Wycza was beginning to get it. He said, “Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute.”
Grofield laughed out loud.
Paulus whispered, “Sweet Jesus.”
“We go in at midnight,” Edgars told them. “We pop every safe in town, and we’re out by six a.m. Two miles south of where this map leaves off there’s themain east-west highway, and from there the whole state network of roads is open to us.”
Parker said, “State police.”
The pointer slapped the map, down near the bottom. “Substation here on 22A, two miles south of the town limits. State and city are differing political faiths, there’s friction. State troopers never patrol north of the city line.”
Parker said, “All-night diner.”
Edgars shook his head. “None. Curfew, remember? There’s a Howard Johnson out on the highway; that’s where the troopers go.”
Parker shook his head. “Five minutes after we leave, they’ll be burning up the phone wires behind us. There’ll be a roadblock at the highway before we get to it.”
“We can arrange things to give ourselves more time. Break radio and telephone equipment, wreck a truck or two across the road, tie and gag policemen and telephone operators and the rest. We’ll have to figure out where we hide out afterwards, of course. We wouldn’t want to be on the road too long.”
Paulus, over on his side of the table, was shaking his head in wonder. “It could be done,” he whispered. “It honest to Christ could be done.”
But Parker wasn’t satisfied. The operation broke too many rules. Set up by an amateur. Requiring too many men. Involving going into a box with only one way out. And it was just too big and fantastic an idea to begin with, it was science fiction.
Edgars said, “It’s time to talk about money. Payday at the refinery is Friday. Thursday night there’s approximately sixty thousand in the refinery safe. The two banks should have between fifty and seventy-five thousand in cash each. Give them the low figure, that’s a hundred thousand from the two banks. Three jewelry stores, cash and gems, among them they ought to be good for another fifty thousand at the very least. The loan company and department store and other stores and commercial operations, maybe fifty thousand more all told. There’s a minimum of a quarter million dollars in that town, maybe more. With twenty-five men on equal shares, that’s a minimum of ten thousand a man.”
“Ten thousand? That’s not much, for the risk.”
“That’s a minimum. There may be more.”
Paulus said, “Maybe it could done with less men, Parker.”
“You’d know more about that than I would,” Edgars told him.
Grofield said, musingly, “If it could be done at all, it would be fascinating.”
Wycza said, “I don’t like that state police barracks. And I don’t like not having any getaway figured out.”
“One thing at a time,” said Paulus. “Why don’t we think about manpower first?”
Edgar’s face, even in the semidarkness, showed an excitement that didn’t go with his ward politician features. “The way I thought of it,” he said, “would be almost like a commando raid. Each of the five of us would captain a group of five men, including himself. Each of our groups would have specific objectives. My group would take out the police station and radio station and plant security men and telephone company building. Parker’s group would go for the refinery safe, with the payroll. Paulus’s group would take the Merchants’ Bank and Nationwide Finance. Grofield’s group would take City Trust and Raymond Jewelers, right next door to it. Wycza’s group the other two jewelry stores and the other commercial buildings along Raymond Avenue.”
Parker shook his head. They were now talking about his business, his speciality. Whether he took the job seriously or not, he couldn’t avoid thinking about it, and about the best way to handle it.
He said, “You don’t want to do it that way. You waste manpower. You have four men stand around with nothing to do but watch a fifth man work on a bank vault. You don’t need all those men.”
Edgars watched him. “How then? How should it be set up?”
Parker got to his feet and walked to the end of the room. He studied the map projected on the screen, and said, “To begin with, you need four men on stationary plant for as long as we’re in there. One at the police station, one at the telephone company, one at the factory front office. Those three to handle any phone calls or anything like that. And the fourth man in a parked car down by the town line, so he can warn the rest of us if anybody’s coming in. We’d need walkie-talkies for that. They’re cheap, in any Army-Navy store.”
“That’s four,” said Edgars.
Parker pointed at the map. “Five men hit the police station. One stays. That leaves four to hit the telephone company. One stays. Three to hit the west gate of the plant, take care of the guard, get into the main building without being seen by the guard at the east gate.”
“No trouble,” said Edgars. “The gates are six long blocks apart, and the main building is right near the west gate.”
Parker glanced at him. “Any business at night? Truck deliveries or anything?”
“Not usually.”
“So there’s another man on plant. With a guard uniform on, at the east gate. Sign at the west gate, ‘Closed, use other entrance.’ That leaves two. One of them has to stay in the office of the main building, and the other one tackles the safe.”
“Fine!” said Edgars. “That’s fine! Just five men!”
“So far. Everything else you want is on Raymond Avenue, right?”
“Right. So’s the west gate to the plant, down at the end of Raymond Avenue.”
“I see that. All right, you need four more men, two on each side of the street. One opens the safes, the other one transfers the loot to the cars. We need four cars. One at the town line, for the lookout. One at the plant. Two along Raymond Avenue. Four cars, four walkie-talkies, a lot of guns, ten men.”
Edgars moved closer, and for a few seconds his bulky shoulder cast a black shadow on the screen. He moved back out of the way and stood gazing at the map. “Ten men,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“You, need three box men. Paulus is good at that, so you need two more. You seem to know the town, Edgars, so you ought to be the lookout.”
“You’re in, Parker?”
Parker looked at the map. “Not yet,” he said. “I want to see a getaway route that makes sense. I don’t like the idea of driving four cars out of town past that state police barracks at six o’clock payday morning.”
Wycza said, “I don’t like that state police barracks at all.”
Parker went on, “I want to see a hideout we can get to but the law can’t. I want to be sure there’s no other way to get information out of that town but what we’ve already covered, and I want to be sure there’s nobody else we have to worry about in that town but what we’ve already covered.”
“We can straighten those points out, Parker,” Edgars assured him.
“Then let’s do it.” Parker looked down at the slide projector. “What’s the rest of the slides in that box?”
“His trip to Ausable Chasm,” said Grofield.
“Shut up, Grofield.” Parker said it quietly, not bothering to look at him.
Edgars said, “Pictures of the banks, the plant gates, the police station and everything else.”
“They’ll come in handy some other time. What about getaway route? What about hideout? You got a map of the whole state there?”