now had last night’s conundrums explained to him, so tonight everybody was in
a much better mood. Murch, in fact, apologetic for having given the group a
bumpier ride home than necessary last night, was going out of his way to be
cheerful and helpful.
In the back of the garment delivery truck, in addition to Dortmunder and Kelp
and Herman and Victor, were the two sets of wheels for the trailer, now much
changed. The boys had spent Saturday afternoon at the defunct computer-parts
plant, putting new tires on the wheels and building up the undercarriages with
plywood and two-by-fours to get them just the right height. By now they
weighed almost twice as much as before and filled most of the interior of the
truck.
Murch, having opened the rear doors, said, “The cops just went by. You
should have a good half hour now before they come back.”
“Right.”
It took all five of them to get the wheels down onto the ground and drag them
over to the trailer. Dortmunder and Murch unhooked the wooden lattice that
closed off the end of the trailer, moved it to one side, and then all five of them
shoved and heaved the two sets of wheels into place-one way back near the
Kresge’s wall, the other up near the front end. Then Murch wrestled the lattice
back into position by himself, left it unhooked, and went oft to sit in the cab of
the truck and keep an eye on things.
Under the trailer, the four of them had taken out pencil flashlights and were
looking around for the jacks. There was one jack folded up against the trailer
bottom near each corner, and one man to each jack. They were held up there
by clips screwed into place, but each man was also equipped with a
screwdriver, and it didn’t take long to get the things unclipped, fold them down,
and crank them till the bottom plates-which looked like duck feet-were
placed firmly on the brick rubble underneath. All of this was being done in a
space three feet high. It would have been easier if they could have moved
around on their knees, but the brick rubble made that impossible, so they
waddled around like ducks themselves, in tune with the appearance of the jack
plates.
Once they had all whispered back and forth that they were ready,
Dortmunder started a rhythmic slow counting, doing one turn on his jack crank
with each number: “One … two
three … four …” Each of the others turned at the same rhythm, the idea
being that the trailer would be lifted straight up, with no canting or angling that
might inadvertently set oft an alarm. For a long time, though, the trailer didn’t lift
at all. Nothing happened except that the duck feet crunched deeper and deeper
into the brick rubble.
Then, all at once, the bottom of the trailer went sprong! It was like an oven
cooling and the metal side contracting. They all four of them stopped turning,
and while Dortmunder and Victor froze, Herman and Kelp both lost their
balance from astonishment and unexpectedly sat down hard on the rubble.
“Ow,” whispered Kelp, and Herman whispered, “Damn.”
They waited half a minute, but nothing else happened, so Dortmunder said
softly, “Okay, we’ll go on. Twenty-two .
twenty-three … twenty-four . .
“It’s coming!” Victor whispered excitedly.
It was. All at once illumination from the corner streetlight made a thin crack
between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the concrete block wall along
the front.
“Twenty-five,” Dortmunder said. “Twenty-six … twenty-seven . .
They stopped at forty-two. There was now nearly two inches of air between
trailer bottom and concrete block top.
“We’ll do the back wheels first,” Dortmunder said.
This was difficult. Not because it was complicated hut because space was
tight and the undercarriage was heavy. A broad metal strip was already mounted
beneath the trailer at each end, to take the undercarriages. The strips contained
bolt holes, but they hadn’t been able to judge ahead of time where to put the
corresponding holes in the built-up undercarriages, so now they had first to
position each undercarriage and mark the location of the bolt holes and then
move the undercarriage-without ramming it too hard or too often into any of
the jacks-and place it so Herman could make the holes with a battery-operated drill. Then they put the wheel assembly back against the metal strip,
propped it up with extra rubble stuffed under the tires, and put on the bolts and
washers and nuts, six bolts to each undercarriage.
It took an hour to get this far, and twice in that time the patrol car ambled by.
But they were too busy to notice, and since they were using their flashlights
sparingly and shielding the light as much as possible the police also remained un-aware of them.
Finally they had the wheels on, and the ground beneath smoothed again, and
now they went back to the jacks. When all four of them were ready, they
started cranking back down, Dortmunder giving the count again, beginning with
“one,” not “forty-two.”
There was no sprong on the way down, and the count ended at thirty-three.
They clipped the jacks back into place and restored the screws, and then
Dortmunder crawled out from under to check the relationship between the
bottom of the trailer and the top of the concrete block wall. They had blown the
tires up extra hard, figuring they could let a little air out in order to lower the
trailer an inch or so if need be, but as it turned out they didn’t have to. The
weight of the trailer was enough to use up practically all the leeway they’d left so
that there was maybe half an inch at the lattice end of the front wall and
practically no space at all down at the Kresge end, where the safe was. Maybe
an eighth of an inch.
Dortmunder checked the back, and it was the same there, so he went down
to the open end and called softly, “It’s okay. Come on out.” They’d been
waiting in there to be told to let air out of this tire or that.
They came out, Herman carrying his black bag, and while Dortmunder and
Victor hooked the lattice back in place Herman and Kelp went around front to
finish the job. Herman had a tube of tub caulk, the rubbery stuff that squeezes
out soft and never does entirely harden, and while he moved along the wall,
squirting this into the crack between the trailer and the concrete blocks, Kelp
followed him, smearing dirt onto the caulk to make it blend into the concrete.
They did the same thing in the back and then joined the others, who were
already in the truck. Murch, who had come out of the cab for the purpose,
closed the doors behind them and trotted back up front to drive them away from
there.
“Well,” Dortmunder said as they all switched on their pencil flashes so they
could see one another, “I’d say we did a good night’s work.”
“By golly!” Victor said excitedly. His eyes sparkled in the light. “I can hardly
wait till Thursday!”
16
JOE MULLIGAN stumbled on his way into the bank and turned to glare at
the top step. This was the seventh consecutive Thursday he’d been on this job;
you’d think by now he’d know the height of the steps.
“What’s the matter, Joe?”
It was Fenton, the senior man. He liked the boys to call him Chief, but none of
them ever did. Also, even though they didn’t have to be on duty till eight-fifteen,
Fenton was always on the job no later than eight o’clock, standing right by the
door to see if any of the boys were going to be late. Still, he wasn’t such a bad
old bird; if you did happen to be late any time, he might give you a word or two
on the subject himself, but he wouldn’t ever report it to the office.
Mulligan tucked down his dark-blue uniform jacket, readjusted his holster on
his right hip, and shook his head. “Getting stumble-footed in my old age,” he
said.
“Now me, I feel like I got a spring in my step tonight,” Fenton said, grinning,
and he rocked up onto the balls of his feet for a second to show what he meant.
“I’m glad for you,” Mulligan said. As for himself, he would be very pleased-as always on these Thursday nights
-when it came around to nine o’clock and the last of the bank employees
had gone home and he could sit down and relax. He’d spent a lifetime on his
feet and believed there would never be a spring in his step again.
He had arrived tonight at eight-fourteen, according to the clock on the wall up
behind the tellers. All the other guards were here already except Garfield, who