It seemed that this little branch bank was often holding more than five million dollars in cash. Cash.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"Well, it was all so hush-hush, you know. The casino people told us that nobody was supposed to know." Consequently, nobody did.
We asked where it was. All in the new vault. He checked his computer screen. "Well, right now, we're way down. Only one-point-three million."
Swell. And when did they expect the ante to rise?
"We do our greatest business beginning Thursday with the last deposit of the day. By end of business on Friday, we normally have about three-point-five million, and by start of business on Sunday, after the weekend drops, probably a little over five million."
Holy shit. And, it turned out, they had somebody in the bank on odd hours. One employee, to supervise the cash deposit and exchange. The casino was open, after all, twenty-four hours a day. And it appeared that there was no deposit slot in the area that could handle that volume of cash, without forcing the boat courier to spend an unconscionable amount of time standing around with the trunk of the car open.
"I wouldn't worry too much," he said. "We expect nearly half a million to be in coinage. Maybe more. Nobody would ever take that much weight in coins."
"Uh, just how much would that be?" I asked. "Would it weigh, you know?"
"Well," he said, "a thousand dollars in quarters weighs about fifty pounds. That would make ten thousand dollars weigh in at five hundred pounds, a hundred thousand dollars at five thousand pounds… so half a million dollars in quarters would run in the neighborhood of, oh, say twenty-five thousand pounds."
George and I looked at each other. I chuckled. "Nobody without a dump truck."
It was noon before we connected up with Hester in her office. I went right to the phone, while George gave her the bad news.
"Hey, Sally, can I talk to Lamar?" I waited, watching Hester react. I'd never seen her jaw drop before. "Lamar? Uh, I think we found the bank that's gonna get the most attention."
The term "flurry of activity" doesn't even begin to approach what was happening in the next thirty minutes. We were wanted at meetings with both Lamar and Volont, and even Art was trying to contact us. I dug my heels in, and finally convinced everybody that we'd attract a lot less attention at the DCI boat office than we would back at the Sheriffs Department.
Hester caught on immediately. "You're shameless. You know that, don't you?"
"It's the only buffet in the whole damned county," I said. "You've just become desensitized because you get to eat here every day."
"You do, too," she said.
Yeah. Anyway, as we waited for the conference to congregate, I asked Hester if she had some quarters. She fished six from her purse. I asked George, and he came up with four. I added them to the seven I had in my pocket, and stacked them on Hester's desk.
"You got a ruler?"
"Houseman," she said, fishing around in her desk drawer, "what are you doing?"
She handed me a ruler. I stacked the quarters, and removed two.
"There's fifteen quarters to an inch," I said.
"Well, I always wanted to know that. Thanks, Houseman. Can I have my ruler back now?"
"Sure. You got a calculator?"
This time, she didn't say anything. Just pushed it over to me.
"Did you know that a million dollars in quarters would weigh about fifty thousand pounds?" I asked.
"No."
"That'd be four million quarters. At fifteen to the inch, that would be a stack just about four-point-two miles high."
There was a pause. "Can I have my quarters back, now?"
"Oh, sure." I handed them to her, and gave George his. "The banker said they'd likely have at least half a million dollars in change at the bank, over there. Since they use quarters on the boat, I figured that'd be a hell of a lot of quarters." I smiled. "Four-point-two miles, stacked."
She just stared at me.
"Twenty-five thousand pounds," I said.
Hester sort of giggled. "Is there a point to this?"
"Yeah." I grinned. "That's a lot of fuckin' quarters."
It was a great lunch. And, with any luck, the conference would last until suppertime. We did need to be there, though. You could see the bank from Hester's window. You could also see about three easy routes to and from, and all sorts of places for the good guys to hide. Not to mention the bad.
After lunch, I took Volont aside for a second.
"Did you know that Linda Grossman was Nola Stritch's half sister?"
He waited a beat. "Really?" No expression.
"Really. Just found it out. Want me to check further?"
"Sure. But not a high priority. Not now."
Just then Art and George came up, and the four of us rode the elevator to third. I made a mental note to tell George about Linda and Nola. Just in case Volont "forgot."
Back in Hester's office, we got down to it in earnest. One of the first rules is you never, repeat never, take the bad guys while they're in the bank. One of the other first rules is that you never, never prevent them from leaving. And in our case, you wanted to positively encourage them to think they had a clean getaway ahead of them. This leaves you with two basic choices.
First, you take them on the way to the bank, in which case you have a potential problem with proving that they actually intended to hit the bank. You also have a bit of trouble when you don't know just how they intend to do the job in the first place, and just who is involved, and what they might be using for transportation. So, that was out.
Second, you take them shortly after they've left the bank. Wait long enough to not jeopardize the bank staff, but move soon enough to catch them before they could disperse. That was the only sensible plan. If they actually went to the bank, of course. There are no certainties.
"What if they get the cash courier instead?" Art, sitting on the edge of one of the boaties' desks, was the first to put that card on the table. I think we'd all been dreading dealing with that.
"He needs mucho cash," said Volont. "Why go for part, when you can get it all?"
"How big a part?" Hester has a way.
"What?"
"How big a part can they get if they take out the courier? How much do they transfer, and when?"
Hester, George, and I found ourselves walking onto the boat, headed for the security office, and asking ourselves a question. How do you tell the chief of security about what we thought was going to go down, and then get him to be nonchalant? Well, you just don't. Do the basics, but leave out the hot information. Besides, the three of us were bound to get his interest up.
Harmon James was the head of security on the General Beauregard. Nice guy, about thirty-five, fit, bright. Probably made three times as much as I did. He already knew Hester. He met George and me. As we sat, he pressed an intercom button and said, "Agnes, could we have some coffee and mints, please?" I heard a voice on the other end. There hadn't been any secretary in evidence.
"So, what can the General Beauregard do for you?"
If it had been a month or two before the bank job was going to go down, we'd have had a little more leeway. As it was, I was the designated liar.
"We're going to have a disaster drill, and we need something that will involve federal, state, and local law enforcement. You're all we could think of." I shall likely rot in hell.
We talked a bit. Agnes brought the coffee. She was as close to a showgirl as you could get. Short black skirt. Net stockings. Heels. Classy white blouse. Not your typical government employee. The mints were chocolate-covered.
"How do you get a job like this?" I was flattering him. I was also very curious.
He'd been a deputy sheriff in Nevada. No kidding.
"Yep," he said, "this is where we go when we die…"