Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 37, No. 6, June 1992

Pitter-Patter by Ed Dumonte

I was an honest man before the day I asked Barbara Ann to marry me. I don’t mean by that to blame Barbara Ann for my adventure in crime, but it’s a fact that until I promised to marry her I was perfectly content with my job at the tilling station.

Barbara Ann is without a doubt the sweetest, prettiest little girl I ever knew, but I think the reason I proposed to her is because she was so convenient. We lived on the same floor of the rooming house and, because I worked nights at the gas station and she worked days in an office downtown, we kept meeting each other in the hall. As I left for work at night she’d be getting in from a date or a movie with some girlfriends; when I got home in the morning she’d be leaving for her office.

Soon we were greeting each other like old friends, in a little while I was dating her, and before long Barbara Ann began waiting for me to get home from the station in the morning with breakfast and a goodnight kiss.

Now, I work hard all night, and when I get home I’m tired and shouldn’t be held responsible for what I might say. Anyhow, it was one of those mornings, over strong coffee and sugar covered doughnuts, that I asked Barbara Ann to marry me, and she said yes. That was the day I began losing sleep over how I was going to provide for a wife.

And a week later the filling station was held up again.

He came into the office of the station about two thirty in the morning, wearing a Hollywood gangster trenchcoat with the collar turned up. His hat was pulled down over his forehead, and a handkerchief covered the lower part of his face. He stood in the doorway glaring at me, one hand held ominously in the pocket of his coat.

“Okay, Mac, this is a—”

“Yeah, I know. Press the no sale key on the cash register to open it. The bank deposit envelope is behind the oil cans on the second shelf.”

It wasn’t the first time the station had been robbed. It happened every month or so, and always between two and four in the morning.

“That’s right, Mac,” he said, heading for the cash register. “You just cooperate and nobody’ll get hurt.”

“That’s a real good disguise you’ve got,” I told him. “I wouldn’t be able to identify you if I saw you again.”

“Yeah, thanks. Simple but effective, that’s my policy. Hey, what’s the matter with this cash register? You trying to pull a fast one?”

“Oh, I must have locked it. Sorry. Turn the key to the right, then press the no sale button.”

He did, and the cash drawer popped open. With his free hand he scooped the money out of the machine and stuffed it into his pocket. The other hand remained in the pocket of his coat, pointing at me threateningly.

“Say, do you really have a gun in that pocket?”

“What do you mean? Of course I have a gun. You try something funny and you’ll find out.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to try anything,” I assured him. “I just wondered. The guy who stuck me up last month only had a toy pistol. A couple of months before that, the guy just kept his hand in his pocket, didn’t have anything at all.”

“Well, I got a real gun,” he said and pulled it partly out of his pocket for me to see. Then, behind his mask, he gave what might have been a giggle. “I ain’t got any bullets for it, but don’t let that give you any ideas. Where did you say that bank envelope was?”

“Behind the oil cans on the second shelf.”

He took the envelope and put it with the money from the cash register. Then he backed away from me, toward the door. “All right, I’m leaving now. Don’t call the cops until—”

“Aren’t you going to tell me how much money you took?”

“Why should I?”

“I gotta pay taxes, you know. I know how much was in the envelope; just count the money from the cash register. Go ahead, you’ve got time. Nobody will be in for a couple of hours.” Grumbling, he took the loose cash from his pocket and counted it. “Sixty-three dollars,” he snapped when he finished counting. “A lousy night.”

“Sixty-three? Are you sure? It should be more.”

He counted the money again. “Seventy-three. I missed a ten. It’s still a lousy night. All right, I’m leaving now. Don’t call the cops—”

“It sure must take a lot of nerve to stick up a place.”

“You bet your life it does. And brains, too.”

“Brains? Go on, what brains does it take to stick a gun in a guy’s face and say ‘stick ’em up?”

“Boy, you amateurs! You think that’s all there is to it? Let me tell you, Mac, it takes a lot more than that. If you’re going to be a pro you got to develop your own style, a modus operandi the cops call it. Take me, for instance. My M.O. is to pick out five or six gas stations that look ripe for plucking. I spend three weeks or a month casing the joints, then when everything is laid out I pull all the jobs in one night and blow town before morning. Neat, eh? But it takes years to perfect your own style. It ain’t so easy as you think.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It ain’t so easy.”

“You bet your life it ain’t. All right, I’m leaving now. Don’t call the—”

“That’s too bad. I’ll never be able to pull it off by myself.”

“Pull what off?”

“A robbery. I know a place that’s just crying to be robbed. But I don’t have the nerve to do it, or the brains to try it right now.”

“Ah, what do you know about it? You probably think a bank is a good place to rob because it has a lot of money.”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t! A bank is tough. It takes a lot of planning to rob a bank, and equipment.” As he talked his voice became dreamy and far away. “You got to know the bank schedule right to the second, and time the job just right. You got to train a bunch of boys to be in the right place at the right time. You got to plan a getaway route in advance, and have a place to hide out until things cool off.”

He ended the statement with a sigh. “I’ll rob a bank someday, but it’ll take a big investment.”

“Well, this is nothing like that,” I told him. “It’s just thirty thousand dollars in an old lady’s shoebox.”

“An old lady, huh? I don’t like that. Them old ladies are tricky.”

“No, not this one. This old lady is my Aunt Rosemary, and she runs a roadhouse outside of town. She must rake in seven, eight thousand a week, and she only goes to the bank once a month, so the rest of the time the money just lays around in piles. But what’s the use of talking about it. I don’t have the guts to try, and I know it.”

The man left the doorway of the station and, motioning me back away from him with his free hand, sat on a corner of the desk.

“Now wait a minute, Mac. Let’s talk this over. Maybe we can work something out.”

“It’s no use. I told you, I don’t have the nerve for it.”

“No, but I do.”

“You mean we could work together on this stickup?”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he snarled at me. Then, through the pocket of his coat, he pointed the gun he didn’t have bullets for at me. “And don’t move so fast, it makes me itchy. Now, tell me, you know what day of the month this old lady goes to the bank?”

“Sure. The first banking day of every month.”

“And you know the layout of the roadhouse?”

“Like the back of my hand.”

“Well, then maybe, just maybe, we can work together on this to get that money.”

“Gee, that’s swell,” I said. “I wouldn’t be afraid to try it with someone who knew the ropes. I could leave here any night after two. If I got back before four no one would ever know I was gone. A perfect alibi.”

“Man, that’s what I mean about amateurs,” he said, disgusted with me. “You just don’t think. The night you ducked out of here to pull a job would be just the time someone came around looking for you. If I do this job, I’ll do it alone. I don’t want no amateurs around to panic on me and blow it.”

“Well, where do I come in? It was my idea, remember.”

“That’s where you come in,” he told me. “For fingering the joint and telling me the layout you’re doing part of the work, so you get part of the loot. Now, where did you say this roadhouse was?”

“Just outside of town. About ten miles out on highway — oh, no you don’t. It won’t be that easy, buddy. Once I tell you where the place is, you don’t have any more use for me.”

“You don’t trust me, huh? How are we going to work together if you don’t trust me?”

“Who says we have to work together? It’s my idea. I’ll wait awhile and do it myself sometime.”

“Ah, you don’t have the guts for it. You said so yourself. You need someone like me to do the job.”

“And you need me to point out the easy mark. But once I do that, you don’t need me. You’ll just take the money and disappear.”

“That’s why no one wants to work with amateurs,” he said sadly. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘honor among thieves’? If we work together, I’ll pull the job and come right back here and give you your share.”

“Sure you will. Except, as you pointed out, I’m not a thief — not yet. No, there’s no way we can agree. I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me. We might as well forget the whole deal. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you give me my half now. In advance.”

“Give you — are you out of your head?” he shouted at me. “What do you think, I go around sticking up gas stations for a hobby? Where would I get that kind of money?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said. “We’d better forget the whole thing. We can’t work together, and I need the money too bad to let you walk off with it alone.”

He stalked around the office of the station for a minute, glaring at me. Then, abruptly, he was over his fit of anger.

“You want that money pretty bad, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah, real bad. I’m getting married.”

“All right, and I want to do the job because maybe my share will be enough so I can afford to rob that bank I was telling you about. But neither of us will get anything this way. You can’t do it yourself, you don’t have the nerve or the knowhow. I can’t do it because I don’t know where the place is.”

“So what are we going to do? You don’t want me to work with you, and I’m certainly not going to give away an idea I may be able to use someday.”

“I think I’ve got the answer to that. You don’t give the idea to me, you sell it to me.”

“Sell it?”

“Sure. You sell me the information you have about the place. That way, at least you’ll get something out of it. I’ll check it out, and if it looks right, I’ll pull the job. If it doesn’t, I’ll go back to my regular business. I’ll be taking all the risk, see? Tell you what, if the take is as good as you say it’ll be, I’ll even guarantee to give you a percentage of it. Now what could be fairer than that?”

“Well...”

While I hesitated, he began rummaging through his pockets and dropping handfuls of crumpled bills on the counter beside the cash register.

“Sorry,” he said apologetically, “it’s the only money I have. This was the fourth station on my list for tonight. I haven’t had time to get these straightened out.”

He broke open a couple of bank deposit envelopes similar to the one he had taken from me, sorted the bills according to denomination, and counted them out. It came to something over five hundred dollars.

“That’s the best I can do,” he said at last. “How about it? Remember, an idea you can’t carry out isn’t worth anything at all to you.”

At the sight of all that money lying in neat stacks on the counter I capitulated. I told him how to get to Aunt Rosemary’s roadhouse, drew him a floorplan of the place, and told him what hours it was most likely to be empty. He had what he wanted and was ready to leave when I stopped him at the door.

“Hey, what about the filling station’s money?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. Guess I can’t stick you up, now that we’re partners. Honor among thieves, and all that.” He put the money and the envelope he had taken on the counter beside the cash register. Then with a casual salute he said, “So long, Mac. See you by the end of the week and let you know how we stand.”

I didn’t see him by the end of the week, or by the end of the next week, either.

Barbara Ann and I used part of the five hundred dollars to rent a cabin at the lake for a week’s honeymoon. I managed to get in some fishing and had pretty good luck. When we got back to town, we rented a new apartment and had enough money left over to make a downpayment on some provincial furniture she wanted.

What I forgot to tell my partner was that Aunt Rosemary is a widow. Her husband was a cop, and for years she’s been feeding all the state and county cops in the district. There’s always at least one team of patrolmen in the back room of her place, putting away a free meal and shooting the breeze. But I guess he’s found that out by now, one way or another.

For me, things haven’t changed much. I’m still working nights here in the filling station, and not making any more money at it than ever. Only now I have a wife to support, and Barbara Ann has had to quit her job, and the baby is on the way...

Well, I see that somebody is coming into the place, so you’ll have to excuse me for a minute. Here we go again.

“All right, Mac, this is a—”

“Yeah, I know. Press the no sale key on the cash register. The bank deposit envelope is behind the oil cans on the second shelf. Say, that’s a real nice disguise you got there, buddy.”