Creeping Siamese and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

were proud of his cold-bloodedness. We used to boast that he could spit icicles in July, and we called him Pontius Pilate among ourselves, because he smiled politely when he sent us out to be crucified on suicidal jobs.
    He turned from the window as I came in, nodded me to a chair, and smoothed his mustache with the pencil. On his desk the afternoon papers screamed the news of the Seaman’s National Bank and Golden Gate Trust Company double-looting in five colors.
    â€œWhat is the situation?” he asked, as one would ask about the weather.
    â€œThe situation is a pip,” I told him. “There were a hundred and fifty crooks in the push if there was one. I saw a hundred myself—or think I did—and there were slews of them that I didn’t see—planted where they could jump out and bite when fresh teeth were needed. They bit, too. They bushwacked the police and made a merry wreck out of ’em—going and coming. They hit the two banks at ten sharp—took over the whole block—chased away the reasonable people—dropped the others. The actual looting was duck soup to a mob of that size. Twenty or thirty of ’em to each of the banks while the others held the street. Nothing to it but wrap up the spoils and take ’em home.
    â€œThere’s a highly indignant business men’s meeting down there now—wild-eyed stockbrokers up on their hind legs yelling for the chief of police’s heart’s blood. The police didn’t do any miracles, that’s a cinch, but no police department is equipped to handle a trick of that size—no matter how well they think they are. The whole thing lasted less than twenty minutes. There were, say, a hundred and fifty thugs in on it, loaded for bear, every play mapped to the inch. How are you going to get enough coppers down there, size up the racket, plan your battle, and put it over in that little time? It’s easy enough to say the police should look ahead—should have a dose for every emergency—but these same birds who are yelling, ‘Rotten,’ down there now would be the first to squawk, ‘Robbery,’ if their taxes were boosted a couple of cents to buy more policemen and equipment.
    â€œBut the police fell down—there’s no question about that—and there will be a lot of beefy necks feel the ax. The armored cars were no good, the grenading was about fifty-fifty, since the bandits knew how to play that game, too. But the real disgrace of the party was the police machine-guns. The bankers and brokers are saying they were fixed. Whether they were deliberately tampered with, or were only carelessly taken care of, is anybody’s guess, but only one of the damned things would shoot, and it not very well.
    â€œThe getaway was north on Montgomery to Columbus. Along Columbus the parade melted, a few cars at a time, into side streets. The police ran into an ambush between Washington and Jackson, and by the time they had shot their way through it the bandit cars had scattered all over the city. A lot of ’em have been picked up since then—empty.
    â€œAll the returns aren’t in yet, but right now the score stands something like this: The haul will run God only knows how far into the millions—easily the richest pickings ever got with civilian guns. Sixteen coppers were knocked off, and three times that many wounded. Twelve innocent spectators, bank clerks, and the like, were killed and about as many banged around. There are two dead and five shot-ups who might be either thugs or spectators that got too close. The bandits lost seven dead that we know of, and thirty-one prisoners, most of them bleeding somewhere.
    â€œOne of the dead was Fat Boy Clarke. Remember him? He shot his way out of a Des Moines courtroom three or four years ago. Well, in his pocket we found a piece of paper, a map of Montgomery Street between Pine and Bush, the block of the looting. On the back of