she thanked me, then spit on the one with the popped arm. Bastard, she said, I hope you’re dead.

  I assured her he wasn’t and said we’d better amscray before somebody came along. She asked my name and I said Len Richardson. She said hers was Wilma or Willa or something and started telling me what the fracas had been about, but I didn’t really care and didn’t pay much attention. We went around to the front of the club and I put her in a cab and paid the driver and when the car drove off I threw away the little card she’d given me with her phone number on it.

  When I got back to our table in a rear corner of the room and told the gang what happened, Mary’s first impulse was to make sure I hadn’t been hurt, and she gently felt the knot on my head and saw that it wasn’t bleeding. Then she gave me a scolding for getting mixed up in something that didn’t concern me and might’ve got me arrested.

  The guys were sorry they’d missed the scrap. I mean to tell you, I felt great.

  We drank more than we usually allowed ourselves and we all got a little buzzed—except for Copeland, who got plain drunk. He’d been trying hard to keep his word about taking it easy with the booze, but being so near to Patty when she was no longer his girl was eating him up. She had to turn him down three times before he got the message that she wasn’t going to dance with him. But he kept giving her moony looks across the long table where we all sat, and even though she tried to ignore him I could see it was getting to her. So could Red, and he finally told Copeland to knock it off or they could go out in the alley to discuss it. I was hoping Knuckles would take the dare. I figured once he got his ass whipped he’d get over the whole business with Patty and pull himself together for good. But all he did was glare at Red and get up and leave.