The Chase - Страница 5

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The man driving the wagon was not interested in anything the town had to offer except some of the assets of the John S. Cook Bank. He knew that the safe inside could hold over a million dollars in silver coins. But it was far easier to carry cash from the payrolls of the mines, and he had yet to take a single silver, or gold, piece. He figured that with eighty-five companies engaged in mining the surrounding hills, the payroll take should be quite considerable.

As usual, he had planned well, living in a boardinghouse for miners while entering the Cook Bank on numerous occasions to make small deposits in an account he had opened under a false name. A brief friendship was struck up with the bank’s manager, who was led into thinking the town newcomer was a mining engineer. The man’s appearance had been altered with a wig of black hair, a mustache, and a Vandyke beard. He also walked with a limp, which he said was the result of a mining accident. It proved to be a flawless disguise with which to study the banking habits of the citizens and the times when the bank was doing little business.

As he drove the wagon and mules into town toward the Cook Bank, however, his image had been changed from that of a mining engineer to that of a small-time freight hauler to the mines. He looked like any one of the town’s haulers, struggling to make a living in the broiling heat of the desert during summer. He reined in the mules at the rear of a stable. When he was certain no one was observing him, he lifted a dummy dressed exactly the same as himself and tied it to the seat of the wagon. Then he led the mules back toward Broadway, the main street running through town. Just before reaching the concrete walkway in front of the bank’s entrance, he slapped the mules on their rumps and sent them off, pulling the wagon down the street through the main part of town, his dummy likeness sitting upright on the seat and holding the reins.

He checked for customers approaching the bank. None of the people milling around the town seemed headed in that direction. He looked up at the four-story building, glancing at the gold paint on the windows of the upper floor advertising a dentist and a doctor. Another sign, with a hand pointing downward, indicated that the town post office was in the basement.

He strolled into the bank and looked around the lobby. It was empty except for a man making a withdrawal. The customer took his money from the teller, turned, and walked from the bank without glancing at the stranger.

There goes a lucky man, the robber thought.

If the customer had bothered to notice him, he would have been shot dead. The robber never left anyone behind to identify the least detail about him. Then there was always the possibility, although slim, that someone might see through his disguise.

He had learned from conversations in the neighboring saloons that the bank was run by a manager for a company of men who were owners of the region’s most productive mines, especially the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine whose original claim had grossed nearly two million dollars.

So far, so good, thought the robber as he leaped over the counter, landing on his feet next to the startled teller. He pulled the automatic from his boot and pressed the muzzle against the teller’s head.

“Do not move, and do not think of stepping on the alarm button under the counter or I’ll splatter your brains on the wall.”

The teller could not believe what was happening. “Is this really a holdup?” he stammered.

“It is that,” replied the robber. “Now, walk into the manager’s office very slowly and act as if nothing is happening.”

The frightened teller moved toward an office with a closed door whose etched glass made it difficult to see in or out. He knocked.

“Yes, come on in,” came a voice from the other side.

The teller Fred pushed open the door and was roughly shoved inside, losing his balance and falling across the manager’s desk. The sign on the desk, HERBERT WILKINS, was knocked to the floor. Wilkins swiftly took in the situation and reached for a revolver under his desk. He was five seconds too late. The robber had learned about the weapon from the manager himself, while talking at a nearby saloon.

“Do not touch that gun,” snapped the robber, as if he were psychic.

Wilkins was not a man who frightened easily. He stared at the robber, taking in every inch of his appearance. “You’ll never get away with it,” he said contemptuously.

The robber spoke in a cold, steady voice. “I have before and I will do so again.” He motioned toward the imposing safe that stood nearly eight feet high. “Open it!”

Wilkins looked the robber square in the eye. “No, I don’t think I will.”

The robber wasted no time. He wrapped the muzzle of his automatic in a heavy towel and shot the teller between the eyes. Then he turned to Wilkins. “I may leave here without a dime, but you won’t live to see it.”

Wilkins stood, horrified, staring down at the spreading pool of blood around Fred’s head. He looked at the smoldering towel where the bullet had passed through, well knowing it was unlikely that anyone in the building had heard the gunshot. As if in a trance, he walked to the safe and began turning the combination lock to the required numbers. After half a minute, he pulled down on the latch and the massive steel door swung open.

“Take it and be damned!” he hissed.

The robber merely smiled and shot Wilkins in the temple. The bank manager had barely struck the floor when the robber strode quickly to the front door, slammed it shut, hung a CLOSED sign in the window, and pulled down the shades. Then he methodically cleaned out the safe of all bills, transferring them into a laundry bag he carried tied around his waist under his shirt. When the sack was filled until it bulged in every seam, he stuffed the remaining bills in his pant pockets and boots. The safe cleaned of all money, the robber stared briefly at the gold and silver coins inside and took just one gold souvenir.

There was a heavy iron rear door to the bank that opened onto a narrow street. The robber unlocked the door’s inside latch, cracked the door open, and scanned the street. It was lined on the opposite side with residential houses.

A group of young boys were playing baseball a block from the bank. Not good. This was entirely unexpected by the robber. In his many hours of observing the streets around the Cook Bank, this was the first time he had found children playing in the street behind the bank. He was on a time schedule and had to reach the railyard and his secret boxcar in twelve minutes. Shouldering the bag so his face was shielded on the right side, he walked around the ball game in progress and continued up the street, where he ducked into an alley.

For the most part, the boys ignored him. Only one stared at the poorly dressed man toting a big sack over his right shoulder. What struck the boy as odd was that the man wore a Mexican sombrero, a style that was seldom seen around Rhyolite. Most men in town wore fedoras, derbies, or miner’s caps. There was also something else about the raggedy man…Then another boy yelled, and the boy turned back to the game, barely in time to catch a pop fly.

The robber tied the sack around his shoulders so that it hung on his back. The bicycle he’d parked earlier behind a dentist’s office was sitting there behind a barrel that had been placed to catch runoff water from the building’s drainpipe. He mounted the seat and began pedaling along Armagosa Street, past the red-light district, until he came to the railyard.

A brakeman was walking along the track toward the caboose at the end of the train. The robber couldn’t believe his bad luck. Despite his meticulous planning, fate had dealt him a bad hand. Unlike with his other robberies and murders, this time he had been noticed by a stupid young boy. And now this brakeman. Never had he encountered so many eyes that might have observed him during his escape. There was nothing he could do but see it through.

Luckily, the brakeman did not look in the robber’s direction. He was going from car to car checking the grease in the axle boxes of the trucks and wheels the boxcars rode on. If the brass sleeve that rotated inside the box did not receive enough lubricant, the friction would heat the end of the axle to a dangerous level. The weight of the car could break the axle off and cause a disastrous crash.

As the robber cycled past, the brakeman did not bother to look up. He instead went about his business, trying to complete his inspection before the train departed for Tonopah and then on to Sacramento.

Already, the engineer was looking at his gauges to make sure he had enough steam to move the heavy train. The robber hoped the brakeman would not turn back and witness him entering his private boxcar. Quickly, he unlocked and slid open the door. He threw the bicycle inside and then climbed a small ladder up to the door, dragging the heavy money sack over the threshold.

Once inside the boxcar, the robber peered down the length of the train. The brakeman was climbing aboard the caboose, which housed the train crew. There was no sign he’d witnessed the robber enter the boxcar.

Secure inside his palatial car, the robber relaxed and read a copy of the Rhyolite Herald. He could not help but wonder what the paper would print the following day about the bank robbery and the killing of its manager and teller. Again, as he had so many times earlier, he felt no remorse. The deaths never entered his mind again.