Invitation to Violence Read online

  Dommie suddenly spoke, his voice sounding hollow in the confines of the small room.

  “Must be at least an hour by now,” he said.

  “Shut up,” Jake quickly growled. “No talking. Hasn’t been more’n about fifteen, twenty minutes. Just sit tight and shut up.”

  Vince coughed and quickly covered his mouth. He knew Jake would be only too well aware of exactly what time it was, watch or no watch. He himself knew that the picture upstairs would be off at around eleven-fifteen; that the place would be cleared out within another ten to fifteen minutes. Candy was the one who would close up. He was the last man out. Candy could be counted on. He’d be down to get them a couple of minutes before he was ready to lock up for the night. And then they’d have exactly five minutes to get out and get the stuff from the car and get back inside again.

  Candy returned at exactly twenty minutes to twelve. He knocked very softly on the door and a second later opened it and entered. He waited until he was inside before he switched on the flashlight. He’d changed from his usher’s uniform to his street clothes.

  “O.K,” he said. “Let’s go. I wanna get out of here and get home as soon as possible and get my alibi set. I’m the one they’re goin’ to be questioning an’ I gotta be ready.”

  He used a small pencil flash and they followed him upstairs. Back at the exit door, Vince stayed behind with Candy as Dommie and Jake returned to the car.

  Jake was careful to make sure that the parking lot was empty and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the Ford sedan sitting alone against the fence.

  Quickly they went to the car and Jake unlocked the door and reached in for the suitcase, handing it to Dommie.

  “Take this and the guns,” he said, “and be careful. Give ’em to Vince and get right back. I can handle the tank alone, but I’ll need help with the hose and the tools.”

  As Dommie left, Jake closed the door and then went around to the front of the car and lifted the hood. He put the brace under it and returned to the rear of the sedan, opening the trunk. By the time Dommie had returned, he’d removed the steel tank and was taking out the coiled-up hose.

  He closed the trunk and turned and followed Dommie back to the EXIT door of the theater, carrying the tank carefully in both arms. Dommie had the hose draped over his shoulder.

  “You left the hood up,” Dommie whispered.

  “Sure I left it up,” Jake said in a low, irritated voice. “The cops check this lot two or three times a night. Looking for kids who come in here for little parties. They see the car with the hood up, they won’t bother it. They’ll figure some guy had trouble. Anyway, don’t worry. Just get moving.”

  Back in the theater, Jake waited until Candy had once again closed and locked the doors.

  “Grab one of the bags,” he said.

  “Not me, boy,” he said. “I ain’t got no gloves on an’ I ain’t leaving no prints on nothing.”

  He led the way once more, this time turning halfway down the hall and entering the theater proper from a side door. The others followed him with their burdens. They went up the aisle and just before coming to the end of the long rows of seats, Candy stopped for a second.

  “I’m turning off the light now,” he said. “We’re going into the lobby and anyone going by can see the reflection. You have to work it in the dark.”

  He went on and they passed through the double doors.

  Two red lights over exit doors leading off the lobby, kept burning twenty-four hours a day, cast a dim, eerie light and they could just barely make out each other’s shadowy figures.

  “You all are on your own,” Candy said. Once more he moved off like a disembodied ghost, and a second later they heard the slam of the outside door and then the sharp click of the lock as Candy pulled it tight.

  Jake gently put the tank on the floor and took a small spot flashlight from his pocket.

  “No talking now,” he said. As he spoke he switched on the light aiming it up on the wall to his left where he knew the vent would be. The fight was on for only a split second but in that brief moment they all saw it. The grilled vent which led outside, but which they knew was only a few inches from a similar vent leading into the building next door.

  “Get the hose attached and then hand me the end of it,” Jake said. “Vince, you find a damned chair or something I can stand on. And both of you be careful not to hit the valve on that tank. One mistake and they’ll find us all laying here when they open up for the matinee tomorrow afternoon.”

  Five minutes later Jake stepped down from the leather seat of the chair.

  “She’s in,” he said, “in and I got her plugged up around the hose as well as I can. But you better get the gas masks ready, just in case.”

  He leaned down and fumbled around for a minute and then found the valve on the gas tank. Quickly he turned it on full.

  “O.K,” he said, “back into the theater now. Get the tools out and have everything set. We got time, but we want everything ready. We’ll give it another twenty-five minutes, just to be on the safe side. If that Pinkerton hasn’t passed out by then, nothing will ever knock him over.”

  He turned the flash on his wrist watch.

  “At exactly a quarter to one we start breaking through the wall. I figure twenty minutes for that at the most. And be damned sure to keep the masks on.”

  Once again he flicked on the light and quickly looked at the others.

  “Dommie,” he said, “get the chopper out. Get out into the lobby and stay right there. Stay where you can watch the street. Anything suspicious, just the two short whistles. If anything happens once we get into the jewelry store, I expect you to stay right there and cover us until we get a chance to get out. Remember one thing, it’ll only take us five minutes once we get through the wall.”

  “A lot can happen in five minutes,” Dommie said.

  “A hellofa lot can happen,” Jake said. “But that’s just why you are going to be out there with the chopper. The chopper is the difference. All you have to do is remember that. The difference.”

  “You think it would be safe to light a butt?” Vince asked. “They can’t see nothing in here.”

  “No,” Jake said. “No cigarettes. And keep your voice low. Now Vince, just to review it. Once we get our hands on the stuff, I come back through the wall and pick up Dommie. We go out the way we came in, through the back door. We pick up the heap and drive around in front. You, Vince, come out through the front door of the jewelry store with the stuff. It’s a simple snap lock, opening from the inside.”

  Vince cleared his throat.

  “Only thing I don’t like is my coming out through that front door,” he said. “I still can’t see why…”

  “I told you a thousand times,” Jake said, irritation in his voice. “I told you. The one really dangerous moment is when we start to drive out of the parking lot. A police cruiser comes along then and stops us and they’d stop us for sure. We’d be blocked in and wouldn’t have a hope. They check that parking lot two or three times a night. Looking for kids laying up. If by any chance they happen to hit us as Dommie and I are getting in, we got a chance to make a breakout. If we get caught, at least we ain’t got the loot and we can ditch the guns when we see ’em coming.

  “But you’ll be in the clear and you’ll have the stuff. If everything goes all right, all you gotta do is walk out the front door. It’s a snap lock and closes behind you. We’ll be in front ready to pick you up and then, if the cops should happen by, at least we’re not trapped. We’re in the open and we got a chance.”

  Dommie scratched a match to light a cigarette and Jake quickly cursed him and told him to put it out. And so they just sat there then, waiting.

  The second time Jake flicked on the light and checked his watch, he grunted and got up from where he was squatting on his heels.

  “All right, Dommie,” he said. “Out front. This is it. Vince, let me have the sledge. Hold the light and keep it on the wall. This stuff is nothing
but plaster and lathe and it should go like cheese.”

  Dommie walked into the lobby, carrying the machine gun under his arm as the first dull blow reverberated throughout the empty theater.

  Vince suddenly stopped worrying. Now that they were in action, there was no longer time to worry. Anyway, he felt a quick surge of confidence. It was going to work. It was bound to work.

  * * *

  It was odd, odd and just a bit ironic, that he should have been reflecting upon the utter mediocrity of his life when the incident occurred.

  The seven of clubs was responsible. That is to say, the seven of clubs which Gerald Hanna had drawn to fill an inside straight during the last hand of the evening had started him thinking about himself and about his life.

  Gerald Hanna was not a man to draw to an inside straight. He wouldn’t, normally, gamble on any kind of straight, even if it was the last hand. As he pushed the money into the pot and asked for the card, he was subconsciously amazed at his audacity.

  The fact that he filled, that he drew a seven to make a ten high run, so completely surprised him that for a moment or two he sat there thoroughly stunned.

  Bill Baxter had to ask him twice what he wanted to do after he himself checked the bet.

  It was the usual Friday night game, which was always held in Bill’s place, Bill being the only one of the regulars who was unmarried, or didn’t live with his family, or who had a suitable apartment. Bill worked down at Seaboard Life with Gerald and several of the other players.

  Dr. Harry Kline, an examiner for the insurance company, and four or five other men who were regulars, were playing that evening.

  It was a friendly kind of game, the sort of thing which happens in a thousand towns and cities where several men get together once a week for a night out. The limits were modest, usually a ten cent ante and a quarter raise with only two consecutive raises allowed, in keeping with the incomes, and the responsibilities, of the players. They were men in the six to ten thousand dollar a year bracket.

  Mostly they would drink a few beers during the evening and the money for this was taken out of the pot a week in advance, although now and then Doc Kline would bring along a bottle of Scotch which he would share with anyone who cared for a drink.

  The game started at eight o’clock and broke up sometime after midnight. No one ever got hurt very badly and there was never any ill feeling or anger. The nearest they ever came to it was the time Herb Potter got drunk and insisted on raising the limits after he’d gone for three hours without a hand. Even that was understandable and forgiven as it happened only a couple of weeks after Herb’s youngster died of polio and everyone knew that he was still feeling pretty much broken up.

  They played a fair brand of poker, considering everything. It was usually straight draw with jacks or better to open, or five card stud and each player pretty much knew every other player’s game. Packy Wilson was inclined to bluff and Doc Kline was overly cagey, never staying unless he had a little the best of it before the draw, but all in all they played very evenly and conservatively.

  No one, least of all Gerald Hanna, would have dreamed of drawing to an inside straight. But on this particular night Gerald did. And he filled. He raised twice and won over a pair of aces and jacks held by Doc Kline, taking in around four-eighty on the hand, which put him about six dollars ahead for the evening.

  While he was pulling in the pot, Gerald told Doc Kline that he’d filled an inside straight and Doc Kline laughed sourly and, in a good-natured way, called him the world’s biggest liar.

  “Don’t kid me,” Doc said. “You draw to an inside straight? Boy that’s one I’ll never believe. I’ll bet you haven’t left your house on a cloudy day in the last ten years without an umbrella and your rubbers.”

  The funny thing was that Doc Kline was right. Gerald hadn’t.

  Bill Baxter’s apartment was in the East Seventies and when they broke up, Doc Kline offered to drive Hanna home as he also lived on Long Island. Gerald rented a room and bath in Roslyn from a family who had been friends of his mother.

  Gerald explained he’d driven his own car in that morning. He didn’t wait around to have the final post-game glass of beer with the others.

  “Want to get to bed as soon as I can,” he said. “Got to get an early start in the morning and the traffic will probably be lousy, it being Saturday.”

  They all knew what he meant.

  Each week end, after the Friday night game, Gerald went to his rooms for a few hours’ sleep and then got up before dawn on Saturday morning to drive up to Connecticut to spend the week end with his girl.

  They knew all about Gerald’s girl. He’d been engaged now for five years. Maryjane lived with her invalid father and worked as a librarian, and Gerald and she had agreed that they wouldn’t get married until he was earning enough to continue sending money to his own family and also support her father. It was the sensible thing to do, Gerald would argue, although now and then he began to wonder if he ever was going to get married, or if he actually really wanted to any longer.

  In the meantime he saw Maryjane on week ends, and they did simple, inexpensive things together, like swimming and picnicking and going to the movies. Maryjane had become a habit. It was like everything else in his life, he reflected, a trifle bitterly. Dull, safe, respectable and routine.

  Gerald left Bill’s apartment at ten to one and drove up the Drive to the Triborough Bridge and out to Long Island, Traffic was light when he reached Northern Boulevard and headed east. He obeyed all stoplights and stayed well within the speed limit. He was still thinking about that seven of clubs when he passed through Great Neck and reached the outskirts of Manhasset.

  He was thinking of the seven of clubs and he was thinking of the incredible dullness of his own life. Until he was almost parallel to the Gorden-Frost Jewelry store he was completely oblivious of his surroundings, driving through the all too familiar streets by sheer instinct and with his mind a thousand miles away.

  * * *

  Jake had been optimistic about the time it would take to smash through the partition separating the theater from the jewelry store. It was closer to a half hour than to twenty minutes. Jake himself handled the heavy sledge hammer, not trusting Vince to use it for fear of his making too much noise.

  Vince stood behind the older man, holding the pencil flash and wishing there was something he could do. The inactivity intensified nervousness and try as he might, he was unable to control the shaking of his hands.

  For the first time since he had embarked on the venture, he began to have serious misgivings. It couldn’t work. They were bound to fail. The wall wouldn’t break down and even if it did, they would enter the jewelry store only to find the private detective waiting for them with his gun drawn. He was suddenly sure, now that it was too late, that the entire thing was impossible. Someone was bound to hear the heavy blows of the sledge and set up an alarm.

  Vince strained his ears, trying to catch the wail of the police sirens he was positive must be approaching.

  For a moment the flashlight wavered in his hands and in that instant, Vince had an irresistible desire to drop it and turn and flee for the rear exit of the theater. He half turned, prepared to put the thought into action, when Jake’s quick curse penetrated his mind.

  “Jeeze, hold that light still,” he said in a husky whisper. “How the hell can I see.”

  Vince quickly refocused the light. But he was unable to keep his mind from wandering.

  He would have given anything, at that moment, to be back home in his own bed. Back home with Sue. Sue had been right. She was always right. If he didn’t behave himself, sooner or later he would end up in real trouble. God, if he’d only listened to her. But it was too late now, too late to do anything but go ahead. He was trapped; there was no turning back.

  Jake was through with the sledge now. He’d broken through the plaster and had encountered the tough wire lathing. Jake had hoped that he’d encounter wood lathing, but he’d ta
ken no chances. The heavy tin shears were in the bag and he lowered the gas mask in order to ask Vince to hand them to him.

  Jake’s shirt was wet with sweat as he worked and Vince knew that the man’s face must be dripping under the gas mask. He could feel the water running down his own face and the plastic goggles kept clouding up with steam. He had to admire the way Jake handled things, the deliberate, steady pace with which he went about making the hole in the wall. Vince envied the other man his coolness under tension. He was feeling anything but calm and cool himself.

  And then, before he realized it, they were through the wall and in the jewelry store.

  It was just as Jake had said it would be. The Pinkerton man must have been sitting in a chair in the inner office when gas reached him and he had slipped and fallen to the floor.

  Jake took a few seconds out to go over and check on him. He was breathing heavily and the two of them dragged him out into the hallway and Jake opened a window to clear out the air after quickly binding the detective’s wrists with wire. He didn’t bother to gag him; they wouldn’t be there long enough to make it necessary.

  The safe itself was as simple as Jake had said it would be. It was only necessary to use the sledge to break it open and within minutes of entering the room, Jake was filling the bag with the jewels.

  In less than ten minutes they were through. Jake went with him to the front door and handed him the bag. He pulled the gas mask from his face then, to speak.

  “Give us five minutes to get the car and get around in front. If we are not there by then, it will mean something has gone wrong. Wait five minutes; no longer. If we’re not here, you’ll be on your own. Don’t use your flashlight to see your watch. Count. Count to five hundred. You’ll be able to see the car when we pull up in front.”

  He slipped the gas mask back over his face and turned and quickly headed back through the store.