Snowbound (2 page)

On the window table in front of Cain was a bottle of bonded bourbon, a glass containing three fingers of the liquor, a package of cigarettes, and an overflowing ashtray. The only times he moved were to lift the glass to his mouth or to refill it when it became empty or to light another cigarette. It was very quiet in the cabin, but he could hear the cold clean humming of the wind as it blew across the face of the slope, fluttering snow from the branches of the trees and tugging querulously at the weatherstripping around the glass. And he could hear, too, from time to time, the faint strains of the recorded Christmas carols which constantly emanated from the Mercantile’s outside loudspeakers and which, owing to the thinness of the air, were sometimes audible even this far above the village.

As had happened before in the past two weeks, each of them brought forth memory fragments from the bright corners of his mind. . . .

. . . Angie singing those words softly, sweetly, as they trimmed the tree the year before, smiling, that question-mark loop of gold hair hanging down over her left eye, her face slightly flushed from the hot-buttered rums they’d drunk earlier, and Lindy tugging at the hem of her dress, dancing up and down, saying, “Mommy, Mommy, let me put the angel on top, let me put the angel on top!” and Steve hanging his stocking on the mantel, very intent, very careful, the top of his small tongue held catlike in the open space between his missing front teeth. . . .

. . . Angie’s voice again, softer, reverent, while all of them sat in the darkened living room and looked at the winking lights of the tree, the kids drowsy but refusing to give in because they wanted to wait up for Santa Claus, Angie’s voice making the words into a lullaby that finally put them both to sleep, and he and Angie carrying them upstairs and putting them to bed and then tiptoeing downstairs again and setting out the presents, filling the stockings, and, when everything was arranged, going up to their own room and lying close, holding each other in the silent, holy night. . . .

Cain got abruptly to his feet, shoving his chair back, and carried his glass away from the window. He stood unsteadily in the center of the room, looking at the fireplace, and it reminded him of the one in the house near San Francisco’s Twin Peaks, the house that no longer was. He turned away and went across to the breakfast counter and around it into the kitchen area for a fresh package of cigarettes. Spasmodically, he tore off the cellophane and got one of the cylinders into his mouth and began patting the pockets of his Pendleton shirt. His matches were on the table. He went over there again, sat down, lit the cigarette, drained the bourbon from his glass; then he stared again into the valley, refusing to hear the faint carols now, concentrating on what he saw spread out before him.

White world, soft world, clean world; snow had a way of hiding the ugliness and disguising the tawdry trappings of humanity, of creating the kind of beauty a whore creates with makeup and the right kind of lighting. Here, in this idyllic, fanciful little valley, you could almost believe again in Christmas and God and Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men; you could almost believe life had meaning and was worth living, and that there was hope and joy and justice in the world. But it was all illusion, it was all a lie. There was no God and there was no peace, and there was no justice; there was nothing to believe in, there was nothing left at all.

Cain picked up the bourbon bottle and poured himself another drink.

The three of them went in for the ripoff at two thirty, exactly half an hour before the scheduled arrival of the armored car.

The place was called Greenfront—one of those cash-and-carry super-department stores where you can buy anything from groceries to complete home furnishings—and it was located on the northern outskirts of Sacramento. A former employee had dropped word in the right places in L.A., eight weeks before, that he was willing to sell a detailed package on the complex. Kubion had picked up on it immediately; he was a planner, an organizer—between jobs and looking for something ripe and solid—and on paper the job looked pretty good. He gave the guy an initial finder’s fee of five hundred, told him there’d be another two thousand if a score developed, thought things over for a while and figured a three-man team, and went to talk to Brodie. He’d worked with Brodie before, and he was sharp and dependable and had a multitude of talents, like being a good wheel man and having contacts that could supply you with most anything short of a tank; Brodie was looking, too, and said he liked the sound of it so far, count him in. They talked over who to get for the third man. Both of them wanted Chadwick; but Chadwick was unavailable, and so were two others they tried, and finally they had to settle for Loxner. Loxner was big and bluff and slow-witted and knew how to take orders well enough, but the thing about him, like the thing about a lot of strong arms in the business, he was tough only when things were moving smoothly and he was behind the gun. If there was any kind of tight, the word was he went to mush inside and maybe you couldn’t depend on him to do anything except crap his shorts. Still, he’d been around a long time and had only taken one fall, and that said something for him right there. So they talked to him, and he was free and hungry, and that made the team complete.

That Monday the three of them had driven up to Sacramento to look things over. A single surveillance of the afternoon ritual with the armored car, using binoculars from a copse of trees to the rear, convinced them that the job was not only workable, it was a goddamn wonder somebody hadn’t ripped the place off long before this. Kubion evolved a full-scale plan right away, but they hadn’t wanted to use it if there was an alternative method; the financing would be heavy and would cut deeply into the take. They visited the store several times, individually and in pairs, and they camped in the trees for three successive Monday afternoons. But they couldn’t find another way to do it that was as clean and sure as the original. They even considered hitting the armored car instead, but that was a dangerous and by no means simple or guaranteed proposition—particularly since the car operated strictly within residential and business districts. And there wouldn’t be any more money in the store by doing it that way, since the car delivered each payload to one bank or another after making a pickup.

For reasons known only to its management, the armored car company didn’t necessarily use the same guards on the same run each Monday. And, conversely, their signal for admittance to Greenfront never varied: one long, two short, one long on the bell beside the rear entrance door. These two facts, discovered during surveillance, convinced the three of them finally to take Greenfront according to Kubion’s initial plan. With the method of operation settled, they agreed to pool their slim cash reserves in order to eliminate outside financing and an even larger slice off the top, and went to work setting it up.

Brodie knew something about photography and spent two days outside the car company’s offices in downtown Sacramento, taking unobtrusive color photographs of the guards and of the type of armored car used by the firm. When the pictures were developed and blown up, Kubion took the ones of the cars to a mechanic Brodie knew in San Francisco, and the mechanic thought it over and decided he could make a dummy, for around eight thousand, that would pass any but the closest inspection. Then Kubion went to L.A. with the photos of the guards, to a costumers again supplied by Brodie, and put out another two thousand on three duplicate guard uniforms, three sets of simple theatrical disguises, and six money sacks of the type utilized by the armored car concern. Brodie handled the weaponry, through a safe gunsmith in Sacramento; he bought three .38 caliber Colt New Police revolvers, the same model carried by the guards, and a Smith & Wesson Model 39 automatic, .38 caliber, as a backup. On each of the subsequent three Mondays, Brodie followed the car which serviced Greenfront—one stop each week, using different rented vehicles on each occasion, to avoid the possibility of detection; by this means, he learned that the stop just prior to Greenfront was a place called Saddleman’s Supermarket, two miles from the department store complex.

The former Greenfront employee had supplied a detailed map of the office as part of his finder’s package, and the three of them went over it several times to be sure they knew exactly what to expect once they were inside. The rear entrance, through which the armored car guards were admitted to the building, opened on a set of stairs. At the top was a second door, also kept locked, and beyond there was the office: windowed cubicle occupied by the store manager, six desks manned by the general staff. One door leading down into the store proper, to the far left as you entered from the rear. Safe in the same wall as that door, vault type, to which both the manager and the chief accountant had the combination. Thick plate-glass window beginning waist-high in the fronting wall, which looked down on the aisles and departments and check-out counters on the main floor. Seven employees, plus two armed uniformed security officers—one of those the one who came downstairs to admit the armored car personnel. Two other guns in the building, one each to two additional security cops stationed on the main floor. No alarm system of any kind.

There was no problem in any of that, no problem at all once they got inside. The only sweat was the dummy armored car. They would have to drive it to Greenfront, leave it in plain sight in front of the door for the estimated fifteen minutes it would take them to complete the job, and then drive it away again afterward; but that couldn’t be helped, and the score was plenty large enough to warrant the risk.

With Greenfront being open twelve full hours on both Saturday and Sunday and with the armored car coming only once a week, they figured that between a hundred and a hundred and twenty thousand would be awaiting transfer on this Monday afternoon. There might have been more money in the safe the following Monday, Christmas Eve, but it wouldn’t be a great deal more; and on Christmas Eve there was always a traffic problem—last—minute shoppers, the big rush—which meant increased police patrols. And according to the finder’s package, Greenfront sometimes put on extra security guards just before Christmas. This Monday, then, was the best time for the hit.

Brodie found a garage for rent on a short-term lease, in an industrial area four blocks from Greenfront, and that minimized somewhat the risk with the dummy car; he wore one of the theatrical disguises while visiting the realtor and paid the deposit in cash. Also, as a final precaution, Loxner arranged for a safe place to ground, in an isolated section of the Sierra called Hidden Valley. It was there they figured to make the split and to spend a week or so letting things cool down before they separated.

The week before, Kubion and Brodie had driven up to this Hidden Valley and established residence—two San Francisco businessmen on a combination vacation and work conference, they said—so that they would not be complete strangers when they came back after the job; and when they came back, Loxner would keep out of sight: still two men, not three, to ensure further that none of the locals would tie them in with Greenfront. Brodie and Kubion returned to Sacramento on Friday, and the mechanic delivered the dummy car inside a storage van late Saturday night, directly to the rented garage. There had been nothing to do then but wait for Monday afternoon . . . .

They left the garage at two twenty-five, with Brodie driving and Kubion beside him and Loxner in back. Each of them wore one of the disguises: false mustaches and sideburns and eyebrows, putty noses, cotton wadding to fatten cheeks and distort the shape of the mouth. They saw no police units in the four blocks to Greenfront. Fifty yards beyond the office entrance at the rear was the loading dock, with a couple of semis drawn up to it and warehousemen pushing dollies back and forth on the ramp; none of the men glanced at the armored car as it pulled up and parked.

Brodie went around and opened the rear doors, and Loxner came out with the empty money sacks. The two of them stepped up to the door, while Kubion stood watching by the right rear fender. Loxner pressed the bell, one long and two short and one long, and they stood there under the dark afternoon sky, waiting for the security cop to come down.

It took him two minutes, twenty or thirty seconds longer than usual because they weren’t expecting the armored car for another half hour. He opened the peephole in the door and stared out through the thick glass covering it and saw the car and the three uniformed men—everything exactly as it was supposed to be. Satisfied, he worked the locks and swung the door open and said, “You guys are pretty early, aren’t you?”

“There’s a fire over on Kingridge,” Brodie told him. “Big warehouse right across the street from Saddleman’s. They’ve got the streets blocked off, hoses and pumpers everywhere, and we can’t get in. So the company told us we might as well go ahead with our other rounds.”

“Fires in the middle of December,” the guard said, and shook his head. “Well, everything’s just about ready upstairs, but you might have to wait five or ten minutes.”

“Sure, we expected that.”

The guard stepped aside to let Brodie and Loxner enter. When they were past him, he turned and started to close the door—and Brodie’s left hand slapped across his mouth, jerking his head back; the swiftly drawn revolver jabbed him sharply in the small of the back. Softly, Brodie said, “You make a funny move or say anything above a whisper when I take my hand away, and I’ll kill you first thing. Believe it. ”