The laundry bag was empty. The gun wasn’t. He stood silently beside Rigley in front of Shep Jackson’s desk, at the rear of die bank, near the vault. The bank was silent, too, and dark, only the lights in the rear having been turned on as yet. Jackson was wearing a money-green sportcoat and pale green slacks, the latter approximating the shade his complexion had turned to a moment before. He had the same sickly handsome look as Rigley, only younger, of course, like someone who had stepped out of an Arrow shirt advertisement. He’d been sitting at his desk, feet propped up, smoking a cigarette, reading yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. He had stood as the bank president and Santa Claus approached; he had smiled, a smile at first amused, then puzzled, and finally not a smile at all, because Santa Claus had a gun. Three minutes remained before the time lock on the inner vault safe would go off. “Shep,” Rigley said, emotionlessly, “there is a man at my house holding a gun to my wife’s head.
