9:41 (25 page)

Number One Hundred and Seventy Four, was the number of the truck to be used for the Manufacturers Trust Company, Union Square Branch; was very convenient. I left the office, and passed to where the trucks were standing quietly, passively, slumbering in the shadowy dim light of the garage. As I passed across the garage I could hear the excitement of the crash that had just occurred outside, and in the distance the wail of police sirens stirring up the silent night. I'm sure the two boys in the cars were quite surprised to find no photographer, and though I didn't intend to puzzle them too much, I had to, for now they couldn't tell anyone anything except that they were conducting experiments for a Mr. Malone of the Consolidated Insurance Company. Everyone looked at them dazedly, I'm sure, and no one knew what was happening, no one except me, and I was inside and had lifted the cover from the motor compartment of truck #174, and had quickly pulled out the wire that runs from the coil to the distributor, or from the distributor to the coil, depending from which end you begin. This is the wire along which the electric charge of life for the engine runs constantly. Nevertheless, I pulled the wire, inserted a little mechanism I am quite proud to have invented, into the hole in the coil from which I had pulled the wire, and put the wire back in a similar hole in the top of this little mechanism. The little mechanism? Well, it was, and is, merely a sort of junction switch and timer. You see, the spark would travel across this switch just as it would across just the wire, but, … the timepiece was rigged like an alarm clock switch; at a predestinated hour it would release, noiselessly of course, and the switch would break the circuit, and no juice would pass from the coil to the distributor and then, of course, the truck would stop running. Rather cleverly simple, wouldn't you say? It took approximately ten seconds for me to install the device, and then I carefully closed the hood, and through a side window, checking first the street outside, I jumped to the ground and went home for a happy and relaxed night's sleep. Out in front of the garage all the people concerned were probably still scratching their heads with unknowingness; and the two boys felt duped, and were quite disappointed about their money. Since, though, I had told them I would give them another hundred dollars apiece, I mailed two crisp one hundred dollar bills from Grand Central Post Office to their addresses, which I had gained as information for the Consolidated Insurance Company.

The stage was now somewhat set. Knowing that the truck was to arrive at the bank at approximately 10:30 Ante Meridian, and that it took approximately five minutes to load the money into the van, and since it took approximately another three minutes for them to attain the highway, … therefore eight minutes from the time of their arrival, I set the timing mechanism on my little invention for 10:40, allowing two minutes just for the sake of safety. In the added two minutes, the truck could reach and drive onto the highway. It doesn't matter to which point on the highway they drive since they couldn't possibly be any further away than across the lane as I approached with the tow truck. Oh yes, I will be manning the tow truck. You see, after I point the revolver at the driver, I persuade him to drive me to my favorite warehouse, which as I've already noted has not been used for many weeks, and to which I have made a key, and which is therefore completely at my disposal, and which contains such sundry items as I might need for this adventure. Items like rope, and tear gas? Well, I'll tell you in a minute. At any rate, after I take the tow truck and the tow truck driver into the warehouse, I bind the driver, not too tightly of course, and lock him in an office. Then, out of his sight, I don my grease monkey's suit, change my glasses for a bandage across the bridge of a twisted nose, chomp on an Italian cigar, which I wouldn't light for all the money in the world, and drive off to rescue the disabled truck. Of course they would have called the garage for assistance; what else were they to do, push the truck, or leave it there? No! Allied has a remarkably rapid and efficient repair service, for obvious reasons. It is quite a large force of repair trucks, and repairmen, which of course also adds facility to my effort to appear as a new hired man, and with grease on my face, and a conspicuous bandage, and a cap pulled down far on my head, no one could delineate me from Barney Oldfield.

Have you ever had a car repaired? And have you ever balked to the mechanic before he fixed it, and have you ever come back about closing time when the mechanic was washed up, and did you find it difficult to recognize him? Well, this, I am sure, would work in my favor.

Now let me see what else there is—the accident, and no one can recognize me, or any of the five men I portrayed in masterminding the accident, and no one knows I, shall I say, tampered with the truck, and the truck is running smoothly, or was, I should say, and the tow truck is out on a routine run. I am completely non-involved. Anything I did not think of? The truck getting stuck in traffic? No, I told you, that's why I selected this particular bank, no traffic. What shall I do to the truck when I get to it? Why I intend, not seriously of course, to try and fix it. The driver and the guards will be inside protectively guarding their money: theirs so to say, and not anyone's but mine shortly. I'll open the hood and pretend I'm working with the engine, and ask the driver to step on the starter, … and the engine will crank over and over, and it, unfortunately, will not start and then I'll tell them I think it's a broken piston. No, what's the matter with me? With a broken piston, the engine would not crank over. Let's see, what could be wrong, not points, I shall certainly have a spare set in my tool case, not the starter engine, it wouldn't crank over in that case either. Hmm, perhaps a cracked rotor, no I'd have one of those too. A cracked coil, I should have a spare one, no, not really. I could have one, but I don't. That'll be it, a cracked coil. Now, if I can't start their engine, then I had better pull them to the garage quickly, wouldn't you agree? It's not good to leave an armored car on the street, or even highway. And besides, they'll have to exchange the contents of the van to another better running van to finish delivery and they wouldn't do this on the highway. I'll tow them down the highway toward the garage. Will they suspect this new man.

I doubt it; not when I have an Allied truck, and I knew that they had called, and I knew where they were disabled. Even if they do suspect him slightly, what can they do. They can't get out, because I shall drive a bit quickly and they would necessarily be smeared on the highway like so much jam. They won't be able to drive away, for I shall be towing their vehicle, right to my favorite warehouse, where of course the tear gas comes in quite handily. I'm sure you realize this now. I did not consider it prudent for me to cut through the armor with a metal cutting torch. The zealous guards might have a tendency for anger and prevention and might try to shoot me. And besides, it would take too much time and the Allied people would be out looking for them before I finished, and this would cause quite a commotion around here when they couldn't find them. They will be still locked in and protected, and probably would feel quite smug. But what if they wanted to come out. All by themselves of their own coughing volition, if you get the picture? Me? Well I have a protective gas mask right here on the seat just for that purpose. Science is so wonderful, isn't it? I'll take it with me in the tow truck and snap it on just before I get to the warehouse. Oh, they won't see it. I'll have to leave the warehouse door open so I can drive right in. Oddly enough, I wouldn't want the guards to shoot me if I had to get out to open the door. That trailer truck parked right in the doorway, at the angle it is, hides that open door. No, the police come over here and sit in their cars and waste time in the shadows only at night, when they can't be seen through the ebon quiet. But in the daytime, only a horse mounted patrolman is on duty here, and he has the entire street to guard, and why guard a deserted pier when all the trucks and confusion at the Fulton Fish Market and the Journal-American is boiling only a few hundred yards from here.

I doubt they can shoot me while we're riding, because of the angle of their truck, remember they'll be pointed up in the air as I tow, and besides, that is why I have that little plate of armor right there. It goes in the tow truck behind my head, … the rest of me will be fairly well out of harms way because of tools and mechanism on the back of the truck. Anything else? One minute to go, they should be coming around that corner in one minute. That means I have you in half a minute. The seconds tick by very slowly, do they not, one, one, … Oh, the gas will be released when I drive over the cans of gas that I've placed on the ground in the far end of the warehouse. It's five hundred feet long remember, so there's not much chance of the gas escaping into the outside air. I'll just wait until the gas overcomes my friends, and they come out of their truck so gladly. Then I round them up, and let them join their friend from the tow truck, all tied and gagged. Oh they'll be found, so will the truck, even if not by Allied, at least when the trailer leaves again in two days. Perhaps they'll even escape by then. I won't tie them too tightly. The armored car, why it will already be open. They have to open it to get out, do they not. My escape? Well, you see, inside, in the shadowy rear of the warehouse, I've already parked another old car, just like this one. They're all the same, 1938 Oldsmobiles. I tell you, it's rather hard to find them, but I found four of them, separately of course, as I outlined before. After I bring the van in and bind the guards I'll just stack, isn't it nice to have enough money to stack. I'll just stack the money into the car and drive out the door, and I'm away. I won't go far though. There's a black 1957 Ford parked two blocks away, fine running, and inconspicuous. I'll exchange the money once more, change my outfit, leave the Oldsmobile, and poof …

Oh I don't know, perhaps I'll go to Cannes, … the film festival is next week, you know. And I'll be back in the fall for the theater openings. Other than that, I haven't planned anything.

“I've really got to go now”, said the old man as he struggled out the door of the old car, an old black car with the purple showing through where the sun faded the color.

He hobbled out on the road and turned and peered down the road toward where he expected a helping hand for this flat tire which he was too feeble to fix himself. He looked at his watch, and then turned over his shoulders “you're the only one who knows. So don't say anything”. What? What if the gas doesn't get into the truck? I'll take measures so their truck will be stopped right over the gas containers, and the gas will certainly go into the driver's compartment through the holes that the brake, clutch and accelerator shafts pass through. And from there it will go in through the doorway between the driver's compartment and the portage compartment. What if it doesn't get through? We are not dealing with a rocket, you know. Be reasonable. Those men have to get their air from somewhere, usually through grating on the roof, and where the air goes in, thence also will go the gas.

“Oh here it is, … shh”, the old man whispered turning his head quickly and watching the large gray tow truck lumber heavily around the far corner. It was two hundred yards away, and it was rumbling closer and closer, looming larger and larger. Beneath it one could see the wheels of another vehicle pressing closely behind it, following it down the street.

Worry and doubt and concern crept across the face of the old man standing in the middle of the road. Suddenly, the second set of wheels shifted quickly to the left, and a low slung Jaguar roared with the hurt of having its accelerator stepped upon. The Jag leapt past the tow truck and around in front of it, sucking wind, rapidly bearing down on the old man standing in the middle of the roadway. The driver of the Jaguar had not seen the old man until he was bearing down on him very quickly. Terror stricken, he swings his car as close to the other curb as possible as the old man, afraid for his life, backed toward his own car. The old man saw the paralyzed face of the Jaguar driver approaching him wide eyed. The old man backed away, his hand behind him groping for his disabled car behind him, as he kept an anxious eye out not only for the Jaguar but for the tow truck that was now only one hundred yards away. The old man backed another step, almost completely out of the path of the onrushing, screaming, screeching Jaguar which was upon him. He backed, … and suddenly he felt the overwhelming surprise of amazement as his body sailed helplessly through the air, suspended from the ground, only to suddenly land bluntly and bouncingly on the hard ground. The Jaguar sped furiously toward the highway, and the tow truck following, now came abreast of the old man, the driver laughing, yes actually laughing, chuckling, as he looked out at the old man on the ground, and then he turned and peered forward, steering the tow truck toward the highway and the armored car.

The old man on the ground laughed too, yes, he laughed and laughed, a hearty, amused, young, self-mocking laugh as he sat on the ground watching the tow truck shrinking into the distant background, as he sat on the black asphalt ground where he had fallen after he had tripped over the spare tire as he backed away from the Jaguar.

BUDDIES

The rain was bouncing down on the sidewalk with a hiss and a spray which rose to cover the entire street with a greyish mist which raised a musty familiar smell that reminded Dino of so many past summers. He stood in the doorway of a candy store, the collar of his olive drab raincoat pulled up around his neck, the hair that he kept full on the back of his head touching the tip of the collar. Dino stood watching the red brick wall and the thousand “window eyes” of the building across the street. But as he peered at the building through the mass of falling droplets, his mind was thinking furiously, the building merely a back-drop for his thoughts. The rain even added to his feeling of apprehension … yes, the rain and the musty odor, … and he remembered himself being with Jim Plaser, a buddy from school, and Jim's girl Phyllis, on the beach last summer when a sudden rain storm enshrouded the white sand, turning the long stretch of almost white earth to a pockmarked, rain flecked mass of brownish mush that caked warmly on their feet as they ran for shelter near the parking lot, their blankets and clothes swept up in one roll which Dino ran with in his arms.