“All right,” he said to Ingram. “Grab that tray.”
There was no need to take anything else from the room. Earl’s things were in the station wagon, and Ingram’s overcoat and fedora could be safely left behind; they were standard-brand, secondhand clothes and the police would learn nothing from them.
Earl went quickly down the stairs and opened the door that led directly to the street. He stepped out, pulling his overcoat collar up around his throat, and glanced casually up and down the sidewalk. This was the one chance moment in Novak’s plan; a pedestrian pausing in front of the hotel might have delayed them. And their schedule allowed precious little tolerance for delays. But the sidewalks were deserted, shining and empty under the street lamps. Earl waved Ingram on. “Get going,” he said.
The injunction was unnecessary; Ingram was already on his way, the tray balanced professionally in his right hand as he angled across the street toward the bank building.
Earl watched Ingram’s white-jacketed figure move into the semidarkness, before drifting across the street to intercept Burke, who was sauntering casually toward the intersection. Everything was working perfectly; the sidewalks were empty and the town was quiet as they fell in step with their hands deep in the pockets of their overcoats and their faces shadowed by the turned-down brims of their hats. They didn’t speak or look at one another, but Earl could sense the excitement in Burke; his breath was coming sharply and rapidly, whistling faintly through his flattened nose.
Twenty yards ahead of them Ingram trotted up the steps of the bank and rapped sharply on the glass panel of the big, brass-handled door. The sound carried clearly along the street, sharp and distinct in the silence. They had the town to themselves, Earl thought, glancing over his shoulder. Only an occasional car or truck came through the town, yellow fog lights gleaming, and tires spinning with a liquid sound on the wet asphalt.
Ingram rapped a second time, and then turned to look down the street at them, his eyes white and scared in the darkness.
“Goddamit,” Burke said. His voice was a high, sharp whisper. “What’s the matter?”
“Slow down,” Earl said. They were closing the distance too rapidly. He put a hand on Burke’s arm, forcing him to match his own measured strides.
They heard the metallic click of a sliding bolt, and then light flashed over Ingram as the door swung open. A voice said, “You’re late, Charlie. Come on, these people can’t work on empty stomachs.” It was an old man’s voice, high and strident, but charged with a folksy good humor.
Ingram murmured something under his breath, holding the tray in front of his face. The guard moved aside to let him enter, hands resting negligently on his hips.
Ingram heard Burke and Earl coming up behind him, their heels striking the sidewalk with an urgent emphasis. He stepped quickly into the warm and bright interior of the bank, seeing the women in the tellers’ cages directly ahead of him and several men working at desks behind a low wooden railing. No one paid any attention to him; the men at the desks didn’t look up, the tellers were busy with their accounts.
He stood in the glare of bright lights with warm air on his face and a feeling of busy, serious work going on around him — that was all he knew, that and the fear being driven through his body by the desperate pounding of his heart.
Ingram heard the guard say, “Sorry, gentlemen, we’re closed for—” But then his voice broke off in a sharp grunt of pain.
The door closed with a soft click, and Earl passed swiftly in front of Ingram, looking big and dangerous as he stepped over the wooden railing and pointed a gun at the startled men at the desks. “Everybody keep quiet,” he said, without raising his voice. “Just stay nice and quiet.” The girl at the switchboard near the side door stared at him in terror, her face twisting in a spasm of hysteria. “Get those earphones off,” Earl yelled sharply. “Stand up and keep quiet. You scream and I’ll start shooting.” The girl came quickly to her feet then, clamping both hands across her trembling mouth. “That’s right; don’t be a hero,” Earl said, his gun swinging easily over the four men at the desks. “Everybody take it nice and quiet. Nobody’s going to get hurt.”
Burke had pushed the guard ahead of him toward the tellers’ cages, prodding him in the back with his gun. “Okay, girls, I want it all,” he said quietly. “You get cute and Dad here gets it right in the spine. Got that clear?”
A man at one of the desks said, “Do as he tells you, Jennie. You too, Ann.” He stared at Earl’s gun, his eyes big and frightened behind rimless glasses. “We’re all going to do just what you want. There’s no reason for you to hurt anybody.”
“Fine,” Earl said. “That’s just fine. Now keep quiet.”
Burke had taken the guard’s gun and pushed the old man into a corner. Now he was stuffing bundles of cash into a long linen bag he had pulled from the pocket of his overcoat.
“How much longer?” Earl said, risking a glance at the front door.
“Rush it up, sister,” Burke said, stepping to the second cage.
Ingram swallowed the dryness in his throat, forcing the bitter taste of fear deep into his stomach. It was going to work, it was going to work — the thought sounded in his mind like a breathless prayer.
“All right,” Burke said, backing toward the front door. “Let’s go.”
Without taking his eyes from the men at the desks, Earl stepped over the wooden railing and joined Burke. He said, “Okay, everybody stay put for a while. Just think how lucky you are.” He nodded at Ingram, as Burke pulled open the door and went quickly down the steps of the bank to the dark sidewalk. Earl started after him, but before Ingram could move, a powerful voice shouted an order.
“Hold it there! Get your hands up!” The command came from behind a car that was parked across the street about fifty feet from the entrance to the bank.
Burke swore in bitter, despairing confusion and dropped to his knees, the gun in his hand swinging up toward the parked car. As he fired, one of the women tellers began to scream softly and terribly, her voice breaking into convulsive, senseless tremors. Ingram couldn’t force himself to move; he stared out the door, helpless with fear, the tray trembling giddily in his hand. Burke was sighting along the barrel of his gun when an orange flame seared the darkness behind the parked car. The report of the shot went banging down the street as Burke rolled over backwards, shouting senseless words in a high, raging voice. Earl tried to lift him to his feet, but Burke struggled to a sitting position and fired three wild shots into the shadows behind the parked car. Another orange flash appeared against the darkness. Earl staggered as if he had been struck by a two-by-four; his knees buckled when he stumbled into the side of the building and his head rolled on his shoulders in pain. Burke sat cross-legged on the wet sidewalk, a sagging, heaving buddha, one hand supporting his weight, and the other pointing his gun in an awkward, straight-armed gesture at the parked car.
It was only then that Ingram’s paralysis broke; he screamed convulsively and threw the tray of coffee and sandwiches to the floor.
The men who had been at the desk were lying on the floor. One of them raised his head and shouted at him, “Get down, you fool! You want to be killed!”
“No, no,” Ingram cried wildly. He leaped over the wooden railing and ran to the rear of the bank, fighting down a hysterical compulsion to laugh... They didn’t know he was part of the job. They still thought he was the delivery boy.
The switchboard operator was backed against a wall with her hands over her mouth. Another shot sounded outside and she jerked as if an electric shock had gone through her body. She began to moan in fear, staring at Ingram with wild, frantic eyes.