Dahl pushed on the revolving glass door and entered. Harris and I were right behind him. I took up a station just inside where I could watch the entrance and the bank's interior, including the offices on the mezzanine. I looked for a guard but couldn't see one. I let the blanket drop to the floor, exposing the riot gun.
There were half a dozen women tellers in the cages, plus three customers on the bank floor, a man and two women. A single man was visible on the mezzanine. Beyond the line of tellers' cages a low railing separated a row of bookkeeping machines from the bank lobby. "Everybody inside the railing!" Dahl's voice boomed out.
For an instant there was a hush, broken by two or three stifled shrieks as his role was recognized. "You, up there!" I called to the man on the mezzanine. "Don't move!" He didn't. There were gasps and another shriek as my voice called attention to me and to the riot gun. Dahl drove the three customers through a gate in the low railing, then herded them and the women tellers away from the cages, which were so high they hid him from my view.
Harris was already inside the railing. Steel clattered and banged as he opened, emptied, and slammed cash drawers. The man on the mezzanine remained wide-eyed and motionless. I had looked at the large wall clock at the back of the bank when we entered. Now I looked again. A minute and a half had gone by.
The revolving glass door pivoted and the bank guard walked in from the street. He was carrying a tray with eight or ten cups of coffee on it. He saw me and flinched. He tried to react so rapidly that the coffee cups sailed off the tray and spilled all over the floor. "Keep moving," I told the guard. "Inside the gate." He did as he was told.
A chorus of twittering feminine protests rose from behind the tellers' cages. Dahl's menacing voice drowned them out. Then it was quiet again. All of a sudden a soft bright light was glowing, its source invisible to me. I could see Harris looking in that direction, and I moved in a step from the door. Then Harris went back to rifling cash drawers. I relaxed and moved back to my former position. Outside, cars went by in a steady stream along Georgia Avenue.
I was sweating under the mask. I hoped my makeup was holding together. Harris ran for the railing, the laden pillowcase dangling from his left hand. He placed his right hand on the railing and started to vault over it. I could hear the squeak as his sweating palm slipped on the smooth surface. He turned over in the air and landed on his stomach in the longest slide since Pepper Martin stole third base in the World Series. Harris scrambled erect and ran past me to the door.
He was already out in the parking lot when Dahl appeared behind the railing, retracing Harris's route except that with his superior height Dahl stepped over the railing. A gun dangled loosely in his right hand. I picked up the blanket and re-covered the riot gun as Dahl's coat-of-many-colors went through the revolving door, the camera dangling from the cord around his neck. I swung the gun in a final semicircle to freeze all movement, then backed out the door.
I was halfway through the hundred-and-eighty-degree swing of the door to the parking lot when Dahl charged in on the other side, heading back into the bank. I froze. I couldn't imagine what he was up to. From my position with my back to the exit I could see the bank guard coming across the floor of the bank at a dead run. He shoved his foot into the protruding edge of the section of revolving door inside the lobby, and Dahl and I couldn't go anywhere. We were locked inside the revolving door.
I raised the riot gun, but before I could draw a bead Dahl fired three times from his compartment inside the door. Shattering glass crashed in massive quantities. The guard ducked to one side, unhurt but shaken. The sudden acceleration of the door as his foot was removed thrust me out into the alley. In a second Dahl came winging out as the door completed the circuit. "What the hell were you doing?" I panted as we ran for the car.
"Thought you might need help."
"When I need help I'll ask for it!"
Harris was under the wheel of the Olds with the motor running. Dahl and I piled into the back seat. We were moving down the alley by the time I got the door closed. Dahl jerked off his loose-fitting red-and-blue-sleeved jacket and threw it on the floor. "Masks off!" I rasped as Preacher made the turn at the end of the alley onto Piney Branch. The fresh air felt cold against the perspiration on my face when I pulled mine off.
Dahl reached over the back of the front seat and lifted the pillowcase into the back seat. I half turned on the seat so I could watch him and still keep an eye out the back window for possible pursuit. We were headed south in a traffic flow that seemed ordinary. Dahl dumped the contents of the pillowcase onto the floor and began sorting it into three piles. "Damn, damn, damn!" he swore softly. "Small stuff."
"I know," Harris said without turning around. There were no red fights behind us and no sirens. "What's the take look like?" His voice sounded husky.
"Less'n twenty thousand," Dahl grumbled. Harris's grunt was eloquent of disgust. I refrained from saying that a properly planned job would have guaranteed that the amount of cash available made the risk worthwhile. "Check it," Dahl said to me, pointing to the piles of money at his feet.
"Watch the rear," I said. I went through the cash quickly. I checked by packages of banded bills, not by counting. "It looks all right." Dahl reached down to the stack nearest him and began stuffing packages of bills into various pockets.
I did the same. We had reached Military Road by the time I looked around. Still no sign of police pursuit. Dahl picked up the third pile of money in both hands and dropped it on the front seat beside Preacher. "This'll hardly keep me goin' three weeks," he said gloomily.
"That's right," Harris chimed in. "Unless my system takes hold real quick this time." He looked belligerently at Dahl. "That was the most stupid thing I ever saw done on a job!"
Dahl started to laugh. "You're jealous, cousin. I-"
"What was this stupid thing?" I asked Harris, interrupting Dahl.
"This mongoloid had the women tellers bare-assed on the floor, taking movies of them."
"All but one who wouldn't pull her pants down even when my gun was an inch and a half from her twitch," Dahl affirmed in high good humor. "Must've had the rag on. You never know when you can use a little good pussy footage, cousins."
I wondered how much of the bank area the camera had covered. "If I ever hear that you've used that film commercially, I'll find you and nail your ears to the nearest telephone pole," I threatened Dahl.
Harris pulled the Olds onto the shoulder of the road before Dahl could reply. "What do we want to take?" he asked.
"Nothin' but the gun," Dahl said sullenly. "Leave the masks."
Harris was scooping money into his pockets… "Let's keep moving," he urged. His voice was husky. He sounded as though the strain was beginning to catch up to him. We walked across the wide highway to my car and I slid into the driver's seat. Harris got in with me, Dahl in back.
I handed the blanketed gun to Dahl. "Wipe it clean."
He was already working on it when I swung the VW around in a U-turn and headed toward Brightwood and Dahl's parked car. The final look I took in the rearview mirror showed the white Olds glistening on the shoulder of the road. Harris broke the silence. "This touch wasn't much of a stake," he said.
"It's enough to get us together again for proper planning on the Schemer's job," I said. "And that time I think we should remember that we do just as long a bit for ten thousand as we'd do for Fort Knox. Let's make sure the cash is there."
Dahl spoke right up. "Suits me," he said. "When?"
"How about next week?"
"Make it two weeks," he said. "I've still got a movie to shoot. You in, Preacher?"