THIRTY-FIVE

Out in the corridor the big man pulled a fourth Santa mask and a folded-up fez from his pocket. I quickly pulled both on, and we headed for the stairs at the end of the hall. Suddenly a door opened and a middle-aged couple emerged. “Wheeee…” the smaller robber said.

“Evening, folks,” the big man said to the couple, slurring his words. That was all they would remember: three half-drunk Shriners, probably on the prowl for women.

We descended by way of the service stairs. Once we were on the ground floor, we went quickly down a short utility corridor and emerged into an alley where a gray 1941 Pontiac sedan waited, its engine idling softly. The driver wore a wide-brimmed fedora pulled low over his face, and the collar of his overcoat had been turned up so that his features were invisible. The man with the shotgun pushed me into the backseat, then climbed in beside me while his companion took the place beside the driver. The Pontiac eased down the alley and pulled carefully out into the street. Once the car was moving we removed our masks.

The snow had stopped and the roads were clear. We drove slowly and obeyed all the traffic laws. After a few blocks the downtown area fell behind and we turned off Roosevelt into a residential neighborhood. Beyond the residential area came a district of warehouses and cotton gins where the streetlights were few and far between. Another mile farther and the Pontiac turned off the paved street and onto a rutted dirt lane that was cloaked in darkness. After two blocks we pulled up in front of an old metal-sided garage.

The front passenger leaped out to open the garage’s door, and a few seconds later the car glided almost soundlessly into the building. Above our heads a single small bulb cast a dim glow that did little to dispel the gloom. Three cars stood parked along the back wall, a Chevrolet, an Oldsmobile coupe and a new black Ford sedan.

“Well, that went pretty slick,” the driver said, turning around to grin at me. “I hope you weren’t scared.”

“Not really, Little,” I told him.

“Sorry about that lick I gave you,” the big man said, sticking out his hand to shake with me. “I hit you a lot harder than I intended to. I was a little keyed up, if you understand what I mean.”

“Forget it,” I said. “We needed to make it look real.”

“We can get together and be sociable later,” Icepick Willie said. “Let’s get a move on now.”

The valise emerged from the trunk of the Pontiac. Quickly the stolen wallets and money clips were stripped of their cash and thrown aside. We took the money and placed it in a waterproof sack that had been originally made for the U.S. Army for a purpose not too different from the one it was to be used for that night. The cash drawer from the valise was then emptied into the sack, and on top of that went a fourteen-pound weight made of high carbon steel. All the air was then squeezed from the sack, and its special seal was fastened. Finally, it was placed into an identical sack, and it too was sealed. Then the whole thing was tossed into the trunk of the Ford. The shotgun and the Colt pistol used during the robbery went into the backseat of the Pontiac along with the valise and the Santa masks. All three men had worn gloves throughout the evening, and all three guns were untraceable.

A few seconds later the garage door opened once again and three cars emerged. The Ford and the Chevrolet waited while the Oldsmobile coupe stopped long enough for its occupant to shut and lock the door. Before he climbed back into his car he threw the keys to the door far out into the weed-choked field behind the garage.

I knew that the men in the Oldsmobile and the Chevrolet would go in different directions and end up spending the night in different tourist courts, each of which was many miles away. In the morning they would be on their way back to their homes in different states.

Little drove as carefully as he had while behind the wheel of the Pontiac earlier in the evening. Our route took us back through the center of town and past the Weilbach Hotel, where I noted that everything appeared perfectly normal. Once beyond the city limits, we proceeded seventeen miles northward, and then turned off the main highway onto a county road. After three miles the little Ford swung onto a rutted gravel lane that ran a few hundred yards out into the mesquite thickets. At its end sat an abandoned farmhouse, its cracked and broken windows casting jagged reflections of the car’s headlights. We pulled around behind the house and stopped beside a stone well curb. Quickly Little sprang from the seat and retrieved the sack of money from the trunk. Using a key he’d had for months, he unlocked the lid on top of the well and swung it open. A few moments later I heard a splash as the sack hit the water. The key followed the sack into the well, and then he carefully slipped the locking arm of the padlock back into its hasp and clicked it shut.

Soon we were back at the main highway with nothing in the car to connect him in any way to the robbery. When he stopped, I opened the door and stepped out onto the shoulder of the road.

“I sure hate to leave you way out here all alone,” he said, “but it can’t be helped.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll catch a ride. “Just get rolling and be careful.”

“Ain’t I always?”

I shut the door and stood watching as his taillights gradually disappeared into the icy darkness. It only took me about ten minutes to catch a ride with a friendly trucker who was heading toward town. “Jesus,” he said. “What’s a guy dressed like you doing all the way out here in the middle of the night?”

“I got robbed,” I said with a rueful laugh.

“Damn! Did they take your car?”

“No. A few friends and I were having a friendly little poker game at the hotel back in town when two big guys swarmed us. They took me as a hostage to keep the others from calling the cops for an hour.”

“You’re talking about that game at the Wielbach, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. You know about it?”

“Hell, everybody in this part of Texas knows about it. It’s been going on for years up there. I bet they were serious hijackers with the kind of money that game brings in,” he said.

“My friend, you have no idea how serious these guys were.”

“Here,” he said, and reached behind the seat. After groping around for a few seconds he hauled out a bottle of whiskey. “I bet you could use a snort,” he said.

“I bet you’re right.” I replied, and looked at the bottle. It was White Horse. “My brand,” I said. “This must be my lucky day.”

“Oh, it’s your lucky day all right, but that whiskey ain’t got nothing to do with it. Your luck was when they let you walk away instead of putting a bullet in your brain.

“You’re right,” I said with a laugh. “No doubt about it.”

“Where to?” he asked. “I’ll drop you off anyplace you need to go.”

“The hotel,” I said. “I guess it’s time to face the music.”