Bank Break

Joe straightened up tensely. "There's a car waiting on the side ahead, " he reported. "A blue one."

Harry looked up quickly from examining the contents of a satchel. "Step on it. Get past them," he ordered. He closed the bag and threw it into the back and prepared to climb over the seat.

They were doing sixty already. Joe squeezed the accelerator to the floor. As the Packard leaped forward, the blue Buick began moving from the left. Harry fell heavily behind the seat. With the Buick blocking the left, Joe tried to squeeze through on the right; then, realizing his mistake, he fought savagely to come about and hit the police car squarely. Now, however, it was traveling at an equal speed just half a length ahead and edging over. The fenders grated. Joe slammed his breaks down desperately as his right wheels went off into the dirt.

The Packard crashed against a tree about twenty yards from the road. The Buick pulled up and a tall, thin officer came over with a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. It was six o'clock and just getting dark. Joe, having struck his head against the windshield, was sitting dazed behind the wheel.

The officer opened the door and thrust in the muzzle of his revolver. "Come out with your hands up, " he ordered. The other officer, a short, stocky one, had backed the Buick until the headlights shone on the wreck. Joe slipped out of the seat and stood, stunned and trembling, in the glare. "Where's the other one?" the officer demanded in a hard voice as he began an immediate search of Joe. Joe stood silently with his hands in the air and his shoulders bent forward. The officer removed an automatic --a .32 target pistol --from Joe's side pocket and snapped a pair of handcuffs over his wrists. "Get over there," he ordered, pointing with his gun. Joe walked to where the fat officer was waiting for him, and the thin one turned back to examine the Packard.

As he approached it, the rear door opened a few inches and two spurts of flame came out. Then, when the door on the other side opened and Harry leaped toward the bushes, the fat officer's gun cracked. He ran to help the thin man on the ground.

The thin man was groaning in pain, but his voice when he spoke was savage. "Never mind me," he ordered. "Get him. There's nothing but swamp in back of those bushes.'

Joe had thrown himself on the ground when the shooting began. Now, while the fat officer was running toward the spot where Harry could be heard struggling in the bushes, Joe sprang up and into the police car.

Pulling away, he heard more shots and ducked low behind the door. The machine swerved dangerously; for, with his hands chained together, he had to let go of the wheel to shift and shuttle it through his hands to turn. .

He was shaking with fear. In the bank he had been amazed to see how easy it was; but from the time they had driven off with the loot his nervousness had mounted. He had been apprehensive of every car that approached from the front and nearly panic stricken when one traveled fast enough to seem to stick behind, until at last he had recognized, with a nerve-cracking surety even in the dusk the blue police car waiting on the side. After that he had been first too busy, then too stunned to think; and finally he was resigned to what he knew he had expected from the beginning. But, since he had seen the policeman sinking down with his hands to his stomach, he was engulfed in wild terror.

Harry had promised confidently that there would be no shooting. "Say," he had demanded in his aggressive, experienced way, "what do you think I am -crazy? Think I want to get mixed up in a killing and fry for it? The guns are only for show. Nobody's going to move when they see we have the guns on 'em. This little country bank is cheese. No need to hurt anybody."

The policeman was as good as dead. Anyone could tell that from the way he crumpled up. And Joe could probably be held as an accessory, because he had not revealed Harry was in the car. Anyway, a murder during an armed robbery --His skin was suddenly damp. He drove so fast the lights seemed hardly to cover the road in front of him. His whole aim was speed to get as many miles as possible from the scene of the shooting. The image of that policeman falling to the ground made Joe bend with physical pain in his own stomach.

He had driven twenty miles before he realized that the fat policeman, instead of giving chase, would simply have gone to the nearest telephone and warned the towns ahead; and Joe himself, in an instantly identifiable car, was rushing toward capture. Already he had passed through one village, where he might have been noticed and the word sent on. Desperately he tried to form a plan of action, but panic surged back over him.

Suddenly the headlights picked up a narrow, steel-girder bridge. A heavy trailer truck was in the center of it. He kicked down the brake, swerved, and shot by with an inch to spare. Then, having lifted his foot from the accelerator, he held the car at reduced speed until he came to a highway marker indicating a road to the left. Grasping the wheel at the top with his chained hands, he twisted his whole body to make the turn. The wheels screeched; the car bounded across a shallow ditch, crashed through some low bushes as he partly missed the road opening, and came out upon the two ruts of an ungraded dirt road.

The road, evidently used chiefly in the summer time, led down to a pond and wound about behind cottages on the shore. It was blistered and pitted with rocks and holes, so that in spite of his fevered haste he was forced frequently to go in second gear. By degrees, however, the slower speed enabled him to think better; and at last he decided to abandon the dangerously marked car entirely.

In the line of cottages there was an opening where a stream flowed out and the road itself came down to the shore. The bank was steep. After backing the car to get distance for momentum, he set the hand throttle and jumped clear. The motor died instantly on striking the water, but the car continued to settle slowly forward until the last corner of the top disappeared below the surface.

Immediately, as he crossed the plank bridge, he regretted his action. On foot he was lost, alone and helpless. Darkness closed him in; the October night was cold; and he had no knowledge of the locality. Only one thought reassured him: there was little chance that he could be captured now before daybreak unless he deliberately exposed himself. In the meantime he could think and plan. Carefully with his feet he rubbed over the marks the wheels had left on the bank. Then he walked in a direction away from the highway.

When he came to a large boulder, he stopped to attack the handcuffs. The first wearing away of the connecting chain was a tremendous release. He swung his arms about him to loosen the cramped, aching shoulder muscles. The bracelets themselves, at the expense or much bruised flesh, he was able to attack with a rock in his hand. Rid or them he felt his hope return.

He walked briskly now to keep warm, hoping to discover some connecting road where in the morning he could pick up a ride, but which would not be so closely watched as the main highway. He speculated also upon breaking into one or the cottages to spend the night; but, when he left the road to search for an entrance, his foot went down suddenly over his shoe top in black cold water. Startled, he sprang back and shivered as much in revulsion as from cold.

The night was becoming steadily colder. The mud on the road became crisp under his heals. He had only a light top coat; and, in spite or hard, steady walking, he was cold. As his fear subsided, he longed for a place to be warm and sleep. The road now was leaving the pond. At last, after crossing two or three others as poor as itself, it joined a macadamized country highway. .Here, he decided, he could get a ride in the morning. In the meantime, he sought shelter in a barn.

Miraculously there were no watchdogs. Inside the building, the glow or his cigarette lighter revealed at first only the vague, mysterious outlines and shadows of farm machinery. Then the stirring and breathing of animals brought his eyes to the stalls, where abruptly the large doleful face or a cow rose as if disembodied above the low barrier. In fright he stepped back to the door, his foot striking a spade against the wall. Then, having recovered himself, he made his way to a ladder leading to the hay loft, which was hardly more than a shelf above the cattle.

At first he was nauseated by the smell, but soon in the warmth and softness of the hay he fell into an exhausted sleep.

It was daybreak when he awoke in a cold sweat of terror. He stood crouching and petrified, comprehending neither his surroundings nor what had awakened him. Then the beast in the stall bellowed again. For another minute he crouched there still, his heart pounding and his breath coming fast; then he descended the ladder and carefully brushed his clothes to make ready to return to the highway. He was hungry and would have searched for something to eat; but the light coming through the small dust covered windows told him that the night, under whose protection he had planned to make himself secure, was already gone while he was hunted as before. Several of the animals commenced now to bellow at intervals, and the sound jarred his nerves so that he hastened to leave.

Afterwards it seemed as though the reason for the cattle's restlessness had burst upon him even before he heard the clanking of the pail. He sprang for the door, then stood frozen behind it. Already he could hear the farmer's steps just a few feet away on the gravel path. In the daylight the interior of the barn was small, bare, and open. Hardly conscious of his action, he seized the spade lying against the wall and raised it above his head.

He was aware, before the blow fell with its hideous crump, that he had struck too hard. Vainly he tried to check the heavy blade at the end of its downward arc. The farmer fell forward as though he had been tripped, and the empty pail rolled toward the foot of the ladder. He lay prone --

a slight built, elderly man, with a thin trickle of blood flowing from beneath his gray hair across a leathery cheek.

Bushes tearing at his clothes forced him at last, panting and exhausted, to stop. Once more compelled to think, he swore furiously at himself for running across the field and attracting the attention of anyone who might be looking from a farmhouse window. For he would have to return to the highway. The few trees, where he had obeyed his first instinct to hide himself, were only the vestiges of a woodlot surrounded by plowed fields and pasture land. There was no escape anywhere except by the road. There never would be any escape except going on and on by the road and trusting to blind chance that he could get to a big city and lose himself in the crowd. He followed the trees to the point where they came nearest to the road; then steeled himself to walk, without appearing to hurry, between the fields.

When the first car he signaled stopped, he was certain he had fallen into the hands of some town Marshall, already on the look-out. It proved, instead, to be a young fellow, a farmer's son, on his way to collect from his father's marketing agents and do some shopping.

"Where're you bound?"

Joe was not sure where the road led. "Southfield " he said at a guess. He was willing to go anywhere away from the two scenes of murder.

"You're kind of off your way, but I can take you to Four Corners. You ought to be able to pick up a ride from there."

The car was an old Chevy and crawled along about thirty. Although there was little traffic, several cars passed them. Joe's fears centered upon being overtaken; he wanted speed to sooth his nerves. He was on the point of asking to be set down so that he could pick up a ride from someone else, when his remaining sober sense warned him that by arousing the driver's curiosity and probable resentment he would cause himself to be remembered, and the next car to stop for him might be the town Marshall or the state police.

He wondered whether Harry had been able to get away and how he could be found. Of the loot, Joe had only ten dollars, snatched from the teller's window. The rest was in the satchel, which Harry must have taken with him as he ran from the wrecked car. They had planned that in the event they became separated they would meet at a place Harry knew in New York; but now abruptly Joe knew that he would never find Harry if Harry could avoid the meeting. And just as abruptly Joe realized he did not care. All he wanted, all he thought of doing, was to get as far away as he could so that distance might not only save him from pursuit, but also in some miraculous way free him from guilt.

"Do you live in Southfield?"

The question yanked him up out of his thoughts. "No, I. ..I'm looking for work."Rapidly he invented a story.

"Well, if you're looking for a job, I guess Southfield is as good as anywhere."

"Is business good there?"

"No. But, then, it ain't good anywhere in these parts; so Southfield's just as good." The farm boy was a little proud of his cleverness, but he was careful to make his next speech conciliatory. "Of course, maybe you've got a lead there. That's different. What's your line?"

"I'm an electrician," Joe replied, naming the first occupation he could think of that did not resemble a filling station attendant's.

"Get laid off?"

"The contractor failed." Joe wished the fellow would shut up. He was afraid he would say something wrong, because he could not keep his mind on the conversation. Something was pressing to come into his mind, and he had to keep forcing it back. There were questions --questions he needed to answer and could not. Suppose the police were watching this road --would they stop every car? How could they identify him? Finger prints from the Packard, the ten dollar bill in his pocket, the fat policeman? That spade! Why hadn't he wiped the handle of that spade? As soon as they found the body, they could connect the two crimes by the fingerprints. Suddenly the pressure broke through; and he raised his hand to shut out the vision of that limp body on the splintered, plank floor.

"What's the matter? Got a headache or something in your eye?"

Joe took his hand away quickly. "Got something in my eye, I guess," he muttered. A prickling ran over his skin. For a moment he had forgotten where he was. He sat up to appear more alert; but his eyes immediately assumed a fixed focus, and passing objects were merely blurs. Even now someone might be finding the farmer --might be looking at the smear of blood on his hair, and the spade on the floor, and the pail against the ladder. Spasmodically again his hand jerked to his face as he remembered the sound of the blow. The old man must be dead.

He was aware the driver was looking at him. "Must be still there," Joe said, pretending he had been rubbing his eye.

"Want to stop to get it out?"

"No, it's all right now." He forced his mind to be completely empty. Dimly he was conscious that from time to time the driver regarded him curiously, but he dreaded that in conversation he would in some way betray himself. He had moments of horrible suspicion that he might have spoken his thoughts aloud, and he glanced at the driver quickly to reassure himself.

"Going to stop here for a minute." The driver was pulling up at a roadside lunch cart. "I haven't had breakfast. Want to join me in a cup of coffee?"

Joe was famished. Yesterday, when they were leaving for the robbery, his stomach had refused him. As he sat now on a stool before the long counter, the cooking odors made him nearly ravenous. He ordered a full breakfast; and, when it was set before him, he could scarcely refrain from wolfing it, although he was afraid of any action that might make him conspicuous.

"You look pretty hungry," said the farmer's son. "I thought you had something on your mind."

"Yeah," said Joe. "I didn't have much to eat yesterday." The comment worried him.

The counterman was opening a bundle near the door. The movement caught Joe's eye, and his stomach constricted. The morning papers! They would be carrying a story of the break and the shooting. The counterman was looking at the headlines of the top paper. He unfolded the sheet to glance below, his eye obviously taking in only the heads. The saliva dried up in Joe's mouth. He was torn between an eagerness to see the paper and a dread that in some way the story would make his guilt as he sat there apparent to everyone. Something had taken the counterman's interest; his eyes ceased roving the page. The driver got up, picked up a paper, and dropped three cents on the pile. He read it folded; and, from where Joe sat, all he could see was the banner head about the war in Europe .

The driver put the paper under his arm as they walked out. Then, when they were in the car, he dropped the paper in Joe's lap before he started the motor.

It was the second large head: "Policeman Killed by Bank Robbers." His eye licked up the print. "One Bandit Shot; Other Escapes in Police Car", "Fleeing Bandit Killed by Second Officer's Fire; Captain O'Donnell Dies in Fulton Memorial Hospital Early This Morning. All Loot Recovered."

The paper slipped to his lap. Harry dead --it was incredible. He had been killed by those shots Joe had believed were fired at him. The idea of Harry's being gone from the world of living experience struck Joe with a peculiar shock. The policeman, Harry, the farmer. He was seized with vertigo: a spinning sensation, as though he were on the edge of a whirlpool and being sucked in towards its center. He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands.

The driver checked the car. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Are you sick?"

Joe snapped up quickly. "No, no," he chattered over hastily, "I'm all right."

The car came to a stop at the side of the road. "What's the matter then?" the driver persisted with curiosity.

"Nothing, nothing!" In panic, Joe heard his own voice rising to a scream. "I'm all right I tell you! Keep going!" Frantically with one hand he reached for the shift lever, while with the other he pushed the paper to the floor, where he tried to scrape it back under his feet.

The driver, keeping the clutch disengaged as Joe forced the lever in gear, snatched up the paper. The article contained a brief, general description.

"Why," he said, looking at Joe, "I never thought. You're the one who escaped."

Joe felt his muscles relax. It was like waking from a dream. "Yes," he said, "I am the one who escaped."