Bank Shot

16

Joe Mulligan stumbled on his way into the bank and turned to glare at the top step. This was the seventh consecutive Thursday he’d been on this job; you’d think by now he’d know the height of the steps.

“What’s the matter, Joe?”

It was Fenton, the senior man. He liked the boys to call him Chief, but none of them ever did. Also, even though they didn’t have to be on duty till eight-fifteen, Fenton was always on the job no later than eight o’clock, standing right by the door to see if any of the boys were going to be late. Still, he wasn’t such a bad old bird; if you did happen to be late any time, he might give you a word or two on the subject himself, but he wouldn’t ever report it to the office.

Mulligan tucked down his dark-blue uniform jacket, readjusted his holster on his right hip, and shook his head. “Getting stumble-footed in my old age,” he said.

“Now me, I feel like I got a spring in my step tonight,” Fenton said, grinning, and he rocked up onto the balls of his feet for a second to show what he meant.

“I’m glad for you,” Mulligan said. As for himself, he would be very pleased — as always on these Thursday nights — when it came around to nine o’clock and the last of the bank employees had gone home and he could sit down and relax. He’d spent a lifetime on his feet and believed there would never be a spring in his step again.

He had arrived tonight at eight-fourteen, according to the clock on the wall up behind the tellers. All the other guards were here already except Garfield, who tromped in a minute later — just under the wire — smoothing that Western-marshal mustache of his and looking around as if he hadn’t decided for sure whether to guard the bank or hold it up.

Mulligan had by this time taken up his usual Thursday evening post, against the wall near the pretty girl at the courtesy desk outside the counter. He’d always been partial to pretty girls. He was also partial to her chair and liked to be the nearest one to it.

The bank was still open and would be until eight-thirty, so for the next fifteen minutes it would be very crowded, what with its normal complement of employees and customers added to by the seven private guards, Mulligan and the other six. All seven wore the same police-officerlike uniform, with the triangular badge on the left shoulder reading Continental Detective Agency. Their shields, embossed with CDA and their number, were also police-like, and so were their gun belts and holsters and the.38-caliber Smith & Wesson Police Positive revolvers within them. Most of them, including Mulligan, had been police officers at one time and had no trouble looking natural in the uniform. Mulligan had been on the force in New York City for twelve years but hadn’t liked the way things were going and had spent the last nine years with Continental. Garfield had been an MP, and Fenton had spent twenty-five years as a cop in some city in Massachusetts, retired on half pay, and was working for Continental now as much to keep himself occupied as to augment his income.

Fenton was the only one with any additional insignia on his uniform; the two blue chevrons on his sleeves meant he was a sergeant. The CDA had only the two uniformed ranks, guard and sergeant, and used sergeants only where a job called for more than three men. They also had an Operative classification, which was for plainclothes work, a job toward which Mulligan did not aspire. He knew that being a Continental Op was supposed to be glamorous, but he was a flat-foot, not a detective, and content to remain so.

At eight-thirty the regular bank guard, an old man named Nieheimer, not a CDA man, locked both bank doors and then stood by one of them to keep unlocking it again for the next five minutes or so, letting the last customers out. Then the employees did their closing paperwork, put all the cash away in the safe, covered the typewriters and adding machines, and by nine o’clock the last of them — that was always Kingworthy, the manager — was ready to go home. Fenton always stood by the door to watch Kingworthy out and be sure the manager locked up properly on the outside. The way the system worked, the alarm could be switched on or off only with a key on the outside; once Kingworthy left, the guards inside couldn’t open either door without sounding the alarm down at police headquarters. For that reason, all seven guards brought lunch bags or lunch buckets. There was also a men’s room at the front end of the trailer, the end farthest from the safe.

Nine o’clock. Kingworthy left, he locked up, Fenton turned and said what he said every Thursday night: “Now we’re on duty.”

“Right,” Mulligan said and reached for the courtesy desk’s chair. Meanwhile, Block was going down to get the folding table from where it was stored by the safe, and the others were all heading for their favorite chairs. Within a minute, the folding table was set up in the customer area of the bank, the seven guards were in seven chairs around it, and Morrison had pulled the two fresh decks from his uniform pocket — one deck with blue backs, the other with red — and they were all taking handfuls of change from their pockets and slapping them down on the table.

Seven cards were dealt around, with the high card to be the first dealer, and that turned out to be Dresner. “Five-card stud,” he said, put a nickel in the pot and started to deal.

Mulligan was sitting with his back to the safe, facing the front of the trailer; that is, the part with the officers’ desks. The tellers’ counter was to his right, the two locked doors to his left. He sat with his legs spread wide, both feet flat on the floor, and watched Dresner deal him a five of hearts up. He looked at his hole card, and it was the two of spades. Morrison bet a nickel — it was nickel limit on the first card, dime after that, twenty cents on the last — and when it came around to Mulligan he very quietly folded. “I don’t believe this is going to be my night,” he said.

It wasn’t. By one-thirty in the morning he was losing four dollars and seventy cents. However, Fox occasionally dealt draw poker, jacks or better to open, and at one-thirty he did it again. In draw, each player anted at the beginning, so they started off with a thirty-five-cent pot. When no one could open and Fox had to deal out another hand, they all anted again. Still no one could open, and when Mulligan looked at his third hand and saw three sixes in it there was already a dollar five in the pot. To top it off, Fenton on his right opened, with a quarter, the maximum bid. Mulligan thought of raising, but decided to keep as many players in as possible, so just called. So did Garfield and Block. Two dollars and five cents in the pot now.

It was time for the draw. Fenton, the opener, took three new cards; so he had only the one high pair, jacks or over, to begin with. Mulligan considered; if he took two cards, they’d all suspect he had trips. But he was known to be a man to try for straights and flushes, so if he took only one card they’d think he was at it again. In addition to the three sixes, he had a queen and a four; he threw away the four and said, “One card.”

Garfield chuckled. “Still trying, eh, Joe?”

“I guess so,” Mulligan said and looked at another queen.

“An honest three,” Garfield said. So he, too, was starting with only a pair — probably aces or kings, hoping to just beat out Fenton’s openers.

“A dishonest one,” Block said. Which was either two pair, or an attempt to buy a flush or a straight.

After the draw, the maximum bet was fifty cents, and that’s what Fenton bet. So he’d improved.

Mulligan looked at his cards, though he hadn’t forgotten them. Three sixes and two queens — a very nice full house. “I believe I’ll just raise,” he said and plucked a dollar bill from his shirt pocket and dropped it casually among the coins in the pot.

Now there was three fifty-five in the pot. Mulligan had put in a dollar-forty, meaning he could win two dollars and fifteen cents if nobody called his raise.

Garfield frowned at his cards. “I’m kind of sorry I bought,” he said. “I’m just gonna have to call you, Joe.” And put in his own dollar.

“And I’m just gonna have to raise,” Block said. He put in a dollar and a half.

“Well, now,” Fenton said. “I bought a second little pair, but I suddenly don’t believe they’ll win. I fold.”

The pot now had four dollars and sixty-five cents in it that Mulligan hadn’t put in there. If he just called — and if he won — he would be within a nickel of breaking even on the night. If he lost, he would be down another two dollars and forty cents, all in one hand.

“The hand of the night,” Morrison said disgustedly, “and I’m not in it.”

“I’d just about trade places with you,” Mulligan said. He kept staring at his hand and thinking. If he actually raised another half dollar, and got even one call, and won, he’d be ahead on the night. On the other hand.

Well, what did those two have? Garfield had started with a high pair and had taken three cards and improved — meaning more than likely either triplets or a second pair. In either case, nothing to worry about. Block, on the other hand, had taken only one card. If he’d been buying to a straight or flush, and if he’d bought, Mulligan’s full house would beat him. But what if Block had started with two pair and had bought a full house of his own? Mulligan’s full house was based on sixes; that left a lot of higher numbers for Block to come up with.

Garfield, sounding nervous and irritated, said, “Are you going to make up your mind?”

It was, as Morrison had said, the hand of the night. So he ought to play it that way. “I’ll raise half a dollar,” he said.

“Fold,” Garfield said in prompt disgust.

“Raise you right back again,” Block said, dropped a dollar in the pot, and smiled like the cat that ate the canary.

A higher full house. Mulligan was suddenly very depressed. It couldn’t be anything else; it had to be a higher full house. But he’d come this far … “I’ll call,” Mulligan said wearily and shoved in yet another half dollar.

“King high flush,” Block said, spreading the cards out. “All diamonds.”

“By God!” Mulligan cried and lifted his hand over his head to slap it down in the middle of the table with the full house showing; but just as his arm reached the top of its swing, he was suddenly jerked backward, up over the chair and onto the suddenly bouncing floor. And as he went flailing back, his legs kicked up into the under part of the table and sent it too flying; nickels and dimes and cards and guards exploded in all directions, and a second later the lights went out.