Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner

23

AVOIDING THE TEMPTATION to get drunk, I left Turk’s at four and walked back to the bank, where nothing unusual was happening. Discouraged but not despairing, I walked across the street to the luncheonette, where I found Phil and Jerry and Billy already seated at our regular table by the window. I joined them and Phil gave me his hard grin and said, “Well, today’s the big day.”

Smile, I told myself. “Sure is,” I said.

They were talking about football. Jerry had played it in high school and the Army, generally as a tackle, Billy had hung around at one time with some former professional football players running a strike-breaker service in the Tennessee-Kentucky-Carolina area, and Phil ran a lively book in the prison on the pro games. Phil was at the moment discussing percentage points in the upcoming Jets- Oiler game, Jerry was describing things that could be done on the playing field to an opponent who had become annoying, and Billy was telling cheerful mountain tales of broken arms, back, and heads.

I seemed to be blinking again. While the other three talked, I brooded out the window at the bank, where nothing continued to happen. Whenever I did glance at my tablemates, my blinking got a lot worse, yet through it I could still see them, all too plainly. I was sitting next to Billy, and his near arm looked to be the size and density of a caveman’s club. His head was a boulder partially sculpted into what might with charity be called a face. His shoulders looked like football pads, but they weren’t; they were shoulders.

Opposite me were Jerry and Phil. Jerry was another monster, in size if not in appearance. In fact, there was something almost baby-faced about Jerry, despite the great bulk of him, and his flesh appeared to be no harder or colder than normal human flesh. Still, his football field tales of snapping ankles and ripping nostrils made it clear he could be decisive if aroused. As to Phil, he didn’t have the mass of the other two, but there was a quick, mean intelligence about him and a wiry strength that was in its own way even more intimidating. Jerry and Billy might be able to dismember me more completely, but Phil was the likeliest to realize I ought to be dismembered.

Around four-thirty the anthropomorphic high school boy floated by like a bottle with a note in it, was given an order for four coffees, and disappeared forever. I gazed at the bank past Billy’s rocky profile, and now my left cheek was twitching. Nothing was happening over there. Nothing.

Phil said, “Getting a little netvous, Harry?”

Startled, I thrashed about, facing him. If that fool of a boy had brought coffee I would have dumped it on myself. “Nervous?” I said, blinking, twitching, scratching my left elbow with my right hand. “Me? No. Not a bit. Not at all”

Grinning, he said, “I know lots of guys get nerved up ahead of time, and not a one of them ever admits it.” “Is that right?” I said. By keeping one eye closed, I could control a bit the twitching in the other.

“I knew a guy,” Jerry said, “solid as a rock before a job, he’d always throw up right afterwards.”

“Sure,” Phil said. “It hits different guys different ways.” “Can you imagine?” Jerry said. “You stop a getaway car so a guy can throw up.”

Phil laughed at that, responded with a remembrance of his own, and I was safely out of the conversation again. I looked some more at the bank. Why wouldn’t anything happen?

And why was I so nervous? In setting up my own little tricks, where there was almost always some chance of getting caught, I was invariably calm, almost casual. So why, this time, was I fidgeting and blinking and twitching and scratching and swallowing and feeling a sudden pulse pound in the side of my throat? Why, in short, was I becoming a nervous wreck?

Because this was different, that’s why. Because in the first place it wasn’t one of my little tricks, it wasn’t my kind of thing at all. And because in the second place this was serious and maybe even deadly, a movement in which I was trying to put something over on society and these tough guys all at the same time, and all completely over my head. And because, goddamit, nothing was happening over there in the goddam bank!

Whenever I could manage to refocus my eyes from Billy Glinn’s awesome profile, I could see directly across the street and through the big windows of Federal Fiduciary Trust right into the brightly-lighted yellow interior, where absolutely nothing was taking place. Most of the employees had gone home by now, leaving the uniformed guard standing by the door, and possibly three people moving around behind the teller's counter, finishing the bookkeeping for the day. Everything normal. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Ten to five.

Five to five.

Five.

Five oh five.

I saw it when it started, and I froze at once-all except the twitch in my cheek-trying not to give it away that I'd noticed anything. But the guard just inside that glass door had suddenly jerked, as though he were a puppet operated by strings and somebody had just jostled his operator’s elbow. I watched him turn, look, peer this way and that through the interior of the bank, then suddenly dash over to one side and bend over by the desk where I had filled out my twenty-five dollar check.

I knew what he was doing. I also understood why the bank official in the dark gray suit suddenly came dashing out from behind the counter, waving his arms and obviously shouting angrily in the general direction of the guard, who had now straightened up again, holding a wastebasket.

Phil and Jerry and Billy continued to chat together, about football and robbery and the mangling of bodies. I tried to remain very quiet, to appear to be looking at nothing in particular. The longer I could stall their discovery of what was happening, the more comfortable I would feel.

Let me get away with it, God. You let me pull all those minor ones where it didn’t matter, now let me get away with this one. Please.

The guard was running toward the door, holding the wastebasket out to one side away from his body. He was just about to unlock the door when the official shouted again, apparently stopping him. The guard turned back, seemingly now doing some shouting of his own, and a brief spirited exchange took place, at the end of which the guard suddenly faced the door again, and this time stared out suspiciously at the sidewalk dotted with pedestrians.

I could imagine what the official had said. Something along the lines of, “This could be a trick, to get us to open the door.” Right; suspicion, that’s what I wanted, suspicion and paranoia and outright fear. Come on, I thought, let’s get on with it.

A woman employee had now come out from the rear part of the bank, and was standing there waving her hands in front of her face as though brushing away gnats or mosquitoes. The male official turned to her, gave an order of some kind, and she hurried away again.

Good. Fine.

The guard was still standing near the door, holding the wastebasket out away from himself. He seemed to be asking the official what he should do with it, and from the stances and expressions of the two men the answer he got was more colorful than satisfactory. Insubordination of some sort seemed about to take place over there, when all at once they both turned to look at something else, something new, over by the side wall to the right. The guard dropped the wastebasket, and he and the official both ran over to this new thing. The woman also came hurrying back into view, apparently with some sort of report.

Yes. Yes.

Then the damn boy showed up with our coffee, breaking the thread of conversation among the other three, and while he was putting the cups down Jerry glanced casually out the window, paused, frowned, and said, “What the hell?”

“Hm?” Phil looked at him, followed his gaze out the window, and did some frowning of his own. “Now what?” he said.

It was not yet quarter after five, much later than I’d hoped for. The commotion was in no way big enough over there, but we still did have fifteen minutes before Joe Maslocki and Eddie Troyn would be showing up in the typewriter truck. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for them to arrive just before hell really broke loose, not realize anything was wrong, and actually stop the truck, get out, approach the bank. I didn’t want that, didn’t even want to think about it.

Come on!

The boy had departed, back into the mists of Lethe. Billy, who had now also been attracted to the activity going on across the street, said, “What’s happening over there?”

“They’re running around with wastebaskets,” Jerry said.

Indeed they were. The woman had come forward and picked up the wastebasket by the door, and the guard had now picked up a second one from over on the right. There was a certain amount of milling about, all three of them talking at once over there, and then they were augmented by a fourth person, another official in a dark suit, who apparently drowned all the rest of them out by insisting on being told what was going on. Explanations, displays of wastebaskets, finger pointings in various directions, everybody talking at once.

Phil said, “What the fuck?”

Come on come on come on.

General expressions of disgust over there, more arm wavings as though brushing away flies. The guard and the woman hurried toward the rear, carrying the wastebaskets. The new arrival moved to something on a side wall and fiddled with it-probably a thermostat, turning on airconditioning or something like that.

No. No no no, don’t deal with it that simply. Make trouble, make a lot of noise and ruckus, call the-

A siren. A blessed siren, from the distance. Five twenty- two by the luncheonette clock, five twenty-one by the clock high on the rear wall of Federal Fiduciary Trust, and here at last came the police. The woman did go call them, as I’d hoped. As I’d hoped.

“There’s something wrong,” Phil said. “Goddam it, there’s something wrong.”

Billy said, “Phil, I hear a siren. I think maybe we oughta get out of here.”

“It’s not us,” Phil told him. “Sit tight, don’t draw attention to yourself. It’s some other damn thing. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t us.”

The police car arrived, not traveling very fast at all. Not in comparison with the driving I had seen-and done-last night. The siren switched off but the revolving red light stayed on, and the police car stopped next to a fire hydrant in front of the bank. The two cops got slowly out, hitching their gunbelts, adjusting their hair under their hats, and walked across the sidewalk to the bank.

Now there was some sort of delay. The first official gestured and shouted through the glass door, but didn’t open it, and the two cops could be seen to not enjoy that treatment at all. They stood with their hands on their hips and their heads cocked to one side, expressing dangerous irritation.

The guard came trotting back, and it turned out he was the one with the key who could unlock the door. He did so, and the cops started in. Almost at once they recoiled, as though they’d walked into cobwebs. They made brushing gestures in front of their faces. Reluctantly they entered the bank, and even more reluctantly they permitted the door to be closed again behind them.

Five twenty-four.

Five twenty-five.

The police car with its circling red light attracted shoppers and homeward-bound workers, who began to mill on the sidewalk, some looking at the empty police car but most looking in the windows at the bank. It became increasingly difficult to see what was happening inside there, but then the door opened again and one of the cops stood there, just outside the doorway, leaving the door open. He appeared to be answering the eager questions of the crowd.

Phil said, “Jerry, go take a walk over there. Find out what’s going on.”

“Right.”

Five twenty-seven. I watched Jerry cross the street and mill with the other pedestrians.

I should say something, I should make a comment. It wasn't natural to be silent, not when everybody else had made a remark. My throat kept wanting to close, but I forced it and my mouth both open, and said, “Sure must be something, huh?”

“It’s gonna screw us up,” Phil said bitterly, “I can feel it. Unless those cops take off away from there we’re shit out of luck.”

Take off? No no, they couldn’t do that. It was five twenty- nine, all they had to do was stay one minute more and it would all be over. Joe and Eddie would arrive, they’d see the police car and the crowd and the commotion, and they’d drive right on by. They’d have to, there wouldn’t be any choice.

Five thirty. No typewriter truck drove by.

Five thirty-one. Still no typewriter truck. Jerry came strolling back across the street.

Five thirty-two. Red truck, where are you? Jerry entered the luncheonette and sat down. The second cop came out of the bank, went to the police car, got in, spoke on his radio.

Phil said to Jerry, “So what’s the story?”

“Stink bombs,” Jerry said.

Phil gave him such a look of disgust it was almost as though he could smell the things from here. He said, “Stink bombs!”

“That’s right,” Jerry said. “Some clown put these chemicals in plastic cups, with lids on them, and put them in the wastebaskets over there. The chemicals ate through the plastic and pow. You wouldn’t believe the smell that’s coming out of that door.”

“Stink bombs,” Phil said. “Even if we do get in there, we’ll have to smell the fucking things.”

No. We can’t get in there, we can’t. Red truck, red truck, hurry up.

Jerry said, “How do you feature a jerk like that?”

“I’d like to get my hands on him,” Phil said. “Those cops gonna hang around long?”

“I don’t think so,” Jerry said. “I think that one’s calling in now, find out what they should do. They don’t want to be there, I’ll tell you that.”

Five thirty-five. The cop in the police car finished talking and got out. I tried to judge from his walk, from the set of his shoulders, from the angle of his head, what the decision had been. He walked in his slow stately cop tread around the front of the police car and across the sidewalk toward his partner.

God damn it, red truck!

“Practical jokers," Jerry said. “They oughta be against the law."

The red truck; I almost fainted with relief. It drove slowly past, and I could see Joe and Eddie in the cab, gawking toward all the commotion in front of the bank. That's right, Joe, that's right, Eddie, it’s all loused up. You can’t do it, give it up, put the truck back. By God by God by God, we're not going to rob that bank!

“There they go," Phil said. “That tears it."

“Son of a bitch," Jerry said.

“God damn," I said.

Billy said, “There was one time, I was with a drilling crew down in Venezuela, we had one of those practical jokers. Liked to hang a bucket of water up over a door so it’d drop on you when you come through."

“I hate those fucking people," Phil said.

“We caught up with this one, after a while," Billy said. “Funny thing, you never would of guessed he was the one. Last guy you'd think of." He grinned at all of us when he said that. He seemed to grin for a long time at me.

Jerry said, “What did you do with him?"

“Hung him up over a door," Billy said. He nodded. “Pretty well took care of the problem," he said.