"I guess so," Harris said unenthusiastically.
"I'll drive to Philadelphia and get set up," I said. "I've let the Schemer know where I am, and when we're ready to go you can call him to find out where to meet me."
"Let's make the meeting two weeks from today," Dahl said.
"Fine."
"All right," Preacher Harris said a tick later.
We were approaching Brightwood. "Where are you parked?" I asked Dahl.
"In the middle of the first block, across from the post office," he replied. "Pull in anywhere." He was carefully rewrapping the riot gun in the blanket. "So long, cousins," he said when I double-parked momentarily alongside a line of cars parked at the metered curb. "Don't spend it all in one place." He stepped out, slammed the door, waved, and jogged across the street.
"I don't ever want to work on a job with him again!" Harris burst forth as I pulled away.
I knew what he meant. I wasn't happy about the botched aspects of the job myself, but I didn't want Harris too unhappy with it. I knew how long it would take to recruit new partners. "Now that we know he's a kook, we'll keep our fingers closer to the button next time," I said soothingly. "And you have to admit that nothing fazes him."
"No brains, no feeling," Harris snorted, but he subsided. "Let me out at the next cab stand," he said a minute later. "I'll take a cab to the airport."
"Take one to Fourteenth Street and then another to the airport," I advised him. "The police are sure to check cab sheets from this area for riders to Union Station and National Airport."
"Yeah, good idea," he admitted.
"Here we are," I said, easing in behind a two-cab stand. We weren't more than five blocks from the bank we'd taken. "The next one will be a piece of cake too, and we'll all get well on the proceeds. Don't forget to call the Schemer."
Harris's smile was wan as he got out of my car. As I drove off I had the feeling that whether he called the Schemer or not depended very much upon how his luck ran at Vegas's dice and card tables for the next two weeks.
I headed over to Bladensburg Road in northeast Washington and had lunch. Then I went to a neighborhood movie where I watched the Redskins lose again. When I came out of the theater, the 4:30 P.M. homeward traffic was just starting to thicken up. I joined it, moved along to New York Avenue, and-eventually-to the Washington-Baltimore Expressway.
There were no roadblocks or car inspections barring exit from the District of Columbia.
If there had been earlier, the police had decided that the hit-and-run bank robbers were long gone.
I settled down for the drive to Philadelphia.
9
When I had a chance to count it, my end of the District bank job came to sixty-four hundred dollars.
It wasn't worth the risk, but it had been a long time since I needed sixty-four hundred so badly. I felt reprieved. It eased the money pressure, which had led me to take on the helter-skelter operation just completed. Professionally, I could hardly approve of the job, some elements of which had been almost farcical, but the important thing was that it had worked.
I fully intended that tapping the bank in Thornton, Pa. would be a far different story. With time enough to prepare properly, it should indeed be the piece of cake that I had promised Harris. A useful bonus from the hasty job just done was that I felt I knew Harris and Dahl now. Harris was colorless, Dahl flamboyant, but both had performed. With two weeks to work up a detailed plan, it shouldn't be too difficult to arrange Dahl's contribution so his kookiness didn't jeopardize the whole show.
I had already selected a motel near Philadelphia where I had stayed before to serve as a base of operations. En route to it, I detoured slightly to the northwest to drive through the suburb of Thornton. It was a residential community, generally known in real estate jargon as a "bedroom" community. Row after row of well kept up, better-priced homes on neat-looking streets bespoke a maximum of financial security. No air of quiet desperation existed in Thornton. Male Thorntonites might commute to the city daily to scuffle for the elusive buck at their places of business, but when they returned home evenings it was to an oasis of tranquillity.
Ordinarily I would have set myself up in the area as a tree surgeon, a gunsmith, or a locksmith, occupations in which I could cut the mustard. With only two weeks, there wasn't time. I had to have a cover story, though. Nothing is so conspicuous to local police as an unfamiliar face or automobile seen repeatedly, and I would have to spend some time in Thornton.
Before leaving town, I crisscrossed the town's business section twice. It looked prosperous. The absence of empty stores indicated few worms in the local economic apple. There was industry nearby, but not within the city limits. I drove south to Media, a few miles from Philadelphia, and put up at the Carousel, a middle-class motel.
After looking Thornton over, I decided to pass as a survey taker, an individual who walked into places of business and checked off answers to a list of prepared questions. It had worked for me a couple of times before. I didn't plan on being just any ordinary survey taker, either. Over the years I'd learned that big names open doors wider. Names like U.S. Steel, General Electric, and IBM.
The name I chose this time was Bell Telephone. The only disadvantage in claiming to work for a large company was that one might occasionally run into a supposed fellow employee, but this could actually be turned into an advantage. A man working for a giant corporation, no matter how far up the ladder, could hardly be expected to know what all the other departments of his company were doing.
Back in my room after a late dinner, I picked up the telephone directory for the Philadelphia area and turned to the Yellow Pages section. I tore out the familiar Yellow Pages logotype from the first page, then trimmed it neatly with a penknife, leaving a half-inch margin all around it.
I read Bell Telephone's own plug for its Yellow Pages advertising in the back of the phone book, then armed myself with a sheet of motel stationery and a ballpoint pen. Rewriting as I went, I drew up a list of ten possible questions. I boiled this down to six, and finally to four. I didn't want to burden my "prospects" with more than two and a half or three minutes reading time.
I wound up with the following,
1. Are you listed in the Yellow Pages?
2. If not, do you realize that advertising placed in the Yellow Pages is never lost, misplaced, or forgotten?
3. If not, do you know that advertising campaigns in support of the Yellow Pages encompass all major media from television, newspaper, car cards, and radio through magazines, billboards, and direct mail, and that this advertising is your advertising if you are listed?
4. Would you like to have a space salesman call upon you with additional facts and figures?
When I was satisfied with the wording of the questionnaire, I slipped it into my jacket pocket and prepared for bed. The last thing I did before turning out the light was to phone the Schemer. "We had a little trouble getting our schedules together," I told him, making no mention of the District job, in which he had no part anyway. "But we're set for two weeks from now. When the boys call you, tell them I'm at the Carousel Motel in Media near Philadelphia."
"Will do," Frenz replied. "Have you looked over the layout yet yourself?"
"In a preliminary way."
"You'll find it's a winner."
"I can use a winner. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," he echoed.
I went to bed and dreamed repeatedly of bare-bottomed girl bank robbers sliding on their tummies across the slick tile floor of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City.
In the morning I drove to Philadelphia with my list of questions and my Yellow Pages logotype. I cruised back streets and side streets until I spotted a dingy-looking basement printing shop. I parked the VW and descended narrow iron steps until I found myself ankle-deep in discarded paper and cardboard in a dimly-lit interior that obviously hadn't been swept out in months. From the look of the place, if the payment were spot cash the proprietor would be unlikely to question my motive even if I wanted a five-dollar bill printed on one side of a 2 1/2 x 6 sized piece of paper with a verse from the Bible backed up on the other.