Assignment — Angelina by Edward S. Aarons

move. Elation shot through Mark. He looked toward the front door. Jessie had her back to the street, but the fisherman was still outside, looking confused.
    "Where is the guard?" Jessie called. "Make sure of him, Mark."
    "Get that man away from there!" he said harshly.
    "I can't. And don't talk any more. You'll breathe... Mark!"
    It was too late. He had forgotten Corbin's repeated warning and had inhaled through his mouth. A wave of dizziness swept him, and he felt his legs turn rubbery. A strange curiosity touched him when he found himself on his knees beside Freeling's desk. He saw Jessie through a vast, darkening distance.
    "Mark?"
    Her voice echoed back and forth in the black caverns of his mind. He was aware of dismay, anger, sudden panic; but he didn't open his mouth again to gasp or yell. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils, through the nose wads stuffed in the breathing passages. Weakness kept him down. He told himself to get up, but he couldn't. Precious time was slipping away, sliding away like quicksand. Jesus, he thought, I've wrecked it now! He forced his panic down and drew another deep, careful breath through his nose. His hand came up and he looked at it and he hauled himself up by pulling at the edge of Freeling's desk. He looked curiously at the bank manager and Miss Bunting. They seemed like wax images, paralyzed, not moving. How much time was left? Five minutes? Four? There was only a small quantity of the gas in Erich's portable pressure tank.
    What was Jessie doing? He heard her sharp footsteps on the marble floor, moving through the teller s gate. She was scooping up loose cash from Miss Bunting's cage, cramming it into the big straw handbag she carried. Mark forced himself to move down the short hallway to the vault. The old bank guard had fallen from his chair and lay shriveled on the floor. The vault was open. There was a pile of currency in an open box. The keys, he thought. Where are the keys? He started to hunt aimlessly, then scooped up the visible cash and went back to Jessie and dropped it into her handbag. Her eyes were scornful. Only two or three minutes were left.
    The fisherman had gone away from the front door.
* * *
    It seemed endless, but finally it was done. All the money in sight had been shoved into Jessie's handbag. They would have to be content with it. Mark waved to the door and Jessie spoke, exhaling as she formed the words.
    "Are you all right now?"
    He nodded. A groan came from Mr. Freeling, sprawled at his desk. He would be revived in a moment. Miss Bunting was stirring, too.
    "Let's get out of here."
    Mark turned the thumb latch on the door and they stepped out into the hot blast of sunshine that baked the courthouse square. Jessie went straight to the parked Cadillac with the handbag. There was no alarm. Nothing had disturbed the tranquility of the town. Miss Bunting and Mr. Freeling, thanks to the peculiar actions of Erich's gas, would scarcely remember them. Certainly not enough to give the police an adequate description. Then Mark saw the gray-haired, burly fisherman who had been at the bank door. He was across the square, talking to a dark-haired girl who had come out of the general store. Both the fisherman and the girl were staring at him. The fisherman's arms moved in quick, excited gestures, and then the girl put a hand on his shoulder, as if to restrain him.
    "Hurry," Jessie said thinly. Mark nodded and started to pull the irritating wads from his nostrils, and she said: "Don't throw them away here. Get in."
    "That local spotted us. Over there, with that girl."
    "Never mind. There isn't time. Let's go."
    He got into the car with her and she backed easily out of the slot and drove around a corner of the square. A few cars moved slowly in traffic across the way, and some pedestrians walked on the diagonal walks under the live oaks in the square. Everything was quiet.
    "How much do you think we got?" Mark asked.
    "Not enough. You almost went under, didn't you?"
    "I'm