“What time do we hit?” Rudy Manello asked. He was younger than any of the others, a narrow-faced man, with brown hair combed straight back without a part. He was smoking a cigarette, the ash dangerously close to spilling all over the floor.
“I’ll let you know the time and place as soon as we’re all committed, Rudy.”
“Why all the secrecy?” Rudy asked.
“I do not intend spending any amount of time in prison,” the Deaf Man said, and smiled. “Whereas I trust you all implicitly, I must take certain precautions at this stage of the planning.”
“So let’s hear the plan again,” Angela said, and crossed her legs, a move that had no visible effect on any of the men in the room. Angela Gould was perhaps the least attractive woman the Deaf Man had ever met. Long-nosed, thin-lipped, bespectacled, blessed with curly hair in an age that demanded sleekness, dumpy, with an irritating, whiny voice — impossible, utterly impossible. And yet perfect for the part she would play on the last day of April.
“Here is the plan again,” the Deaf Man said, and smiled graciously. He did not much like any of the people he was forced to deal with, but even the best football coach needs a team to execute the plays. “On the day of the robbery, Kerry will enter the bank, carrying a rather large case in which there will be architectural plans and a scale model of a housing development for which he needs financing. He will previously have made an appointment with the manager, and he will be there ostensibly to show him the plans and the model.”
“Where do we get this stuff?” Kerry asked.
“It is being prepared for us now. By a legitimate architectural firm that believes it to be a bona-fide land-development project.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Once inside the manager’s office, you will explain your project and then put your plans and your model on his desk, asking him to come around to your side of the desk so that he can read the plans better. You will do this in order to get him away from the alarm button, which is on the floor under his desk, and which he will be unable to reach from your side.”
“I thought you expected the alarm to go off,” John said.
“Yes, but not until we have the money.”
“The money that’s in the vault.”
“Yes. As I’ve already told you, there will be five hundred thousand dollars in payroll money in the bank’s vault. It will be necessary for Kerry to get into the vault...”
“That’s the part I don’t like,” Kerry said.
“There will be no problem about getting into the vault, Kerry. The moment the manager comes around to your side of the desk, you will put a gun in his back and inform him that a holdup is in progress. You will also tell him that, unless he escorts you to the vault immediately, you will blow his brains out.”
“That’s exactly what bothers me,” Kerry said. “Suppose he says, ‘Go ahead, blow my brains out.’ What do I do then?”
“The bank is insured. You will rarely find heroic bank employees nowadays. They all have instructions to press the alarm button and sit tight until the police arrive. In this case, we are depriving Mr. Alton — that’s the manager’s name — of the opportunity to sound the alarm. I can assure you he will not avail himself of the alternate opportunity — that of having his brains blown out. He will escort you to the vault, quietly and without fuss.”
“I hope so,” Kerry said. “But what if he doesn’t? Since I’m the only guy inside the bank, I’m automatically the fall guy.”
“I will also be inside the bank,” the Deaf Man said.
“Yeah, but you won’t be holding a gun on any manager.”
“I chose you for the job because you’d had previous experience,” the Deaf Man said. “I assumed you would have the nerve to...”
“Yeah, I got caught on my previous experience,” Kerry said.
“Do you want the job or don’t you?” the Deaf Man asked. “You can still get out. No hard feelings either way.”
“Let me hear the rest of it again.”
“You go into the vault with Mr. Alton, carrying your leather case, the architectural contents of which are now in Mr. Alton’s office.”
“In other words,” Angela said, “the case is empty now.”
“Precisely,” the Deaf Man said, and thought, Impossible. “As soon as you are inside the vault, Kerry, you will transfer the payroll to your case, and then allow Mr. Alton to escort you back to his office...”
“Suppose there’s somebody else in the vault when we get in there?”
“You will already have informed Mr. Alton that should anyone question your presence, he is to say you’re there to test the alarm system. Presumably, that is why you are carrying a big black leather case.”
“But suppose somebody’s actually in the vault?” Kerry said. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“Mr. Alton will ask that person to leave. The testing of an alarm system is not something normally open to casual scrutiny by insignificant bank personnel.”
“Okay. So I’m in the vault transferring all that money into my case...”
“Correct. The moment I see you leaving the vault to head back for Mr. Alton’s office, I will step outside the bank and set the second phase of the plan in motion.”
“This is where we come in,” Angela said, and smiled. Utterly impossible, the Deaf Man thought, and returned her smile.
“Yes,” he said pleasantly enough, “this is where you come in. If you’ll all look at the diagram again, you’ll see that a driveway comes in off the street on the right of the bank, runs around the rear of the bank, and then emerges into the street again on the left. The driveway was put in to accommodate the car teller’s window. It is only wide enough to permit passage of a single automobile. Two things will happen the moment I step out of the bank. First, John and Rudy, in Car Number One, will drive up to the teller’s window. Second, Angela, in Car Number Two, will park across the mouth of the driveway, get out of the car, and open the hood as though searching for starter trouble.”
“That’s so no other cars can get in the driveway after Rudy and John pull up to the teller’s window,” Angela said.
“Yes,” the Deaf Man answered blankly.
“Meanwhile,” Kerry said, and the Deaf Man was pleased to see that he had managed to generate some sort of enthusiasm for the project, “I’ll be in the manager’s office, tying him up and sticking a gag in his mouth.”
“Correct,” the Deaf Man said. “John?”
“I’ll get out of the car at the teller’s window and smash the glass there with a sledge hammer.”
“Which is precisely when the alarm will go off. You won’t hear it. It’s a silent alarm that sounds at the 86th Precinct and also at the Security Office.”
“But I’ll hear the glass smashing,” Kerry said, and grinned. “Which is when I open the door leading from the manager’s office to the tellers’ cages, go through the gate in the counter, and jump through the busted window into the driveway.”
“Yes,” the Deaf Man said. “You get into the car, and Rudy, at the wheel, will drive around the rear of the bank and out into the street again. I will meanwhile have entered the car Angela is driving, and we will all go off together into a lucrative sunset.”
“How long does it take the police to answer that alarm?” Rudy asked.
“Four minutes.”