CALL HIM NEMESIS
By DONALD E. WESTLAKE
Criminals, beware; the Scorpion is on
your trail! Hoodlums fear his fury—and,
for that matter, so do the cops!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man with the handkerchief mask said, "All right, everybody, keeptight. This is a holdup."
There were twelve people in the bank. There was Mr. Featherhall athis desk, refusing to okay a personal check from a perfect stranger.There was the perfect stranger, an itinerant garage mechanic namedRodney (Rod) Strom, like the check said. There were Miss English andMiss Philicoff, the girls in the gilded teller cages. There was MisterAnderson, the guard, dozing by the door in his brown uniform. There wasMrs. Elizabeth Clayhorn, depositing her husband's pay check in theirjoint checking account, and with her was her ten-year-old son Edward(Eddie) Clayhorn, Junior. There was Charlie Casale, getting ten dollarsdimes, six dollars nickels and four dollars pennies for his fatherin the grocery store down the street. There was Mrs. Dolly Daniels,withdrawing money from her savings account again. And there were threebank robbers.
The three bank robbers looked like triplets. From the ground up, theyall wore scuffy black shoes, baggy-kneed and unpressed khaki trousers,brown cracked-leather jackets over flannel shirts, white handkerchiefsover the lower half of their faces and gray-and-white check caps pulledlow over their eyes. The eyes themselves looked dangerous.
The man who had spoken withdrew a small but mean-looking thirty-twocalibre pistol from his jacket pocket. He waved it menacingly. One ofthe others took the pistol away from Mister Anderson, the guard, andsaid to him in a low voice, "Think about retirement, my friend." Thethird one, who carried a black satchel like a doctor's bag, walkedquickly around behind the teller's counter and started filling it withmoney.
It was just like the movies.
The man who had first spoken herded the tellers, Mr. Featherhall andthe customers all over against the back wall, while the second manstayed next to Mr. Anderson and the door. The third man stuffed moneyinto the black satchel.
The man by the door said, "Hurry up."
The man with the satchel said, "One more drawer."
The man with the gun turned to say to the man at the door, "Keep yourshirt on."
That was all Miss English needed. She kicked off her shoes and ranpelting in her stocking feet for the door.
The man by the door spread his arms out and shouted, "Hey!" The manwith the gun swung violently back, cursing, and fired the gun. But he'dbeen moving too fast, and so had Miss English, and all he hit was thebrass plate on Mr. Featherhall's desk.
The man by the door caught Miss English in a bear hug. She promptly didher best to scratch his eyes out. Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson went scootingout the front door and running down the street toward the policestation in the next block, shouting, "Help! Help! Robbery!"
The man with the gun cursed some more. The man with the satchel camerunning around from behind the counter, and the man by the door triedto keep Miss English from scratching his eyes out. Then the man withthe gun hit Miss English on the head. She fell unconscious to thefloor, and all three of them ran out of the bank to the car out front,in which sat a very nervous-looking fourth man