Bank Shot

18

Inside the bank, everything was chaos and confusion. Dortmunder and the others hadn’t bothered about springs, shock absorbers, none of the luxuries; wheels had been their only concern. Since they were now moving pretty fast, the result was that the bank dipped and swooped and bounced pretty much like a kite at the end of a string.

“I had a full house!” Joe Mulligan wailed in the darkness. Every time he managed to get to his feet some chair or some other guard would come bowling along and knock him over again, so now he was just staying down, hunkering on hands and knees and bawling his announcement into the darkness. “You hear me? I had a full house!”

From somewhere in the confusion — it was like being in an avalanche in an aquarium — Block’s voice answered: “For Christ’s sake, Joe, that hand is dead!”

“Sixes full! I had sixes full!”

Fenton, who had been quiet till now, suddenly shouted, “Forget poker! Don’t you realize what’s happening? Somebody’s stealing the bank!”

Until that moment, Mulligan actually hadn’t realized what was happening.

With his mind occupied on the one hand by his full house and on the other hand by the difficulty of simply keeping his balance in this jouncing darkness and not getting beaned by a passing chair, it hadn’t until just that instant occurred to Mulligan that this disaster was anything more than his own personal disaster at poker.

Which he couldn’t very well admit, particularly not to Fenton, so he shouted back, “Of course I realize someone’s stealing the bank!” And then he heard the words he’d just said and spoiled the effect by squeaking, “Stealing the bank?”

“We need light in here!” Dresner shouted. “Who’s got a flashlight?”

“Get them venetian blinds up!” Morrison yelled.

“I have a flashlight!” Garfield shouted, and a spot of white light showed, though the confusion it revealed wasn’t much more informative than darkness. Then the light swooped down and away, and Garfield shouted, “I dropped the goddam thing!” Mulligan watched its progression, the bouncing white light, and if there’d been words under it they could have sung along. It seemed to be headed his way, and he braced himself to make a grab for it, but before it got to him it suddenly disappeared. Went out, or something.

However, a few seconds later somebody at last got a venetian blind opened, and it was possible at last to see, in the illumination of streetlights whipping by outside. Intervals of darkness and light succeeded one another at great speed, like a flickering silent movie, but it gave light enough for Mulligan to crawl on all fours through the scattered furniture and sprawled guards and rolling nickels over to the tellers’ counter. He crawled up that and thus reached his feet. Feet braced wide, both arms stretched out across the counter and fingers gripping the inner edge, he looked around at the shambles.

Down to his left, Fenton was also clinging to the counter, in the angle where it made a turn to go past the courtesy desk. Sitting on the floor with his back to the courtesy desk and his hands braced to both sides was Morrison, wincing at every bump. Across the way, clutching the neck-high windowsill where the venetian blind was up, hung Dresner, trying to make some sense out of the night scenes flashing past the window.

What about the other direction? Block and Garfield were in a tight embrace in the corner where the counter — with the safe past it — met the wall of the trailer; sitting there, locked together, half buried under furniture and debris since the general trend of everything loose was to head toward the rear of the trailer, they looked mostly like a high-school couple on a hayride.

And where was Fox? Fenton must have wondered the same thing, because he suddenly yelled, “Fox! Where’d you get to!”

“I’m here!”

It was Fox’s voice all right, but where was Fox? Mulligan gaped around, and so did everybody else.

And then Fox appeared. His head emerged above the counter, down by the safe. He was on the other side of the counter. Hanging there, he looked seasick. “Here I am,” he called.

Fenton saw him, too, since he yelled, “How in God’s name did you get in there?”

“I just don’t know,” Fox said. “I just don’t know.”

Block and Garfield were now coming back toward the middle space, both traveling on all fours. They looked like fathers who didn’t yet realize their sons had grown bored with piggyback and gone away. Garfield paused in front of Fenton, hunkered back, looked up like the dog on the old Victrola record labels, and said, “Shall we try to break out the door?”

“What, leave?” Fenton looked enraged, as though somebody had suggested they surrender the fort to the Indians. “They may have the bank,” he said, “but they don’t have the money!” He let go with one arm to gesture dramatically at the safe. Unfortunately, the bank made a right turn at the same instant and Fenton suddenly ran across the floor and tackled Dresner, over at the window. The two of them went crashing, and Block and Garfield rolled into them.

Turning his head to the left, Mulligan, who had retained his grip on the counter, saw Morrison still sitting on the floor against the courtesy desk and still wincing. Turning his head to the right, he saw that Fox’s head was no longer on top of the counter, nor anywhere else in view. He nodded, having expected as much.

From the scramble across the way, Fenton’s voice rose:

“Get off me, you men! Get off me, I say! That’s a direct order!”

Mulligan, his chest against the counter, looked over his shoulder at the rest.

An awful lot of legs were flailing over there, and they still hadn’t sorted themselves out when suddenly the flickering light stopped, and they were in darkness again.

“Now what?” Fenton wailed, his voice muffled as though somebody possibly had their elbow in his mouth.

“We’re not in the city any more,” Morrison shouted. “We’re in the country. No streetlights.”

“Get off me!”

For some reason it all seemed quieter in the dark, though just as jouncy and chaotic. Mulligan clung to the counter like Ishmael, and in the darkness they eventually sorted themselves out across the way. Finally Fenton, panting, said, “All right. Everybody present?” He then called the role, and each of the six pantingly answered to his name — even Fox, though faintly.

“All right,” Fenton said again. “Sooner or later they’re going to have to stop. They’re going to want to get in here. Now, they may shoot the place up first, so what we have to do is all of us get in back of that counter. Try to keep a desk or some other piece of furniture between you and any outside wall. They have the bank, but they don’t have the money, and as long as we’re on the job they aren’t going to get the money!”

It might have been an inspiring speech if it hadn’t been slowed down by all the panting Fenton was doing, and if the rest of them hadn’t had to hold onto the walls and one another for dear life while listening to it. Still, it did recall them all to their duties, and Mulligan heard them now crawling toward the counter, panting and bumping into things, but making progress.

Mulligan had to go by his memory of the place, since he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Or wouldn’t have been able to if it was there and not clutching the counter. As he remembered the layout, the nearest entrance through the counter was down to his right, toward the safe. He moved that way, sidling along, keeping both hands firmly on the counter edge.

He too was panting, which he could, surely understand, given the exertion required simply to keep on his feet, but why should he be so sleepy? He’d been working a night shift for years; he hadn’t gotten out of bed yesterday until four in the afternoon. It was ridiculous to feel sleepy. Nevertheless, it would feel very good to sit down, once he got around behind this counter. Wedge himself in next to a filing cabinet or something, relax a little. Not actually close his eyes, of course — just relax.