Otherwise, there’s nothing to steal. And they’ve got all the normal burglar
alarms. And the police patrol the business streets pretty often out there.”
“What about weekends?”
“They patrol weekends, too.”
“No,” Dortmunder said. “What about guards on the weekends? Saturday
afternoon, for instance. The thing’s empty then?”
“Sure,” Victor said. “With so many shoppers going by on Saturday, what do
they need with guards?”
“All right,” Dortmunder said. He turned back to Murch and said, “Can we get
wheels someplace?”
“Sure,” Murch said. No hesitation at all.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely positive. There is totally nothing in the automotive line that I can’t
get you.”
Dortmunder said, “Good. Can we get wheels that will lift the damn thing up
off those concrete blocks?”
“We may have to rig something,” Murch said. “They’ve got those walls up
pretty high. There may not be any wheels-and-axle combination that big. But we
could attach the axle to a kind of platform and then attach the platform to the
bottom of the trailer.”
“What about jacks?”
Murch shook his head. “What about them?”
“We can get heavy enough jacks to lift that thing?”
“We don’t have to,” Murch said. “It has its own jacks, four of them, built up
into the undercarriage.”
Victor said, “Excuse me, Mr. Murch, but how did you-”
“Call me Stan.”
“Thank you. I’m Victor. How did you-”
“Hello. How did you find out about the jacks? Did you crawl under the bank
and look?”
Murch grinned and said, “Naw. Down in the corner there’s the company
name that built the thing. Roamerica. Didn’t you notice that?”
“I never did,” Victor said. He sounded impressed.
“It’s a little silver plate near the back,” Murch said. “Near Kresge’s.”
His Mom said, “Stan has a wonderful eye for detail.”
“So we went to a place that sells them,” Murch said, “and I took a look at the
same kind of model.”
“With wheels,” Kelp said. He was still taking the business of the wheels as a
personal insult.
Murch nodded. “With wheels.”
“They’re really very nice inside,” his Mom said. “More roomy than you’d
think. I liked the one with the French Provincial motif.”
“I like where we live now,” Murch said.
“I’m not saying buy one. I just said I liked it. Very clean, very nice. And you
know what I thought of that kitchen.”
Dortmunder said, “If we got wheels on it, could you drive it away from
there?”
Murch’s beer was only half gone, but the head was gone entirely. Musing, he
shook a little salt into the glass, which restored some head, and passed the
shaker to his mom. “Not with a car,” he said. “It’s too heavy for that. With a
truck. The cab of a tractor-trailer-that would be best.”
“But it could be done.”
“Oh, sure. I’d have to stick to main streets, though. You’ve got a twelve-foot
width. That’s pretty wide for going down back roads. Cuts your possibilities for
a getaway route.”
Dortmunder nodded. “I figured that.”
“Also time of day,” Murch said. “Late at night would be best, when there’s
not so much traffic around.”
“Well, we’d figure to do it then anyway,” Dortmunder said.
“A lot depends,” Murch said, “on where you want to take it.”
Dortmunder glanced at Kelp, who looked very defensive and said, “We can
work that out, we can work it out. Victor and me.”
Dortmunder grimaced and looked back at Murch. “Would you be willing to
try it?”
“Try what?”
“Driving the bank away.”
“Sure! Naturally, that’s what I’m here for.”
Dortmunder nodded and sat back in his chair. He didn’t look specifically at
anybody, but brooded at the green felt tabletop. Nobody spoke for half a
minute or so, and then Victor said, “Do you think we can do it, Mr.
Dortmunder?”
Dortmunder glanced at him, and the intense look was still there. This was
originally Victor’s notion, of course, so it was only natural he wanted to know if
he had a workable idea or not. Dortmunder said, “I don’t know yet. It begins to
look as though we can take the thing away, but there’s still a lot of problems.”
Kelp said, “But we can go forward, right?”
Dortmunder said, “You and Victor can look for a place to stash the bank
while – – .” He stopped and shook his head. “A place to stash the bank. I can’t
believe I’m saying a thing like that. Anyway, you two do that, Murch sets up
wheels and a truck or whatever, and-”
“There’s the question of money,” Murch said. “We’re gonna need some deep
financing on this job.”
“That’s my department,” Kelp said. “I’ll take care of that.”
“Good,” Dortmunder said.
Murch’s Mom said, “Is this meeting over? I got to get home and get this
brace off.”
“We’ll be in touch with each other,” Dortmunder said.
Kelp said, “You want me to call Herman X?”
Murch said, “Herman X?”
“Sure,” Dortmunder said. “Give him a call. But tell him it isn’t a definite set-up
yet.”
Murch said, “Herman X?”
“You know him?” Kelp said. “A lockman, one of the best.”
Victor suddenly jumped to his feet and extended his ginger-ale glass over the
table. “A toast!” he cried. “One for all and all for one!”
There was a stunned silence, and then Kelp gave a panicky smile and said,
“Oh, yeah, sure.” He got to his feet with his bourbon glass.
One by one the others also stood. Nobody wanted to embarrass Victor. They
clinked their glasses together over the middle of the table, and again Victor said,
loud and clear, “One for all and all for one!”
“One for all and all for one,” everybody mumbled.
9
HERMAN X spread black caviar on black bread and handed it across the
coffee table to Susan. “I know I have expensive tastes,” he said, flashing his
frankest smile at his guests, “but the way I think, we pass this way but once.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” George Lachine said. He and his wife
Linda were the token whites at this dinner party, Susan and the other three
couples all being black. George was in OEO somewhere-not in fund
disbursement, unfortunately-but it was Linda that Herman had his eye on. He
still hadn’t made up his mind whether he would finish this evening in bed with
Linda Lachine or Rastus Sharif, whether he felt tonight straight or gay, and the
suspense was delicious. Also the fact that neither of them had shared his bed
before, so it would be a new adventure in. any case.
Susan gave George an arch look and said, “I know your kind. Grab all you
can get.” Herman thought it unlikely that Susan really wanted George; she was
probably just trying to make Linda angry, since she knew Herman’s intentions in
that area.
And she was succeeding. While George looked flustered and flattered, Linda
gave Susan a tight-lipped look of hate. But she was too cool, Herman noticed,
to say anything right now. That pleased him; people being themselves always
pleased him. “A dinner party,” he had once said, “should be nothing but
undercurrents.”
This one was. Of the ten people present, practically everybody had been to
bed at one time or another with everybody else-excluding the Lachines, of
course, who were in process of being drawn in right now.
And himself and Rastus. How had he let that fail to happen or so long?
Herman glanced over at Rastus now and saw him indolently whispering
something to Diane, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Rastus Sharif;
he’d chosen the name himself, of course, as representative of the full range of his
heritage, both slave and African, and in doing so had made himself a walking
insult to practically everybody he met. Black and white alike had trouble bringing
themselves to call him “Rastus.” Looking at him, Herman thought the delay had
probably been caused by his own admiration and envy; how could he go to bed
with the only person on earth he didn’t feel superior to?
Mrs. Olaffson suddenly appeared in the living-room doorway. “Telephone,
sir.”
He sat up. “My call from the Coast?” He was aware of the conversations
halting around him.
Mrs. Olaffson knew her part: “Yes, sir.”
“Be right there.” Standing, he said, “Sorry, people, this may take a while. Try
to have fun without me.”
They. made ribald comments in return, and he grinned as he loped from the
room. He had given it out that he was employed in “communications,”
sometimes making it seem as though he meant book publishing and sometimes
motion pictures. Vague but glamorous, and no one ever inquired more closely.
Mrs. Olaff son had preceded him to the kitchen, and on the way through he
said, “Study door locked?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mind the fort.” He patted her pink cheek, went out the apartment’s rear
door and down the service stairs two at a time.
As usual, Mrs. Olaffson’s timing had been perfect. Just as Herman stepped