Bank Shot (23 page)

And then the cops had arrived. Kelp had seen them first, glancing out the window and saying, ‘Look! Law!'

The rest of them had crowded to the windows and stared out at the police car parked out by the sign. May had said, ‘What are they going to do? Are they onto us?'

‘No.' That had been Victor, always ready with an opinion based on his experiences with the other side of the law. ‘They're just on patrol,' he'd said. ‘If they were interested in us, they'd handle the situation differently.'

‘Like surround the place,' Dortmunder had suggested.

‘Exactly.'

Then the one cop had gotten out of the car and come over, and it had turned out their cover was working. Still, it was hard to concentrate with that damn police car everlastingly parked outside the bank you'd just stolen, and the hearts game had finally just dwindled away and stopped. Everybody had sat around, irritable and nervous, and every five minutes or so somebody would ask Victor, ‘What the hell are they doing out there?' Or ‘When are they going to go away, for the love of God?' And Victor would shake his head and say, ‘I just don't know. I'm baffled.'

When the other police cars started showing up, one and two at a time, the whole crew inside the bank began to bounce around as agitated kittens in a sack. ‘What are they
doing
?' everybody asked, and Victor kept saying, ‘I don't
know
, I don't
know.
'

It later turned out, of course, that the other cars had all been delivering orders of coffee and Danish. When Dortmunder had finally come to that understanding, he'd told the other and added, ‘Which means they're loused up as we are. Which gives me hope.'

Still, the time had passed slowly. The extra coffee and Danish they were given by the cops helped a lot – they were all getting pretty cold and hungry by then – but as the hours went by they all began to see themselves either starving or freezing to death, trapped in this stupid bank forever by a bunch of cops who didn't even know they were in the same county.

Also, Herman was restricted in the attacks he could make on the safe while the police car was parked out front. The grinding on the circular hole could continue, but things like explosions had to wait. This made Herman fretful, and he tended to pace back and forth from one end of the bank to the other and snarl at people.

Then there was the business of the neck brace. Murch carried on so much about it that his Mom finally agreed to wear it as long as the police car was out front, but she was disposed to be testy while her head was propped up by the thing, so that made two soreheads prowling around, which didn't help matters any.

And then, all at once, they left. No reason, no explanation, their departure as abrupt and senseless as their arrival, they up and went. And suddenly everybody was smiling, even Murch's Mom, who had flung the neck brace into the farthest coiner of the bank.

‘Now,' Herman said. ‘Now I get to try what I've wanted to do for the last two hours. Longer. Since before noon.'

Dortmunder was walking around in a figure eight, moving his shoulders and elbows, trying to loosen up. ‘What's that?' he said.

‘That circular groove,' Herman told him. ‘I think we've got it deep enough now, so if I pack the groove with plastic explosive, it just might pop it out of there.'

‘Then let's do it,' Dortmunder said. ‘Before the Health Department comes around to inspect the kitchen and the bread man starts making deliveries, let's do it and get the hell out of here.'

‘This'll be a bigger explosion than before,' Herman warned. ‘I want you to know that.'

Dortmunder stopped figure-eighting. Voice flat, he said, ‘Will we survive it?'

‘Oh, sure! Not
that
big!'

‘That's all I ask,' Dortmunder said. ‘My wants are simple.'

‘Take me about five minutes to set up,' Herman said.

It took less. Four minutes later, Herman made everybody get around on the other side of the partition from the safe, explaining, ‘This might throw a little metal around.'

‘Good,' Dortmunder said. ‘I feel like doing the same thing myself.'

They all waited out in the main part of the bank while Herman, out of sight, did his final bit of work. After a few seconds of silence, they watched him back slowly into view around the end of the partition, holding a length of wire in each hand, gently drawing the wires after him. He looked at the others over his shoulder. ‘Everybody set?'

‘Blow the damn thing,' Dortmunder said.

‘Right.' Herman touched the exposed ends of the wire together, and from the other side of the partition came a
Krack!
The bank rocked, much more than with the earlier explosions, and a stack of empty plastic coffee containers fell off the desk over in the corner where May had left them. ‘Got it,' Herman said, smiling all over his face, and a bit of gray smoke came curling around the edge of the partition.

They all crowded around the partition to look at the safe, and damn if it didn't have a round hole in the side. Kelp shouted, ‘You did it!'

‘God
damn
!' Herman cried, delighted with himself, and everybody pummeled him on the back.

Dortmunder said, ‘Why's the smoke coming out of there?'

They all got quiet again and looked at the wisp of smoke curling up from the hole. Herman said, ‘Wait a minute now,' and stepped forward to take a quick look around on the floor. Then he turned to Dortmunder, outraged, and said, ‘You know what happened?'

‘No,' Dortmunder said.

‘The goddam metal fell
inside
' Herman said.

Kelp had gone over to look in the hole, and now he said, ‘Hey. The money's on fire.'

That caused general panic, but Dortmunder pushed his way through the mob and took a look inside, and it wasn't as bad as all that. The hole in the side of the safe was perfectly round and about a foot in diameter, and inside there was a round piece of black metal the same size, like a midget manhole cover except much thicker, and it was resting on stacks of money, and it was setting them on fire. Not very much, just browning and curling them around the edge of the circle. However, a couple of little flames had already puffed into life, and if left to themselves they would spread and eventually all of the money would turn into ashes.

‘Okay,' Dortmunder said, partly to calm the people behind him, partly to challenge the fates. He took off his right shoe, stuck it in through the hole and began to slap the fire out.

‘If only we had water,' Victor said.

Murch's Mom said, ‘The toilet tank! We haven't flushed since we left the trailer park, the tank should still be full!'

That had been another problem, four hours stuck in here without toilet facilities, but now this one too turned out to be a blessing in disguise. A coffee-container brigade was set up, and pretty soon Dortmunder could put his shoe back on and pour water on the smoldering bills instead. It took only four containers, and the last ember was out.

‘Wet money,' Dortmunder grumbled and shook his head. ‘All right, where's the plastic bags?'

They'd brought along a box of plastic garbage-can liner bags to carry the money in. May got them now, pulled one out of the box, and Dortmunder and Kelp started filling it with charred bills, wet bills and good bills while May and Victor held the bag open.

And then Murch's Mom shouted, ‘We're moving!'

Dortmunder straightened, his hands full of money. ‘What?'

Murch came running around the partition, looking much more agitated than Dortmunder had ever seen him. ‘We're rolling,' he said. ‘We're rolling down the goddam hill, and we're out of control!'

30

Kelp pushed the door open and watched countryside going by. ‘We're going out on the road!'

Behind him, Herman shouted, ‘Jump! Jump!'

How fast were they going? Probably no more than five or ten miles an hour, but to Kelp's eyes the pavement going by beneath his feet was just a blur.

But they had to jump. There were no windows in the front of the bank, so they couldn't see where they were headed, whether they were going to crash into something or not. They weren't going very fast yet because the slope wasn't at all steep here, but the bank was angling toward the road, and down a ways farther the hill did get a lot steeper, and then they'd go too fast to jump. So it had to be now, and at this door Kelp was first.

He jumped. Off to his right, uphill, he was aware of Victor jumping from the other door. Then Kelp hit the pavement, lost his footing, sprawled and rolled over twice. When he sat up, he had a new big tear in his right trouser knee, and the rest of the gang was spread out downhill, all sitting and lying on the pavement in the rain, with the bank rolling on away from them, on the road now and picking up speed.

Kelp looked the other way, to see how Victor was doing, and Victor was on his feet already and hobbling back toward the diner site. Kelp couldn't figure that out for a second, and then he realised Victor was going after the Packard. To give chase, to get the bank back!

Kelp got to his feet and limped off in Victor's wake, but hadn't even reached the gravel driveway yet when the Packard came tearing up and squealed to a stop beside him. He climbed in, and Victor gunned the motor again. He was going to stop for Dortmunder, who was next, standing there with the plastic bag full of money in his hand, but Dortmunder urgently waved them on, and Kelp said, ‘Don't stop, Victor, they'll come along in the van.'

‘Okay,' Victor said and tromped on the accelerator.

The bank was far away down the long slope. It was rainy, it was mid-afternoon, and they were far out on Long Island, three things that helped to give them an empty road when they needed it. The bank, whizzing down the exact middle of the two-lane road, straddling the white line, happily met no traffic coming the other way.

‘It's gonna go over at that curve,' Kelp said. ‘It'll crash down there, but we should have time to get the rest of the money out.'

But it didn't go over. The curve was banked, angled properly, and the bank rolled around it with no trouble at all – around and out of sight.

‘God
damn
it!' yelled Kelp. ‘Catch up with it, Victor.'

‘I will,' Victor said. Hunched over the wheel, his attention fixed on the road ahead, he said, ‘You know what I think happened?'

‘The bank started to roll,' Kelp said.

‘Because of the explosion,' Victor said. ‘That's what I think did it. You felt the way that made it rock. It must have started it, and we were on top of a hill, and once it was moving it just kept going.'

‘It sure did,' Kelp said. He shook his head. ‘You can't believe how irritated Dortmunder is going to be,' he said.

Victor snapped a glance at the rear-view mirror. ‘Not behind us yet,' he said.

‘They'll be along. Let's worry about the bank first.'

They reached the curve, spun around it, and saw the bank well out in front. There was a small town at the base of the hill, a little fishing community, and the bank was headed straight for it.

But Victor was gaining. Also, as the road leveled out at the bottom, the bank began slowly to lose its momentum. When it ran the red light in the center of town it wasn't doing any more than twenty-five miles an hour. A woman crossing guard blew her whistle at the bank as it went through the light, but it didn't stop. Victor slowed, seeing the woman in her policelike uniform and white crossing-guard belt, and seeing the red light, but as he reached the intersection the light turned green and he accelerated again. The woman had whistled herself breathless, and as they went by she was standing in the rainy gutter, panting, her shoulders heaving, her mouth open.

‘It'll stop soon,' Kelp said hopefully. ‘There isn't any slope here at all.'

‘That's the ocean,' Victor said, nodding ahead.

‘Oh, no!'

The end of the street was a pier, jutting out a good thirty feet into the water. Victor caught up with the bank just before it trundled out onto the pier, but it didn't matter; there was no way of stopping it. One fisherman in yellow rubber slicker and rain hat, sitting on a folding chair, looked up and saw the bank coming and leaped straight from his chair into the ocean; the bank,
en passant
, flipped his chair after him. He had been the only occupant of the pier, which now the bank had to itself.

‘Make it stop!' Kelp cried as Victor slammed the Packard to a halt at the beginning of the pier. ‘We've got to make it stop!'

‘Noway,' Victor said. ‘There's just no way.'

The two of them sat in the Packard and watched the bank roll inexorably out along the rumbling boards of the pier to the very end and quietly, undramatically, roll off the outer edge and drop like a stone into the water.

Kelp groaned.

‘One thing,' Victor said. ‘It was beautiful to watch.'

‘Victor,' Kelp said. ‘Do me one favor. Don't say that to Dortmunder.'

Victor looked at him. ‘No?'

‘He wouldn't understand,' Kelp said.

‘Oh.' Victor looked out the windshield again. ‘I wonder how deep it is out there,' he said.

‘Why?'

‘Well, maybe we could swim down to it and get the rest of the money.'

Kelp gave him a pleased smile. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘If not today, maybe sometime when the sun's shining.'

‘And it's warmer.'

‘Right.'

‘Unless,' Victor said, ‘someone else sees it there and reports it.'

‘Say,' Kelp said, frowning out the windshield again. ‘There was somebody on the pier.'

‘There was?'

‘A fisherman, in a yellow raincoat.'

‘I didn't see him.'

‘We better take a look.'

The two of them got out of the car and walked through the rain out onto the pier. Kelp looked over the edge and saw the man in the yellow raincoat climbing up the scaffolding along the side. ‘Let me give you a hand,' he called and knelt to reach down to him.