The Stalker

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The khaki-colored Smithfield armored car entered the enclosed grounds of Mannerling Chemical, a few miles south of Granite City, Illinois, at ten minutes past nine of a cold, crisp Wednesday morning—precisely on schedule for its quarterly pick-up of the company’s substantial cash receipts. It pulled to a stop in front of the Accounting Office, which was located in a wing of Building Four just inside the eastern gate, and driver Felix Marik stepped out into the frosty air to unlock the rear doors. Guards Walter Macklin and Lloyd Fosbury emerged with several empty canvas money sacks, and entered the Accounting Office.

Just as driver Marik stepped around to the side of the car, two young men dressed in dark business suits and dark overcoats, carrying small brown briefcases, approached him at a leisurely pace. They had left Parking Lot 2, directly across the asphalt roadway from Building Four, immediately after the armored car’s arrival. The more muscular of the two men wore a thin black mustache attached with spirit gum, and had cotton balls inside his mouth to make his cheeks seem round and puffy; pinned to the left breast pocket of his coat was a counterfeit of the blue and white triangular identity badge which Mannerling required for admittance to its grounds. Black lettering on it read: ROBERTS, M. R.—ACCT. 4. His name was Steve Kilduff. The lean, spare man with him—wearing a set of false, bucked front teeth and whitish actor’s make-up to make his normally weathered complexion seem pallid—had an identity badge which said he was Garfield, D. L., also Acct. 4. His real name was Jim Conradin.

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