1977 - My Laugh Comes Last

by James Hadley Chase

  The guard straightened, peered, then recognizing Manson, he gave him a salute, then he saw Glenda's gun. His round, middle-aged face turned the colour of mutton fat.

  He clawed at his gun. The hammering sound of the automatic rifle exploded in my ears as Glenda shot him.

  'Out!' she screamed. 'Get the bank open!'

  Shocked, I slid out of the car, ran around, opened the trunk and grabbed up the plastic sack. My hands were shaking as I found the neutralizer, aware people were shouting. As I pushed the button on the neutralizer, and as the bank doors swung open, I saw a cop come running down the street, gun in hand. He paused, stared at us, recognized Manson, then saw Glenda's gun. He fatally hesitated as she fired a short burst at him. He went down, clutching his chest.

  'Get in!' she screamed, and herded Manson and me into the bank. 'Shut the doors!'

  I flicked on the neutralizer, and the bank doors closed.

  'Where's the vault?' she demanded.

  'Over there,' and I pointed.

  She ran through the invisible alarm beam to the vault doors. By breaking the beam, she had unwittingly alerted the Sharnville station house, the Federal Bureau's local office and the Los Angeles police. Within minutes, every available policeman in the district would be surrounding the bank.

  She hammered on the vault door with the butt of her gun, screaming, 'Harry! I'll get you out! Hear me, Harry!'

  I grabbed Manson's arm and hissed to him, 'When I say run, run like hell and hide!'

  Glenda spun around, glaring at me.

  'Open up or he'll get it,' and her gun shifted to Manson.

  'To open the vault, the lock releases are on the second floor,' I said, and moving to the elevator, I used the neutralizer.

  The elevator doors swished open, and I stepped inside.

  For a brief moment, she hesitated, then shoving Manson forward into the cage, she followed him.

  Another mistake! If she had stayed with Manson in the bank's lobby, I would have been hamstrung.

  This was an automatic elevator. There wasn't a lot of room. While she was shoving Manson against the side of the cage, I pressed the second floor button, and then the fourth floor button.

  This was a deadly risk, but a good chance.

  The doors closed, and the elevator rose swiftly to the second floor, stopped, and the doors opened.

  This was my moment of truth!

  My heart was pounding as I watched Glenda back out of the elevator, covering Manson and myself with the gun.

  'Come out!' she shouted.

  The opening of the elevator cage was narrow. Before Manson could move, I stepped in front of him, moved out of the cage and stood, blocking the entrance.

  'Get out of the way!' Glenda screamed, suddenly sensing she had been outwitted.

  'Glenda! It's either Harry's life or my life,' I said. 'Shoot me, and Harry dies too.'

  As I heard the elevator doors close, I shouted, 'Run!'

  ‘You bastard!'

  Was she going to shoot? Sweat ran down my back as we faced each other.

  'Glenda! I'll open the vault! I'll get Harry out!' I shouted at her.

  She looked to right and left, fury, frustration and fear contorted her face. Then seeing the stairs at the end of the corridor, she turned and began to run blindly towards them with the futile hope of catching Manson, her only hostage.

  I overtook her in ten long strides, and brought her down, my arms around her waist. The gun flew out of her hands as she thudded to the floor.

  She lay there, stunned, while I picked up the gun. Her hands covered her face, and she began to sob.

  Over the sounds of her sobbing, came the sound of police sirens as police cars converged on the bank.

  ***

  Captain Perrell of the L.A. police, who had arrived by helicopter, sat behind Manson's desk.

  Manson and I sat facing him.

  Deputy Sheriff Tim Bentley stood behind Perrell.

  Perrell was very much in charge. He was a man who first got his facts right, then made quick decisions.

  When I had opened the bank doors, and had let him in with a flock of policemen and plainclothes men, he had asked abruptly what was going on. He eyed the automatic rifle I was holding, and a plainclothes man sidled up, and took it away from me.

  'There are four dangerous men trapped in the vault,' I told Perrell.

  He absorbed this information without a change of expression.

  ‘There is a woman on the second floor. The gun is hers: she is one of the gang,' I went on. 'She is unarmed, but dangerous.'

  Perrell snapped his fingers, and two plainclothes men, drawing their guns, started up the stairs.

  I felt a chill around my heart. I had loved Glenda. Maybe there was still a shred of love left.

  'These guys in the vault armed?' Perrell demanded.

  "Yes, and one of them is a moronic, vicious killer. They are all highly dangerous.'

  'Right. We'll go up, and take a look at this woman.'

  There was drama on the second floor as we emerged from the elevator. One of the plainclothes men was peering around the door of Manson's office. The other was preparing to move in.

  'Hold it!’ Perrell snapped.

  'She's out on the ledge,' the taller of the cops said. 'She's ready to take a dive.'

  Through the open window of Manson's office, we heard a loud moan of excitement from the crowd below.

  Perrell moved cautiously into the office. I followed him.

  Glenda was leaning against one of the windows, her back to us. She was looking down at the crowded street.

  'Let me talk to her,' I said urgently, and pushing by Perrell, I slowly approached the big open window through which she had climbed.

  'Glenda!' I spoke gently. 'Come on in. I'm getting Harry out. He'll want to talk to you.'

  At the sound of my voice, she looked around. Her face was white, her eyes sunken, her lips drawn back in the snarl of a trapped animal. I had loved this woman, but there was nothing now in her face that had sparked my love. She was a vicious, crazy-looking stranger.

  "You stinking devil!' she screamed at me. ‘ Here's yours!'

  She lifted her hand, and a small .22 automatic levelled at me.

  There was a bang of a gun, just behind me, as Perrell shot her. With horror, I saw blood and a smashed skull as she reeled and fell to the street.

  There was confusion. Screams from the street below: men shouting. I staggered over to a chair and sank into it I heard vaguely, as if in a dream, Perrell snapping orders, but what he was saying didn't register. There was more confusion: men moving around . . . voices.

  I saw her again on the golf course; remembered the wonderful dinner she had cooked for me; recalled that moment when I had first made love to her: saw her in the bikini, sitting on the sand, waiting to betray me.

  'Larry!' Manson's voice jerked me upright. He was standing over me. 'They want me to open the vault! I keep telling them we have to wait until Monday morning!'

  I pulled myself together.

  ‘I can open it.'

  He stared at me.

  ‘What are you saying?'

  'Okay, Lucas,' Perrell said curtly. 'Let's talk it out'

  So, sitting around Manson's desk, I told them. I kept nothing back. I told them the whole sordid story, aware that a cop, sitting in a corner, was taking down, every word I was saying. I was past caring. I knew what I was saying would be front-page news tomorrow, and I knew I was finished in Sharnville. At the back of my mind, I thought of Bill Dixon.

  He would have to find another partner. I just didn't care anymore.

  When I was through, there was a long pause. Manson was staring at me in shocked horror. I took from my pocket the cassette and pushed it over to Perrell. 'That's Brannigan's statement. His secretary has the other two tapes. Brannigan was in on it from the beginning. You will find his body at 14 Sea Road, Pennon Bay.'

  'Hold it!' Perrell snapped. He turned to Bentley. 'Check that out, Tim! Better t
ake an ambulance, and the M.O.'

  As Bentley hurried out of the office, a police sergeant looked in.

  'All set, Captain.'

  'I'll take a look.' Perrell got to his feet. ‘You come with me, Lucas. If it looks sour, you tell me.'

  Leaving Manson who was telephoning his wife, we rode down the elevator to the lobby.

  The scene had changed.

  Four powerful floodlights were focused on the vault doors with blinding intensity. Five uniformed policemen, wearing flak jackets, and cradling submachine guns, knelt behind the lights, invisible to anyone facing the lights. Some ten policemen stood just outside the bank entrance, also in flak jackets and holding submachine guns.

  'Can these men hear through the vault door?' Perrell asked me.

  'No.'

  'Is there any way to tell them to give up?'

  'No.'

  He shrugged.

  'Well, okay, then it's up to them.' He turned to the five policemen. 'If they start anything, wipe them out.' Then to me, 'Go ahead and open the vault.'

  'It'll take some twenty minutes.'

  'We're in no hurry,' he snapped. 'Get moving!'

  I took the elevator back to the second floor, found the plastic sack, containing my gimmicks and tools I had dropped when confronting Glenda, and walked into Manson s office.

  Manson was on his own, much more relaxed now he had talked to his wife. He was once again the efficient, impersonal banker.

  'Larry,' he said, 'I now know what it means to come under pressure. Even a man as big as Brannigan cracked under pressure. I want you to know you can rely on me to help you. I am on your side. You saved the lives of my children.'

  I scarcely listened. I was thinking of the four men trapped m the vault. Because of my expertise, I could open the vault door. Then what would happen? I thought of the five policemen crouching, with their guns. Maybe these four men would surrender. Klaus? I didn't think he would want to face a life sentence. No, he wouldn't surrender. Benny? He I was sure, would come out, shooting. Harry and Joe? maybe they would surrender.

  ‘Don't talk now, Alec,' I said, and got out my tools.

  He watched me strip out the wires of the telephone.

  Because my hands were shaking, it took time. I got the gimmick wired up as Perrell came in.

  ‘The doors will open in whatever time you say you say,' I told him.

  'Give me a minute,' and he left the office at a run.

  I gave him two minutes, staring at the second hand of my watch, then I dialled the four numbers, got up, crossed to the cassette slot and pressed down the cassette. Seconds later, the green light came up to signal the vault doors had opened.

  I ran from the office. As I started down the stairs, I heard gunfire. The noise of the submachine guns opening up was deafening. I ran on down the stairs as more violent gunfire erupted.

  It was all over when I reached the lobby.

  I had been half right, half wrong.

  Klaus lay in a pool of blood. Benny, crouching against the wall, his hands above his head, was screaming. 'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!'

  In the centre of the lobby, Joe lay, half curled up, his chest torn to pieces.

  With a sick, empty feeling, I remained on the stairs, surveying the scene.

  No Harry?

  I waited, staring at the open vault.

  The police sergeant, crouching behind one of the lights, bawled, 'Come on out with your hands on your head!'

  Gun smoke drifted around the lobby. There was a long pause, then slowly, his hands on his head, Harry walked into the beams of the lights.

  I stared at him: tall, bearded, pale under his tan, sweat running down his face.

  The only man in my life, Glenda had said.

  Well, at least he was alive. He would probably be in a cage for the rest of his life. Looking at him, I could see there was this thing about him that told me why Glenda had loved him so desperately. He was still cocky, still confident, still undefeated, and I felt he would always be the same.

  Benny was being hustled away.

  Four policemen surrounded Harry, and one of them snapped on handcuffs. Harry looked around and saw me.

  He managed a pale grin.

  ‘You can't win all the time, can you buster?' he said. 'Man! Did you play it smart!'

  As they began to hustle him away, I moved forward.

  ‘Wait!'

  The cops stared at me as I faced Harry.

  'Harry, I want you to know Glenda did everything she could to save you. She's dead.'

  He stared at me, then sneered.

  ‘That hustler? Who cares if she's dead? She wasn't even a good screw,' and shoving by me, he went with the cops into the hot sunshine.

  THE END

  Table of Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight