Stewart stretched his lips. From a distance, it might look like a smile.
“That’s the way. Now keep smiling while we go into the office.” Rico turned the gun away into his pocket again, but kept his hand on it. “Here we go, Bob.”
Stewart turned around and led the way to the left, Rico following him, and Terry bringing up the rear. They walked into the office, Stewart smiling his strained smile, and Terry closed the door and leaned against it. Rico pulled his gun out again, shoved Stewart to the side and said, “I’m looking for heroes.”
A man was squatting in front of the safe, his hands full of stacked bills. A second man was at the desk, a pencil in his right hand, his left holding a telephone to his ear. A third man was at a table entering figures on a ledger. They all looked up and froze.
Rico pointed the gun at the man holding the phone. “Something just came up. I’ll call you back.”
The man with the telephone repeated the words and hung up. The man at the safe kept licking his lips and glancing at the safe door. He was trying to build up the courage to slam the door. Rico pointed the gun at him. “You what’s your name?”
“What?” He’d been concentrating on the gun and the safe door, and he couldn’t understand the question.
“Your name. What’s your name?”
He looked over at the man at the desk, appealing to him. The man at the desk said, “Tell him.”
“J-Jim.”
“All right, Jim. Stand up straight. That’s good. Take two steps to your left. Very nice Jim.” Rico took two canvas sacks from under his coat and handed them to Stewart. “What you do, Bob,” he said, “you go over and empty that safe. Put all the loot in these sacks, Jim, you give Bob that money you’re holding. You” he pointed the gun again at the man at the desk. “What’s your name?”
“Fred Kirk.” He was a heavy, florid man, probably the manager, since he was the only one who didn’t seem to be frightened.
“All right, Fred. If that phone rings, say you can’t talk now. You’ve got a problem here. You’ll call back.”
“You won’t get three miles.”
“Quiet now, Fred.”
“Don’t you know who runs this place? You guys are crazy.”
“No more talk, Fred. Don’t make me put you to sleep. You” He turned to the man at the ledger. “What’s your name, partner?”
“Kelway, Stanley Kelway.” His quavering voice was high and thin.
“Now, don’t get upset, Stan. You just keep making them entries.”
“I can’t.” Kelway was perspiring heavily. He kept moving his hands, shifting the pen back and forth from one to the other.
“Too nervous, Stan? All right, just sit there easy.”
Stewart came back with the two canvas sacks, both bulging now, nearly too heavy for him to carry. He held them out to Rico, but Rico shook his head. “Oh, no, Bob, you’ll carry them. Fred you’ll wait till Bob gets back before you make a fuss or Bob won’t be coming back. You wouldn’t want a corpse on the property, would you, Fred?”
Kirk glowered.
“All right, Bob, let’s go.”
Terry went first, opening the door and stepping out quickly, looking both ways. The cashiers still worked along, unconcerned, their backs to the action. Beyond the mesh, the customers and the stickmen concentrated on their own business. Terry moved to the right. Stewart followed him, carrying the sacks. Rico backed out, closed the door and pocketed the gun.
There were two customers in the men’s room and when they saw the masked men they raised their hands without being asked. Rico closed the door and said, “Bob here is an employee. Aren’t you, Bob?”
Stewart nodded.
“Bob will come back in a minute and explain the whole thing. In the meantime, he’d like you to stay right here and not raise any sort of fuss. For your own good, that is. And for his. Isn’t that right, Bob?”
Stewart nodded again.
“You don’t have to keep your hands up like that, boys. Just stay here and wait. It’ll only be a couple minutes. But if you try to leave here too soon, you might just possibly get shot. Isn’t that right, Bob?”
Stewart licked his lips. “Do like they say,” he said. “They got guns. Just do like they say.”
“Don’t worry,” said one of the customers.
Terry, Rico, and Stewart left the men’s room, crossed the hall, and went up the stairs. Terry opened the side door and checked outside, then nodded to Rico. He never talked during a job, unless it was absolutely necessary. Rico did all the talking for both of them.
Rico took the two sacks from Stewart. “All right, Bob,” he said. “You did that real well. You can go back downstairs now.”
Stewart hurried back downstairs. His shoulders were hunched, like he believed he would be shot anyway.
Rico and Terry went over and got into the Buick. Rico got behind the wheel and Terry sat beside him. The canvas sacks were on the floor between Terry’s legs. Rico backed the Buick out of the slot and headed for the highway. They both still had the masks on.
Terry turned, looking back at the club. Just as Rico reached the road, Terry saw the side door open and four men come running out. Two of them pointed frantically at the Buick. Terry said, “They spotted us.”
“Good for them,” said Rico. He spun the wheel and the Buick cut left, then leaped down the highway. Behind them, the four men were piling into a Chrysler Imperial, Rico accelerated and the Buick streaked along. He switched off the headlights as soon as he saw the station ahead. “Here they come, Rico.”
“Sure.”
Rico cut the wheel and switched off the ignition, and the Buick slid silently up beside the orange Volkswagen.
They were out of the Buick before it had completely stopped. They grabbed the sacks and jumped out. The sacks they tossed behind the front seat of the Volkswagen. Hats and masks followed. Then they both got into the car, slamming the doors.
The Chrysler Imperial shot by, and went about a hundred yards farther down the road before its brakes began to squeal. Rico started the VW, spun it around in tight turn, and aimed it towards town. It didn’t shift like a Volkswagen, and, above sixty miles an hour, it didn’t sound much like a Volkswagen any more. Two more cars came boiling out of the Club Cockatoo and roared by the little orange car without a glance. Everybody knows a VW is no good as a getaway car.
This wasn’t the operation Rico had ordered the VW for, but just before he’d picked up the car he’d received the letter from Parker about hitting the syndicate. The Club Cockatoo had been bothering him for seven years, and he felt relieved when he discovered a justifiable reason for knocking it over. He combined the plan he already had with the orange car he’d just picked up, brought Terry into the deal, and did the job immediately, before Parker could tell him everything had been straightened out. He drove along now pleased with Parker, pleased with the car, pleased with the operation, pleased with the world.
By morning they were nearly six hundred miles away from the club, so they stopped to see just how much they’d taken.
3
“EIGHTY-SEVEN GRAND!”
Bronson stared at the telephone. He didn’t believe it. It was a bad dream.
The voice at the other end was saying, “Just two guys, Mr Bronson. They came in and did the job like they’d been practising it for ten years.”
“Where the hell was everybody? Asleep?”
“Mr Bronson, these guys were smooth. They came in and”
“God damn it, Kirk, don’t give me a lot of crap! How many employees you got?”
“Thirty-seven, Mr Bronson.”
“Where the hell were they?”
“All working, Mr Bronson. Most of them didn’t even know what was going on. They sapped a cashier and a customer, and held”
“They sapped a customer? How much did that cost me, Kirk?”
“Half a yard. He”
“Another five hundred. Pretty goddam expensive, Kirk.”