“A million dollars,” said Heller.
“A million dollars,” said Bang-Bang. Then he planted his feet and glared down the widest aisle. “Well, God (bleep) me! You know what that son of a (bleepch) Faustino is trying to do? He’s trying to cut in on our smuggling! The (bleepard)! He’s trying to muscle in on us! He’s going to flood the market and drive us out of business! God (bleep)! Oh, when Babe hears about this, she is going to be livid!”
He stood and thought. “It’s that crook Oozopopolis!”
“Can we get on with this car?” said Heller.
Bang-Bang was promptly all business. “Don’t touch it!”
The Cadillac was sitting apparently where Heller had parked it. The license plates had been removed. The light was very bad there.
Bang-Bang got out a torch. Keeping his hands off the car, he gingerly slid under it. He was looking at the springs. “They sometimes put it under the leaves so when the car tilts, off it goes. Nope. Now for the… oh, for Christ’s sakes!”
Heller was kneeling down watching Bang-Bang under the car. Bang-Bang seemed to be working on the inside of a wheel. His hand emerged and he tossed something to Heller who caught it. A stick of dynamite!
Bang-Bang was working on another wheel. He tossed up another stick of dynamite. Heller caught it. Bang-Bang, scrambling around, shortly tossed a third and then a fourth stick to Heller. After playing his light around further underneath, Bang-Bang emerged.
“Cut-rate job,” said Bang-Bang. “There was a stick taped vertically to the inside of each wheel. Dynamite of this type is just sawdust and soup. The soup is usually spread all through the sawdust and is safe to handle unless concentrated.”
“Soup?” asked Heller.
“Nitroglycerine,” said Bang-Bang. “It explodes when you jar it. This car was rigged to blow up miles from here! As the wheels spun, the centrifugal force would make the soup move from the stick as a whole and concentrate at just one end. Then an extra bump on the road and BOOM! Cut-rate. They saved the expense of detonators! Cheap-o!” he added with scorn.
“But maybe these were placed just to be found,” said Heller, “and the real charge is still in there somewhere.”
“So these could have been decoys and the real charge is still in there somewhere,” said Bang-Bang.
He passed a very thin blade down through the window slit to make sure there was no trip wire and then opened the door. He looked under the panel. Nothing. He opened the hood. He looked back of the motor.
“Aha!” said Bang-Bang. “A cable job!” In a gingerly fashion he slid a matchbook cover between two contact points. Then he snipped some wires. Shortly he fished up a revolution counter.
“A second odometer!” he said. “The speedometer cable was taken off the back and put to this thing.” He was spinning its wheels. It suddenly went click. He read the numbers. “Five miles! It was set to go five miles from here.” He peered back down behind the motor. “Jesus! Ten pounds of gelignite! Wow, did they blow dough on setting this up! Somebody is big bucks mad at you, kid! That’s enough to blow up ten—”
“Shh!” said Heller.
A car was coming!
Hurriedly, Bang-Bang closed the hood and door. Heller dragged him to a point about fifteen feet from the main entrance and back between two stacks of boxes.
The car stopped.
Bang-Bang whispered, “You got a gun?”
Heller shook his head.
“Me neither! It’s illegal to carry a gun on parole.” He shifted his heavy sack of explosives. “I don’t dare throw a bomb in all this whisky. We’d go up like a torch!”
“Shh!” said Heller.
A car door closed. “I’ll put the car around back,” somebody said.
Silence.
A car door slammed in the back of the building. Footsteps going around. Then, in front, “The door’s still locked back there.”
“I told you,” said a new voice. “There ain’t nobody here.”
A rattle of keys. “You just got the jumps, Chumpy. He’s probably still running.”
“Anybody could have come in the time it took you!” It was the plump young man. He backed in. The door opened inward more widely.
Two men in expensive-looking clothes followed him through. “We came as fast as we could. Jesus, you don’t get from Queens to here in five minutes. Not in this traffic! See, there’s nobody here! Waste of time.”
“He’ll be back!” said Chumpy. “He’s a mean (bleepard)! If you don’t do nothing, I’m going to call Faustino!”
The other man said, “Look, Dum-Dum, it won’t do any harm to wait around for a while. Jesus, after all that drive. Tell you what. Leave the door unlocked and a tiny bit ajar, kind of inviting, and then we’ll go over and sit down behind those boxes opposite and wait. Jesus, I got to catch my breath. All those God (bleeped) trucks!”
He left the door ajar. Chumpy, getting out a burp gun, went over and sat down on the floor back of an island of boxes, in profile and in full view of Heller. I went cold. Then I realized Heller was looking through a slit between two cartons.
The other two disappeared behind the island opposite the door.
“Don’t shoot toward that old car in the back!” said Chumpy. “It’s a walking boom factory!”
“Shut up, Chumpy,” said one of the men. “We’ll give it an hour. So you just shut up.”
Heller looked down and slipped out of his shoes. He moved sideways until he could see the door. It was very dark right near it, the effect heightened by the slit of light coming through the ajar door.
He was fishing in his satchel. He got out the fish line. He got out the multihooked bass plug. He tied the line to the eye of the plug.
My hair felt like it was going to leave my head! This (bleeping) fool was going to try something! Bullets flying into that whisky or near that car would turn the place into an inferno! All he had to do was wait for an hour and they’d leave! The idiot!
He was coiling the fish line in big, loose loops around his left hand. He took the end he had fastened the bass plug to. He began to swing the plug back and forth.
With a toss he sent the plug sailing through the dimness toward the door! At an exact instant, he tugged it back.
There was a tiny thunk.
There was a rustle from behind the island of boxes where the men were hidden.
Heller slowly began to take in the slack. The line was nearly invisible. I could not make it out.
He shifted the sack on his shoulder and opened it. He shifted the line to his left hand.
He yanked the line!
The door came open with a crash!
There was a sizzling sound and a thud!
Heller had heaved a baseball at Chumpy!
Through the slit, I could see Chumpy fold up, motionless.
Silence.
Minutes.
“(Bleep),” said one of the men. “It was just the wind.”
“Go close it!” said the other.
Through a slit, Heller was watching. A man, gun in hand, crossed the open place toward the door.
There was a sizzle and crack!
Heller had thrown another baseball!
The man jarred sideways. He fell and lay still.
“What the hell?…”
Heller threw again. The baseball hit the far wall and rebounded. He was throwing at the sound! With a bank shot!
Heller threw again!
There was a scramble. The man raced out the rear opening in the island and raced toward the back door! Stupid. It was locked!
The man raised his gun to blow off the lock.
Heller threw!
The man was hurled against the door. He slumped.
Heller casually walked to the front door and closed it.
Bang-Bang, more practical, raced to the last man and grabbed the gun. Then he raced from one to the other. He came back to Heller. “Jesus Christ! Their skulls is smashed in. They’re dead!”