No Beast So Fierce (29 page)

Enthusiasm began pulsing through our conversation. Jerry was no longer hesitant as he drove me home, meanwhile looking over the route through the hills. We decided there was no use waiting. We'd all spent many hours casing the score. Saturday morning we'd make our move—the day when Wilshire's traffic was lightest. Gregory's opened at 9:30. We hoped to shorten its business day, drastically so.

As Jerry parked before the apartment, I invited my partners to a home-cooked meal on Friday night. I hadn't consulted Allison, but I knew she liked both of them. They liked the idea.

When I entered the apartment Allison was cross-legged on the floor, sketching something in charcoal and watching the election returns on television. The California polls were just closed, but CBS Election Central was declaring Lyndon Baines Johnson a landslide winner. Allison waved a greeting but said nothing until I came back from the kitchen with a cup of coffee and sat behind her.

“You're early.”

“The guy hung me up. I'll see him Saturday morning. If it's a nice day you can go to the beach. You're losing color, and you know how I dig licking on that suntan.” I wanted her gone while we used the apartment to examine the loot.

“‘Lick a suntan'. You're not coy, not even subtle.”

“You dig it. That's your fetish. Want to go somewhere?”

“Let's stay here for once. Take the TV in the bedroom and watch a movie.”

“I invited Jerry and Aaron for dinner Friday night. Okay?”

“It's got to be okay, doesn't it? I can't say no. It'll be fun anyway. Is Carol coming?”

“No. It's sort of a business dinner.”

Allison smiled and shook her head. “Monkey business.”

I carried the television set into the bedroom and we watched it and made love at the same time.

Part Three

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

1

T
HE
morning of the robbery was bright. Mild rain through the night had washed away both smog and November's grayness. The yellow sun was mellow warm, and in the sky, tendrils of cumulus basked in lazy turnings.

Jerry led in his station wagon over the hill road that divided the San Fernando Valley from Beverly Hills. Aaron, wearing gray zip coveralls, drove a stolen panel truck a hundred yards behind. I sat on the floor in the back of the truck, holding onto the yellow and black wooden barricade (also stolen) with the Men at Work sign, and a lantern. On this much-traveled road motorcycle policemen frequently hid behind curves and bushes. The sight of a black man and a white man riding together would register sufficiently in his mind to be recalled in a few minutes when the robbery alert crackled over his radio.

The automobiles wound past houses cantilevered over precipice and sky. At the summit of the hills, I saw the momentary sparkle of the sea in the distance. Allison was there, lying on the beach, soaking up a last good day of sun. Tonight her body would contain a residual warmth.

Aaron was humming as he drove, one elbow propped casually on the window frame. He was showing no fear. Confidence in my henchmen relaxed me. Despite the robbery's size, I was less keyed up than usual, almost detached in my confidence. Once more I visualized what we were going to do—each step flashed through—and once more the X factor appeared reduced to the absolute minimum. The very simplicity of the plan left little that could go wrong.

Now the panel truck was on level ground. Over Aaron's shoulder I could see the rear of the station wagon, its brake lights flashing as Jerry halted for Sunset Boulevard's traffic light. We slowed, the light flashed green, and Jerry crossed the intersection and kept going straight. Aaron turned left, mingling in the flow of eastbound traffic. At the first corner, Aaron turned right, now going parallel to Jerry's course, but a block away. We went three blocks and turned into a long parking lot that ran the entire length of a shopping district. Aaron went through very slowly, stopped at the far end, and Jerry was waiting. He swung into the front seat with scarcely a pause. I passed him the long flower box with the M16. None of the Saturday morning shoppers gave the nondescript truck a second glance.

“My short's right where we planned,” Jerry said. “Last row next to the curb. Keys under the floormat.”

We were a block from Wilshire. I slipped into the suit coat, straightened my necktie, jacked a shell into the chamber of the Browning automatic—thirteen shots of Remington hollow point ammunition—and stuck it in my waistband at the rear. The tiny receiver (earplug) went into place, and the hat with the mask inside went on my head.

From the front seat there was a sharp clack of steel. Jerry was checking the automatic rifle. Between the divided seats I watched him lower it back into the flower box and pat his pockets to make sure the gloves and mask were in place.

Aaron's pistol was covered by a folded newspaper on the floor-boards. His belt of tools and equipment was on top of it.

The truck pulled to the curb twenty feet from the intersection, across which sat Gregory's, gleaming sedately white, hinting of the riches within. A Mercedes roadster was pulling from the parking lot, and an old woman was waddling toward the side entrance.

Wilshire Boulevard's traffic was even lighter than we'd anticipated.

“Smell anything?” Aaron asked.

“Money,” Jerry said.

The stop, the look, the conversation, took only seconds. Jerry opened the door and stepped out. Right behind him, I moved the seat forward and followed, careful to touch nothing with my bare fingertips.

“See you in fifteen minutes,” I said to Aaron.

“Or on the handball court in Folsom.”

“Or in the morgue.”

“Let's settle for fifteen minutes.”

“Right on.”

The truck crossed the boulevard, moved pertly down the street between shops and offices.

“I'm gone,” Jerry said, moving left. He would saunter down the sidewalk, cross over at the next corner, and double back to Gregory's front entrance. His stroll was relaxed. The flower box under his arm appeared natural.

From my vantage point, I could see both Jerry and the truck. Aaron went a block and a half and pulled to the curb, the line of parked cars hiding him from sight. Through the earplug, I heard him, “Here I go, brother.” Down the street he appeared, carrying the barricade in one hand and lantern in the other. He placed them to detour traffic, kneeled beside the manhole cover, and pulled it up with a tool. Who'd pay attention to a Negro in coveralls with a tool kit strapped around his waist?

Minutes ticked away. He took longer than expected. Jerry was lounging at the next corner and I was beginning to fret, puffing a cigar that had no taste because my mouth was dry.

Aaron raised himself out of the manhole, replaced the cover, removed the barricade and went out of sight. I was already moving across the boulevard in anticipation of his signal. It came seconds later. “Everything's cool. Make your move. I'm pulling around to my spot.”

Jerry had seen me cross the street and he was moving toward the front entrance. I turned into the parking lot, tension sucking at my stomach. I wanted to piss and the thought made me smile. My movements felt jerky.

As I came near the doors, the old woman came out. I stopped, turned my head and bent over, as if examining something stuck to the heel of my shoe—actually hiding my face from later identification.

The automatic doors opened as I stepped on the rubber mat. Cool air conditioning made me aware of my sweaty face. The thick carpet was silent underfoot.

A young couple, accompanied by an older man, were examining a tray of rings placed before them by a salesman. No other customers were in sight. The second salesman was talking with a secretary; she held a sheaf of papers in hand.

The scene was ideal; nobody even looked toward me.

Jerry's silhouette darkened the front door. It started to swing inward. I turned my back, raised the hat and pulled down the mask, adjusting it with one hand while I pulled the automatic with the other, slipping off the safety catch with my thumb. Its weight and the checkered butt were comforting, filling me with a sense of power. I turned back.

Jerry looked frightening in the Frankenstein mask. More frightening was the awesome weapon he held. He hadn't been seen.

“This is a robbery!” he bellowed. “Don't nobody move!” He swung the automatic rifle in an arc that swept over everyone, threatening each one with instant death. He stepped to the side of the door. Nobody on the sidewalk could see him without entering.

While he yelled, while their agape faces were registering awareness, I was running from the side behind the counter, my pistol extended at full arm's length. “Turn around,” I snapped at the salesman who'd been talking to the young secretary, arriving next to him as I spoke. I spun him around. The girl had been walking away, was near the office door. She'd frozen momentarily, hand outstretched. She wanted to duck through the door, slam it, and give warning. The idea was etched in her face.

I came up behind her as she was about to touch the knob. She heard me—she'd only seen Jerry until that moment—and turned her head as I grabbed her arm. The mask startled her, but it was less than real fear. My fingers squeezed viciously into her arm, deliberately hurting her. Those who lack experience with violence are unafraid of its threat—but they shatter completely when hurt by its reality. “Be a nice girl and you won't get hurt,” I said.

Jerry was herding the others into a corner, ordering them to sit down with their hands over their heads. It was going smoothly.

I shoved the girl through the door. Jules Neissen was seated at his desk; he started to jump up as the girl stumbled across the carpet. He stopped and turned pale as I pointed the pistol at his chest from eight feet away. One squeeze would blow him through the wall—and he knew it.

“Hold it, right there, baby,” I said. “Keep your hands in sight.”

“Don't give him anything,” the girl said. Before the words had crossed the room I backhanded her full force across the cheek and dropped her to her knees. The manager's color, such as it was, flooded back to his cheeks. He gathered his courage, shook his head with the stubbornness of a child. “Go jump,” he said.

It was ludicrous, the words of refusal were prissy.

“You'll open that vault, punk! Don't be a dead hero. The insurance company pays, not you. They don't give a fuck about a dead fool.”

“You won't get it by shooting me—and I'm not going to open it.”

Five minutes would change his mind—and a bullet through his kneecap would certainly do it. But there was a better way. I pressed the pistol to the girl's ear. “I'm not killing you—not first. But her brains are going to fuck up the wallpaper.” The threat was a bluff. I wouldn't kill the girl—but if it failed to work I was certainly going to kill him, or at least cripple him.

The girl was limp, eyes glazed. The true horror of the situation had seeped through. She believed herself about to die if the manager failed to cooperate. She began to whimper. I wondered if her panties were wet.

Neissen started to speak, but no words issued. He nodded. The resistance had lasted twenty seconds. “Get moving,” I said, ushering them toward the door, still holding the girl, the pistol at Neissen's back.

Jerry had everyone gathered along one wall. Another couple had straggled in from the street and been captured. I shoved the girl toward the others. “Watch this one,” I yelled to Jerry.

Neissen was moving reluctantly. I rammed the gun barrel into his spine, bringing a gasp of pain. “Hurry up, motherfucker.” I shoved him toward the vault. As he opened it, I told him I wanted unset diamonds first; then diamond brooches (because they had multiple jewels), and finally diamond rings.

The vast steel door swung open. A steel-barred grill gate was opened with a key. “You've got sixty seconds to fill this,” I said, handing him a shopping bag. “One … two … three …”

It took precious seconds for the meaning of the threat to penetrate; then he whispered in terror and became a man possessed as he dumped diamonds from trays, scraping them as if they were garbage on dishes. When a brooch stuck in a tray, he became frantic. Each motion of his hand was several thousand dollars. “Twenty … twenty-one … twenty-two …”

The earplug receiver crackled with Aaron's voice. “We've got heat. Prowl car's making a turn.”

I was already running, having ripped the bag from Neissen's hand. Aaron's voice continued calmly: “They went by, looked me over, made a U turn—probably want to know about a colored man in Beverly Hills.”

Aaron was calm—calmer than me. I tripped over a chair behind the display cases, stumbled, and kept going. “Cover the door,” I called to Jerry. “Aaron's got steam.”

Jerry flipped the M16 to full automatic fire and kneeled, facing the door from an angle.

Aaron's voice came again. “There's a robbery call on the radio for this address, Code Three.”

The M16 calmed me. There'd never been fear, just a moment's confusion. I'd gone beyond fear; my commitment included the possibility of dying, and after accepting that there is nothing to be afraid of.

The hostages began to swivel their heads, whispered in fright, bunched together like chickens. They were a thousand times more frightened than I was. “Get down on your stomachs,” I yelled, wanting to shoot over their heads for emphasis—but that would have surrendered surprise in the street.

I crouched beside Jerry. “They know there's a heist going down, but there's only two. Get ready. We're going out.”

“Cocksucker!” Jerry whispered.

“They haven't got a chance against that thing,” I said.

I'd already thought of using the prisoners as hostages and rejected the idea. The police would surround us and wait. The M16 would shred a police car. We had the firepower to get away—or create carnage in the attempt.