Seven Silent Men (34 page)

Denis Corticun, when he appeared on the eleventh floor and apologized to Jez for their argument over Mule Corkel's background report and stayed on for late-night sandwiches and an informal recapitulation of what had been learned, might have been expected to show concern over the scruffy nature of the crooks … over having been so inaccurate in his public assessment of their skills. He admitted being off-base, but without apparent concern. Corticun complimented Billy Yates for being right on the money in predicting what caliber of criminals had perpetrated Mormon State, reminded the other agents around the table that only Yates had thought this way, or at least was brave enough to say what he thought. Corticun congratulated all the men on a job well done and called out and ordered whiskey for the room, on him, then remembering there was still much to do, Indian-gave and postponed the treat until later … went into the other office to join Strom, who was on the phone trying to find out where the devil the assistant U.S. magistrate was, why the devil Mule hadn't had his arraignment yet. Strom was saying that he would not tolerate a foul-up, that Mule was legally entitled to and must have his arraignment … must be represented by a lawyer. Strom ordered that the public defender's office be called straightaway and a lawyer brought in for Mule. Brought in without delay. He slammed the receiver down.

With Corticun gone from the dinner break, it fell to Cub Hennessy to ask the question that had plagued him, a question to which he knew the answer but hoped there was a different answer he hadn't thought of: Why, if these eight were the actual perpetrators, had none of their names appeared on any suspects list to date?

“Because they're too looney-toon, why do you think?” Pres Lyle said, surprised anyone as crime-wise as Cub would ask such a thing. “There aren't a half-dozen felony arrests among the bunch of 'em. We started with felony arrests.”

It was the answer Cub feared was right, didn't want to hear.

“Felony arrests and Ph.D.s,” Jez added, as others laughed. “That's where we spent half our time, shagging after Ph.D.s.”

“You can't have the biggest and most spectacular robbery of the age and not have any of the perpetrators show up on a suspects list.” Cub didn't know why he was pressing the issue. “It sounds dumb.”

“Half those guys were over in Illinois,” Donnie Bracken said. “They were small-timers in Illinois. The Illinois field offices would have gotten around to them.”

“I think Ragotsy was on one of the lists here, one that I saw,” Rodney Willis recalled.

“Cub's got a point,” Hank Perch said. “You would have thought Cowboy Carlson's name would show up here in Prairie Port. Cowboy did felony time. He's a parolee and right out of prison. He sure as hell should have been listed by us.”

Cowboy had been listed, but Cub wasn't about to say he had removed Cowboy's name … since Cowboy had been his informant.

“Lists or no lists, I'd say we got a pretty strong case,” Hap de Camp said.

“Good enough for conviction?” Jez wondered. “Don't forget, we're racing the clock. We picked up Mule. They'll be arraigning him in a few minutes and then he has to go to trial. Any smart lawyer is going to push for a fast trial.”

“We're strong,” Hap reiterated. “You take what we got and throw in Cowboy Carlson having Mule's initial in his record book for the night of the robbery and—”

“That page was destroyed,” Cub reminded the group. “Frank Santi burned it, and I doubt if the chief of police is going to admit that in a court of law, admit destroying evidence.”

“Yeah, why'd he do that?” Donnie Bracken asked. “I never understood.”

Cub fibbed. “Who knows? Maybe spite.”

“Even without the book we're strong,” Hap persisted. “We have the tie-in to Sam Hammond and the electrical work. The fuses. Sam's mother's testimony and his wife's.”

“And none of the Illinois suspects were seen at their addresses since a few days before the robbery,” Butch Cody added.

“When did we find that out?” Cub wanted to know.

“It just came in,” Butch said. “The last any one of them was seen in their home area was August seventeenth. That's three days before the theft came down. And all three of the suspects from Prairie Port were reported here during the score … Mule, Cowboy and Rat Ragotsy.”

“That's still circumstantial,” Cub said. “Nothing's firsthand, not even the fuse you found at Sam Hammond's garage. A smart lawyer could make us choke on that fuse.”

“Cub, you saying you don't think these guys are the robbers?” Hank Perch asked.

“I don't know,” Cub said. “It seems that they are, but I don't know why I won't accept it. Like I told Sissy last night, maybe I'm a little ashamed or disappointed. Maybe I started believing all that crap Corticun's been handing out about the crime of the century and supercrooks. Maybe I don't want to tell my kids I hauled in a third-rate looney-toon called Mule Fucker.”

“Crooks is crooks, Cub,” Pres Lyle said.

“Some are heavyweights,” Cub contradicted. “Maybe that's it. Maybe I had my heart set on bringing down a heavyweight.”

“… Billy Boy,” Jez said to Yates. “How do you see it? These the Mormon State gang or aren't they?”

“They did it,” Yates said.

Jez turned to Cub with opened hand. “There you are, they did it. Billy knows everything. I'm proud of him like he was something pretty.”

“You think what we have will hold in court, Billy?” Cub asked.

“Can't say about that, but they're the gang.”

Strom, who had been watching from the doorway, asked, “Why are you so certain, Yates?”

“It plays too well,” Billy said.

“What does?”

“The scenario.”

“You mean the reconstruction? Your reconstruction?”

Yates nodded.

“Let's hear.”

“… Rat Ragotsy, an old-time smuggler, is wandering through the caves probably looking for new hiding places, or whatever,” Yates began. “He spots dirt or rock chips falling in one of the caves. Or maybe hears noises and realizes something is being built directly overhead. He goes outside and sees the housing project going up … and sees the bank being built. Or he does it in reverse order, sees the bank being built and suspects there could be a cave underneath … checks and finds out there is. He finds the cave the bank is going up over and knows he's spotted a one-in-a-million shot. Ragotsy tells his Prairie Port roommate, Cowboy Carlson, what he's found. Probably brings Carlson over and shows him. What they need is a safecracker and organizer. Carlson has just the man, his former cellmate at Statesville, Bicki “Little Haifa” Hale. Hale, the dreamer who talks a big game. Hale cases the bank and cave, is led up and down the tunnels by the man who knows them as good as anybody, Ragotsy. They go up into Warbonnet Ridge, and Ragotsy, who once tried scavenging the hydro-electrical plant there, shows them the control station for the irrigation project. I doubt if Ragotsy or Cowboy or Bicki understood how the station operated, but Bicki knew what it did … it let water into the tunnels. This was important because he realized then, or shortly after, that the only getaway from the robbery had to be through the tunnels … and that it was impossible to make that getaway walking through the tunnels carrying stolen money. The tunnels had to be flooded. Somehow he had to get those controls for the irrigation system to operate and let water into the tunnels when he needed it. So Bicki goes to his pal and partner from Illinois, Windy Walt Sash. Windy Walt had tried looting the Bonnet hydroelectric plant himself. Most every southern Missouri and Illinois and western Kentucky crook had tried that. Only Walt probably boasted he was, successful at it. Walt was a bigger blowhard than Bicki. A much bigger liar. But when Windy Walt was taken down to the control room by Bicki, Cowboy and Ragotsy, he didn't have any better idea of how to get it operating than they did.

“They're stuck … and greedy. They smell money. Smell the biggest score any of them has ever dreamt of. And in their distorted appraisal, the easiest score they've ever come across. That's the beauty of being truly second-rate, you never realize your limitations. A bank was being built right above a cave that nobody knew about but them. They felt they had all the time in the world to dig up through the rock and cut a hole in the bottom of the vault and take what they wanted. The only catch was the getaway. They still had to flood the tunnels to get away.

“Tasting money, they went to a man they probably would have avoided under more normal situations. A crazy man who knew electricity and mechanics and thievery, Marion ‘Mule Fucker' Corkel. They took Mule on the underground tour, brought him up into the control station. Mule saw that what they wanted to do about the flooding was feasible … and knew he didn't have the skill to bring it off. He told them so. So Bicki “Little Haifa” went to the one person he didn't want to approach. The person he knew all along could do what was needed, his nephew … his sister's son, Sam Hammond. Sam Hammond, who had trouble with the electric company's advancement test because he couldn't read all that well. Sam Hammond, who, reading or not, was a bloody genius with raw electricity and electrical machinery. Bicki always got Sam to do what he wanted in the past. He got him to do what he wanted with Mormon State. Bicki probably fought with his sister Ida over it. He probably told Ida, ‘Give me this once, this one clout, and I'll make us all rich and never bother him again.' Bicki the organizer starts bringing in his specialists. One is his and Cowboy's old prison chum, Thomas ‘The Worm' Ferugli. Worm is an ex-miner and tunnel man … has more likely than not worked robberies that required tunneling through rocks. Maybe out of friendship, maybe out of necessity, they take on another hand, a man who had wartime experience with explosives, Lamar ‘Wiggles' Loftus … a pal of Cowboy's and a onetime employee on Ragotsy's boat.

“With an assist from Worm Ferugli, his nephew Sam and most likely Wiggles, Bicki draws up his master plan. River Rat probably helps him with the getaway aspects, with what kind of boats can best get through the tunnels. Bicki makes up his shopping list of equipment and goes to a cut-rate supplier, Windy Walt's friend and sometime partner, Lionel ‘Meadow Muffin' Epstein. Epstein arranges for the purchase of certain untraceable items, tells the gang where to steal the rest. Because they will need all the manpower they can muster for the perpetration, Meadow Muffin is invited to join the robbery gang, is offered a full share of the take. He accepts. The gang is set. Sam Hammond, at this point, is no part of it. Is not supposed to participate. Sam, in fact, isn't exactly sure why he's doing what he is for Uncle Bicki.

“… And so they begin their implausible caper. Material is gotten, and is untraceable. Sam taps into the city's main power supplies and runs cables down the tunnel to a cut-off point. Sam's not allowed to know what's beyond this point. And slow-witted Sam, pure Sam the electrical wizard, doesn't know … doesn't figure it out. Mule, a seat-of-the-pants electrician, takes over from where Sam leaves off with the electrical cable. Mule strings the cable back into the cave under the bank. Lights are brought in and all the other equipment. Some is brought in painstakingly through the emergency hatch on top of Warbonnet Ridge. But there has to be a larger, closer opening we haven't found yet. One through which larger equipment was brought in. Nothing comes in through the Warbonnet Ridge hatch while Sam is there. Sam works alone, or maybe Mule comes to help from time to time.

“The scaffold goes up in the cave, and Worm Ferugli, the miner, figures exactly where, in the ceiling above, the vault is. The bank is still under construction, so the gang has another advantage. They can enter the premises with no fear of alarms going off. They do enter it, often. Can calculate from inside the bank itself what part of the cave ceiling the vault is resting on top of. Can tap the concrete vault-room floor and hear below precisely where the sound is coming from. When they're in the bank, they also check out the alarm system being installed. See that the system includes a television scanning camera and monitor screens. They trace the cable from the camera to the monitors, which is no major electrical achievement. Mule splices into the cable, which also requires minimal skill. Luck has a part. They find a fissure in the rock foundation … the same fissure our technicians discovered. They string the splice down the fissure and into the cave and connect it to monitor screens Meadow Muffin Epstein has purchased or stolen. They wait for the security company upstairs to activate and adjust the alarm system. This occurs the week before the robbery. Now the gang can watch, from thirty feet below, everything going on inside the bank and on the street in front.

“Sam Hammond gets the generators and motors in the irrigation-control station to operate. Also gets the pull motors at the tunnel and reservoir water gates working. Splices hot into the city's power line for his basic supply of electricity. What he pulls off isn't without a flaw or so. Activating the first generator and battery of motors attached to it causes power dips throughout the city of Prairie Port. Sam warns Bicki about this. Bicki asks what they should do to fix the situation. Sam says if he knows exactly how much water Bicki wants in the tunnel at what specific time, he can build a governing device that will automatically open a combination of gates and sewers gradually, and far enough in advance, to meet the specifications using a minimum of power. Bicki gets back to Sam and says, all right, build your device and set it for Saturday night. August twenty-first. Sam does just that, finishes the job Friday afternoon, August twentieth. Now something happens, and I'm not sure what.”

Yates poured himself a cup of black coffee, sipped and thought a moment. “Remember there's a lead time involved here … the time it will take to flood the tunnel without using a disruptive amount of electricity. The more electricity used, the quicker the flooding. Sam's timer had arranged for a narrower gate opening, less electrical usage and slower flooding. If Bicki originally wanted the tunnel flooded with enough water to escape on by, let's say, midnight Saturday, Sam probably programmed the timer to open the gates hours before that, maybe half a day before.