working in a state-pen laundry.”
“Federal pen,” Murch’s Mom said. “Bank robbery is a Federal rap.”
“We’re not worried,” May said. “We’ve got everything figured.”
“I can’t tell you,” Dortmunder said, “how many guys I met behind bars that
said the exact same thing.”
Herman said, “Well, I’m going to stay, that’s all. That goddam safe is a
challenge to me.”
“We’re all going to stay,” May said. She looked at Dortmunder. “Aren’t we?”
Dortmunder sighed.
“Somebody coming,” Herman said.
Murch’s Mom doused the flashlights, and the only illumination was the red
glow of May’s cigarette. They heard the car approach, they saw its headlights
flash by the windows. The engine stopped, the door opened and closed, and a
few seconds later the bank door opened and Murch stuck his head in. “Set?” he
called.
Dortmunder sighed again as Murch’s Mom switched the flashlights back on.
“Come on in here, Stan,” Dortmunder said. “Let’s talk.”
24
VICTOR said:
“Steelyeyed Dortmunder surveyed his work. The wheels were under the very
floor of the bank itself. Hungry, desperate men, their hat brims pulled low, his
gang had worked with him beneath the shield of night to install those wheels,
turning the innocent-appearing bank into an…
ENGINE OF GREED!
“I myself had been one of those men, as recounted in the earlier tale, Wheels
of Terror!, in this same series. And now, the final moment had come, the
moment that had filled our every waking thought for all these days and weeks of
preparation.
“‘This is the payoff,’ Dortmunder snarled softly. ‘Tonight we get the whole
swag.’
“‘Right, boss,’ whispered Kelp eagerly, his scarred face twisting into a brutal
smile.
“I repressed a shudder at that smile. If my companions but knew the truth
about me, how that smile would alter its effect! I wouldn’t last long with this
crew of desperate ruffians, if ever they penetrated my disguise. I was known to
them as Lefty the Lip McGonigle, late of Sing Sing, a tough customer and no
friend of the law. I had used the McGonigle monicker twice before, once to
capture the evil Specter of the Drive-In! and once to invade the criminal-infested precincts of the dread Sing Sing itself, that time to solve the slaying of
the stoolie Sad Sam Sassanack, in the adventure later related under the title
Brutes Behind Ears!
“And now, I was Lefty the Lip yet again, in the course of my duty to my God
and my Nation as –
SECRET AGENT J-7!
“None of Dortmunder’s hoods had ever seen my real face. None knew my
real name. None knew the-”
“Victor?”
Victor leaped, dropping the microphone. Spinning around in his chair, he saw
Stan Murch standing in the open bookcase, framed by the night behind him.
Victor was so deeply into his story line by this time that he recoiled when he
realized he was looking at one of Dortmunder’s men.
Murch took a step forward, his expression concerned. “Something the matter,
Victor?”
“No no,” Victor said shakily, shaking his head. “You just
-you just startled me,” he added lamely.
“Kelp told me this was where I’d probably find you,” Murch said. “That’s
why I’m here.”
“Yes, of course,” Victor said inanely. Looking down, he saw that the cassette
was still running and switched it off. “This is where I am,” he said aimlessly.
“There’s been a problem at the bank,” Murch said. “We all got to assemble
again.”
“Where?” Victor asked interrogatively.
“At the bank.”
“Yes, but where’s the bank?” Victor pursued puzzledly. He had last seen the
bank in the high-school football field and didn’t know precisely where it would
be kept for the rest of the night.
“You can follow me in your car,” Murch said. “You ready?”
“I suppose so,” Victor said uncertainly, looking around the garage. “But
what’s gone wrong?” he asked belatedly.
“Herman says it’s a new kind of safe, it’ll take him all day to break into it.”
“All day!” Victor exploded, aghast. “But surely the police- “We’re setting it
up with a front,” Murch said. And then
added, “We’re in kind of a press for time, Victor, so if you could- “Oh, of
course!” Victor said abashedly. He leaped to his
feet, then picked up the cassette and microphone and stuffed them in his
jacket pocket. “Ready,” he announced earnestly.
They left, Victor carefully switching off the lights and locking the door behind
himself, and the two of them walked down the dark driveway to the street.
While Murch got into the station wagon parked there, Victor hurried across the
street to the garage he rented from a neighbor, in which he kept his Packard.
This was a more modern garage than his own, with an electronically operated lift
door that he could raise or lower by touching a button on the dashboard of the
car. For several months he’d been trying to get up enough nerve to-ask his
neighbor’s permission to do some work on the outside of the building, but so far
hadn’t developed sufficient courage. What he wanted to do was make the front
look like a seemingly abandoned warehouse, without doors, so that a section of
wall would appear to lift when the dashboard button was pushed. There were
two difficulties with this conception. First, he didn’t know what cover story to
give the owner for wanting to make the change, and, second, a seemingly
abandoned warehouse would look definitely out of place in this neighborhood-particularly in somebody’s back yard. Still, it was a pleasant idea, and he might
yet be able to work something out.
At night, though, the effect was almost as good with the building just the way it
was. Victor entered through the side door of the garage, switched on the dim
red bulb he’d installed in the overhead light fixture, and by its darkroom-like
illumination removed the plastic cover from the Packard, folding it like a flag and
then putting it away on its shelf. Next he got into the car, took the cassette and
microphone from his pocket and put them on the seat beside him, and started
the engine. The Packard motor grumbled quietly but menacingly in the enclosed
space. Smiling to himself, Victor turned on the parking lights only and pushed the
button that caused the door to slide up. With a distinct sense of drama, he
tapped the accelerator and steered the Packard out into the night, then pushed
the button again and watched in the rear-view mirror as the door folded down
once more behind him, the red-lit view of the garage interior narrowing from the
top and at last disappearing completely. Only then did he switch on his
headlights.
Murch seemed impatient. He was revving the engine of the stolen station
wagon, and the instant Victor and the Packard reached the street he shot away
from the curb and dashed away down the street. Victor followed at a more
stately pace, but soon had to pick it up a little if he was going to keep Stan in
sight at all.
The first time they were stopped at a red light, Victor ran the tape back a bit
in the cassette, found the spot where he’d left off, and took it from there,
dictating into the microphone as he followed Murch and his scuttling station
wagon across Long Island:
“None of Dortmunder’s hoods had ever seen my real face. None knew my
real name. None knew the truth about me, and it would be curtains for me if
they did!
“Now, gimlet-eyed Dortmunder nodded in satisfaction. ‘Forty-eight hours
from now,’ he boasted evilly, ‘that proud bank will be ours! Nothing can stop us
now!’”
25
“IF YOU’LL put the flashlight on my work,” Herman said, “things’ll go a lot
faster.”
“Sure,” Kelp said. He adjusted the beam. “I was shielding it with my body,”
he said.
“Well, don’t shield it from me.”
“Okay,” Kelp said.
“And don’t breathe down the back of my neck like that.”
“Right,” Kelp said. He moved half an inch.
Suddenly into Herman’s head came the replay of a television commercial from
a few years back: Sure, you’re irritable. Who wouldn’t be? But don’t take it out
on him. Take. -Take what? What was the product? Sounds like it should have
been pot, but it probably wasn’t.
The distraction of that chain of thought was a pleasant interlude, three or four
seconds long, which calmed him perhaps as much as the forgotten product
would have done. Herman took a deep, slow breath, to calm himself even more,
and returned his attention to the task at hand.
He was squatting right now like a Masai warrior in front of a black metal box
emerging from the ground directly in front of the hitch end of the bank. Power
and water and sewer lines terminated in this box, and it was Herman’s simple
job at the moment to remove the padlock from the lid and open the box. And it