The Specialists

Seventeen

Frank Dehn said, “They came into the bank at different times and moved into position. Wore ordinary business suits and had their guns under their jackets. Must have moved on a time signal, two men on the tellers, one at the door, another on the bank vice-president. They took him downstairs and made him open the vault. Couldn’t have been much of a problem there. Platt would have seen to it that they picked a man who was clued in and knew to open up for them. They cleaned the tellers after they hit the vault. Left the silver, of course. The teller got hers because she tried to be a hero, went for the alarm. The guard may have been window dressing. Hard to say. The idea is he tried for his gun, but he died with the gun still in his holster and according to a couple of witnesses he never even moved for it kept his hands in the air all the time. So either one of the robbers panicked or else they figured to make it more authentic by scratching a guard. They play nasty.”

“Appearance? Voice?”

“All white, so Howard can drive. They used a stolen car, incidentally, left it seven blocks away. What else? A wart on somebody’s hand, and the majority opinion was that the wart was on the left hand of a tall guy with a crew cut. A dark guy with a thin moustache; a couple of witnesses missed the moustache, but the rest reported it. Not much on the voices except the usual garbage — they were menacing, they were bitter, you know the way witnesses project. What else? The moustache was the last one out the door, kept the crowd covered while the rest piled into the car. Car was not on the scene until they started out, then moved in on cue to pick them up...”

Louis Giordano said, “Her lunch hour’s twelve thirty to one thirty, so if we hit it then, she’ll be out. The tellers have each got an alarm button on the floor. They hit it with their feet if they get a chance, but they’ve all got instructions to stay cool if there’s a holdup. They aren’t supposed to take chances. Where’s the drawings? The buttons are here and here and here, and evidently there’s a wire running across here that they’re all hooked to. Hit that wire and they’re all dead.

“Cash on hand remains pretty constant, as far as she knows. A Wells Fargo car comes by every Wednesday at two to deliver change and small bills and pick up old bills and silver coins for shipment to the Federal Reserve. There’s not that much cash involved, though, so you can discount that part.

“On the vault, she doesn’t know too much about that part of the operation. The president is somebody named Caspers, but he’s out most of the time. There’s a vice-president named Devlin. I get the impression that he runs the show most of the time. He has the vault combination; she knows that because he’s the one who opens up for the armored car boys...”

Edward Manso said, “The front gate is clean. The rest of the fence all the way around is electrified from ten at night until seven in the morning. During the day he has two men on the front gate and one roaming the grounds in back, but there will also be odd hoods that sort of wander around when they don’t have anything better to do. At night, from ten to seven, the force is beefed up. Still two men on the front gate, but others here and here and here. A total of five at night. At night there are alarms on all the doors and windows. They’re wired to the front gate. We went out for air last night and we didn’t go five steps before a flashlight picked us up. The night men have walkie-talkies connecting to the front gate, so everybody’s in close contact. Marlene says she feels like she’s living in a prison. At first I thought she was just there for the soft life, but now I don’t know. I think there’s a pretty big love-hate thing there. He’s got some kind of emotional hold on her. Maybe she responds to his strength, I don’t know. She was bitching about things and I asked her why she stuck around. I got a funny look from her and then a lot of silence. I maybe shouldn’t have asked.”

“You want to come out?”

“No. He’s got the vault combination somewhere. I lifted his wallet and couldn’t find it there, but there’s a safe in his bedroom and I ought to be able to get to it.”

“We don’t need it.”

“Call it insurance. Anyway, I’m in like Flynn. He bought the whole story. He wanted to buy it, he’s excited about having a son. But we play it very cool. In introductions I’m Eddie No Last Name. I’m inside, it’s as easy to stay inside.”

Howard Simmons said, “The traffic pattern is fairly steady. No parking in front of the bank. I can pick them up in front and run two blocks without worrying about traffic lights. Then a right and a left. Say we stash the second car right about here. We’ll be on the highway before there’s any chance of a roadblock. We take Two-O-Two and cross the state line at Suffern, dropping some of the boys off on the way. We switch cars one more time right across the New York line, then take the Thruway north, cross the Hudson at Beacon, come back down on the Taconic.”

Ben Murdock said, “I got that old truck painted brown again and the right plates on her. Only hard part is the waiting. I feel ready to bust out. The guns check out good enough. This here throws a little high and this one, hell, you won’t hit anything with it unless it’s big and you’re close, but shouldn’t be much shooting.”

Colonel Roger Cross said, “Thursday. Thirteen hundred hours. You all have your assignments and battle stations. Now let us go over the entire operational plan one more time.”

Frank Dehn said, “I don’t like it and I’m damned if I know why. You know what it is? It’s too damned slick. It’s easy, and when it’s this easy, I sweat. It doesn’t make any sense and I know it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t like it.”

Everybody told him he was crazy.