I arrived in Thornton again at eight thirty A.M. the following morning. My first stop was a lunchroom across the street from the bank. I gave the girl at the cash register one of my flyers at the same time I bought a morning paper from her. 'I'll show it to the boss after his breakfast rush dies down,' she said after a glance at it. 'He's the chef.'
'No hurry,' I said. 'I'm having breakfast myself, and I'll be around town for a few days.'
I took a seat at a table for two near a window that commanded a view of the bank's side entrance, which was used only by employees-a fact made known to me by the Schemer's fact-gathering. I spread my paper out in a manner that would discourage anyone from taking the seat across the table from me even if the place became crowded, then hitched my chair around slightly so I could see the bank parking lot without turning my head. At this hour the cars pulling onto the lot would contain employees only. Right now I was interested in their arrival times.
I ordered hotcakes and coffee when the waitress arrived at my table. Mentally I reviewed the descriptions of the bank manager and assistant manager contained in the Schemer's voluminous dossiers. Thomas Barton, the manager, was forty, five feet ten and a soft two hundred pounds, dark-complexioned, and had a quick, nervous way of walking. The Schemer had him down as a Casper Milquetoast type with a pushy, clubwoman type wife whose kids tended to run loose.
George Mace, the assistant manager, was fifty. He was thin, balding, bespectacled, and invariably wore a cardigan sweater to work, changing to a linen duster inside the bank. The Schemer's file on Mace said that the man had worked in the bank for twenty-one years and had refused several offers of a branch bank managership for himself because he didn't want to leave town.
My interest in these two men was elementary: between them they had the combination to the bank vault. I was hoping that if they got to work early enough in the mornings, as bank men often did, that it might be possible to intercept them at the bank's rear entrance and force them to let us enter with them, risky though it might be. It would eliminate the aspect of the Schemer's plan that I liked least, the necessity for manipulating the families if we had to pick up the two men at their homes and take them to the bank with us.
The first morning I saw enough to convince me that the Schemer had the right of it and that my hope was in vain. When my watch showed 8:58 and I hadn't seen either Barton or Mace, I was beginning to think I had missed their arrival. Then a man who was unmistakably Barton from the Schemer's description hurried toward the bank's side entrance from a parked car.
But it was 9:17 before a man in a fuzzy gray sweater who was just as unmistakably Mace alighted from a mud-stained Rambler. He was thin, stooped, and ailing-looking, and he shuffled toward the entrance with a kind of patient weariness. I wondered if the tellers kept cash locked in drawers so they could operate for a few moments in the morning without the vault being opened. If they didn't, there must be some disgruntled bank customers standing around waiting for Mace to contribute his half of the vault combination to the opening of the vault so the day's banking business could get started.
The late arrival convinced me of something else. We were going to have to pick up Barton and Mace and take them to the bank with us. Even at 8:58, when Barton arrived, the majority of the employees were already inside the bank. That was no good as far as we were concerned. We had to be inside first to assure ourselves that we could herd the clerks, cashiers, janitors, and guards where we wanted them to go as fast as they entered. It looked as though the only way we could be sure that Barton and Mace would be there early enough for us to do the job right would be to take them there ourselves. I'd watch them further, of course, but this first viewing was hardly encouraging to my wishful thinking that we might not have to get involved with the families.
I made my hotcakes and coffee last another twenty minutes while I clocked additional customer arrivals at the bank's front entrance. I had already seen that in the first five minutes nine people went inside. This was only slightly fewer than those who entered in the next twenty minutes. The heavy initial traffic gave me additional pause.
We could hardly expect to force Barton and Mace to open the vault, clean it out, and make our getaway in less than eight to ten minutes. And in addition to the regular bank personnel, we couldn't hope to cope with the flow of bank customers I'd seen in the first few moments the front doors were open. We'd have to keep the customers out of the bank somehow. There were ways. It would come down to the question of selecting the best way.
'More coffee?' the waitress's voice said in my ear.
'Thanks.' I held up my cup. Looking at the girl, my glance went beyond her, and I got a shock. Two uniformed young cops were seated at counter stools, looking in my direction. It took me an instant to realize that they were looking at the waitress, whose uniform nestled a bit snugly about her derriere. The cops laughed and said something to each other, then said something to the girl when she returned to the counter. She joined in the laughter, and I released a breath I'd been holding.
When the cops left, I left too. I spent the balance of the morning passing out a few more of my Yellow Pages flyers. I planned on making only half a dozen calls a day. I had to make the business section last until we pulled the job. None of the storekeepers wanted to take the time to talk to me. Two passed me on to their assistants, both of whom were women. The women wanted to talk about it, which was all right with me. I was in no hurry.
A couple of businessmen gave me a fast brushoff. 'I'm already in the book,' one said grumpily. 'And with you in town coaxing my competition into it, you're cutting my throat.' There wasn't much I could have said to that argument even if I'd been legitimate.
I toured the area on foot most of the morning, memorizing street patterns and traffic lights. There's nothing more anonymous than a salesman making a one-time call. In between stops I drank coffee to kill time until my kidneys were awash. By the time I made my last call the proprietor knew who I was supposed to be before I even began my pitch. That's a small town for you. It was why I'd gone to the trouble of setting up the gimmick to give me a reason for spending time in the area. My cover was established.
I drove back to the Carousel and checked my firsthand information acquired about the bank that morning against the Schemer's files. He was right on the button in every respect. That was his reputation, of course.
For the balance of the week I ate breakfast each morning in the lunchroom across the street from the bank. It helped my digestion when I discovered that the two young cops stopped in every morning because one of them was giving the waitress a big rush.
Barton and Mace never varied their pattern, unfortunately. They were consistently late in then arrival at the bank parking lot. I reluctantly came to the conclusion that once again the Schemer was right and we'd have to take them in their homes rather than in the bank itself. The third morning the bank had eleven customers who were either waiting for its doors to open or who arrived within the first two minutes. It confirmed my thinking that the customers somehow had to be excluded.
When I was back at the Carousel again, I looked up the section of the Schemer's report dealing with the bank's opening time. True to form, he had pinpointed the early influx of customers as a problem. Moreover, he proposed a solution. Have a card printed and place it in the bank door, his report suggested. Have the card say BANK EXAMINERS HERE. DOORS OPEN AT 10:00 A.M. TODAY.
It wasn't a bad idea. It might even work. That's why the Schemer was worth his ten percent. Twelve and a half percent, I reminded myself.
On Wednesday I made two trips to Thornton from my motel. I checked out the employees' arrival times in the morning as usual. In the afternoon I returned to watch the arrival of the armored truck making the delivery in which we were interested. The delivery was perfectly routine. On Thursday morning I made particular note that there was nothing unusual-at least nothing that was visible from across the street-in the bank's personnel or routine in dealing with the extra volume of cash.
So eventually it came down to the fact that there were no insuperable problems if we could find a way to control the families of Barton and Mace in their homes during the time we were taking the pair to the bank to open the vault. I stayed away from the homes. Time enough to check up on the Schemer's detailed reports on the home routines when three men paired up differently could operate less conspicuously than a single man. It could wait until Harris and Dahl arrived in town.
If they arrived.
It was time I heard from them.
Dahl called me at the Carousel on Friday night. 'How's it look, cousin?' he asked in his usual breezy
