ONCE UPON A BANK FLOOR
by James Holding, Jr.

Copyright © 1961, H.S.D. Publications Inc.

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-27-02 [v1.0]

I USUALLY BUY a mystery story magazine to kill the tedium of a plane ride, but this time I didn't need it. The man who had the window seat beside me was better than any magazine.
He was middle-aged and dressed conservatively but rather carelessly. He had a double chin and bushy brows over gentle brown eyes. When I sat down in the aisle seat beside him before takeoff, he glanced casually at me. I wanted to start a conversation but just couldn't do it. And he didn't say anything until we were airborne and had unsnapped our seat belts.
His opening remark was purely tentative, a friendly overture. He said, "I see you're a mystery story fan," his eyes going to the magazine in my hand.
"Not really a fan," I said, "but I find them a pleasant way to pass the time on a plane ride."
"I'm not really a fan, either," he said. "I read mystery stories as much to keep up-to-date on the new criminal techniques as anything else."
"That could mislead a lot of people," I said, making a pleasantry of it, "into thinking you were a crook reading your trade journals."
He grinned disarmingly. "It's not as bad as that," he said. "I work for a bank. Banks deal in money, and money draws criminals. I want to be ready for trouble if they try anything on the bank where I work, that's all." He added companionably, "My name's Colbaugh."
"Mine's Dickson," I said. "Glad to know you."
He said, "I was mixed up in a bank robbery once myself, at the Merchants National Bank in . . ." He named a small California town. "So I know how unexpectedly such things can happen."
"It sounds exciting," I remarked idly.
He shrugged. "You could call it exciting, all right." He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, evidently considering the amenities preserved.
But I wanted to get the story out of him, hear him tell it. "Tell me about it," I said.
"You'll be bored," he protested, opening his eyes again. "But all right. It's not a very long story. And it happened twenty years ago. I was a kind of assistant-assistant cashier at the bank—a clerk, really. We had a night depository at the bank where the town's merchants could deposit their cash for safekeeping after their stores closed up for the night. And as all the stores stayed open until nine o'clock on Thursday evenings in those days, there was always a good bit of cash to be found in our night depository on Friday mornings."
"I know how that goes," I said. "I own a sporting-goods store in Fresno."
"Oh, really? That's a nice part of the country. Well, one of my jobs was to get down to the bank early in the mornings and clean out the deposits in the night depository so I could have them all tallied and on the assistant cashier's desk when he arrived for work at opening time. So I was always the first one there; other employees would begin to drift in about fifteen minutes before opening time, but I had the bank to myself for a good half hour each morning. And I kind of liked it, you know? It made me feel responsible to have the run of the place before anybody else got there."
I nodded comprehendingly.
"Well, one morning I left my house about eight o'clock as usual, and I was standing on my regular corner waiting for the bus that I rode to work, when a gray Ford sedan came along and stopped beside the bus stand and the driver leaned over and asked me if I wanted a lift downtown. I said sure and got in beside him when he pushed the car door open for me."
"In a mystery story," I said wisely, "you'd have been suspicious of the guy for offering you something for nothing. You'd have said no thanks and waited for your bus."
"Very probably. But it never entered my mind there was any hanky-panky afoot that morning. I got into the Ford and only then realized that there were two other men sitting in the back seat behind the driver and me. The thing that struck me most forcibly about them, was that the one on the right held a long-barreled revolver of some sort in his hand, and it was pointed right at me. The gun didn't have any sights on the front. I remember noticing that in my shock and surprise."
"Sounds like a Woodsman with the sights filed off," I said. "Kind of a target pistol. I sell them in my store. That joker must have been a crack shot to work with a sporting gun like that."
"As far as I was concerned, he certainly was! I didn't say or do a single thing to attract attention to my plight, I can assure you, because the man with the gun told me not to. And that was a plenty good enough reason for me.
"We drove to the bank in dead silence, but at a very sedate speed. The driver stopped the Ford at the rear of the bank where I always went in, just as though he knew all about my daily routine. The bank backed on a narrow lane, or alley, and the rear door was used only by employees. At that early hour, the lane was deserted.
"The man with the gun said to me, 'Here we are, Buster. Out.' He motioned for me to get out of the car. He and the other man in the back seat got out, too. The gun-bearer was tall and blond and skinny, painfully thin. The other fellow was chunky and had fuzzy black hair growing down the back of his neck all the way to his collar, I remember that. The tall one said to the driver, 'Stay with the crate," and then to me, 'Now, let's open up and go inside, if you don't mind.' His voice was cool and polite and unhurried, as though he did this sort of thing every day. Maybe he did.
"I couldn't see much point in arguing when that long gun barrel was poking into my back, so I got out my keys and opened the door. As I put the key in the lock, my sleeve pulled back, and I saw by my wristwatch it was only eight-fifteen—still quite awhile before I could expect the bank guard or any of our other employees to show up. But I knew the time lock on the vault was set for just a few minutes before the bank opened, and I was pretty sure they couldn't do anything about that, unless they waited for opening time.
"We went inside. The tall man shattered any frail hopes I'd entertained with four words. He said to me, 'The night depository, Junior,' and I realized then that they did know what my routine was. They must have watched me for a few mornings to see what I did. I believe that's what they call 'casing the joint,' isn't it, Mr. Dickson?"
Colbaugh looked at me expectantly, as though wanting me to compliment him on his command of thieves' argot, derived, no doubt, from his reading of mystery stories. I said, "Yeah." It was strange to hear the expression come from the lips of this dignified middle-aged bank clerk.
"They forced me," he continued, "toward the night-depository receptacle in the wall of the bank inside the front door. In those days, they didn't have solid ranks of all-glass, electric-eye doors for bank entrances the way we do now. Our bank just had a regular steel-frame front door with glass in it down to knee-height like any store door. And, there was a Venetian blind on the inside of this door to keep the afternoon sun out of the eyes of Mr. Johnson, one of our vice-presidents, whose desk was just to the right of the entrance. This blind was lowered after the sun moved around into Mr. Johnson's eyes every afternoon. And, it was left like that—lowered—until I came to work the next day, when I raised it as my first official act each morning on my way to clean out the night depository." Mr. Colbaugh turned his serene eyes on me and said deprecatingly, "You can see I had a lot of odd chores to do around the bank, Mr. Dickson. I was almost the janitor, really." He laughed before he went on.
"Even with the gun in my back, habit was strong in me that morning; I reached out automatically to raise Mr. Johnson's venetian blind on the front door as we went by. But the man behind me with the gun said, 'What do you think you're doing? Freeze!' I froze. I said, 'I raise this blind every morning. I was just going to draw it up...' 
'Today,' he said, 'we won't raise it, Junior. If you don't mind. You think we want every jerk on the sidewalk to see what's going on in here?'
"I thought I ought to make some token effort, at least, to resist the robbers, so as we approached the night depository, I said, in what I fear was a not very convincing voice, 'I can't open this thing. It takes a special key. The assistant cashier carries the only key, and he won't be here till the bank opens.'
"The short man didn't say anything, merely pulled a gun out of his pocket and went to stand beside the front door, looking out into the street through the slats of the lowered blind but hidden from the eyes of anybody outside. But the tall thin man jabbed his gun barrel harder than ever into my spine. 'Don't give me that, Buster,' he said. 'I know who opens this thing every morning. You. So fly at it. And don't make me wait. My nerves are getting pretty jumpy.' He didn't sound a bit nervous to me."
"But you must have been," I put in.
Mr. Colbaugh nodded vigorously. "I was terrified. Almost stiff with fright. I got out my key to the depository box and opened it up as meek as Moses. What else could I do?"
"I would have done the same," I consoled him.
"This was Friday morning, and there was quite a large amount of cash and a lot of checks in the depository from the merchants' Thursday night receipts. The tall man grunted with satisfaction when he saw how much was there. 'Clean it out,' he ordered me, 'and put it in this.' He held out a black briefcase to me.
"I did as he said, but I moved as slowly as possible without it seeming too obvious. Maybe I could delay them a little, I thought. But, when the money and the checks were all in the briefcase, it was still only eight-thirty.
"I was beginning to wonder what they intended to do with me when they left. I didn't feel sanguine about that at all. I'd seen their faces. I could describe them to the police. I could identify them. And, I'd ridden in their Ford and could identify it, too, for I'd memorized the license number when I got out of the car at the rear of the bank.
"The tall man said, 'Lay down on the floor, buddy ... on your back.' I did so. Right in the middle of the marble lobby. I felt very foolish, I can tell you. And very exposed, too. For the short man at the front door could keep me covered with his gun and watch out the door, too.
"The tall man took a look at his wristwatch. And just then the telephone rang. It was the telephone on Mr. Johnson's desk by the front door. It sounded like a fire alarm in that empty bank. I was so startled, I jumped, if you can really jump when you're lying flat on your back on the floor. The tall man stooped over me and prodded me in the stomach with his gun.
"'Get that, you!' he barked at me. All his polite coolness was gone now. 'Answer that phone! And make it sound natural, Buster, or you'll never live to take another phone call! Move!'
"The phone was ringing for the third time. 'Hold the receiver away from your ear,' he warned me, 'so I can hear it, too.'
"I got up from the floor and went over and picked up the telephone, with the tall man right beside me. The short one hadn't said anything, but his gun was trained on me, now. I cleared my throat and said, 'Hello?' into the receiver, loud and clear. 'Is this the Merchants National?' came the tinny inquiry, as I held the receiver so the tall man could hear it.
"His gun was boring into my back. 'Yes, sir,' I said into the phone.
"'How late do you stay open this afternoon?' the voice asked. I looked at the bandit beside me and raised my eyebrows.
"'Tell him!' he whispered.
"I said into the phone, 'We close at three-thirty, sir.'
"'Thanks,' came the answer, and we could both hear the sharp click that sounded as the caller hung up.
"I put down the phone. There was sweat on my forehead and I felt sick. I looked at the short man's gun that was aimed at my midsection from five feet away, and my knees shook. The tall man let out his breath in a 'whoosh' of relief.
"'Okay, Shiner,' he said to his pal, 'back to the door.' And to me, 'And you get back where you were, Buster." He waved his gun at me. I lay down on the floor again.
"'Plenty of time, Shiner,' he called to his partner, then. 'Watch the kid, here. I'm going to take a look in the tellers' cages.'
"He went out of my sight, then, and I could hear him jerking open the cash drawers and swearing when he found them empty.
"I could see the minute hand on our big wall clock above the New Accounts desk moving with tiny jerks; one jerk for every thousand years, it seemed to me. It made four of these jerks by the time the tall man was satisfied that he wasn't overlooking anything in the tellers' cages. I could have told him we always locked up the cash in the vault.
"He came out into the lobby again where Shiner and I were, the briefcase in his left hand, his gun in his right. He motioned Shiner toward the rear door of the bank, the way we'd come in. So they weren't going to wait for the time lock on the vault. They were leaving. I could hear my heart thudding against the marble floor, as though the floor were a sounding board.
"Shiner left his post by the front door. 'What about him?' he asked the tall one, pointing his gun at me.
"'Put him out,' the other one said matter-of-factly, 'the way I told you.'"
Mr. Colbaugh turned and looked at me with a smile softening his mouth and crinkling up his eyes. "I can tell you, Mr. Dickson, I was awfully scared at that point. I didn't know whether they meant to kill me or just knock me out, or what. 'Put him out' could have meant anything. Then I saw Shiner reversing his gun in his hand and leaning over me and swinging the butt at my head, and that's all I saw for a while."
I said, "The banking business has more hazards than I'd realized."
"It has indeed," he said. "I found out later that the bandits had another car waiting for them half a mile away, and that the Ford had been stolen. They were from out of state, it developed, and unknown in our town. So they didn't think it necessary to kill me. They just put me out of business while they made their getaway."
"So what happened?" I asked, the way a good listener should.
"The police took them easily as they emerged from the rear door of the bank," Colbaugh said. "The driver of the Ford was already in custody. The police had the bank surrounded."
We could hear the motors change pitch as our plane started to let down for a landing.
"The police!" I said, astounded. "Where'd they come from?"
"Johnny Sampson sent them."
I looked at him blankly. "Who was Johnny Sampson?"
"We went to high-school together," Colbaugh said. "He was my best friend in the bank, a teller."
"What made him send for the police?"
"When he telephoned the bank and asked the closing time, I told him 3:30. But he knew it closed at 3:00. So that was his signal. To call the police."
I reached up for my hat and coat as I saw the airport runways coming up to meet us.
"You mean that telephone call was rigged?" I asked. "You had it all arranged with Sampson beforehand?"
"Sure." He smiled, pleased at my surprise. "That's what I meant when I said I liked to be ready for trouble at the bank. Johnny and I had it all worked out."
"Wait a minute," I protested. "Even so, how did Sampson know he should call you that particular morning? Did he do it every day?"
"Oh, no. Johnny was a bachelor," Colbaugh said, as though that explained everything. "He always ate his breakfast around the corner at Mother Hague's Coffee Shop before coming to work at the bank. He passed the bank entrance to get to the coffee shop at the same time every morning—eight-twenty. And if he ever saw that the Venetian blind on the bank's front door was still lowered when he went to breakfast, he was supposed to telephone the bank and ask what time it closed. If I answered and gave him the wrong closing time, call the police. If anybody but me answered, call the police. If nobody answered, call the police. You see how simple it was?"
"Very simple," I said, "if anything as complicated as that can be simple. What if you were sick and didn't come to work some morning and, therefore, failed to raise the venetian blind?"
"If I was sick, my wife phoned Sampson at his home before he went to breakfast and told him the venetian blind would be down when he passed it."
"How about Sampson, though? Suppose he'd been sick on the day of the hold-up?"
"An unlikely coincidence," Colbaugh said. "I guess that would have been just too bad for me and the .night deposits."
I unfastened my seat belt as I felt the wheels touch down. "I'd say it was too bad for you anyway, wasn't it? You were the 'inside' man of your live burglar-alarm system. You took the chances. You got knocked silly by the hold-up men, while your friend Sampson ate bacon and eggs in Mother Hague's Coffee Shop."
We stood up.
"Yes, that's true, I suppose," Colbaugh conceded. "But we were young. And, as you suggested earlier, it was exciting. You have no idea, Mr. Dickson, how exciting it is to see a gun butt being swung at your head and then not be sure until two hours later when you regain consciousness, that you haven't been murdered!"
I said, "Are you still with Merchants National?"
"Yes, still at the same old stand. So's Johnny Sampson. He's the president of the bank now."
"Good for him. Virtue's reward. And what's your job these days, Mr. Colbaugh?"
"I'm chairman of the board," he said, smiling. "Still taking the chances, you see."
"Now, I've got the whole story." I said ambiguously. "Right down to the present."
We walked down the ramp into the airport terminal together. I was slightly behind him. My topcoat was over my right arm. On impulse, when we got inside the terminal lobby, I pushed my forefinger into his back, under cover of my topcoat, and said, "Turn left, Mr. Colbaugh, and go into the men's room, will you?"
He reacted quite calmly. His eyes widened a little as they swiveled toward me. He stiffened slightly, and I could feel his back muscles come up under my finger for a second. Then he said, "The washroom? Why?" But he kept on walking.
"Now don't tell me that your assistant cashier has the only key to this," I said. "Here we are. Go on in."
We went in. It was a slack time; the washroom was empty, as I'd hoped.
When the door swished shut behind us, I took my forefinger out of Colbaugh's back and he turned toward me. He really looked at me this time, tilting his head back to gaze up into my face. And he got it right away.
He said, "You've taken on a good bit of weight since then, Dickson. And changed your name. Do you really own a sporting-goods store in Fresno?"
"I was anticipating there a little," I said, smiling at him. "I clerk in a sporting-goods store, and I have a wonderful opportunity to buy into it if I can raise two thousand dollars by the end of this week."
"Oh," Colbaugh said. "You're going straight, then?"
"I'm trying to, since I got out." I held up my finger. "I don't file the sights off my guns any more, you see?"
He said, "Why don't you swing a loan?"
"Did you ever know anybody who would lend money to an ex-con? I've tried."
"You didn't try our bank."
"I was going to. At least I went to your bank this morning to make an appeal to you personally, if you still worked there."
"Why didn't you?"
"I lost my nerve when I saw your line-up of loan officers and vice-presidents. I knew they'd nix me for sure. It had to be you or nobody."
"So you followed me onto the plane, is that it?"
"Yes. I happened to see you walk through the bank with your hat and coat and overnight bag and get into the airport taxi. I recognized you right away. So, I followed you to the airport and bought a seat on the same flight."
He nodded, his face expressionless. "Two thousand dollars?"
"That's all. And I have no collateral, Mr. Colbaugh."
He allowed himself a tight smile. "You told Shiner to put me out that day, Dickson. He clubbed me with a gun. And remember I was just a kid."
"I know it. And I'm not proud of it. But think of it this way, Mr. Colbaugh. Wasn't your successful prevention of that bank robbery the first thing that made your bank management really notice you and Sampson? Isn't that what triggered the whole series of promotions that led you both to the top jobs you have today?"
I watched him narrowly, temporarily forgetting to breathe. For this was the only weapon I could use in my second hold-up of Colbaugh.
He didn't say anything for a minute, thinking it over. Then, his lips curled up a trifle, and I began to breathe again.
"You know," he said, "I think you're right, Dickson. It was through you that I first drew favorable notice at the bank. I never thought of it like that before, but in a sort of cockeyed way, I suppose I owe you something for it. And so does Sampson.
"How about a thousand dollars apiece? You could call it a personal loan, Mr. Colbaugh. And I'll pay it back."
He made up his mind quickly. "I believe you will, at that," he said. He got out his checkbook and wrote out a check to cash for two thousand dollars. As he handed it to me, and we shook hands, he said curiously, "Why'd you bring me in here? Why not brace me in the plane or out in the lobby?"
I looked around at the bare white-tiled walls of the washroom and grinned at him. "No Venetian blinds in here," I said.

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