The way Mr. Hogan went about robbing the bank was very interesting. He gave it a great deal of thought and had for a long time, but he did not discuss it with anyone. He just read his newspaper and kept his own counsel. But he worked it out to his own satisfaction that people went to too much trouble robbing banks and that got them in a mess. The simpler the better, he always thought. People went in for too much hullabaloo and hanky-panky. If you didn’t do that, if you left hanky-panky out, robbing a bank would be a relatively sound venture — barring accidents, of course, of an improbable kind, but then they could happen to a man crossing the street or anything. Since Mr. Hogan’s method worked fine, it proved that his thinking was sound. He often considered writing a little booklet on his technique when the how-to rage was running so high. He figured out the first sentence, which went: “To successfully rob a bank, forget all about hanky-panky.”
Mr. Hogan was not just a clerk at Fettucci’s grocery store. He was more like the manager. Mr. Hogan was in charge, even hired and fired the boy who delivered groceries after school. He even put in orders with the salesmen, sometimes when Mr. Fettucci was right in the store too, maybe talking to a customer. “You do it, John,” he would say and he would nod at the customer, “John knows the ropes. Been with me — how long you been with me, John?”
“Sixteen years.”
“Sixteen years. Knows the business as good as me. John, why he even banks the money.”
And so he did. Whenever he had a moment, Mr. Hogan went into the storeroom on the alley, took off his apron, put on his necktie and coat, and went back through the store to the cash register. The checks and bills would be ready for him inside the bankbook with a rubber band around it. Then he went next door and stood at the teller’s window and handed the checks and bankbook through to Mr. Cup and passed the time of day with him too. Then, when the bankbook was handed back, he checked the entry, put the rubber band around it, and walked next door to Fettucci’s grocery and put the bankbook in the cash register, continued on to the storeroom, removed his coat and tie, put on his apron, and went back into the store ready for business. If there was no line at the teller’s window, the whole thing didn’t take more than five minutes, even passing the time of day.
Mr. Hogan was a man who noticed things, and when it came to robbing the bank, this trait stood him in good stead. He had noticed, for instance, where the big bills were kept right in the drawer under the counter and he had noticed also what days there were likely to be more than on other days. Thursday was payday at the American Can Company’s local plant, for instance, so there would be more then. Some Fridays people drew more money to tide them over the weekend. But it was even Steven, maybe not a thousand dollars difference, between Thursdays and Fridays and Saturday mornings. Saturdays were not terribly good because people didn’t come to get money that early in the morning, and the bank closed at noon. But he thought it over and came to the conclusion that the Saturday before a long weekend in the summer would be the best of all. People going on trips, vacations, people with relatives visiting, and the bank closed Monday. He thought it out and looked, and sure enough the Saturday morning before Labor Day the cash drawer had twice as much money in it — he saw it when Mr. Cup pulled out the drawer.
Mr. Hogan thought about it during all that year, not all the time, of course, but when he had some moments. It was a busy year too. That was the year John and Joan had the mumps and Mrs. Hogan got her teeth pulled and was fitted for a denture. That was the year when Mr. Hogan was Master of the Lodge, with all the time that takes. Larry Shield died that year — he was Mrs. Hogan’s brother and was buried from the Hogan house at 215 East Maple. Larry was a bachelor and had a room in the Pine Tree House and be played pool nearly every night. He worked at the Silver Diner but that closed at nine and so Larry would go to Louie’s and play pool for an hour. Therefore, it was a surprise when he left enough so that after funeral expenses there were twelve hundred dollars left. And even more surprising that he left a will in Mrs. Hogan’s favor, but his double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun he left to John Hogan, Jr. Mr. Hogan was pleased, although he never hunted. He put the shotgun away in the back of the closet in the bathroom, where he kept his things, to keep it for young John. He didn’t want children handling guns and he never bought any shells. It was some of that twelve hundred that got Mrs. Hogan her dentures. Also, she bought a bicycle for John and a doll buggy and walking-talking doll for Joan — a doll with three changes of dresses and a little suitcase, complete with play make-up. Mr. Hogan thought it might spoil the children, but it didn’t seem to. They made just as good marks in school and John even got a job delivering papers. It was a very busy year. Both John and Joan wanted to enter the W. R. Hearst National I Love America Contest and Mr. Hogan thought it was almost too much, but they promised to do the work during their summer vacation, so he finally agreed.
During that year no one noticed any difference in Mr. Hogan. It was true, he was thinking about robbing the bank, but he only thought about it in the evening when there was neither a Lodge meeting nor a movie they wanted to go to, so it did not become an obsession and people noticed no change in him.
He had studied everything so carefully that the approach of Labor Day did not catch him unprepared or nervous. It was hot that summer and the hot spells were longer than usual. Saturday was the end of two weeks heat without a break and people were irritated with it and anxious to get out of town, although the country was just as hot. They didn’t think of that. The children were excited because the I Love America Essay Contest was due to be concluded and the winners announced, and the first prize was an all-expense-paid two days trip to Washington, D.C., with every fixing — hotel room, three meals a day, and side trips in a limousine — not only for the winner, but for an accompanying chaperone; visit to the White House — shake hands with the President — everything. Mr. Hogan thought they were getting their hopes too high and he said so.
“You’ve got to be prepared to lose,” he told his children. “There’re probably thousands and thousands entered. You get your hopes up and it might spoil the whole autumn. Now I don’t want any long faces in this house after the contest is over.”
“I was against it from the start,” he told Mrs. Hogan. That was the morning she saw the Washington Monument in her teacup, but she didn’t tell anybody about that except Ruth Tyler, Bob Tyler’s wife. Ruthie brought over her cards and read them in the Hogan kitchen, but she didn’t find a journey. She did tell Mrs. Hogan that the cards were often wrong. The cards had said Mrs. Winkle was going on a trip to Europe and the next week Mrs. Winkle got a fishbone in her throat and choked to death. Ruthie, just thinking out loud, wondered if there was any connection between the fishbone and the ocean voyage to Europe. “You’ve got to interpret them right.” Ruthie did say she saw money coming to the Hogans.
“Oh, I got that already from poor Larry,” Mrs. Hogan explained.
“I must have got the past and future cards mixed,” said Ruthie. “You’ve got to interpret them right.”
Saturday dawned a blaster. The early morning weather report on the radio said: “Continued hot and humid, light scattered rain Sunday night and Monday.”
Mrs. Hogan said, “Wouldn’t you know? Labor Day.”
Mr. Hogan said, “I’m sure glad we didn’t plan anything.” He finished his egg and mopped the plate with his toast.
Mrs. Hogan said, “Did I put coffee on the list?”
He took the paper from his handkerchief pocket and consulted it. “Yes, coffee, it’s here.”