was taking too long.
“Normally,” Herman said, speaking more gently than before, but still with a
rasp of irritation he couldn’t quite get rid of, “I’m very good at locks.”
“Sure,” Kelp said. “Naturally.”
The padlock clicked and jittered in Herman’s long, thin fingers. “It’s just that
safe,” he said. “It’s shaken my self confidence.”
“You’re still the best,” Kelp said. Not in a boosting way, but conversationally,
as though commenting on the weather.
The padlock skittered away from Herman’s fingers and tick-ticked against the
metal lid. “I’m also very good at self-analysis,” he said. His voice quivered again
with barely controlled rage. “I figure out just where I’m at. And-” his voice
rising, speeding up-“it doesn’t do a goddam bit of good!”
“You’ll be fine,” Kelp said. He patted Herman on the shoulder.
Herman flinched away from the touch like a horse. “I am going to get this
thing,” he said grimly and sat down on the ground in front of the box. Legs
folded tailor-fashion, he leaned over the box till his nose was almost touching the
lock.
“I’m having a little trouble,” Kelp said, “keeping the light on the work.”
“Shut up,” Herman said.
Kelp knelt beside him and beamed the light principally at Herman’s right eye,
which was glaring at the lock.
The problem was, they didn’t want to break it. In the morning, they would tell
the trailer-court owner or manager that they’d found the thing unlocked and just
hooked everything up themselves. If he saw his padlock in normal condition, he
probably wouldn’t raise a fuss. But if he found it broken, he might not believe
the story, and then he might make trouble.
That was the problem about why the padlock had to be picked rather than
plucked. The deeper problem, Herman’s continuing inability to pick it, was very
simply caused by that son-of-a-bitch safe. Half a dozen small tools from his
black bag were already spread across the box lid, and he was poking away at
the padlock’s keyhole with yet another small tool right now-the other end of
which was currently endangering his eye-and he just couldn’t keep his mind on
what he was doing. He’d slip the tool into the padlock and his eyes would glaze
as his mind drifted back to consider once again the safe inside the bank. He had
no saw or drill-including the diamond tip-that would get through that metal.
He had stripped away the combination plate and mechanism, but it had led
nowhere. He had tried peeling the door and had bent his favorite medium-length
bar. An explosion strong enough to rip open the safe would also destroy
everything inside it and would probably open the trailer up like an avocado at
the same time.
What it came down to was the circular hole. For the circular hole, you
attached a suction clamp to the side of the safe, with a central rod extending
straight out. An L-shaped arm swung from the rod, with a handle at the elbow
and a clamp at the wrist for drill bits. A bit was put in place, so that it scraped
against the side of the safe, and then the handle was turned in a large circle, over
and over and over again. As each bit was worn away, a new one was added. It
was the slowest and most primitive kind of safe-cracking, but it was the only
thing that could possibly work against that goddam bastard son of a bitch-The
padlock. His mind had drifted again, and he’d just
been sitting there on the ground, poking aimlessly into the keyhole with the
small tool. “God damn it,” he muttered, and clenched his teeth, and gripped the
padlock so hard his fingers ached.
The thing was, sometimes you had to go back to basics. Herman knew the
most sophisticated ways to get into safes and vaults and had used them all at one
time or another. The ELD, for instance, Electronic Listening Device; attach it to
the front of the safe, put the earphones on and listen to the tumblers while you
turn the combination. Or ways of putting just a little plastic explosive in two
places at the edge of the door, where the hinges are on the inside, and then
going next door and setting them off by radio signal and coming back to find the
door lying on its face on the floor and not a sheet of paper wrinkled inside. OrThe padlock. He’d done it again. “Rrrrrrr,” Herman said.
“Here comes somebody.”
“That was me growling.”
“No. Headlights.” Kelp switched off the flashlight.
Herman looked around and saw the headlights turning in from the highway. “It
can’t be Murch already,” he said.
“Well,” Kelp said doubtfully, “it is almost four o’clock.”
Herman stared at him. “Four o’clock? I’ve been at this, I’ve been here for …
? Give me that light!”
“Well, we’re not sure it’s them yet.” The headlights were slowly approaching
past the darkened trailers.
“I don’t need the goddam light,” Herman said, and while the headlights came
up close enough to show the car behind them, and the car parked, and Murch
got out, Herman picked the padlock by feel alone, and when Kelp next turned
the flashlight on, Herman was putting his tools away. “It’s done,” he said.
“You got it!”
“Of course I got it.” Herman glared at him. “What do you sound so surprised
for?”
“Well, I just… Uh, here’s Stan and Victor.”
But it was just Murch. He strolled over and gestured at the black box and
said, “You get it open?”
“Listen,” Herman said angrily, “just because I’m having trouble with that safe .
.
Murch looked startled. “I just wanted to know,” he said.
Kelp said, “Where’s Victor?”
“Here he comes now,” Murch said and gestured with his thumb toward the
court entrance as another pair of headlights made the turn. “He really hangs well
back,” Murch said. “I was surprised. I almost lost him a couple times.”
Dortmunder had come out of the bank and now walked over to say, “There’s
a hell of a lot of talk out here. Let’s keep it down.”
“The padlock’s open,” Herman told him.
Dortmunder glanced at him and then looked at his watch. “That’s good,” he
said. There was no expression in either his face or his voice.
“Look,” Herman said aggressively, but then didn’t have anything else to say
and just stood there.
Victor came over, walking slightly lopsided and looking stunned. “Boy,” he
said.
Dortmunder said, “Let’s go inside where we can talk. You boys be able to fix
things up out here?”
Kelp and Murch would be doing the tie-in of power and water and sewer
lines. Kelp said, “Sure, we’ll work it out.”
“You’ve got some bent pipes there,” Dortmunder said, “where we ripped
them when we took the bank.”
“No problem,” Murch said. “I brought some pipe in the car. We’ll rig
something up.”
“But quiet,” Dortmunder said.
“Sure,” Murch said.
The efficiency all around him was making Herman nervous. “I’m going in and
work on that safe,” he said.
Dortmunder and Victor came along with him, and Dortmunder said to Victor,
“Did Stan tell you the situation?”
“Sure. Herman’s having trouble getting the safe open, so we’re going to stay
here for a while.”
Herman hunched his shoulders and glowered straight ahead, but said nothing.
As they were climbing up into the bank, Victor said, “That Stan really drives,
doesn’t he?”
“That’s his job,” Dortmunder said, and Herman winced at that one, too.
“Boy,” Victor said. “You try to keep up with him . boy.”
Inside the trailer, May and Murch’s Mom had set up a couple of flashlights on
pieces of furniture so there was some light to work by and were now cleaning
the place up a little.
“I think we’ve got a full deck of cards here,” Murch’s Mom told Dortmunder.
“I just found the three of clubs over by the safe.”
“That’s fine,” Dortmunder said. He turned to Herman. “You want any help?”
“No!” Herman snapped, but a second later said, “I mean yes. Sure, of
course.”
“Victor, you go with Herman.”
“Sure.”
May said to Dortmunder, “We need you to move some furniture.”
While Dortmunder went off to join the spring-cleaning brigade, Herman said
to Victor, “I’ve made a decision.”
Victor looked alert.
“I am going,” Herman said, “to attack that safe by every method known to
man. All at once.”
“Sure,” Victor said. “What should I do?”
“You,” Herman told him, “will turn the handle.”
26
“FRANKLY,” May said, the cigarette bobbing in the corner of her mouth, “I
could make better coffee than this if I started with dirt.” She dropped a seven of
hearts on the eight of diamonds Dortmunder had led.
“I took what they had,” Murch said. “It was the only place I could find open.”
He carefully slid a five of diamonds under the seven of diamonds.
“I’m not blaming you,” May said. “I’m just commenting.”