"听着，"我对威尔逊说。"我不能让这个机会溜走。要不我们四周看看，看一下我们能不能在晚上通过屋顶进去。"
离银行几个门的地方我们找到一个空置的房间，从那里我们可以进入到走廊，上到屋顶，然后从屋顶下去到银行。完美。唯一还要做的事情，是我们需要佩兰戈（ Perlango）在早晨开车过来。
嗯，最后结果是，又过了11个月，我才能回来做完这件事。几天后，我们不得不因为阑尾破裂而将奥尔加（Olga）送入大学医院。两周时间，她都在病危当中，这两周，我一直在医院的病房里陪着她。最后她准备出院的时候，我告诉她，可以给她任何她想要的东西。"我想探望我在布拉多克（Braddock）的亲人。"她说。
在去的路上，隐隐约约有些恐慌的感觉向我袭来。费城到匹兹堡（Pittsburgh）的距离大概有500英里，在某段高速路上，我们的车速慢下来了，前面（塞着）一长串的小车。我估计前面是有交通事故。随着我们慢慢向前挪，我看到一些（州）警察在设置路障。很自然，首先我想到的是有银行被打劫了，警察正在搜寻违禁品。在手套间隔后面有个隐藏的间隔，我放了把手枪在里面。我其实不担心他们会找到它，除非他们将小车拆散了。一个逃犯被路障困在中间，我的担心你能够想得到。
当我来到路障前，其中一个警察透过窗户看进来。"你的车里有没有什么植物(英文单词plant原意植物，还有一个意思是藏赃物的地方）？"他问。
对于小偷来说，植物（英文单词plant的双重含义）只有一个含义。就是藏赃物的地方。
"你是什么意思。植物？"我说，竭力表现出守规矩，守法的样子。
他看着我，好像我是个白痴。"你不知道什么是植物？植物就是在地面上生长出来的的，比如灌木。你知道什么是灌木？"
哦，这种植物。好的，我可以告诉你，我松了一口气。原来是日本甲虫袭击了东海岸，并造成了流行。在主要的高速路设置路障就是要防止可能受到感染的植物在州之间迁移。
布拉多克（Braddock）是个离匹兹堡几英里外的钢铁小镇。是我见过的最脏最黑的城市。整个小镇人们都依赖卡耐基（Carnegie）工厂为生。一个巨大的钢铁厂和一堆被煤烟熏黑的小木屋。天从来都不亮，因为空气中太多的烟雾，天从来都不黑，因为露天的锅炉在晚上也照亮天空。
在那里我见到奥尔加的亲人，她父亲，她母亲，她兄弟。她的父亲在钢铁厂工作了一辈子，在一次事故中失去了一条腿。但是这并没有击垮他，他依旧是个男子汉。这是个俄罗斯人和波兰人的社区，还有些随处可见的匈牙利人，看上去他们拥有整个小镇，用番茄酱瓶子喝着玉米酒，跳着马祖卡舞蹈和波尔卡舞蹈。
当时是1933年，即使社区和以往一样的贫穷，大萧条还是让人无法忍受。赤贫的人到处都是，他们最大的希望就是撞到"那个数字"，这一切都是公开的，写数字的人像邮递员一样，挨家挨户下注，一式三份。他们甚至没有付钱给任何人。哦，我想，荷兰人（Dutch Schultz ）会喜欢这里的。
嗯，我开着一辆崭新的别克车来的，这让我在这成为了名人。我的车牌有三个数字，368，整个社区都全身投入其中（为其下注）。数字出来了，当俄罗斯人和波兰人都在庆祝的时候，我才发现到底是怎么回事。
当我们回到费城时，我发现（ Corn Exchange银行）和费城周边的其它银行在银行协会的推荐下采取了预防措施。虽然这并没有给我带来多少困扰，这很可能意味着警察会被提醒要提防我。
在费城工作时，我一直把我的活动限制在周边的城镇和州。但是，一次又一次，我开车到市场和第六十街，我现在感觉这是我的生意，我对（ Corn Exchange银行）有特殊的权力。这小小的权力一直在那。进去不再是问题，问题是如何出来。在这方面，（银行）经理是个非常不靠谱的人。你永远不知道他什么时候到，只知道他会迟到。对银行股东没有责任感，也不符合我们抢劫犯的要求。
原文：
157-158页
“Listen,” I said to Wilson. “I hate to see this job go. Suppose we look around and see if we can get in there through the roof at night.”
A few doors from the bank we found a vacant house where we could go into the hallway, up to the roof, and across the rooftops to the bank. Perfect. The only thing was that we were going to need Perlango to bring the car around in the morning.
Well, as it turned out, it was eleven months before I was able to go back and take it. A couple of days later, we had to rush Olga to the University Hospital with a burst appendix. For two weeks she was on the critical list, and for two weeks I stayed in the hospital in the room alongside her. When at last she was ready to leave, I told her she could have anything she wanted. “I want to visit my folks in Braddock,” she said.
On the way down I had a bit of a scare thrown into me. The distance between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is about five hundred miles and somewhere along the highway we were slowed down by a long line of cars. I figured there had been an accident up ahead, but as we inched forward I could see that a couple of troopers had set up a roadblock. The first thought to occur to me, quite naturally, was that a bank had been robbed and they were looking for contraband. I had a pistol planted in a false compartment behind the glove compartment, and while I wasn’t really worried that they’d be able to find it without tearing the whole car down, I was every bit as concerned as you’d expect a fugitive to be who had got himself trapped in the middle of a roadblock.
When I got to the barrier, one of the troopers looked in through the window. “Have you got any plants in the car?” he asked.
To a thief, a plant means only one thing. A place of concealment.
“What do you mean, plant?” I said, in my most law-abiding, nonplant way.
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “You don’t know what a plant is? A plant is something that grows out of the ground, like a bush. Do you know what a bush is?”
Ooooooh. That kind of plant. Well, I can tell you, I heaved a sigh of relief. What had happened was that an epidemic of Japanese beetles had hit all along the eastern shore, and roadblocks had been set up on the main highways to prevent the movement of potentially infested plants from state to state.
Braddock was a steel town a few miles out of Pittsburgh. The dirtiest, smokiest city I have ever seen. The whole town lived off the Carnegie plant. One immense steel mill and a bunch of small wooden houses begrimed with soot. It was never light, there was too much smoke in the air, and it was never dark because those open-hearth furnaces would light up the skies at night.
So I met Olga’s people, her father, her mother, her brother. Her father had lost his leg in an accident after working in the mills all his life, but that didn’t stop him. He was a bear of a man. It was a Russian and Polish community, with maybe a Hungarian thrown in here and there, and it seemed as if they had the whole town in there, dancing the mazurkas and polkas and drinking corn liquor out of ketchup bottles.
This is 1933 now, and as poor as the community had always been, the Depression was really biting in. Like poor poor people everywhere, their great hope was to hit “the number.” It was all so much in the open that the numbers writer would go from door to door, like the postman, and make out the bets in triplicate. They weren’t even paying anybody off. Boy, I thought, Dutch Schultz would love this.
Well, I had come driving up in a brand-new Buick, which made me a celebrity right there. My license plate had three numbers, 368, and the whole neighborhood plunged on it. The number came out, and that’s when I found out what it was really like when Russians and Poles have a celebration.
Upon our return to Philadelphia, I saw that the Corn Exchange and all the other banks around Philadelphia were now following the precautionary security measures recommended by the Bankers Association. And while that didn’t bother me particularly in itself, it was the best possible indication that the police would have also been alerted to watch out for me.
Working out of Philadelphia, I continued to restrict my activities to the neighboring towns and states. From time to time, though, I’d make it my business to drive up to Market and Sixtieth because I felt by now I had a franchise on the Corn Exchange. It was always something; some little thing. Getting in wasn’t going to be any problem. The problem was going to be getting out. In that regard, the manager was a very undependable fellow. You never knew what time he was going to arrive, except that it would be late. No sense of responsibility to the bank’s stockholders or the needs of us robbers.
