Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner

34

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14th, five days after the Dombey dinner party. Five o’clock in the afternoon. Once again I sat in the window booth at the luncheonette, staring in dulled terror toward the bank past Billy Glinn’s profile. Once again we were assembled here, Phil and Jerry and Billy and I, to rob that bank over there and that other bank over there, and this time so far as I could see we were going to do it. I kept praying for a miracle, such as that both banks would suddenly become swallowed by a hole in the ground, but no miracles were occurring. In half an hour the typewriter truck would arrive, with Joe and Eddie and the second typewriter Max had stolen for this operation, and we four would leave this table and walk across the street with our hands on the guns in our coat pockets, and we would rob those two banks.

Oh, God.

I had wanted to do something, I would have been willing to do something, but what was there to do? Another round of stink bombs would be a coincidence just too strong for somebody with the quick exasperated intelligence of a Phil Giffin to accept, and I did not want him thinking any more about practical jokers.

But what else was there? My mind seemed to work exclusively in the well-worn groove of practical jokes, and whenever I tried to come up with a scheme for thwarting the bank robbery it turned out to be no more than another practical joke. I was in the position of a man forbidden to operate within his specialty.

In fact, I had reached the stage now where my mind was teeming with nothing but practical jokes: jokes I’d done, jokes I’d heard of, tricks I’d pulled as a teenager and before. All sorts of foolish things. Phone somebody and ask if they’re on the bus line: “Yes, we are.”

“Well, you better get off, there’s a bus coming.” Hang up and giggle. Phone a tobacconist and ask, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Well, let him out, he’ll suffocate.”

Hang up and giggle. Call six cab companies and have them all send cabs to the same address, usually a disliked teacher. Hang up and giggle. Call-

It came to me. My head lifted, it was almost as though I’d heard the sudden faint ting of a bell. I looked at the luncheonette clock, and it was ten past five. Was there time? It had to happen before the truck got here, or we’d be worse off than ever.

I had to chance it. “I think I’ve got a nervous bladder,” I said. I had to say that because I’d already been to the men’s room twice in the past hour. Getting to my feet, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

'‘Right,” Phil said.

The rest rooms were at the back, through a door and down a corridor to the left. At the end of the same corridor were the two pay phones. I fumbled a dime out of my pocket, dropped it in one of the phones, and then realized I didn’t know the number. I hung up, got the dime back, found the phone book on a shelf underneath the phone, and looked up the Federal Fiduciary Trust. Got it.

“Fedrul Doucheeary.”

“The manager, please.”

“Who's calling please?”

“The man who planted the bombs in your bank,” I said. I looked over my shoulder, but the corridor was empty.

There was a tiny silence, and the female voice at the other end said, very quietly, “Would you say that again, sir?”

“You Establishment pigs are about to go up in smoke,” I said. “I’m calling from the Twelfth of July Movement, we’re the ones that made the raid on Camp Quattatunk, and we planted a couple bombs in that bank of yours this afternoon. They’re going off at five-thirty. We don’t kill people, just money and pig Establishment banks. So this is a friendly warning. Get your asses out of there before five-thirty.”

“One, uh, one moment, please.” She believed me; I could hear the jittering nervousness in her voice. “I’ll put you on hold,” she said.

A sudden vision came to me of the call being traced. “No, you won’t,” I said. “I gave you the word, so just heed what I said. Up the Revolution!” And I hung up.

I did have a nervous bladder. After a visit to the men’s room, I returned to the table and sat down and looked out at a perfectly quiet normal street scene. It was eighteen minutes past five. There was no one visible inside the bank except the guard, who was standing by the front door with his usual calm.

What the hell had happened to that girl? Maybe she hadn't believed me, after all. But how could she take such a chance?

Twenty after. Twenty-three after. Why wasn’t something happening?

“By God,” Phil said, “I believe it’s gonna work this time.”

“Me, too,” I said.

Twenty-five after. Twenty-six after.

Jerry said, “Here comes the truck.”

“He’s early!” I said, and I just couldn’t keep the protest out of my voice.

“Just as well,” Phil said. “We’ll go in and get the fucking thing over with before something else goes wrong.”

The red truck stopped in front of the bank. Joe, moving with such studied casualness, such elaborate calm, that I would have mistrusted him from half a mile away, got out of the truck, slammed the door, and walked around to the back to get the typewriter.

“Get ready,” Phil said, and a siren sounded in the distance.

Joe froze, his head and arms in the back of the truck.

Jerry said, “Oh, no.”

Oh, yes. Joe was in motion again, slowly removing the typewriter, but then the police car slowed to a stop directly behind the truck, its front grill practically kissing the seat of Joe’s pants, and both cops jumped out of the car and ran over to the bank entrance. The guard opened for them, as Joe with the same slow elaborate unconcern put the typewriter back inside the truck, closed the rear door, sauntered around to the driver’s door, climbed in, and drove slowly and safely away.

A crowd was forming in front of the bank. The flasher light was revolving atop the police car. The other employees had now come running from the rear of the bank, and a great deal of conversation was taking place between them and the cops in the doorway.

And more sirens were sounding, coming this way.

Phil put his right elbow on the table and rested his jaw in the palm of his right hand. I have never seen anybody look so disgusted in my life, and I’ve seen people drink salted coffee, put their feet into shoes half-full of strawberry jam, and enter beds in which the sheets have been liberally treated with lard. But Phil topped them all.

A fire engine arrived. Another police car arrived. Another fire engine arrived.

Phil said, “Jerry-”

“I know,” Jerry said. He got up and left the luncheonette and went across the street, mingling with the crowd around the bank.

“What a mess,” I said.

Billy Glinn was frowning like a Parker House roll. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I just don’t get it.”

A bomb squad vehicle arrived; on a truck bed stood the world’s largest wicker basket, painted red. “Holy Jesus,” Billy said.

Jerry came back across the street. He came in and sat down and said, “Bomb scare.”

Phil looked at him. “Bomb scare,” he said.

“Some revolution group planted bombs in the bank,” Jerry said.

Phil took a deep breath. I thought he controlled himself very well. “I don’t piss off all that easy,” he announced, “but I'm getting there.”

“One thing,” Jerry said, hopefully, trying to make Phil feel better. “At least Joe kept the typewriter this time.”