There were eight bombs left in Chuck’s valise. He consulted his two remaining maps, each marked with his name in the right-hand corner, and began moving quickly toward his remaining destinations. The first of these was a motion picture theater on The Stem. He paid for a ticket at the box office, climbed instantly to the balcony, and consulted his map again. Two X’s on the map indicated where he was to place the explosives, directly over the balcony’s supporting columns and close to the projection booth where there was the attendant possibility of the explosion causing a fire and a stench when it hit the film. The main purpose of the blasts, of course, was to knock down the balcony, but the deaf man was not a person to turn aside residuals. In the corridor outside the balcony, Chuck glanced around hastily, and then slashed the hoses on the extinguishers. Rapidly, he left the theater. A glance at his watch told him it was two-fifteen. He would damn well have to hurry if he wanted to catch that four-oh-five boat.
He was now in possession of six remaining bombs.
The deaf man wanted three of them to be placed in Union Station: an incendiary in the baggage room, an explosive on the track of the incoming Chicago Express (due at four-ten), and another explosive on the counter of the circular information booth.
The remaining three bombs could be placed by Chuck at his discretion—provided, of course, they were all deposited at different locations on the south side of the precinct. The deaf man had suggested leaving an incendiary in a subway car, and an explosive in the open-air market on Chament Avenue, but the final decisions were being left to Chuck, dependent on time and circumstance.
“Suppose I put them where there aren’t any people?” Chuck had asked.
“That would be foolish,” the deaf man said.
“I mean, look, this is supposed to be a bank heist.”
“Yes?”
“So why do we have to put these things where—where a lot of people’ll get hurt?”
“Where would you like to put them? In an empty lot?”
“Well, no, but—”
“I’ve never heard of confusion in a vacuum,” the deaf man had replied.
“Still—dammit, suppose we get caught? You’re fooling around with—withmurder here, do you realize that? Murder!”
“So?”
“So look, I know there are guys who’d slit their own grandmother’s throat for a nickel, but—”
“I’m not one of them,” the deaf man had answered coldly. “There happens to be two and a half million dollars at stake here.” He had paused. “Do you want out, Chuck?”
Chuck had not wanted out. Now, as he headed for Union Station, the suitcase was noticeably and happily lighter. He was itching to get the job over and done with. He didn’t want to be anywhere south of the Mercantile Trust Company after four o’clock. If everything went according to the deaf man’s plan, that part of the precinct would be an absolute madhouse along about then, and Chuck wanted no part of chaos.
THE OIL REFINERYwas set on the River Dix, at the southern tip of the island of Isola. Pop walked up to the main gate and reached into his pocket for the identification badge the deaf man had given him. He flashed the badge casually at the guard, and the guard nodded, and Pop walked through the gate, stopped once to consult the X’s on his map, and then walked directly to the tool shed behind the administration building. The tool shed, besides being stocked with the usual number of saws and hammers and screwdrivers, contained a few dozen cans of paint, turpentine, and varnish. Pop opened the door of the shed and put one of his explosive bombs in a cardboard carton of trash just inside the door. Then he closed the door and began walking toward the paymaster’s shack near the first of the huge oil tanks.
By one-forty-five he had set four bombs in the refinery. He walked through the main gate, waved goodbye to the guard, hailed a cab and headed for a plant some thirty blocks distant, a plant which faced south toward the River Dix, its chimneys belching smoke to the city’s sky twenty-four hours a day.
The sign across the top of that plant readEASTERN ELECTRIC . It produced electric power for 70 per cent of the homes and businesses on the south side of the 87th Precinct.
AT 3:00P.M .,they closed the doors of the old Mercantile Trust for the last time.
Mr. Wesley Gannley, manager of the bank, watched with some sadness as his employees left for the new bank in the completed shopping center. Then he went back into the vault where the guards were carrying the bank’s stock—two million, three hundred fifty-three thousand, four hundred twenty dollars and seventy-four cents in American currency—to the waiting armored truck outside.
Mr. Gannley thought it was nice that so much money was being taken to the new bank. Usually, his bank had some eight hundred thousand dollars on hand, an amount which was swelled every Friday, payroll day, to perhaps a million and a quarter. There were a great many firms, however, which paid their employees every two weeks, and still others which had monthly bonus programs. In any case, April 30 was the end of the month, and tomorrow was a Friday, May 1, and so the bank was holding, besides its usual deposits and money on hand, an unusually large amount of payroll money, and this pleased Mr. Gannley immensely. It seemed fitting that a spanking-new bank should open shop with a great deal of cold cash.
He stepped out onto the sidewalk as the bank guards transferred that cold cash to the truck. From the grimestained window of his loft upstairs, Dave Raskin watched the transaction with mild interest, and then took a huge puff on his soggy cigar and turned back to studying the front of Margarita’s smock.
By 3:30P.M ., the $2,353,420.74 was safe and snug in the new vault of the new bank in the new shopping center. Mr. Gannley’s employees were busily making themselves at home in their new quarters, and all seemed right with the world.
At 4:00P.M ., the deaf man began making his phone calls.
HE MADE THE CALLSfrom the telephone in the ice-cream store behind the new bank. Rafe was waiting in the drugstore across the street from the bank, watching the bank’s front door. He would report back to the deaf man as soon as everyone had left the bank. In the meantime, the deaf man had his own work to do.
The typewritten list beside the telephone had one hundred names on it. The names were those of stores, offices, movie theaters, shops, restaurants, utilities, and even private citizens on the south side of the 87th Precinct. The deaf man hoped to get through at least fifty of those names before five o’clock, figuring on the basis of a minute per call, and allowing for a percentage of no-answers. Hopefully,all of the persons called would in turn call the police. More realistically, perhaps half of the fifty would. Pessimistically, perhaps ten would report the calls. And, figuring a rock-bottom return of 10 per cent, at least five would contact the police.
Even five was a good return for an hour’s work if it compounded the confusion and made the ride to the ferry simpler.
Of the hundred names on the list, four were really in trouble. They were really in trouble because Chuck and Pop had deposited either incendiary or explosive bombs in their places of business. These four establishments wouldcertainly call the police, if not immediately upon receipt of the deaf man’s call, thenpositively after the bombs went off. The point of the deaf man’s calls was to provide the police with a list of clues, only four of which were valid. The trouble was, the police would not know which of the clues were valid and which were not. And once reports of mayhem began filtering in, they could not in good conscience afford to ignoreany tip.