Chapter Eighteen

“Yes, sir. We certainly will, sir. Thank you, sir.” The redheaded desk sergeant looked bored as he hung up the phone.

“Anything important?” The plainclothesman, leaning across the end of the wooden counter, looked up from his newspaper.

The sergeant shook his head, feigning a yawn. “Another Ballard sighting. Seems this guy rented a house to him on the South Side.”

“Think there’s something to it?”

“You got the paper. Long way between here and Lawrence, Kansas.”

“Yeah.” The detective turned to the funny pages. “I guess you’re right.”

It was drizzling steadily by the time the sun settled behind the jagged city skyline, its descent hidden by the thick cloud cover. Hazel, in a flowered dressing gown, was flinging handfuls of glittering tinsel onto the branches of the small Christmas tree Alex had brought home and set on the table before the tall front window. Annabelle was curled up on the couch reading a movie magazine. She was wearing the same bathrobe and slippers she’d had on the day the dog had chased her into the adjoining room. The radio was playing Christmas carols.

Hazel paused in her work to look out into the drooling rain. “Don’t tell me Alex is still out walking that dog,” she said.

“Maybe he stopped somewhere,” suggested Annabelle, staring at a full-page shot of John Barrymore posing beside his custom-built automobile.

“Where?”

“Oh, a bar or something. Alex gets lonely at times.”

Virgil came in from the master bedroom, hair mussed, shirttail hanging untidily outside his pants. “Damn music,” he grumbled, flipping the radio off. “How’s a guy supposed to get rid of a headache with all that going on?” He went into the kitchen, came back out before the door stopped swinging, a bottle of aspirins in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He downed two tablets, emptied the glass, and set the remains beside the pygmy tree. “I feel better already.”

“You’d feel even better if you cut down on your drinking,” said Hazel. She hung a shining red globe on one of the branches, bowing it almost to the level of the table.

“Says you. Where’s the boy and his dog?”

“Still out.”

“In that?” Virgil cupped his hands about his eyes so he could see out the window. “Christ, I hope he brought his night glasses with him.”

“Annie says he might’ve stopped off at a bar.”

Virgil turned to Annabelle. “What bar?”

Annabelle looked up from John Barrymore. “Any bar. Alex likes to get acquainted with bartenders.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

The door opened and Alex came in, raincoat streaming water. “Man! That ain’t gonna let up tonight.” He closed the door on the hissing rain.

“Where’s the dog?” Hazel asked.

“I tied him up out front. He can take it.”

“Stop anywhere?” Virgil wanted to know.

Alex slid out of the raincoat. “Yeah, at a saloon. Why?”

“What if it gets raided?”

Alex looked thoughtful. “Yeah. Hey, I never thought of that.”

Virgil’s eyes were hard. “Well, from now on, think about it.” He flopped into a chair and fished a cigarette out of his pocket. “Any news?”

“Not much.” Alex hung his coat on the hall tree. It dripped loudly on the raised floor before the door. “Oh, yeah, we’re in Kansas. Cops found the car that bunch used in Haileyville, and that’s where they’re looking.”

“Let ’em keep looking. Anything else?” Virgil lit his cigarette.

The other robber glanced suspiciously in the direction of the women. Annabelle was still engrossed in her magazine, and Hazel was adjusting the silver angel on the top of the tree. When Alex spoke, his voice was low. “I got us a bank.”

Virgil appraised him in silence, squinting through his cigarete smoke. A long, low, whooping sound drifted into the room from the front yard. Virgil stirred in his seat. “There goes that damn dog again,” he said.

The red-haired sergeant lifted the paper cup of coffee to his lips, then paused to remove the slip of paper which had adhered to the bottom, and set the cup back down untasted. It was the bulletin that had come in during his break, the one he had put aside to read later. He had forgotten about it until this moment. Now, five minutes before the end of his shift, he wondered if he should leave it for Sergeant Kirby, who would be taking over presently. If it were something important, however, the delay wouldn’t look good on his record. He sighed and unfolded the missive.

As he read, his eyes widened. He snapped up the telephone, letting the report glide to the floor, and dialed the number of the Oklahoma headquarters of the Investigation Division of the Department of Justice. Kansas State troopers had apprehended the men who had abandoned the getaway car outside of Lawrence. Neither of them knew Virgil Ballard.

Virgil spread a map of Shawnee he had picked up at the neighborhood service station on the dining room table. Hazel had turned the radio back on, and Christmas carols slid underneath the closed door. He looked questioningly at Alex.

“Right here,” said Alex, pointing out a narrow street near the river. “The Shawnee National. Set between a flophouse and a candy store. Cathouse across the street.”

“Nice neighborhood.”

“Listen, it’s better than having a gunshop next door. You never know what these rubes are gonna do when they get a whiff of that reward money. Anyway, this is the biggest bank in town, and one of the largest in Oklahoma. There’s gotta be, oh, ninety, a hundred thousand in that place on any given day.”

Virgil looked doubtful. “They don’t leave money like that laying around unguarded.”

“Well, that’s the catch. There are six regular guards in all, four in the lobby and two in the vault. Two of them are plain-clothes. Also they got a guy stationed above the door with a tommy gun.”

“What? No tank?”

Alex ignored the sarcasm. “The guys in uniform are easy. We can get the drop on them the minute we come through the door. Plainclothesmen are easy to spot, ’cause they look like cops, and we can grab them at the same time. The guards in the vault, we got them when it opens. Simple.”

“And the guy with the chopper?”

“Window dressing. What’s he gonna do, cut loose in a room full of innocent bystanders? I tell you, Virge, this is gonna be an easy hundred grand. Then we can split up and get the hell away from the heat. Mexico maybe.”

“We’re gonna need more guys.”

“I know a few of the local boys. They’re dependable, and they know how to follow orders. Whattaya say?”

“I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

Alex straightened. “Okay, that’s your privilege. But I wouldn’t wait too long. Bank jobs rot just like everything else.”

The rain-soaked scene outside the window was draped in the purplish black of late evening, leaving only the water-streaked glass for Virgil to contemplate. At last he stretched mightily, arching his body and driving his long arms straight toward the ceiling. “Mexico, huh?” he said, yawning. “What do you suppose it’s like down there?”

It was nearly midnight by the time the lawmen in Oklahoma City had organized themselves for the trip to Shawnee. There were three big sedans lined up at the curb in front of federal headquarters, one of them a black-and-white sheriff’s patrol car, the other two unmarked government vehicles. The damp night air was alive with the clicks and rattles of over a dozen firearms as their owners made last-minute checks of their weapons in the glare of the headlights. Pump shotguns rattled beside submachine guns, the breeches of assorted automatic pistols banged and slammed, their checked grips squeaking in the tense wet fists of their handlers, bulletproof vests were hefted gruntingly into the back seats of the first two cars. When the noises of preparation had died down, William Farnum turned to Sherifff McCracken and asked him how far they had to go.

“Forty-three miles. We ought to be there in three hours.”

“Make it two,” snapped the federal agent, and ducked into the back seat of the lead car. The sheriff glared.

Five minutes later, the caravan of heavy vehicles pulled out on the first leg of its forty-three-mile journey.

“Whose car we gonna use on this job?” Virgil, his shirt collar wilted and the knot of his tie hanging in the vicinity of his breast pocket, was sitting across the map-covered table from Alex, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts at his side. The mantel clock in the living room struck one.

Alex shrugged. “The Pontiac, I guess. Your job’s still at the garage, ain’t it?”

“Transmission trouble,” replied Virgil. “In a brand-new car, not a hundred miles on it. How about that?”

“Yeah, Detroit’s getting pretty careless. My car, then?”

The other nodded. “We’ll probably need another one, too, what with more men going along.”

“No problem. We’ll snatch one tomorrow.”

The radio in the living room squealed and the music changed. Hazel had tuned to another station. Kate Smith belted “Moonlight Bay” through the closed door, vibrating the loose panels.

“Say we get ninety,” Virgil proposed. “How many ways we gonna split it?”

“Five. We’ll need that many to keep everyone in line. Six, with a man at the wheel.”

“Forget the man at the wheel. We’d have to have two anyway, one for each car, and we can’t afford that.”

“Okay, make it five. That’s eighteen thousand apiece.”

Virgil grinned. “Not a bad piece of change, for one day’s work. How much we got in the kitty?”

“About eight thousand.”

“Four grand for each of us, plus eighteen from this job. That should set us up pretty good in Mexico.” Virgil put a match to yet another cigarette. “Man, them greasers is gonna get a load of some genuine rich gringos this time around. You can bet on it.”

The door opened and Hazel entered, pulling the dressing gown about her. “Virgil, it’s getting late. Don’t you think it’s time for bed?”

“Go ahead,” said Virgil testily. “I’ll be along later.”

Alex yawned. “I’m about ready for it myself.” He stretched. “How about Annie? She go to bed?”

Hazel shook her head. “No, she fell asleep on the couch. With that movie magazine on her lap. She’s been reading that dumb thing over and over again since you got it for her.”

“Well, as long as it gives her something to do,” Alex said sleepily.

“And that’s another thing. She hasn’t lifted a finger to help with anything since we got here. Alex, she’s driving me up the wall.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

Hazel sighed shortly, dismissing the subject. “What are you two talking about?” She looked from Alex to Virgil. Virgil’s eyes flickered to the map of Shawnee for an instant, then shot back to his wife. Too late. She stared at the map. “I see,” she said quietly.

“Hazel, it’s not what you think.”

“How do you know what I think?”

Virgil leaned forward, encircling the map with his long arms. “This bank is the key to a fresh start. We can pick up and take off, leave the cops with egg on their big fat faces. Would you like that?”

“You mean Mexico, don’t you? I heard you talking about it when I came in.”

“That’s it. Mexico. No more Public Enemy Number One. No more Tri-State Terror. Just Mr. and Mrs. Warren Henry, from Oklahoma.”

“And twenty thousand dollars,” added Alex.

“Why Mexico?” Hazel asked. “Why not here?”

Virgil went limp in his chair. He put his cigarette between his lips and dragged deeply on it, then let the smoke curl out his nostrils. “Have you read a newspaper lately?”

Hazel closed her eyes and nodded. “I understand.”

“So we’ll crack this one bank and skip. They tell me the border’s a cinch. The guards are out looking for wetbacks coming in, not tourists heading out. Public Enemy Number One don’t mean a thing to them. We’re as good as clear right now.”

They stared at each other a long time, neither of them moving or saying a word. Finally, a loud comic yawn shattered the silence and Alex got to his feet. “You two can keep sizing each other up like a snake and a mongoose, for all I care. Me for bed.”

He went out and closed the door behind him, separating himself from the silent tableau within.

Twenty-six miles away, the three-car convoy hurtled and bounced along the rain-scarred road leading to Shawnee, transmissions whining dangerously. The face of the federal agent behind the wheel of the first vehicle, bathed in the eerie green glow of the dashboard lights, was tense and knotted, his eyes like slits in a Halloween mask. Farnum’s cigarette glowed calmly through the darkness in the back seat.

“What about it, Chief?” someone asked. “Is this guy Ballard as tough as the papers make him out to be?”

The red glow flew to Farnum’s invisible lips, brightened, then withdrew as a pall of smoke was discharged into the blackness. “He’s been in business eleven years. That’s tough enough, I guess.”

“I guess it really doesn’t matter, with fifteen men on our side.” The voice was the driver’s.

“That depends on how many Ballard has with him.”

“The landlord says there are at least two women in that house,” said the first man. The barrel of his machine gun glinted as he shifted it to his other knee. “What’s the procedure with them?”

“They’ll be given a chance to surrender.”

“And if they don’t?”

There was no answer. Farnum stirred in his seat to look out the back window. His features were thrown into brief relief as the headlights of the following car fell on his face, then faded again when he turned back. “I hope that hick sheriff knows enough to keep his boys in line,” he said. “I don’t trust that guy.”

The convoy roared on.