Westlake, Donald E – Bank Shot

*************

Kelp said, “Excuse me, Miss. I wanted to open an account.”

The girl, her head bent beneath a towering bouffant hairdo, didn’t pause in her

typing. “Have a seat, and an officer will be right with you.”

“Thank you,” Kelp said. He sat down and glanced around the interior of the

bank, as a bored man will do while waiting.

The safe was down at the Kresge end and more impressive-looking than

Victor had implied. It filled practically the whole width of the trailer down there

at the end, and the door-which was ajar-was admirably large and thick.

The customer portion of the bank was separated from the rest by a chest-high

partition, with here and there an entrance door through it. If one were to take the

top off the trailer and look inside, this chest-high partition would form a letter C,

long and thin and with right angles instead of curves. The customer area was the

part enclosed by the C-the right half of the middle of the trailer. At the top of

the C was the safe, down along the side of the C were the tellers, and the thick

bottom of the C contained the desks of the three bank officers. The girl in the

bouffant hairdo was at a smaller desk outside the C; she and the elderly bank

guard were the only employees in the customer section.

Kelp cased the joint, and then he memorized it, and then he got up and read

the pamphlets for auto loans and credit cards, and then he looked around the

place again to be sure he remembered it all, and he remembered it all. He’d

planned on actually opening an account, but finally that seemed superfluous, so

he got to his feet and told the girl, “I’ll come back after lunch.”

The hairdo nodded. She kept typing.

*************

“Why,” Herman said, “from the outside it looks like any other garage.”

Victor nodded, smiling. “I thought you’d like it,” he said.

*************

Dortmunder came out of the bedroom wearing black sneakers, black trousers

and a long-sleeved black shirt. In one hand he was holding a black cap, and

over his forearm hung a black leather jacket. May, who was hemming curtains,

looked up and said, “You off?”

“Be back pretty soon.”

“Break a leg,” May said and went back to her sewing.

14

THE railroad-station parking lot had cars in it all night long on weekends, and

this was Friday night, so there was no problem. Victor and Herman arrived in

Victor’s Packard, parked it and strolled over to the waiting room. This was the

Long Island Railroad, which had been the best in the world since November of

1969. The waiting room was open and lit, since late trains came out here from

the city on Friday nights, but the ticket office was closed. Victor and Herman

wandered around the empty waiting room reading the notices until they saw

headlights; then they went back outside.

It was the Javelin, growling contentedly to itself as though it had just eaten a

Pinto. Murch was driving and Dortmunder was beside him. Murch slipped the

Javelin into a parking space-it was done like a samurai sheathing his sword, the

same sense of ceremony-and then he and Dortmunder got out and walked

over to join the other two.

Dortmunder said, “Kelp isn’t here yet?”

Victor said, “Do you suppose he had some trouble?”

“Here he comes,” Herman said.

“I wonder what he brought me,” Murch said as the truck headlights made the

turn into the parking lot.

The town all around them was fairly well lit but basically empty, like a movie

set. Traffic was light to moderate with people homeward bound from their

Friday-night outings, and the occasional Nassau County police car was

interested in drunken drivers, automobile accidents and potential burglary of

downtown stores, not vehicles moving in and out of the railroad-station parking

lot.

Kelp pulled to a stop next to the waiting men. His style of driving was in deep

contrast with Murch, who seemed to do no physical labor at all but to operate

his cars by thought control. Kelp, on the other hand, even after the truck had

come to a stop, could still be seen in there for several seconds turning the wheel

and shifting the gears, pushing and pulling and shoving and only gradually himself

coming to a stop, like a radio that keeps broadcasting for a few seconds after

you switch it off, while the tubes cool.

“Well,” said Murch, in the manner of a man withholding judgment but not

expecting much.

It was a good-sized truck, a Dodge, with a box about fifteen feet long. The

doors and sides carried the company name: Laurentian Paper Mills. In

addition, the doors bore the names of two cities: “Toronto, Ontario-Syracuse,

New York.” The cab was green, the box dark brown, and it had New York

plates. Kelp had left the motor running, and it gug-gugged like any truck engine.

Now, as Kelp opened the door and climbed down to the pavement, carrying

a brown shopping bag, Murch said to him, “What was it attracted you to this

thing? In particular, I mean.”

“The fact that it was empty,” Kelp said. “We don’t have to unload any

paper.”

Murch nodded. “Well,” he said, “it’ll do.”

“There was an International Harvester I saw,” Kelp told him, “with a nice

racing stripe on it, but it was full of model cars.”

“This one‘1! do,” Murch said.

“If you want, I’ll go back and get that one.”

“No,” Murch said judiciously, “this one will do just fine.”

Kelp looked at Dortmunder and said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever met such an

ingrate in my life.”

“Let’s go,” Dortmunder said.

Dortmunder and Kelp and Victor and Herman got up into the back of the

truck, and Murch closed the van doors after them. Now the interior was pitch-black. Dortmunder felt his way to the side wall and sat down, as the others were

already doing. A second later, the truck lurched forward.

The worst moment was the bump coming out of the parking lot. After that,

Murch moved them along pretty smoothly.

In the dark, Dortmunder wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “Somebody’s been

drinking,” he said.

Nobody answered.

“I can smell it,” Dortmunder said. “Somebody had a drink.”

“I can smell it, too,” Kelp said. From the sound of his voice, he was just

across the way.

Victor said, “Is that what that is? A funny smell, almost sweet.”

Herman said, “Smells like whiskey. Not Scotch, though.”

“Not bourbon either,” Kelp said.

“The question is,” Dortmunder said, “who’s been drinking?” Because it was a

very bad idea to drink while out on a job.

“Not me,” Kelp said.

Herman said, “That’s not my style.”

There was a little silence, and suddenly Victor said, “Me? Fleck, no!”

Dortmunder, said, “Well, somebody’s been drinking.”

Herman said, “What do you want to do, smell everybody’s breath?”

“I can smell it from here,” Dortmunder said.

“The air is full of it,” Kelp said.

All at once Herman said, “Wait a second. Wait a second, I think I know…

Just wait a second.” From the scrambling sound, he was getting to his feet,

moving along the wall. Dortmunder waited, squinting his eyes in the darkness but

still unable to see a thing.

A thudding. Herman: “Oops.”

Victor: “Ow!”

Herman: “Sorry.”

Victor (garbled a bit, as though he had fingers in his mouth): “That’s okay.”

Then there was a hollow drumming sound, and Herman laughed. “Sure!” he

said, obviously pleased with himself. “You know what it is?”

“No,” Dortmunder said. He was getting very irritated that the drinker

wouldn’t own up to what he’d done and starting to suspect it was Herman, now

trying to distract them all from the question with a lot of foolishness.

Herman said, “It’s Canadian!”

Kelp sniffed loudly and said, “By God, I think you’re right. Canadian

whiskey.”

More hollow drumming, and Herman said, “This is a fake wall. Up-here

behind the cab, it’s a fake wall. We’re in a goddam smuggler’s truck!”

Dortmunder said, “What?”

“That’s where the smell’s coming from, back there. They must have broken a

bottle.”

Dortmunder said, “Smuggling? Prohibition’s over.”

“By golly, Herman,” Victor said excitedly, “you’ve stumbled on something

important!” Never had he sounded more like an FBI man.

Dortmunder said, “Prohibition’s over.”

“Import duties,” Victor explained. “That isn’t directly the Bureau’s

responsibility, that’s Treasury’s department, but I do know a bit about it. There

are outfits like this strung all across the border. They smuggle Canadian whiskey

into the States and American cigarettes up into Canada, and they make a pretty

profit in both directions.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said Kelp.

“Uncle,” Victor said, “where exactly did you get this truck?”

Kelp said, “You’re not in the Bureau any more, Victor.”

“Oh,” Victor said. He sounded slightly confused. Then he said, “Of course

not. I was just wondering.”

“In Greenpoint.”

“Of course,” Victor said musingly. “Down by the piers.”

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