The Long Ride (2 page)

CHAPTER

The Midwest Federal Trust Bank, at the end of the alley that bordered the lot below Allan Garwith’s apartment, was a modern building. A vintage business building had been condemned and knocked down five years ago. Now the Midwest Federal Trust had taken its place and rested in imposing contrast to the otherwise old and fading buildings of that downtown block. Heroic Grecian figures were frozen in sandstone bas relief on its exposed sides. Its front entrance, just around the corner from the alley, was a pair of very thick glass doors, attended by a white-haired guard named Mike.

Before turning the corner, Willy Tyler and Harry Wells stopped near the 17th Street mouth of the alley. Their car was a block behind them through the alley, on 18th. Willy Tyler’s nerves were going crazy. And he was thinking how pleasant it would be in his own bed at home right now, right here in Loma City, if so many things hadn’t happened.

If he hadn’t been drafted, he’d never have been sent to that California camp where Harry Wells was stationed. If he had never drawn Harry Wells for a sergeant, Harry wouldn’t have known him. If Harry hadn’t been transferred to Fort Allison outside Loma City to finish up the last year of his twenty-year hitch, Harry would have never gotten interested in that fort payroll money, waiting inside this bank right now to be delivered to the fort later in the morning. If Willy hadn’t come back to Loma City to live at home after his discharge, Harry couldn’t have looked him up. And if that kid lying on the bed in that crummy motel hadn’t gotten a job as a junior teller at the Midwest Federal Trust three weeks ago, if he’d been short and fat instead of Willy’s build, then Harry might have let it go and not got Willy into it and instead re-enlisted to finish out ten more.

But all the ifs had dropped into a neat pile, one upon the other, and they had added up to what was going on right now. It was all Willy could do to stop himself from turning and running back down that alley to jump in the car and get away before they’d gone any further with this. But the hard, frightening look in Harry Wells’s eyes held him.

“Harry, this isn’t going to work!”

“Shut up,” Wells said thinly.

Willy was having trouble talking through his dry mouth. He tried to dredge up a little courage thinking about what he could do when this was over and he had his share of the money. He thought about girls. He thought very hard about girls. He could have models and dancers, maybe even a movie starlet or two. He would find them in Vegas and Hollywood and New York, you name it. Because you could do anything, with enough money.

But his courage failed again. You couldn’t think right about girls when you were so frightened your mouth felt like it had been packed with cotton. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. Finally he managed, “That kid we left in the motel, Harry. They might find him any minute and he’ll blow the whistle on us—right in the middle of it. He knows everything we’ve got planned!”

“That kid won’t blow the whistle on us,” Wells said softly.

Willy looked at his eyes, and something snapped inside of him. All at once he was no longer trembling. It was as though somebody had pumped cold water into his veins. He shuddered once, then stood very motionless, staring at that look in Harry Wells’s eyes. He breathed, “You killed him, didn’t you?”

“Now,” Wells said, “you’re growing up.”

“How?”

Wells lifted his hands, smiling coldly.

Willy shook his head once. He wanted to scream and pound on the man, condemning him for ruining everything—Harry had promised nobody would get hurt… But Willy said nothing.

“You’re into it now,” Wells said, looking at him with hard eyes. “Let’s do it and do it right. Move.”

Willy nodded woodenly and moved ahead of Wells to the door. It was exactly one minute after eight. Behind the thick glass doors, the guard, large and white-haired in a blue uniform, peered out. Willy felt his breath speeding until he thought he might choke, then he was suddenly almost lifeless again. He didn’t give a damn now. He just didn’t give a damn at all.

The door was unlocked from the inside. Willy waited for the guard to draw his gun and point it at them; instead he said, “Morning, Norman. What happened to the eye?”

Willy stepped inside. Harry Wells waited behind him. Willy had a peculiar feeling that if he did anything wrong now it would not be the guard who would gun him down, but Hairy Wells. “Good morning, Mike. How do I look? Some stupid woman driver ran into us last night. It’s not serious, but my buddy’s car is a mess. Listen, Mike, this is a friend of mine. Mr. Mason wanted to see about hiring as a new teller.” He said it all almost mechanically, just as he’d practiced, in the twangy drawl of Norman Austin, who now lay dead on a bed in the motel. He thought for a moment the guard might start laughing, then Harry Wells would gun him from behind and run off, leaving him in a pool of blood on the marble floor at the doorway.

“Women drivers,” the guard said in disgust. “Sure—bring your friend in. He can wait here. Mr. Mason won’t be in until eight-thirty. Better hurry, Austin—you’re four minutes late right now.”

Willy walked through the entrance alcove which was bordered on both sides by low leather-cushioned benches. Willy looked at the interior of the bank as though he were dreaming. He and Harry had been in here separately three times in the last two weeks; it should have been familiar. But it was as though he’d never seen it before.

The loan department was forward on the right side behind a railing. Back of that were the deposit boxes and vault. The vault, Norman Austin had told them, was electronically opened at 8:05, just forty-five seconds from now. On the left were the rows of teller cages.

Head down a little, wondering who was going to be the first to recognize that he was not Norman Austin, he moved slowly past the central desks with their ballpoint pens and fresh stacks of white forms ready for the public that would come in at ten o’clock.

He looked up briefly at the clock built into the stone of the rear wall. Thirty seconds left. He stopped and got out a handkerchief, suddenly aware of the weight of the gun strapped inside his overly large suit jacket. He blew his nose, then returned his handkerchief to a hip pocket. He looked at the clock again. It was exactly 8:05. A slim man in a gray suit walked to the vault. Willy moved again. He reached the back right corner of the room, just as the man in the gray suit swung open the vault door and turned around. Willy stopped again. It was thirty seconds past 8:05. He put his right hand inside his jacket and around the gun. At the same instant he heard the hard, penetrating voice of Harry Wells echoing through the large room:

“Everybody stand right where you are. This is a holdup. It’ll take only a few seconds. Don’t touch an alarm. If it sounds we’ll start shooting. We’ll kill as many as we can. All of you at the teller cages step back two steps. Now!”

The alarms were at the teller cages, Norman Austin had told them. They were also at some other points Norman Austin didn’t know about. But that was a chance they had to take. The people at the cages moved back as instructed. Willy stood with his gun in hand now, looking at them with a peculiar detachment. Faces had gone white. Some looked angry. Some looked frightened. Some looked bewildered. Nobody moved.

Willy yanked the handkerchief inside his shirt up around his face and looked back down the distance of the room, feeling alone and vulnerable and self-conscious, as though he’d suddenly found himself in the center of a stage watched by an awed audience. Shades had been pulled over the front glass doors. The guard was backed against a wall, hands above his head and away from the holster at his hip. Harry Wells stood with his feet spread apart, his gun held close to his side, face now masked like Willy’s. He nodded to Willy. Willy walked through a swinging gate built into the low railing in front of the vault.

He moved quickly, but he did not run. He saw a half dozen employees staring at him as he passed. Then he was moving into the vault. He looked to his right, and there, on a wooden chair, rested the black satchel, just as Norman Austin had told them.

Willy picked it up and walked out of the vault, into the main room. He was certain nobody had moved. He went straight down the center of the marble-floored rotunda, his footsteps echoing in the silence. Ahead of him Harry Wells, eyes dark and mean, motioned his gun impatiently for him to hurry. Willy continued to pace evenly, halfway to the door now.

“Come on, come on!” Harry Wells called angrily.

Then the guard moved. He dropped his hand to the gun in his holster, closing his big hand around the handle. Harry Wells turned and pulled the trigger on his pistol three exploding times. The guard pitched forward, tumbling to the floor heavily.

“Run!” Harry Wells shouted, and slammed open a glass door.

Willy ran, hearing the sudden and jarring sound of the alarm going off. He had a mental picture of himself running through that large interior, knowing he looked foolishly out of place, clumsy and awkward like a child who has got caught stealing cookies.

As he neared the door he looked at the fallen guard and realized that the old man was still alive, dragging the gun from his holster. It did not occur to Willy that he should fire at that old man.

A dozen people were yelling as Willy passed the guard and reached the sunshine. The alarm rang with ear-piercing, nerve-shattering steadiness. Harry. Wells had reached the mouth of the alley. He turned to yell hoarsely, “Move, move!”

“Sure,” Willy breathed foolishly, knowing that this surely was a dream. “Sure…”

A slug caught him in the shoulder. He whirled, dropping the satchel, and stumbled to a stop. He looked back, surprised to see the guard lying in the doorway on his stomach, holding his gun with a badly shaking hand. Another bullet whined in Willy’s direction. But the guard’s aim was off now. Having fired the second time, the guard let go of his gun. His head fell against the cement of the sidewalk. Willy blinked, realizing that a uniformed policeman was running toward him from the end of the block, tugging his gun out.

Willy shoved his gun in its holster and picked up the satchel. His left shoulder was beginning to burn. He tore off the fake bandage and colored glasses and ran again, heading down the alley, wondering when the nightmare was going to end and he would wake up safely in his own bed.

Harry Wells was far ahead of him now, almost to the other end of the alley. Willy followed, feeling his breath come shorter for the effort. Now Harry disappeared. “God…” Willy Tyler gasped.

Suddenly the sedan appeared at the far end of the alley. Harry Wells waited behind the wheel, gunning the engine. Willy could hear the hard voice, “Faster, faster!”

“Yeah…” Then something bit him in the left leg. He stumbled awkwardly and realized the cop behind had shot him. He tried to keep his footing. He whirled again, looking back along the alley. The cop ducked into a doorway, firing again. This time Willy felt the bite at his forehead. He fell to his knees as blood poured into one eye. “Oh, my God…” he said, thinking of how much he’d loved his poor parents when he d been a very little boy.

Almost blinded, feeling the world tip upside down, he fell sickeningly sideways until his head slammed into the pavement. He knew it was all just a bad dream, just a terrible and frightening nightmare.

“This way!” Harry Wells was screaming in fury from the car waiting at the mouth of the alley. Then Harry Wells was firing at the cop behind Willy.

Willy lifted his head and shook it, trying to get the blood out of his eyes. He was thinking: I’ve got to get out of here, that’s what I’ve got to do.

Another bullet licked his right shoulder. He began to crawl. He crawled blindly, knowing that this was the way it always was in dreams. You tried to move fast and you couldn’t—all you could do was crawl, crawl…

The shooting was behind him now. No more bullets were trying to find him. He kept crawling until he bumped into something hard. It was not just the blood blinding him now but a blackness that kept washing in front of his eyes.

He shook his head and saw with one eye that he still had the satchel in his hand. Well, he thought, and rolled over, throwing it from him. It was that which had brought this rotten dream around. If he got rid of it the bad dream would end.

He lay on his back, dark waves hitting him, as though he were lying on a beach and the ocean was slowly folding over him. Okay, dream, he thought, end.

It did. He lay there very silently in the early morning sun, while the shooting went on in the alley, unheard by Willy, who had absolutely dreamed his last dream.

Allan Garwith was at the window of his apartment when the sound of the bank alarm, then the shooting, began. He saw first the man in the tan suit running by, shoes flashing, face now masked by a handkerchief. Bullets whined and ricocheted and whined again. Allan Garwith stood frozen, ready to duck, a furious pumping of fright going through him. He suddenly remembered how he’d felt when he’d tried to hold up that service station just outside New Orleans.

Then the youth with the yellow hair appeared in the alley, running, spinning, as a bullet struck him in the leg. He too was wearing a handkerchief. It came undone as the boy was hit again. Blood spurted over his face from a head wound. Allan Garwith sucked in his breath, crouching now, looking over the window sill. He saw the boy start crawling, coming right into the lot below, dragging a black satchel.

Then everything cleared in Allan Garwith’s brain.

He knew positively what had just happened. The bank was at the end of the alley. The men wore masks. There was shooting. A satchel was clutched in the hand of the boy now crawling through the litter of machinery below.

Allan Garwith ran out of the apartment with swift, athletic grace. He hit the back stairway fast, thinking that Brogan, the custodian, would be up the street eating breakfast, that nobody else would or could see that kid crawling through the back lot.

He reached the door, as bullets continued to whine back and forth through the alley. Teeth beginning to chatter, he saw the kid, not twelve yards from him, roll over and throw the satchel weakly from him. The satchel lay directly in front of Allan Garwith.