Hard Cash

14

Nolan had a laundry bag in one hand and a .38 in the other. The laundry bag was empty. The gun wasn’t. He stood silently beside Rigley in front of Shep Jackson’s desk, at the rear of die bank, near the vault. The bank was silent, too, and dark, only the lights in the rear having been turned on as yet.

Jackson was wearing a money-green sportcoat and pale green slacks, the latter approximating the shade his complexion had turned to a moment before. He had the same sickly handsome look as Rigley, only younger, of course, like someone who had stepped out of an Arrow shirt advertisement. He’d been sitting at his desk, feet propped up, smoking a cigarette, reading yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. He had stood as the bank president and Santa Claus approached; he had smiled, a smile at first amused, then puzzled, and finally not a smile at all, because Santa Claus had a gun.

Three minutes remained before the time lock on the inner vault safe would go off.

“Shep,” Rigley said, emotionlessly, “there is a man at my house holding a gun to my wife’s head. There’s a man with a gun outside, waiting. And, of course, there’s this man. They want the money in the vault. They came to my house this morning and brought me here; one of them stayed behind to hold my wife hostage. I will be leaving with them. I’m a hostage, too.”

“Oh, my God,” Jackson said, touching his cheek.

“Take it easy, Shep,” Rigley said. “I’ve been robbed before. The bank has. My experience is that if we follow instructions, no harm’ll come to anyone. They want the money, and that’s all. But if we don’t follow their instructions, my wife will be killed, and quite possibly so will I.”

Nolan was pleased with Rigley’s words, but not with his performance. There was a mechanical quality to it, a coldness, like a bad actor reading off cue cards. Fortunately, Jackson seemed too unnerved to notice.

“At eight-thirty, Shep, you’ll open and conduct business as usual. This man is going to take all of the money in the vault safe, but will leave the tellers’ money alone. So you should be able to carry on as if all was normal. Sometime around midmorning, they intend to release my wife and me, they say, and you’ll be contacted. I will contact you. And at that time you can call the authorities. But until then any effort to do otherwise, I have been assured, will result in my wife’s death and my own. So please keep everyone away from the alarms. Now. I think the time lock should be open and you can give this man what he’s after.”

Jackson nodded nervously and said, “Uh, people will be coming pretty soon, George. How should we... I... handle that?”

“I’m going up to stand by the front door now, to explain the situation to anyone who might come in early. This will be over, though, before very many, if anyone, shows up. So it’s going to be up to you to gather everyone in the back conference room and explain what is happening.”

Jackson nodded again and walked gingerly toward the vault. He walked inside the vault and crouched to open the safe, then turned to Nolan and said, “All right, it’s open,” And Nolan held out the laundry bag to him, making him come for it, not entering the vault itself where Jackson would have him in a confined area that might lend itself to idiotic heroism.

It took less than three minutes to empty the safe, to make the laundry bag bulge with the packets of money.

Jackson pulled the bag by its neck, out of the vault, and turned it over to Nolan. Nolan slung it over his shoulder, Santa-style.

Rigley, who was standing up front, by the side lobby door, saw that Nolan and Jackson were done, and rejoined them. He had a blank look on his face. It disturbed Nolan somehow that Rigley had taken this in such easy stride, that Rigley’s tic under the comer of his right eye hadn’t been here today.

Nolan motioned with his gun for Jackson to lead them through the back room that led to the bolted back door. The room was lined with filing cabinets and had a Xerox machine and a counter for a coffee pot and a table; a coin- wrapping machine and a couple of other machines Nolan didn’t recognize were grouped around the massive metal back door, which was bolted three times. Bag over his shoulder, gun trained on Jackson, Nolan peered out the magnifying peephole in the door and saw Jon sitting behind the wheel of the red van. No one else was in the parking lot. The alley was empty too.

Nolan motioned to Jackson to unbolt the door.

Jackson did.

Rigley said, “If you haven’t heard from me by eleven, you can call the police.” Rigley turned his blank face to Nolan and asked, “Is that right?”

Nolan nodded.

Jackson said, “If I haven’t heard anything by eleven, call the police. Otherwise business as usual.”

Rigley nodded and said, “Don’t let me down, Shep. It’s not just me, it’s...”

And here was the damnedest thing: Rigley’s voice cracked, as if there was some genuine emotion going on behind that blank mask.

“... It’s Cora’s life too.”

And Rigley turned to the massive door and opened it

Jackson, who seemed pretty calm by now, said to Nolan, “You... you don’t say much, do you? You’re not your everyday Santa Claus, are you?”

Nolan tapped Jackson’s shoulder with the gun, in a not unfriendly way, and said, “It’s better to give than receive,” and went out.

They’d been inside seven minutes.