Bank Shot

“It wasn’t locked?” He stared at the padlock in horror, as though it were a shrunken head.

“Nope.”

“If the boss …” He licked his lips, then stared at May in mute appeal.

“I won’t tell,” she promised. His nervousness was making her nervous, too, and she was in a hurry to get finished with him and out of here.

“He can be very …” He shook his head, then glanced down at the open drawer, seemed surprised to see it open, then frowned at it and drew out some papers. “Here they are,” he said.

May spent the next ten minutes filling out forms. She wrote that the trailer had four occupants: Mrs. Hortense Davenport (herself); her sister, Mrs. Winifred Loomis (Murch’s Mom); and Mrs. Loomis’ two sons, Stan (Murch) and Victor (Victor). Dortmunder and Kelp and Herman did not exist on the forms May filled out.

The manager grew gradually calmer as time went by, as though slowly getting used to May’s presence, and was even risking shaky little smiles when May handed over the last of the forms and the twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents. “I hope your stay at Wanderlust is just great,” he said.

“Thank you, I’m sure it will be,” May said, getting to her feet, and the manager suddenly looked terrified again and moved all his extremities at once, causing great land shifts of paper on his desk. May, baffled, looked over her shoulder and saw the room filling with state troopers. May stifled a nervous start of her own, but she didn’t need to; the manager’s contortions had riveted the troopers’ attentions.

“Well, bye now,” May said and walked through the troopers — there were only two of them after all — toward the door. The thump behind her was either the padlock or the manager hitting the floor; she didn’t turn to see which, but kept going, and strode hurriedly up the gravel drive toward the bank. As she approached it, she saw it suddenly rock slightly on its wheels, and then settle down again. Another of Herman’s explosions, she thought, and a few seconds later a puff of white smoke came out a vent on the trailer roof. They’ve picked a Pope, she thought.

Dortmunder was waiting in the doorway to give her a hand up. “Whoop, thanks,” she said. “The cops are here.”

“I saw them. We’ll get back of the partition.”

“Right.”

Murch’s Mom said, “Let’s not get those cards mixed up. Everybody hold onto your own hand.”

Murch said, “Mom, will you please put the brace on?”

“For the last time, no.”

“You could blow the whole case for us right here.”

She stared at him. “I am standing in a stolen bank,” she said, “which is about nine felonies rolled into one already, and you’re worried about a lawsuit with an insurance company?”

“If we get picked up on this thing,” Murch said, “we’ll need all the cash we can lay our hands on for the defense.”

“That’s a cheerful thought,” May said. She was standing by the door, looking out toward the office.

Dortmunder had gone around behind the partition to join Herman and Kelp, and now all sound stopped from back there. A second later, Victor came out and said, “So they’re here, are they?” He had a big smile on his face.

“Just coming out of the office,” May said. She shut the door and went over to look out a window instead.

“Remember,” Victor said, “they can’t come in without a warrant.”

“I know, I know.”

But the troopers made no attempt to come in. They walked down the gravel roadway between the lines of trailers, looking this way and that, and gave the green-painted bank no more than a passing glance.

Victor was watching out another window. “It’s starting to rain,” he said. “They’ll want to get back in their car.”

It was, and they did. A slight sprinkle had developed, and the troopers walked a bit faster on their way back down the line of trailers toward their car. May, looking up, saw heavy clouds coming on fast from the west. “It’s really going to come down,” she said.

“What do we care?” Victor said. “We’re warm and dry inside this bank here.” He looked around with that big smile on his face and said, “They even have electric baseboard heat.”

Murch’s Mom said, “Are they gone?”

“Just getting in their car,” May said. “There they go.” She turned from the window, and now she too was smiling. “I suddenly realize,” she said, “that I was very nervous.” She took the stub of cigarette from her mouth and looked at it. “I just lit this,” she said.

“Let’s play cards,” Murch’s Mom said. “Dortmunder! Come on out and play cards.”

Dortmunder came out, Victor went back in with Herman and Kelp, the four outside sat down to play cards again, and Murch’s Mom shot the moon. Murch said, “See? See? I told you!”

“So you did,” Murch’s Mom said. She smiled at her son and riffled the cards as she shuffled.

Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door. Everybody at the table stared, and May quickly got up to look out the nearest window. “It’s somebody with an umbrella,” she a

“Get rid of him,” Dortmunder said. “I’ll go back by the safe again.”

“Right.”

May waited till Dortmunder was out of sight, then opened the door and looked out at the nervous manager, more nervous than ever and miserable-looking under the black umbrella. “Uh,” May said. How could she avoid inviting him in, with all that rain?

He said something, but the drumming of the rain on both the bank roof and his umbrella drowned out the words. May said, “What?”

Shrilly, he yelled, “I don’t want any trouble!”

“That’s wonderful!” May shouted back. “Neither do I!”

“Look!”

He was pointing down. May leaned forward, getting her hair wet, and looked at the ground beside the trailer, and it was pale green. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said and looked to left and right. The bank was blue and white again. “Oh, good Christ,” she said.

“I don’t want any trouble!” the manager shouted again. May took her head in from the rain. “Come on in,” she invited.

He took a step back, shaking his head and his free hand. “No no. No trouble.”

May called to him, “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t want you here!” he yelled. “The boss would kick me out! No trouble, no trouble!”

“You won’t call the police?”

“Just go away! Go away and I won’t call them and it never happened!”

May tried to think. “Give us an hour,” she said.

“Too long!”

“We have to get a truck. We don’t have a truck here.”

His quandary was making him so nervous he was hopping from foot to foot, as though he had to go to the bathroom. Maybe, with all the rain beating down, he did. “All right,” he yelled at last. “But no more than an hour!”

“I promise!”

“I’ll have to unhook you! The water and electricity!”

“All right! All right!”

He fidgeted out there until she realized he was waiting for her to shut the door. Should she thank him? No, he didn’t want thanks, he wanted reassurance. “You won’t have any trouble!” she yelled at him, and waved, and shut the door.

Dortmunder was standing beside her. “I heard,” he said.

“We’ll have to take it somewhere else,” she said.

“Or give up.”

Herman and Kelp had wandered out from behind the partition. Herman said, “Give up? I’ve just begun to fight!”

Kelp said, “What’s the problem? How’d he tip to us?”

May told him, “We used water-base paint. The rain washed it off.”

Herman said, “We can’t give up, that’s all. We just have to take it someplace else.”

Dortmunder said, “With every cop on Long Island out looking for it. And with the green paint gone. And with no place in mind to put it.”

Murch said, “And no truck to drive it anywhere.”

Kelp said, “That’s never a problem, Stan. Trucks are never a problem. Trust me.”

Murch gave him a glum look.

Victor said, “In this rain, there won’t be much of a search.”