He grabbed the frying pan, blistered his fingers, yelped, reached for a pot holder, and removed the pan to the sink. Then, sucking his burned fingers, he dashed for the door.
With a vacuous smile on her large, damp mouth, Miss Mavis Birdsong was standing in the corridor. She had moved into the building a few weeks previously. Ripened to the point of generosity in face and figure, she was a blonde with large, round blue eyes. There was just a little too much of her for Henry’s taste, although he had accepted her friendship from the day she had moved in and crossed the hall to borrow a cup of sugar.
“Hi, Henry.”
“Hello, Miss Birdsong.”
She gave him a little pinch on the cheek. “Come on over. I made spaghetti like even the Italians wish they could make, more than I can handle by myself.”
Henry thought of the charred mess in his frying pan. “Well, I...”
“Fine.” She linked her arm with his, precluding any further hesitation on his part. “I even have wine to go with it.”
“If you’re sure it won’t inconvenience you, if none of your other gentlemen callers...”
“Just a couple guys, I know, Henry. But you’re the only real gentleman in my life!”
In her apartment, Mavis hummed in a throaty voice as she prepared his plate. “How goes it at the bank, Henry?”
“Okay. Well, excellent, really.”
“That’s great. You get a promotion or something?”
“I think I’m going to. I... I’m sure they’re going to make me cashier. It’s been a long time coming, five years, but I’m certain I’ll be more than amply rewarded.” He gave a beatific sigh.
“Wonderful!”
Henry gave her a glance. For some reason or other, Miss Birdsong seemed slightly strained this evening.
“I’m afraid,” Henry said, “I’ve bored you with nothing but talk of the bank.”
“Not a bit. I’ve enjoyed every minute.”
Henry woke bushy-tailed the next morning. He bounced out of bed, did his knee bends and twenty-five daily pushups with no more effort than bending a finger.
In the preparation of his breakfast, he grasped the skillet handle and flipped the eggs in a manner that would have brought the envy of a first-rate short-order cook.
Even the day didn’t bother him today, first day of the month, the day for cashing those endless payroll cheques from textile and food processing plants in the area.
Henry made his customary prompt arrival at the bank. The blinds were still drawn on the double front doors, but he knew that Mr. Darcy Featherstone would have already arrived, met the guard, and unlocked.
Henry stepped inside. He promptly ceased all motion as a small, round object was jammed against his back.
“It’s a gun pal.” A gritty voice behind Henry imparted the information.
Henry’s gaze made a wild sweep of the bank, Judkins, the guard, with a lump on his head and no gun in his holster, was bending over a leather couch where Mr. Darcy Featherstone was recovering from a faint. Against the far wall, the bank’s small complement of employees were lined up under the gun of a squat man who wore coveralls and a rubber monkey mask that covered his entire head.
In a similar overall-mask disguise, the man behind Henry herded him forward. “You can fill the sacks, chum.”
“We’re vegetarians,” the second monkey face said. “We like lettuce. All that lettuce you got on hand to meet the payroll cheques.”
“Save it,” the man behind Henry said. “Just be sure to watch them jerks so nothing goes wrong until we get the lettuce into her car.”
Her? Henry had a queerly detached feeling. Her! Driving the getaway car. Waiting behind the wheel right now, engine at the ready, for her male partners to emerge from the bank loaded with loot.
Mavis Birdsong. Yes. It had to be. The men in coveralls and masks were the exact size and shape of the pair who had visited her. Her choice of apartments had been by design, as well as her friendship for Henry. She wanted him to tell her about the bank so that she and these two hoodlums could plan a despicable act
“Come on, come on,” one of the robbers was snarling at Judkins, the guard. “Get the cashier on his feet and about the business of opening the vault!”
“Right with you.” Mr. Darcy Featherstone’s voice was that of a whimpering child caught in a sepulchre.
Pressed forward by the man behind him, Henry watched the teller’s cages swimming toward him. From the corner of his vision, he saw Mr. Featherstone cravenly rushing toward the vault.
Mr. Featherstone was going to open the vault. And these unspeakable usurpers, the greedy pigs in monkey faces, were going to take, in a matter of minutes, the treasure to which he, Henry Overby, had been willing to devote years of his very life.
A wild shriek came from Henry’s throat. He felt the hard pressure of the alarm button behind the teller’s cages under his toe.
A bell began to clang. A gun blasted. A female employee screamed. Mr. Darcy Featherstone made a dull noise as he fainted and keeled over again.
Henry was vaguely aware of being in motion, the shrill yells still coming from his lips. He had a strange object in his hand which he’d scooped up from the shelf below and inside a teller’s cage. He curled his forefinger, pointing the object, and the bank resounded with the blast of gunfire.
Henry returned to the realm of consciousness with a wince, a groan, a slow opening of his eyes. A doctor, a nurse, and Mr. Joshua Tipton, bank president, were hovering beside his hospital bed.
“Welcome back, Henry,” Mr. Tipton said as if speaking to a son.
“Did they...”
“They didn’t Henry,” Mr. Tipton said. “When their deal soured, they broke and ran. Both got caught. Unfortunately for them, they were stranded on foot. When she heard the commotion, the blonde woman bolted in the getaway car. In her panic, she ran into a bridge abutment. But she was the only fatality.”
“Better let him rest now,” the doctor said.
“I’ll give him something to rest on,” Mr. Tipton said. “When you come back, Henry, you’re through as a teller.”
“I am?”
“The most miserable showing of Darcy Featherstone in a crisis has convinced me that he’s not quite the man for the v-p post. Your experience and length of service, along with proof that still waters do run deep, qualify you for the job, I think.”
“Welcome to our ranks, fellow executive. Mr. Vice-President!”
“Hmmm,” said Henry. He squinted one eye in deep thought. In five years, he realized, he had come to like the bank. Except for that shrimp Darcy, the other employees were pretty nice. And Mr. Tipton... why, the old man had unsuspected emotions behind that leonine exterior!
“You have the personal interest we all must share in the great responsibility intrusted to us,” Mr. Tipton was saying. “Even I, Overby, must take a lesson from your courage and intense personal devotion to our fine bank.”
“You must?” Henry inquired. His thought skittered briefly on a tangent. After all, bank vice-presidents do belong to country clubs. They do buy imposing homes, being in a position to ferret out a bargain. A v-p can invest, handle his money wisely, even purchase a fine car, and court a slightly snobbish fruit off a fine old family tree, although she may be a bit plain.
Henry’s ambition began to leap and dance. The mere thought of filching from the vault seemed puerile. Certainly it was unworthy of Henry Overby, vice-president, who in a few more years would very likely occupy the very office in which now Mr. Tipton reigned.
“Yes, Overby,” Mr. Tipton’s tone was an oratorical flourish. “We are proud to have a man with your sense of duty, your very personal regard for our noble institution. You expressed it fervently, Judkins reported, even if somewhat abstrusely.”