The man with the handkerchief mask said, "All right, everybody, keep tight. This is a holdup." There were twelve people in the bank. There was Mr. Featherhall at his desk, refusing to okay a personal check from a perfect stranger. There was the perfect stranger, an itinerant garage mechanic named Rodney (Rod) Strom, like the check said. There were Miss English and Miss Philicoff, the girls in the gilded teller cages. There was Mister Anderson, the guard, dozing by the door in his brown uniform.