The Specialists by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page A

one can’t make do with just a revolver, he needs a bee-bee gun, too. You catch the fancy belt and holster?”
    “That’s hand-tooled leather.”
    “Nothing but the finest. Reckon they can shoot worth spit?”
    “I have a feeling they practice a lot.”
    “I guess,” Murdock said. He took a cigarette and gave one to Simmons. They smoked for a while in silence. “I’ll call him tonight, we’ll do the job in the morning. Lawn looked good, didn’t it?”
    “Like a golf course.”
    “Means he probably thought about getting a tree doctor in and never got around to it. We’ll make it all good tomorrow. How’d you like that fat boy on the gate, anyhow?”
    “They were both fat.”
    “Yeah. I sure had a longing to take the two of them.”
    “So did I,” Simmons said.

NINE
    The Commercial Bank of New Cornwall was located at the northwest comer of the intersection of Broad Street and Revere Avenue. Broad Street was the main commercial thoroughfare of the town, and the one-story brick building fronted on Broad with a small parking lot alongside on Revere. Dehn put his car in the lot and walked around to the front entrance. It was fifteen minutes past three. The bank normally closed at three, but on Fridays it stayed open until 5:30.
    Dehn opened the door, went inside. He was wearing a gray sharkskin suit and carrying a slim leather attach
 case. His glance darted around the bank, registering impressions, estimating distances. He wouldn’t have to supply details. Giordano, who had visited the bank during the noon rush, would probably be able to come up with a virtual floor plan of the layout. But Dehn wanted to get his own feel of the place, and it wouldn’t hurt for him to be able to backstop Giordano.
    A row of tellers’ cages on the right. A stand-up desk in the center where depositors could fill out slips. On the left, three desks for bank officers, just one of them presently occupied. A staircase at the rear center, presumably leading to the vault room in the basement. A uniformed guard at the head of the stairs, another at the side door, plus the one he had passed in front. The guards themselves looked wholly interchangeable, stiff white-haired men with slight paunches and underslung jaws. Dehn guessed they were retired cops.
    Dehn went over to the desk where a bank officer sat. When the man looked up from a column of figures, he said he wanted to open a checking account. The officer pointed him to a chair, opened a desk drawer, asked if he was interested in a regular or a special checking account. He started to explain the difference, and Dehn cut in and said the regular account would be fine. The officer brightened at this.
    Dehn gave his name as Arthur Moorehead of Seattle, explained he had taken a position in New Cornwall and would be bringing his family east as soon as he found suitable accommodations for them. “But first you set the financial house in order,” the banker said. “Good, good.”
    A year earlier Dehn had opened an account as Arthur Moorehead at the Shippers’ Bank of Seattle. He had closed out the account within a week, but somehow or other he had never destroyed the checkbook. He wrote out a check now for $2,500 and used it to open his account.
    The bank official said something tentative about waiting a week for imprinted checks.
    “Oh, of course,” Dehn said. “You’ll want to wait until my check clears in Seattle. No problem. I won’t need to draw on this account for the time being.”
    It would take the check at least ten days to bounce back to New Cornwall. And by that time the bank would have more important things to worry about than Arthur Moorehead.
    After the last of the forms had been filled out, Dehn asked about a safe deposit box. They only had a small selection, he was told, and there was a waiting list for the larger boxes, but a small one might be available. Was that satisfactory?
    Dehn said it was. The officer went away, came back, smiled, and led him down the