permission, she was to push the button on the floor under her desk. But this time she didn’t even think of the button. She reached, instead, for the package. Suddenly, the mailman grabbed her wrist, yanked her from the chair, and hurled her into a corner. She landed heavily on her side, knocking her head against the wall. When she looked up dazed, the mailman had an automatic trained on her. “Can you scream louder than this gun?” he said in a low voice.
She stared at the gun. She couldn’t have screamed if she’d wanted to. She couldn’t even breathe.
The outer door opened and the four men came in, two carrying shotguns, and two machine guns. The girl couldn’t believe it it was like something in the movies. Gangsters carried machine guns back in 1930. There was no such thing as a machine gun in real life. Machine guns and Walt Disney mice all make-believe.
The mailman put his gun away under his coat, and removed the mailbag from his shoulder. He took cord from the mail sack and tied the receptionist’s hands and feet. She gaped at him unbelievingly as he tightened the knots. They were in the wrong office, she thought. It might be a television show shooting scenes on location they must have wanted the office next door and these men had come into the wrong place. It must be a mistake.
The mailman gagged her with a spare handkerchief as one of the other men brought the two musical instrument cases and two briefcases in from the outside hall. The mailman took the briefcases. The men with the machine guns led the way. They all walked down the inner hall and stopped at the door next to the bookkeeping room. The mailman opened the door, and all five of them boiled into the room.
This was the room where the alarm buzzer would have rung if the receptionist had remembered to ring it. Four men in brown uniforms wearing pistols and Sam Browne belts, were sitting at a table playing poker. They jumped up when the door burst open then they all froze. They believed in machine guns.
The mailman told them to lie on the floor, faces down, and they did so immediately. He used their ties to bind their hands, then-belts to bind their feet. He tore strips from their shirts to gag them. Then the five men went back to the hall. One of the trombone players walked back to the receptionist’s office and sat down at the desk, cradling the machine gun in his lap and guarding the door. The other trombone players stood at the far end of the hall, watching the closed door that lined it. The phoney mailman and the insurance salesmen with their shotguns walked into the bookkeeping room.
There was only one man there, the chief accountant. He was standing by the window, smoking a cigarette, waiting for the couriers. He turned when the door opened, saw the three men coming in, and the cigarette dropped from his fingers. He raised his hands over his head. He was a CPA, a husband and father, forty-seven, medium height, somewhat paunchy, and not prepared to argue with sawed-off shotguns.
The mailman said, “Open the safe.”
“I don’t know the combination.” He said it quickly, the first thing that came to his mind.
The mailman walked over and slapped his face with his open hand. “Don’t waste my time.”
“All right, take off your shoes.” The mailman took a penknife from his pocket and opened it.
The accountant stared at the penknife. “What are you going to do?”
“Every time I ask you to open the safe and you say no, I cut off one toe. You already owe me one. Take off your shoes.”
“Wait! Wait, please! I’m not lying, I”
He gestured to one of his men. “Take his shoes off.”
One of the insurance salesmen came over, grabbed the accountant by the shirtfront, and dropped him into a chair. He stooped to grab the accountant’s right foot.
The accountant shouted, “I’ll do it! Don’t! I’ll do it!”
“You do it in under a minute, you don’t lose any toes.”
The accountant hurried to the safe. It was a big steel box, four feet high, three feet wide, three feet deep. He worked the combination hurriedly, but was so nervous he did it wrong the first time. He tried again, got it that time, and the safe opened.
While the mailmen tied and gagged the accountant, the other two loaded the money from the safe into the briefcases. Then they went out into the hall where the trombone players joined them, and they walked to the receptionist’s desk. They packed the burp guns into the trombone cases and the shotguns away in the mailbag. Once they were out in the outer hall, they removed their handkerchief-masks and shoved them into the mailbag.
Then they all went to the stairs. The insurance salesmen went down to the sixth floor, the mailman to the ninth floor, the trombone players to the tenth floor. They rang for the elevator operator at almost the same time. He seemed pleased that the people he’d taken up separately would all be coming down together. Saved him two trips.
The trombone players got on first, and told the elevator operator they’d managed to get the gig for the weekend. One floor down, the mailman got on and said some idiot had mailed a special-delivery package to the wrong address. Three floors lower, the insurance salesmen got on and discussed profit percentages with each other. The five men left the elevator and the building together. The mailman turned to the right and walked slowly off down the street. The trombone players stood in front of the building, lit cigarettes, and chatted together about their gig. The insurance salesmen went into the parking lot and got their car. When they came out of the lot, the trombone players sauntered over and slid into the back seat. The driver turned to the right, and, half a block further, stopped long enough for the mailman to climb aboard.
Forty minutes later, at a motel, the trombone players removed their beards, the mailman removed his glasses and moustache, and all five men washed the colour rise out their hair. Then they got pencils and paper and split $61,323 five ways. They’d left five dimes in the safe. One of them was our lady’s dime.
5
THE SAME DAY and seven hundred miles to the east
Once a month, Eric LaRenne put on a brown suit with $75,000 in cash sewn into the jacket lining and took a plane ride. They’d picked him for the job in the first place because he was in the Outfit anyway, in the right city, and was trustworthy. Besides he wore a size 36 short. This last attribute was most important, because a man at the other end wore a 36 short, too.
