Next to Harry was a medium-size, mustached, hair-gelled guy who thought he was handsome and was wrong, decked out in a green sweater vest, pointy-collared blue shirt and a floral thing that was a scarf suffering under the delusion that it was a tie.
Next door was a skinny, balding, droopily mustached guy, in a well-worn denim jacket and shiny yellow shirt. He had only the barest excuse for a chin. He was smoking a cigarette.
Beside him sat an older guy, tiny-eyed and sporting a Moe Howard haircut, a little heavy, in a suit and tie — probably the leader. Or maybe the Moe resemblance made me assume that. He was smoking, too — a cheroot.
Next, and to my far left as I’d peeked in, was a big burly guy who was obviously the muscle, a blunt-featured butch-haircut dope who was going Miami Vice with a pink jacket over a pastel blue t-shirt that said, you guessed it, Miami Vice.
Spread out before them like a not-quite-big-enough tablecloth was a large hand-drawn map in magic marker. I couldn’t be sure from the gander I got, but I would bet it was of the layout of a bank.
That was the heist crew, all right.
I risked popping up for another look and got more confirmation.
The not-handsome guy had a .38 in front of him near a bottle of Hamm’s, the denim jacket chinless guy had a nine mil near a can of Bud and an ashtray, the Moe haircut bozo a .22 Ruger by a coffee cup, and the Miami Vice dope, who was drinking a Diet Coke, had a leather strap running under prominent pecs that indicated a shoulder holster.
A lot of firepower.
But nobody knew I was here, and a .45 held eight rounds — of course, I only loaded in seven these days, since Velda insisted that resting the hammer on a live round is a really bad idea. With five men at that table, that still gave a spare two rounds... and an extra clip in my left-hand pocket.
Four steps led up to the back door, which opened right onto the kitchen. If it unlocked, I’d be in good shape. I could walk right in and say hello. But if it was locked, I just might wind up dead.
So I considered alternate ways in.
They say it’s better to be lucky than smart, and I was lucky enough to discover that the storm cellar doors were unlocked. I opened one side and slipped in, shut it behind me and then lingered on the wooden steps. Sat on one briefly. I got my mini-Maglite out and had a look around the cellar. Not much of anything — it was a hard dirt floor and not great for storage, but there were a few boxes anyway. A beat-up washer and drier. A furnace dating to the Eisenhower administration.
Also stairs that seemed positioned to open onto or near the kitchen.
I abandoned the sopped hat to the dirt floor, the raincoat, too.
Soon I was heading up those stairs, my trusty gum soles on the old wooden stairs making very little noise — no more creaks and squeaks than the average mouse, and anyway it was probably rats down here.
And above.
With my Maglite switched off and tucked away, the .45 in my fist led the way. When I got to the top step, I was breathing a little hard — not fatigue, adrenalin — and I paused to get my bearings and listen.
I could hear them talking, clear as if they were on the other side of this door, which they were. No idea which voice belonged to who, but the gist of their conversation made itself clear immediately.
“The guard’s over sixty, easily.”
My guess was this was Moe, the leader, his voice resonant, dripping leadership.
Someone else said, “A retired cop, probably.”
The leader again: “Probably. That means nothing, really.”
As I listened, he would speak and another of the crew would respond and then he would speak again.
The resonant voice continued: “Stick a gun in his face, take his weapon, push him to the floor.”
“They close at two?”
“They close at two. We go in ten minutes before that, diddle around making out deposit slips and such, wait for any other customers to leave. Probably someone will politely tell us the bank is closing, and that’s our cue. You each know your jobs. No shooting unless necessary. Harry, did you scope things out?”
“Yeah. Yellow curb in front of the bank, but plenty of parking places on either side of it. I’ll park the car first thing, close as I can. Go back to my hotel room half a block away, and feed the meter all day. Then around one-thirty, I’ll get in the car and I’ll be there waiting for you, motor running, when you come out. And we will haul ass.”
“Perfect.”
“Hey, it’s my first job with you boys, but it ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”
“I bet it isn’t.”
Judging by their voices, as I stood on the top step with the .45 in one hand and the door knob in the other, that table would be right there when I burst in. Of course, the door might be locked, but that seemed unlikely. Why would anyone lock the basement door? Unless it was to keep someone out who broke in that way...
You know — like me.
But if Strutt was that cautious, those storm doors wouldn’t have been left unlocked. Right?
Right?
Still, if this door turned out to be locked, or just stuck because the wood had warped or whatever, I would have to shoulder my way in, putting some real muscle into it... else face a very well-armed welcoming committee...
I thought about what I would say.
“Hands high, fellas — you’re under arrest!” Corny but appropriate. I could always add, “The place is surrounded.” Another old favorite, if a lie.
The door wasn’t locked and I went in quick.
The table of thieves was only a few feet away, and their faces were on me like a lynch mob. I was about to get my prepared words out when Strutt, his frown squeezing in on itself so hard it hurt to look at it, yelled: “Hammer!”
I can’t tell you whether he had warned them about my involvement in the convoluted affair that had cost their driver Kraft his life. Or if this select group just knew me because we were, in a way, in the same business, and mine was a famous face in these kinds of circles. Or if they just read in that one outburst from Strutt a mélange of anger merged with fear underscored by surprise.
In any event, they went for their guns, three of them for the weapons on the table, and the big muscle guy for a rod in his shoulder holster under the Don Johnson jacket.
The quarters could have hardly been any closer, and my only advantage was having my gun already in hand.
It was enough.
I took them clockwise starting with the not-handsome guy, whose head came apart in chunks, like a target-range cantaloupe. The chinless guy in the denim jacket got his in the side of the head and I could see his eyes go blank as much of his brain sprayed out of his opposite temple and splattered a nearby refrigerator with bloody gray goop. Next, closest to me, came the brains of the outfit, who lost a good share of his when his neck swivelled to see me and a slug slammed through his forehead to splat its contents onto, then dripping down, a cupboard, like a great big bug that hit a windshield. The Miami Vice thug almost had his gun out when a .45 slug traveled through his throat and had him gurgling and thrashing, until my second shot, piercing his thick forehead this time, ended his suffering.
The 1911 Colt .45 is a single-action pistol — you cock the hammer before each shot — and the trigger has a short reset. The four bank robbers had died in that many seconds. Strutt might have been a problem, but the indoor thunder of the .45 and the carnage and flying gore had spooked him, and his startled rabbit expression accompanied a hand that hovered over a .38 Police Special but didn’t touch it.