the bank's chief officers.
'The bank manager has three children, the assistant manager none,' I concluded. 'If we go to the assistant manager's home at three A.M. and take him and his wife to the manager's home, we'll have the two key employees — the ones with the bank vault combination-under our thumb, plus a ready-made group of hostages in the persons of the wives and children, who will assure the two men's good behavior. We'll take the men to the bank before daylight on Thursday morning, and after that it will be-'
'Hold it,' Dahl interrupted me. 'Thursday morning? And today's Monday? I can't hang around here that long.'
'I'm not talking about this Thursday. Or even next Thursday. It might take a month to set the job up properly.'
Dahl rose to his feet. 'Count me out, cousin. I've got other perch to fry.'
The mild-looking Harris was apologetic when I turned to him. 'I can't hold off for a month, either. Financially, I mean.'
I would be shaving it close to the bone myself, but I damn well wasn't going to put my head into the lion's mouth without pulling as many teeth as possible. 'Why don't we relax and go over this again and work out what we have to do to make-'
'Listen, why the horsing around?' Dahl interrupted again. 'What's the matter with setting something up right now and knocking it over in the next hour?' He said it challengingly.
'Not in the next hour,' Harris said after a glance at his watch. 'Banks close in the next fifteen minutes. But what about tomorrow morning?'
I might not have gulped, but I felt like it. Both men were looking at me. 'What about this job?' I temporized, indicating the Schemer's file folder.
'You set it up an' we'll be back in a month an' knock it over on its back, too,' Dahl said confidently. Harris nodded. 'We'll work out the split to cover your time,' Dahl continued. His tone turned silky. 'If you come in with us on a job in the mornin'.'
I vibrated on the brink of flat refusal. I wanted nothing to do with a walk-in. They were always high-risk operations with uncertain returns. But there was my own empty pockets to consider. A walk-in with three men stood a better chance than a walk-in with one man. And if I said no, I lost these two prospects for the Thornton job and would have to start all over again.
'I'd want you both on the ground a week beforehand,' I said at last. 'For the big one, I mean.'
'We're in, if you're in,' Dahl said. 'Right, Preacher?'
The taciturn Harris nodded.
'So we each scout a location tonight, meet here in the mornin' at eight, take a vote, get the job done, an' be halfway home by noon,' Dahl declared. His eyes were focused on me. 'You aboard, cousin?'
'All right,' I said reluctantly. 'What about a car for the job? Pick up a rental?'
'Naaah,' Dahl said disdainfully. 'Not for a quickie like that. Leave the wheels to me.' He tapped himself on the chest. 'Dick Dahl, Boy Car Thief. I never saw a piece of iron I couldn't roll.'
'Eight o'clock tomorrow morning, then,' I said.
'Great!' he enthused, and went out the door like a brigantine under full sail.
In my own mind, eight o'clock committed me to nothing. If I didn't like the sound of what I heard in the morning, I'd cut out. Harris eyed me while he waited for an interval to elapse before he followed Dahl from the motel room. 'You don't like it,' he said in his quiet voice.
'I won't like it if one of us doesn't come up with a likely-looking opportunity.'
'I scouted a bank across the District line a year ago,' he said. 'Near Rockville. I'll take another look at it tonight. But we'll find something.' He left the room.
One thing about Preacher Harris, I reflected as I walked to the window and parted the draperies to watch him cross the motel yard: in any crowd I'd ever seen he could blend as the Invisible Man. Nothing about him clashed with his surroundings.
I went back to the armchair that Dahl had preempted and ran through the situation again. Number one, although I didn't like it, I desperately needed the cash myself. And number two, if I cancelled out and went back to the Schemer for new partners there was no guarantee I'd do any better, and I'd have lost valuable time. I tried to convince myself that I was spoiled because I'd been so used to calling all the shots myself and picking my own partners.
I certainly didn't care for a job in Rockville, though. Rockville was in the jurisdiction of the Montgomery County Police who, although not numerous, tended to react quickly over a wide area. The District cops, in contrast, were more plentiful in their ten-square-mile enclave but often got in each other's way.
Harris's suggestion reminded me of something, though. A few years ago, when Bosco Sheerin had been my partner-before an irate husband returned home unexpectedly one evening and discovered Bosco in the intimate embrace of the husband's wife and sent both Bosco and the wife to join the angels-we had cased a job in the District of Columbia. It was a branch bank located near the intersection of Piney Branch Road and Georgia Avenue. This placed it only two miles from the northern border of the District, assuring a quick crossover into Maryland if it seemed convenient. Other escape routes abounded.
I sat there trying to remember why Bosco and I had finally decided against trying it. Police patrols? It seemed unlikely that the area was any more heavily patrolled than any other section of the nation's capital. I couldn't recall why we had abandoned the project. If not too much had changed in the interval, though, it was a bank I knew something about, which was a hell of a lot better than taking on one stone-cold. I rose from my chair and checked the Yellow Pages in the phone book to make sure the branch bank was still in the same location.
It was, and I went outside to my car and drove across Key Bridge to the District. I followed M Street and Rhode Island Avenue to Logan Circle, then traveled north on Thirteenth Street. I turned eastward on Decatur and moved over onto Georgia Avenue. The area seemed very much the same. Above Brightwood, it consisted principally of used-car lots, cleaning establishments, and aging restaurants.
I looked to my left at the Piney Branch Road intersection. A filling station took up the northwest corner. Just beyond it on Georgia Avenue was the bank, not a particularly prepossessing building. The same wide alley I remembered still served as part alley, part parking lot between the bank and the neighboring A&P store. At the present hour in the afternoon the alley was congested, but it was less likely to be so in the morning.
I drove past the bank in the flow of traffic. In the first mile beyond it the area turned from commercial to seedy residential. A mile from the Maryland line I made a U-turn at the east gate of Walter Reed Army Hospital and wheeled back to the bank. It still looked all right. Alternative exits and escape routes were plentiful. It was hard to imagine being cornered by patrol cars after pulling off the job.
I turned into the alley and drove along its length, reverifying that a left turn at its upper end led out to Piney Branch, bypassing the traffic light at the Georgia Avenue intersection. There was a new warehouse-type building at the end of the alley, but nothing else appeared changed. It was hard to escape the feeling that a quick run down the alley and out onto Piney Branch would be the best way of losing pursuers in the teeming morning traffic. And if by some chance the Piney Branch exit were blocked, it was just as easy to turn right at the end of the alley, beyond the new warehouse, and double back onto Georgia Avenue, there to head north or south as the situation dictated.
I was still sour on the idea of a hit-and-run job with so little advance preparation, but I had to admit that for the first time in a long time I had little choice.
I drove back to Virginia and the motel room, made a couple of sketches of escape routes from the bank, and went to bed although it was still daylight.
I was glad that Preacher Harris arrived at the motel in the morning before Dick Dahl. 'What about it?' I asked him bluntly. 'Is this your usual style of operation?'
'No, it isn't.' Harris had on a fresh shirt and tie and looked even more conservative than he had the previous day, if that were possible. 'But I need the cash.' It was his turn to become blunt. 'You're afraid of it?'
'Not as much as I was last night. I went out and scouted one I'd looked over some time ago.'
'You liked it for today?'
I handed him my sketches and a large-scale map of the District. 'Take a look at this. It'll go like a player piano,' I said, turning on the hard sell.
