Harry gaped at the interior. He shook his head in disbelief. There must be forty different alarms in this building. Donati would have been better off stealing the alarm system than the paintings. It was worth more.
There were two rows of lights, each marking the location of the trip in the building. To the right was the master switch. Throw it and the whole lot was killed. Harry reached for the switch, paused, and then squinted at it. Too easy, he thought. There has got to be one more trip here somewhere behind the switch. Throw the switch and they know up at the main building that the system is deactivated. He would have to remove the whole plate from the recessed box and get at each trip separately. It was bolted at the corners.
Harry removed a palette knife from his bag and slipped it behind the plate at the top. It slid freely across the width of the plate, bolt to bolt. On the right side, it caught halfway down. He tilted the blade and worked it past the obstacle, heard the light click as the trip switch snapped back when the blade passed by. He worked it back over the switch and taped the knife to the wall. With another blade, he repeated the maneuver at the bottom—no switch—and left side—one more.
With the two knives taped in place, he backed out the bolts, removed the plate, taped the knives more securely, and turned his attention to the dozens of cables coiled spaghetti-like in the box.
Harry’s hands moved like spiders through the delicate, complicated electronic web, capturing each alarm system like a fly, immobilizing and rendering it useless. His concentration was absolute as his mind sifted through his options. Options developed in equal part from his years of experience and his intuitive grasp of the system. Even in the bad days, when he would often work in an alcoholic haze, his instincts never failed him, had in fact often saved him where someone else, even someone with complete faculties, might have failed. His old boss had once admitted that Harry Grafton drunk operated better than almost anyone else sober. But that was a long time ago—a life that belonged to another Harry Grafton, the one with a wife and family and a job on the right side of the law.
He saved the lasers for last. He watched the beams wink out in the last wisps of water vapor. He was done. He glanced at his watch and then looked again. He had done the job in an hour and fifteen minutes. He guessed there was something to be said for sobriety.
He packed his bag and walked to the door. It had been cool in the building. The designers had included a constant temperature and humidity ventilating system. In spite of its sixty-eight degrees, Harry was soaking wet. He stepped outside, nodded to Donati, and walked to the edge of the woods where he gave in to the nausea. He retched, caught his breath, and retched again.
Red backed one trailer to the main door. He climbed out of the cab and gave Harry a thumbs-up sign, which he changed to a single finger salute. He swung the rear doors open and went into the building. Harry caught his breath and let the sweat cool his forehead. The two kids, now blindfolded, sat handcuffed together, right wrists to the other’s left, encircling the bole of an oak tree. A little late for that, he thought.
Donati appeared at the door and motioned to Grafton. “We got work to do, pal, and we don’t have no union men here, so help haul these pictures up and into the truck. We don’t have all night.”
Grafton swallowed and went into the building to join the others.
It took three and a half hours to remove the paintings and load them into the trailers.
***
Jake was relieved at half past three by Henry Tompkins. Henry was late as usual. They shared the eleven to seven shift and took turns walking the grounds or watching the two television monitors. In the winter, watching the monitors became the better job, in the summer, walking the grounds.
“Anything doing?” he asked. Burt shook his head.
“Nope. There’s a car parked down in Paradise. Parker said he’d chase them out before he went home, but I didn’t see him or the car move so I shut her off.”
“Maybe he’s still sitting and watching. That’s what he does, you know. Don’t seem to be able to make it with the ladies, but I hear he likes to watch.”
“I’d be careful, if I was you, Henry. Last person talked like that was Darlene Thigpen. And you know what happened to her.”
“Yep, damned shame, she was a right smart-looking female up until then, even if she was a whore.”
“Yeah, well there was talk. Some say he had her worked over and arrested after she started talking about him.”
Henry fell silent and thought about Lee. “Shoot, I don’t care how he gets off, long as he don’t start watching me.” He burst into guffaws and Burt snorted.
***
The sky had begun to lighten in the east when they finished. Red closed and latched the doors of the second trailer and turned to Donati. “What about the kids? We can’t let them go and we can’t leave them. You want me to take care of them?”
“We’ll take them with us,” said Donati. “We might find them useful later. If not, we can decide what to do then. Right now, we’ve got to get out of here. Grafton, put them in the back seat of the car. Here.” He handed Harry a snubbed-nosed thirty-eight. “You watch them and,” he raised his voice so that the girl and boy would be sure to hear him, “if they make any move at all, shoot them.”
The boy groaned and slumped. The girl’s back stiffened. She’s tough, Harry thought, a tough cookie. He unlocked one set of handcuffs and herded them stumbling into the car.
“You heard the man,” Harry muttered with what he hoped was a convincing degree of menace. “Nobody move.” Straight out of the movies. Grafton, you missed your calling. Maybe there is a place for you in Hollywood.
The truck rolled up the road. Angelo started the parked car, backed, braked, and followed the truck. Donati slipped behind the wheel and started the rental car. They followed it out to the highway. Donati turned left. Harry, who was facing the two hostages, saw through the rear window that the truck was headed in the opposite direction.
Donati drove through town and west, away from the interstate. Ten minutes later, they were at the motel. The hostages were ordered out of the car and into one of the rooms. Donati told them to lie down on one of the beds. He re-cuffed them to the footboard and headboard.
“There you are, sonny,” he said, “you wanted to get her into the sack—you got her.” Then to Grafton, “Watch them. I have to pick up Red and Angelo.” And he slipped out the door. Harry heard the car start up again and drive off—east this time.
He was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than a shower and six or seven hours of sleep. Then, he wanted to run, as far as and as fast as he could. The whole operation had gone sour. He could feel it more than he could define it. First, Red had to knock out the guard. Harry wondered what became of him. If they took these two, why not take the guard as well? Harry shuddered at the thoughts trying to surface in his mind. And then there were these two. They had seen too much, heard too much. Unless Donati believed they could not identify any of them, he would have them killed. And that, thought Harry, is what he could not allow to happen. He could accept becoming a thief, but not a killer. God, what a mess.
Her voice startled him. She spoke, calm, conversational, a pleasant voice.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Well, first I want to know if I can use the john. It’s been almost seven hours and my back teeth are floating. Another minute and I’ll wet my pants—that is, if I had any. Thanks to Mister America here, I can’t even do that.”
Harry grinned. He liked this girl.
“Jennifer,” the boy whined, “don’t make them angry.”
“Oh, shut up, Jack. What can they do to us? I mean, whether I am nice or nasty isn’t going to make any difference now, is it, whoever you are?”
“No, Miss,” replied Grafton, “probably not.” He unlocked her cuffs an
d led her to the bathroom. He stood in the door and indicated that she should go ahead.
“Do you mind? I would like a little privacy. I know there isn’t much of me that you people haven’t seen, but I would like to, you know—alone.”
“I’m sorry…Jennifer? That’s your name? I’m sorry, Jennifer, but I can’t. This is one of those motels where they install a lot of useless extras, like instant coffee makers and telephones in the john, so you don’t notice how rundown and tacky the place really is.”
The girl glanced at the wall to her right and saw the phone that was an integral part of the paper dispenser.
She sighed and started to lift her skirt.
“Hold it a minute,” Harry said. He went to the phone, bent down, and disconnected the modular clips at both ends of the cord, removed it, and shoved it in his pocket. He turned, checked the window over the tub, painted shut, and then waved.
“Enjoy,” he said, and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
She showed him a lopsided grin. “Thanks.”
Chapter Ten
Somehow, Ike realized, he had managed to get through another week without incident. Except for the usual traffic accidents and violations, the loud parties and occasional D and D, the week passed quietly, uneventfully. He congratulated himself for having buried another one hundred sixty-eight hours of his life. Now it was Friday noon, and in five hours or so, he could begin the weekend, one that was his, not a repeat of the previous one.
He sighed. Was it just a week ago he had been conned by his father into going out to the farm? It had passed pleasantly enough. His father kept his promise and not talked politics, career, or Ike’s future. That left little they could talk about, but they shared some hours reminiscing. Ike’s fears about having to fend off the advances of the eligible Miss Rubenstein turned out to be groundless. To his delight and his parent’s consternation, she showed no interest in Ike as a marital prospect at all. She had, it turned out, a “gentleman” in Richmond whose virtues she described in great detail and at great length all day Saturday and Sunday. Ike heard about Dr. Milton Rappeport, the eminent orthodontist, at breakfast, at the swimming pool, in the library, at every turn. Milty, she declaimed, was kind and considerate. He escorted Barbara to only the best restaurants, purchased nice presents for her, and danced attendance on her every wish and whim. He was expert in the inner workings of the New York Stock Exchange and people’s malocclusions. He knew the difference between Bordeaux and Burgundy, which years were good or excellent. He read books, went to plays, vacationed in Stowe and Miami Beach. “He skis on water and snow, Ike, did you ever…” Barbara gushed, eyes aglow, hands clasped Madonna-like over her heart.
Ike had been impressed. He hoped she would find real happiness in this new relationship. Indeed, the only thing standing between Barbara and certain connubial bliss was the disconcerting fact that Milton was, if not happily, permanently married to the mother of his five children.
All in all, it had been a quiet time and fulfilled his filial duties for a month or two. He could now feel free to spend his weekends as he pleased. And this one, he decided, would be at the cabin, a retreat he purchased years ago as a place to hide. He had an idea a dozen years before that he would like to write. Except for the yellow-lined legal pads and the computer with its high-powered word processing software he bought when he purchased the cabin, he’d made no progress on that career. But the cabin played an important part in his life, anyway. He ran to it three years ago, like a hare from a fox, after Zurich, after the funeral. Without phone, television, or radio, he reveled in his privacy, cut off from any intrusions from the rest of the world.
Maybe this weekend, Ike thought, maybe this weekend I’ll write it down…put the whole mess on paper, but he knew he would not, could not.
He stared at his desk and shook his head at its clutter. Not by nature a disorderly man, his survival in the past depended on a methodical way of working. But desks were an unsolvable mystery to him. Somehow, no matter what system he devised, papers, memos, reports, letters, and reminders piled up in untidy stacks with coffee cups, parts of ballpoint pens, rubber bands, and paper clips. His desk, he decided, looked like a sanitary landfill.
The department secretary, Rita Joyce, learned to copy everything that went into Ike’s inbox, because the likelihood of its ever coming out again was nil. Periodically, Ike would clean, sort, annotate, and discard paper in a frenzy of neatness. His desk would be clear for perhaps two days and then the mess miraculously reappeared.
Ike pulled a trashcan over to his chair and began sorting. Urgent/important items he piled on the floor at his feet. Letters to be answered went into his lap. Items which were completed, or whose deadlines for completion had long since passed, went into the outbox for filing. Everything else went into the trash.
After an hour, the trashcan was filled and its overage spilled into the urgent pile at his feet. When he reached to separate the two, the pile in his lap slipped down to join them. It was almost three o’clock and Ike decided he had enough. He scooped up all the papers at his feet and returned them to his desk. Even though a substantial number of documents had ended in either the trash can or the outbox, the pile on his desk looked as large as when he started. There must be a law, he thought—one of Murphy’s, perhaps—that covered this. The depth of the pile on the desk is inversely proportional to the occupant’s importance. Not bad. The phone rang. Essie wigwagged to Ike from the outer office that he should pick up.
“Sheriff’s office, Schwartz.”
“Sheriff, this is Dr. Harris’ secretary…out at the college.” The last word was pronounced with a rise in inflection, making a verbal question mark.
“Yes?”
“Well, Sheriff, we’ve got a problem here.”
“What sort of problem?” Ike said, wondering why people never seemed to be able to get to the point in the first exchange on the telephone.
“Well, we’ve had a robbery,” she said.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Miss, Mrs.…”
“Ewalt, Agnes Ewalt. I’m President Harris’ personal secretary,” she said, barely disguising the pride she felt for holding such an exalted position.
“Well, Agnes, pardon, Ms. Ewalt, I’ll send someone out right away.”
“I don’t think ‘someone’ will do, Sheriff. President Harris said you’d better come yourself.”
“Me? Just what happened?” Ike said. Now he was getting impatient.
“Well, someone seems to have broken into the Art Storage Compound. Are you acquainted with the Art Storage Compound, Sheriff?” she asked. Ike was close to losing his temper.
“Ms. Ewalt, will you please get to the point? Yes, of course I know the facility, everybody in town knows about the bunker. What was taken?”
“All of it, Sheriff.”
“All? All of what?” Ike shouted.
“Why, the paintings, Sheriff. They’ve stolen the Dillon Art Collection, that’s what all.”
“Good God, Agnes, why didn’t you say so in the first place. I’ll be right out,” he shouted.
He hung up the handset and bolted out the door.
“I’ve called Billy and Whaite. They’re on their way,” Essie announced.
“Thanks, Essie. Tell one of them to come by here on the way and pick up a kit. We’ll want to dust for prints and collect whatever we can find.”
***
Ike pulled into the parking lot next to the Art Storage Compound and climbed out of the car. A knot of people stood around its open door. He recognized Ruth Harris, Colonel Scarlett of the state police, and two of Callend’s security people. A few paces away, Whaite Billingsly was talking to the little moon-faced, bearded man Ike had seen the week before outside President Harris’ office, the day she’d called him a fascist. This ought to be fun, he thought.
&nb
sp; As he drew closer, he was struck by the expression on each of their faces. Ruth Harris was angry, exasperated. Colonel Scarlett, who had the rugged outdoor look one associates with cigarette ads or country music singers, at least before they all started growing beards, a look he accentuated by wearing tooled cowboy boots and his service revolver low on his hip, stared off into the woods, impassive. The security people looked uneasy.
Whaite wore the look of strained patience which seems to be the exclusive property of police officers. His companion was agitated.
“Good afternoon, President Harris, Colonel,” Ike said and nodded to the others. “You’ve had a robbery. Your secretary, Ms. Ewalt, says someone cleaned this place out. Is that right?”
“Yes, Sheriff, that’s right,” Ruth Harris snapped. “We are in the process of getting on with the business at hand. Colonel Scarlett here said we had to notify you. Something about jurisdiction, he said. So, you have been notified, thank you.”
“Appreciate that,” Ike said, turning to Scarlett. “What happened?”
“Well,” Scarlett drawled, “I got a call at dinner time, ’bout noon, I reckon, from somebody up at the capitol saying I should get my butt out here pronto because some pictures got ripped off last night. So here I am. When I found out you ain’t been called, I told them to call you. I haven’t done anything else.”
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