Bank Shot

16

Joe Mulligan stumbled on his way into the bank and turned to glare at the top step. This was the seventh consecutive Thursday he’d been on this job; you’d think by now he’d know the height of the steps.

“What’s the matter, Joe?”

It was Fenton, the senior man. He liked the boys to call him Chief, but none of them ever did. Also, even though they didn’t have to be on duty till eight-fifteen, Fenton was always on the job no later than eight o’clock, standing right by the door to see if any of the boys were going to be late. Still, he wasn’t such a bad old bird; if you did happen to be late any time, he might give you a word or two on the subject himself, but he wouldn’t ever report it to the office.

Mulligan tucked down his dark-blue uniform jacket, readjusted his holster on his right hip, and shook his head. “Getting stumble-footed in my old age,” he said.

“Now me, I feel like I got a spring in my step tonight,” Fenton said, gri

“I’m glad for you,” Mulligan said. As for himself, he would be very pleased — as always on these Thursday nights — when it came around to nine o’clock and the last of the bank employees had gone home and he could sit down and relax. He’d spent a lifetime on his feet and believed there would never be a spring in his step again.

He had arrived tonight at eight-fourteen, according to the clock on the wall up behind the tellers. All the other guards were here already except Garfield, who tromped in a minute later — just under the wire — smoothing that Western-marshal mustache of his and looking around as if he hadn’t decided for sure whether to guard the bank or hold it up.

Mulligan had by this time taken up his usual Thursday evening post, against the wall near the pretty girl at the courtesy desk outside the counter. He’d always been partial to pretty girls. He was also partial to her chair and liked to be the nearest one to it.

The bank was still open and would be until eight-thirty, so for the next fifteen minutes it would be very crowded, what with its normal complement of employees and customers added to by the seven private guards, Mulligan and the other six. All seven wore the same police-officerlike uniform, with the triangular badge on the left shoulder reading Continental Detective Agency. Their shields, embossed with CDA and their number, were also police-like, and so were their gun belts and holsters and the.38-caliber Smith & Wesson Police Positive revolvers within them. Most of them, including Mulligan, had been police officers at one time and had no trouble looking natural in the uniform. Mulligan had been on the force in New York City for twelve years but hadn’t liked the way things were going and had spent the last nine years with Continental. Garfield had been an MP, and Fenton had spent twenty-five years as a cop in some city in Massachusetts, retired on half pay, and was working for Continental now as much to keep himself occupied as to augment his income.

Fenton was the only one with any additional insignia on his uniform; the two blue chevrons on his sleeves meant he was a sergeant. The CDA had only the two uniformed ranks, guard and sergeant, and used sergeants only where a job called for more than three men. They also had an Operative classification, which was for plainclothes work, a job toward which Mulligan did not aspire. He knew that being a Continental Op was supposed to be glamorous, but he was a flat-foot, not a detective, and content to remain so.

At eight-thirty the regular bank guard, an old man named Nieheimer, not a CDA man, locked both bank doors and then stood by one of them to keep unlocking it again for the next five minutes or so, letting the last customers out. Then the employees did their closing paperwork, put all the cash away in the safe, covered the typewriters and adding machines, and by nine o’clock the last of them — that was always Kingworthy, the manager — was ready to go home. Fenton always stood by the door to watch Kingworthy out and be sure the manager locked up properly on the outside. The way the system worked, the alarm could be switched on or off only with a key on the outside; once Kingworthy left, the guards inside couldn’t open either door without sounding the alarm down at police headquarters. For that reason, all seven guards brought lunch bags or lunch buckets. There was also a men’s room at the front end of the trailer, the end farthest from the safe.

Nine o’clock. Kingworthy left, he locked up, Fenton turned and said what he said every Thursday night: “Now we’re on duty.”

“Right,” Mulligan said and reached for the courtesy desk’s chair. Meanwhile, Block was going down to get the folding table from where it was stored by the safe, and the others were all heading for their favorite chairs. Within a minute, the folding table was set up in the customer area of the bank, the seven guards were in seven chairs around it, and Morrison had pulled the two fresh decks from his uniform pocket — one deck with blue backs, the other with red — and they were all taking handfuls of change from their pockets and slapping them down on the table.

Seven cards were dealt around, with the high card to be the first dealer, and that turned out to be Dresner. “Five-card stud,” he said, put a nickel in the pot and started to deal.

Mulligan was sitting with his back to the safe, facing the front of the trailer; that is, the part with the officers’ desks. The tellers’ counter was to his right, the two locked doors to his left. He sat with his legs spread wide, both feet flat on the floor, and watched Dresner deal him a five of hearts up. He looked at his hole card, and it was the two of spades. Morrison bet a nickel — it was nickel limit on the first card, dime after that, twenty cents on the last — and when it came around to Mulligan he very quietly folded. “I don’t believe this is going to be my night,” he said.

It wasn’t. By one-thirty in the morning he was losing four dollars and seventy cents. However, Fox occasionally dealt draw poker, jacks or better to open, and at one-thirty he did it again. In draw, each player anted at the begi

It was time for the draw. Fenton, the opener, took three new cards; so he had only the one high pair, jacks or over, to begin with. Mulligan considered; if he took two cards, they’d all suspect he had trips. But he was known to be a man to try for straights and flushes, so if he took only one card they’d think he was at it again. In addition to the three sixes, he had a queen and a four; he threw away the four and said, “One card.”

Garfield chuckled. “Still trying, eh, Joe?”

“I guess so,” Mulligan said and looked at another queen.

“An honest three,” Garfield said. So he, too, was starting with only a pair — probably aces or kings, hoping to just beat out Fenton’s openers.

“A dishonest one,” Block said. Which was either two pair, or an attempt to buy a flush or a straight.

After the draw, the maximum bet was fifty cents, and that’s what Fenton bet. So he’d improved.

Mulligan looked at his cards, though he hadn’t forgotten them. Three sixes and two queens — a very nice full house. “I believe I’ll just raise,” he said and plucked a dollar bill from his shirt pocket and dropped it casually among the coins in the pot.