Odds Against Tomorrow

Chapter Ten

At eight o’clock the last customers were ushered from the bank. The stout, elderly guard called a smiling good night to each of them before he stepped back inside and pulled the big double doors shut against the windy darkness. The lights in the shops along Main Street went out one by one and the stream of shoppers evaporated quickly from the shining sidewalks. The rain had stopped but a wind lashed the sides of the buildings, reverberating against the metal trash cans and stirring currents and whirlpools in the dark waters rushing along the gutter.

It was one minute after eight.

Earl and Ingram stood at the windows of the hotel room staring down at the closed doors of the bank. Their faces were pressed close to the curtains, and their eyes shone softly in the dimly lighted room. Earl glanced down the block to the drugstore. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said, whispering the words into Ingram’s ear. “I’ll be watching you.”

“You keep watching me and that guard’s gonna blow your head off,” Ingram said dryly. Fear hadn’t left him, but some of it had been dissolved in an exasperated anger; he didn’t care about Earl’s contempt for him, but he couldn’t be indifferent to Earl’s stupidity — the man was ready to get them all killed through his dumb suspicions and hatred. Instead of concentrating on what was coming, he was indulging his prejudice like a spoiled child. “You watch yourself,” he muttered softly. “You’re acting like you never pulled anything but a toilet chain in your whole life.”

But Earl didn’t hear him; he was staring at the doors of the drugstore, his fingers tightening on Ingram’s arm. “Here it goes,” he said, his voice hard with tension.

The doors of the drugstore had been pushed open by a white-jacketed Negro balancing a tray of sandwiches and coffee in his right hand. As he stepped into the pool of light from the neon sign, a big man in a dark overcoat moved toward him from the shadows of the side street. The Negro started for the curb, but before he could take two steps the man in the overcoat stumbled heavily against him, jarring him with his bulk, and knocking the tray of coffee and sandwiches from his hand.

It appeared to have been a simple, unavoidable accident. No one who watched the sequence of events could have thought otherwise...

“Get set,” Earl said sharply.

Burke was adding to the confusion now, he saw, apologizing profusely to the delivery boy, and then stooping in an awkward attempt to retrieve the soggy sandwiches and the split-open cartons of coffee. The boy was staring in dismay at the mess of food on the sidewalk. Burke patted his shoulder consolingly, and took a wallet from his hip pocket. The boy shook his head quickly at that, then picked up his tray and hurried back into the drugstore. An elderly couple stopped and smiled sympathetically at Burke before going on their way. It was a small incident, forgotten as quickly as it happened... Burke shrugged and walked across the street, strolling toward the bank building, his black, bulky figure almost lost in the shifting shadows of the night. Earl checked his watch for the last time. They had about eight minutes to work in; it would take the counterman at the drugstore that long to make up a fresh order for the bank.

“All right,” he said to Ingram. “Grab that tray.”

There was no need to take anything else from the room. Earl’s things were in the station wagon, and Ingram’s overcoat and fedora could be safely left behind; they were standard-brand, secondhand clothes and the police would learn nothing from them.

Earl went quickly down the stairs and opened the door that led directly to the street. He stepped out, pulling his overcoat collar up around his throat, and glanced casually up and down the sidewalk. This was the one chance moment in Novak’s plan; a pedestrian pausing in front of the hotel might have delayed them. And their schedule allowed precious little tolerance for delays. But the sidewalks were deserted, shining and empty under the street lamps. Earl waved Ingram on. “Get going,” he said.

The injunction was unnecessary; Ingram was already on his way, the tray balanced professionally in his right hand as he angled across the street toward the bank building.

Earl watched Ingram’s white-jacketed figure move into the semidarkness, before drifting across the street to intercept Burke, who was sauntering casually toward the intersection. Everything was working perfectly; the sidewalks were empty and the town was quiet as they fell in step with their hands deep in the pockets of their overcoats and their faces shadowed by the turned-down brims of their hats. They didn’t speak or look at one another, but Earl could sense the excitement in Burke; his breath was coming sharply and rapidly, whistling faintly through his flattened nose.

Twenty yards ahead of them Ingram trotted up the steps of the bank and rapped sharply on the glass panel of the big, brass-handled door. The sound carried clearly along the street, sharp and distinct in the silence. They had the town to themselves, Earl thought, glancing over his shoulder. Only an occasional car or truck came through the town, yellow fog lights gleaming, and tires spinning with a liquid sound on the wet asphalt.

Ingram rapped a second time, and then turned to look down the street at them, his eyes white and scared in the darkness.

“Goddamit,” Burke said. His voice was a high, sharp whisper. “What’s the matter?”

“Slow down,” Earl said. They were closing the distance too rapidly. He put a hand on Burke’s arm, forcing him to match his own measured strides.

They heard the metallic click of a sliding bolt, and then light flashed over Ingram as the door swung open. A voice said, “You’re late, Charlie. Come on, these people can’t work on empty stomachs.” It was an old man’s voice, high and strident, but charged with a folksy good humor.

Ingram murmured something under his breath, holding the tray in front of his face. The guard moved aside to let him enter, hands resting negligently on his hips.

Ingram heard Burke and Earl coming up behind him, their heels striking the sidewalk with an urgent emphasis. He stepped quickly into the warm and bright interior of the bank, seeing the women in the tellers’ cages directly ahead of him and several men working at desks behind a low wooden railing. No one paid any attention to him; the men at the desks didn’t look up, the tellers were busy with their accounts.

He stood in the glare of bright lights with warm air on his face and a feeling of busy, serious work going on around him — that was all he knew, that and the fear being driven through his body by the desperate pounding of his heart.

Ingram heard the guard say, “Sorry, gentlemen, we’re closed for—” But then his voice broke off in a sharp grunt of pain.

The door closed with a soft click, and Earl passed swiftly in front of Ingram, looking big and dangerous as he stepped over the wooden railing and pointed a gun at the startled men at the desks. “Everybody keep quiet,” he said, without raising his voice. “Just stay nice and quiet.” The girl at the switchboard near the side door stared at him in terror, her face twisting in a spasm of hysteria. “Get those earphones off,” Earl yelled sharply. “Stand up and keep quiet. You scream and I’ll start shooting.” The girl came quickly to her feet then, clamping both hands across her trembling mouth. “That’s right; don’t be a hero,” Earl said, his gun swinging easily over the four men at the desks. “Everybody take it nice and quiet. Nobody’s going to get hurt.”

Burke had pushed the guard ahead of him toward the tellers’ cages, prodding him in the back with his gun. “Okay, girls, I want it all,” he said quietly. “You get cute and Dad here gets it right in the spine. Got that clear?”

A man at one of the desks said, “Do as he tells you, Jennie. You too, Ann.” He stared at Earl’s gun, his eyes big and frightened behind rimless glasses. “We’re all going to do just what you want. There’s no reason for you to hurt anybody.”

“Fine,” Earl said. “That’s just fine. Now keep quiet.”

Burke had taken the guard’s gun and pushed the old man into a corner. Now he was stuffing bundles of cash into a long linen bag he had pulled from the pocket of his overcoat.

“How much longer?” Earl said, risking a glance at the front door.

“Rush it up, sister,” Burke said, stepping to the second cage.

Ingram swallowed the dryness in his throat, forcing the bitter taste of fear deep into his stomach. It was going to work, it was going to work — the thought sounded in his mind like a breathless prayer.

“All right,” Burke said, backing toward the front door. “Let’s go.”

Without taking his eyes from the men at the desks, Earl stepped over the wooden railing and joined Burke. He said, “Okay, everybody stay put for a while. Just think how lucky you are.” He nodded at Ingram, as Burke pulled open the door and went quickly down the steps of the bank to the dark sidewalk. Earl started after him, but before Ingram could move, a powerful voice shouted an order.

“Hold it there! Get your hands up!” The command came from behind a car that was parked across the street about fifty feet from the entrance to the bank.

Burke swore in bitter, despairing confusion and dropped to his knees, the gun in his hand swinging up toward the parked car. As he fired, one of the women tellers began to scream softly and terribly, her voice breaking into convulsive, senseless tremors. Ingram couldn’t force himself to move; he stared out the door, helpless with fear, the tray trembling giddily in his hand. Burke was sighting along the barrel of his gun when an orange flame seared the darkness behind the parked car. The report of the shot went banging down the street as Burke rolled over backwards, shouting senseless words in a high, raging voice. Earl tried to lift him to his feet, but Burke struggled to a sitting position and fired three wild shots into the shadows behind the parked car. Another orange flash appeared against the darkness. Earl staggered as if he had been struck by a two-by-four; his knees buckled when he stumbled into the side of the building and his head rolled on his shoulders in pain. Burke sat cross-legged on the wet sidewalk, a sagging, heaving buddha, one hand supporting his weight, and the other pointing his gun in an awkward, straight-armed gesture at the parked car.

It was only then that Ingram’s paralysis broke; he screamed convulsively and threw the tray of coffee and sandwiches to the floor.

The men who had been at the desk were lying on the floor. One of them raised his head and shouted at him, “Get down, you fool! You want to be killed!”

“No, no,” Ingram cried wildly. He leaped over the wooden railing and ran to the rear of the bank, fighting down a hysterical compulsion to laugh... They didn’t know he was part of the job. They still thought he was the delivery boy.

The switchboard operator was backed against a wall with her hands over her mouth. Another shot sounded outside and she jerked as if an electric shock had gone through her body. She began to moan in fear, staring at Ingram with wild, frantic eyes.

“Lie down flat,” he shouted at her. “You’re all right.”

She didn’t seem to hear him; she stood trembling against the wall, a shrill, keening moan forcing itself through her compulsively locked hands.

Ingram ran to the side door and twisted the key in the lock. Pulling open the door he plunged into the darkness, fear like a mad animal at his heels. The sound of another shot brought him to a skidding stop. He had to get away from the firing, he thought wildly. To his right was a haven of darkness, the side street stretching away to safety. To his left was Main Street, its wet pavement gleaming colorfully under the light from the traffic signal at the intersection. Rain was coming down again, driven like hard pellets through the swaying black trees. He needed an overcoat; they’d catch him trying to run away in the waiter’s jacket. And he needed something hot to drink. His thoughts were broken into crazy splinters by fear. Forget about something to drink... run and hide. That was the only thing that mattered. Find a place to hide.

A few people were coming down Main Street toward the bank, but their progress was slow and cautious; the sound of the last shot had driven them all into alleys and doorways.

Something moved in the darkness near the curb, and a gasp of terror tightened his throat. He turned to run into the safety of the side street, but then he heard a metallic clicking coming from one of the parked cars. Ingram crept forward slowly, stepping off the sidewalk onto the sodden plot of grass that bordered the street.

“Earl?” he whispered frantically. “Earl? You there, Earl?” It had to be Earl; he must have stumbled around here after getting shot...

“Goddam!” The voice was just a few feet from him, tight with pain and fury.

Another shot exploded in front of the bank, and a man shouted an order in a huge, powerful voice.

“Ingram?” Earl cried softly. “Ingram! Come here.”

“Where?”

“Here, you fool.”

Ingram crept swiftly toward the angry whisper and found Earl kneeling in the gutter, supporting his weight against the side of the car and pulling impotently at the door handle with his good hand. “Go around the other side,” he whispered, the words coming in painful little gasps. “You got to drive. I’m hit. Move, damn you.”

Ingram crouched low and ran to the driver’s side, prodded by the anger in Earl’s voice. He wasn’t thinking any more; his mind was a vacuum, empty of everything, empty even of fear.

Sliding into the car he opened the opposite door and hauled Earl in beside him, tugging frantically at his awkward, pain-cramped body. Earl cursed weakly and Ingram saw the sweat standing out on lips and forehead.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said foolishly.

“Shut up! Shut up!” Earl bent forward and shoved the key into the ignition. “The starter’s on the left. Let’s go.” Ingram fumbled around beside the steering post and Earl said, “On the floor! On the floor!”

The motor caught with a swelling throb of power. Ingram tramped on the gas, and the car shot out from the curb like something blown from a cannon.

“Easy, damn it,” Earl yelled at him. Ingram was fighting the spinning wheel, trying desperately to keep the car in the street. “Feed it slow.” Earl twisted around, breathing harshly and stared out the rear window. “Make the first left. Then give it everything.” In spite of the pain and weakness, his voice cracked like a whip. “You want to live, Sambo, you make this crate move.”

“What happened? What went wrong?”

“Never mind that now. You just drive. Left here — left, you fool.” Ingram hurled the car into the turn without checking his speed; the tires screamed hideously as they clawed into the wet pavement, and Earl grabbed the yawing wheel with his good hand. “Hit the gas now,” he yelled. “Give it everything.”

The rain was coming harder now, flailing at the side of the car and driving through the fog lights in thick crystal streaks. They swept through a slum area, and up a swerving incline that brought them onto a straight stretch of road.

“Let her out,” Earl cried. “Pound it. We got to get to Novak.”

“I can’t drive any faster. I’m doing sixty now.”

“Faster, I’m telling you.”

“I can’t.”

“You afraid of getting a ticket?” Earl’s foot came down hard on Ingram’s, pushing the accelerator flat against the floorboards. The car leaped ahead like an angry animal into the walls of rainwater, the motor snarling under the full load of power.

“You’re crazy!” Ingram shouted the words over the roar of the engine. The car swayed wildly as the tires spun and hissed on the slick surface of the road. “We’ll kill ourselves.”

“So will the sheriff if he catches us,” Earl said. “Drive, damn you. We got to get to Novak.” He leaned forward and rubbed the mist from the windshield with the sleeve of his coat. “I’ll tell you when to stop,” he said. There was no pain in his shoulder. He was weak from shock and loss of blood, but the pain wouldn’t start for a while yet... Why hadn’t he dropped the sheriff, he wondered. He had seen his tall black figure behind the parked car. One shot would have settled him for good. But he hadn’t even tried. And he hadn’t tried to pick up the money. It was lying right next to Burke’s hand, thousands and thousands of dollars stuffed into a long linen bag. Why hadn’t he grabbed it?

He shouted suddenly, “Slow down. Here he is.”

As Ingram drove his foot against the brake he saw the red taillights of a car shining ahead of them through the rain and darkness. He was thrown forward by the skidding, wrenching stop, but the steering wheel kept him from smashing into the windshield. Earl had nothing to hold onto and only his instinctively outflung arm saved him from a split skull; his forehead struck his wrist instead of the dashboard, and the blow merely stunned him for an instant. He straightened slowly, feeling that he might be sick; the pain in his shoulder was starting now, spreading nauseatingly into his stomach and loins. A bullet never hurt much at first. That was the only good thing about getting shot up. His thoughts drifted. It was funny, damned funny...

“Get out,” he said to Ingram. “Tell him the job went wrong. Then come back here and give me a hand.” He found a reserve of strength and said harshly, “Go on, move.”

Ingram climbed out and ran through the driving rain to Novak’s car, his feet slipping on the treacherous surface of the road. Novak cranked the window down and stared at him, his wide, hard features softened by the faint light from the dashboard.

“What’s the matter?” he yelled over the drumming rain; he could see the haggard fear in Ingram’s face.

“We got caught,” Ingram said, gripping the door with desperate, grateful fingers. “Burke’s shot and killed. And Earl’s got a bullet in him. He’s hurt bad. We got to get out of here. They’re coming after us.”

“How about the money, for Christ’s sake?”

“We didn’t get nothing. It all went wrong. We’re lucky to be alive. I’ll get Earl. He can’t make it alone.”

“Yeah,” Novak said, staring at him with narrowing eyes. “You do that.”

Ingram ran back to the station wagon and jerked open Earl’s door. “Come on,” he said. “We got to hurry.”

“Pull me toward you,” Earl said. He ground his teeth together, and his voice came out thin and cold and hard. “Pull me, Sambo. I got to get my feet under me. I can walk okay.”

“Sure, sure,” Ingram said. “Try your damnedest. We got to make it fast.”

But as he took hold of Earl’s lapels, the sudden accelerating roar of Novak’s car sounded through the rain-drumming silence. The noise froze him; he stared at Earl’s sweat-blistered face, unable to move or think, conscious of nothing but the giddy fear flowing through his body. Earl twisted away from him, cursing as he rubbed the steam from the windshield. Ingram ran down the road shouting, “Wait, please wait, Mr. Novak,” in a shrill, imploring voice. But finally he stopped, his breath coming in long, shuddering sobs.

The taillights of Novak’s car became smaller and smaller, until they were tiny crimson dots that bobbed up and down on the horizon and then disappeared altogether into the darkness.

Ingram felt the cold rain driving into his face, and the wind molding the waiter’s jacket tight against his wet body. He began to shiver; he was chilled to the bone, and the wind cut his cheeks like a whip made of ice.

He went slowly back to the car, hugging his body with his arms. Earl stared at him, his eyes flat and expressionless.

“He ran out on us,” Ingram said helplessly. “Left us here.”

They stared at each other through the rain and darkness, enveloped in a silence that was as lonely and menacing as the night itself.

“All right, get in,” Earl said in a weary, bitter voice. “We got to keep moving. Just you and me, Sambo. Just you and me now.”