"Even if it loses money?"
"Even if it loses money. 'Course, a couple more court decisions like we been gettin' lately an' I figure I can reissue all my back films. They'd go right now if they had a European stamp on 'em. It's a hell of a note when hard-workin' American film makers are discriminated against."
He sounded so injured I almost laughed. It wouldn't have helped our relationship, because he was in deadly earnest. "I don't understand where you get your actors," I said.
"No problem. I've got a notebook full of names. Two notebooks, actually. One with people workin' re'glar who moonlight in films, hopin' to make it big, an' one with volunteers for the blue stuff."
"Volunteers?"
"Sure. You wouldn't believe the exhibitionists in this world. I always got more than I need. An' I can whistle up five eager chicks for every guy on my list. Somethin' about everyone she knows seein' her ballin' it in livin' color really turns on a certain type of tomato." He took another swallow from his glass and changed the subject. "What's the job look like so far?"
"Everything in the Schemer's blueprints has been right on the nose. Around the bank, anyway. In the next couple of days the three of us will check out the homes of the manager and assistant manager for arrival and departure times of the families. Wait a second and I'll get the file. I want you to look over the escape routes."
Halfway across the room I remembered something and detoured to the telephone. One reason I had selected the Carousel was because it had direct phones in each room that didn't go through a switchboard. "There's one thing in the Schemer's notes I want more information on," I explained to Dahl as I dialed the Schemer's number in Washington, D.C. "Schemer? Earl Drake. Call me right back at the motel, will you?"
I hung up the phone, took the scale drawings of the bank and the access roads around it from my briefcase, and handed them to Dahl. He pointed to the phone. "What's with this call back business?"
"The Schemer's ultracautious. He never talks business over his own phone. He never meets anyone face to face, either."
"You mean you've never even seen the guy?"
"That's right."
"Then how'n'ell does he get paid?"
"Through the mail."
Dahl whistled. "He sure must wind up waitin' at the gate for the postman. Waitin' in vain, I mean."
"Not as often as you'd think. You only miss with him once. Then he puts you on his blacklist, and he's so well and so favorably known that once on his list you'll have trouble hooking up with the_ right kind of people for your next job."
Dahl still looked dubious. "I say it's no way to run a railroad. He must-"
The telephone rang. I picked it up. "Drake here."
"Why the call?" the Schemer's voice asked.
"One small point," I explained. "Your notes say the manager and assistant manager each has half the vault combination. What happens if either of them doesn't make it to work?"
"I didn't have that in there?" Irritation threaded the clipped syllables. "I'm slipping. If it's the manager, Barton, who doesn't show up, his half of the combo is in the hands of the retired chairman of the board. I don't remember his name, but it's in the list of bank officers. If it's the assistant manager who misses, the bank attorney, who is also a director, has his part of the combination. His name is Carlisle and his office is right across the street from the bank."
"No luck," I said ruefully. "I was hoping someone might have goofed and one man like the board chairman would have both halves. That way we could have bypassed the families."
"I didn't say it was going to be easy," the Schemer said. "Anything else?"
"Nothing. We're getting close."
"Fine. I kept that job on ice for quite a while waiting for the right workman."
The connection was gone. Dahl looked at me quizzically as I replaced the phone. "No shortcuts, huh?"
"It was worth a try. Now we follow the blueprint." I looked at my watch. "Time to pick up Harris. There's no need for you to come. I'll drive you down the road where you can get a room."
Dahl stretched, yawned, and glanced at one of the large double beds. "What's the matter with sackin' out right here, cousin?"
"No," I said. "We're not going to be seen together any more than is absolutely necessary. You'll need to hire a car in the morning anyway."
Dahl grumbled a bit but finally put himself in motion. He carried his suitcase out to my car. It was only a three-minute drive to the other motel. "You sure we're gonna knock this one over next Thursday?" he said when I stopped on the shoulder of the road in front of the motel.
"Unless we get a bad break," I promised. "Goodnight."
" 'Night," he echoed. He walked up the driveway to the motel office, lugging his heavy suitcase. I watched from the car to make sure he got a room. I drove off when I saw the clerk swing the register in Dahl's direction for him to sign. It reminded me that I should have asked him what alias he intended to use.
At the airport I found I had a forty-five-minute wait for the arrival of Preacher Harris's plane. I left word at the airline counter for him to be paged upon arrival and I left a phone number for him to call. The phone was a pay phone at one end of the terminal. When it finally rang, I was sitting five yards away from it. "Harris," the voice at the other end of the line said when I picked up the receiver.
"Drake," I identified myself. "Let's meet behind the first row of cars in the parking lot."
"Be right there," he said.
He was obviously tired when I met him. "Bad flight," he said briefly. "I chucked twice. I need to sack in."
I suspected that at least part of the dark circles under his eyes and the strained expression around his mouth came from more than a bad flight. Long, losing hours at the tables in Las Vegas had evidently preceded the flight. "I'll take Dahl on a dry run in the morning," I said. "You can sleep till noon and we'll look it over together then."
The sound of Dahl's name seemed to rouse him. "Is he just as cocky as ever?"
"No ego shrinkage that I could see." I didn't tell him about Dahl's movie made inside the bank. If I knew Dahl, Harris would be seeing it for himself very soon. I drove to a third motel, this one ten miles from the Carousel, on U.S. 1 near Lima. "What name are you going to use if I want to reach you?"
"Harris James. James is my real first name."
"That's easy to remember."
I remembered an armored truck job years before in which a change of plan had come up at the last moment. The critical interval came and went with one partner hammering on door after door of a motel because he couldn't remember what alias his partner was using.
At the motel I waited again until I was sure that Harris had a room, then drove back to the Carousel.
We would be starting the last lap in the morning.
11
Dahl and I drove to Philadelphia at five A.M. the next morning. He picked up a rented car, and I parked the VW. We continued to Thornton with Dahl driving. A light rain was falling and the streets were slick. It was full dark, and would be for another hour of the late-August morning.
Dahl appeared to be in good humor during the thirty-five-minute drive. He hummed as he drove. When I directed him to the street in Thornton where George and Shirley Mace lived, he asked his first question. "Who we lookin' over this mornin', cousin?"
"The assistant bank manager and his wife. Slow down now." A block away from the Maces' I noticed a sign on a lawn that said TOURISTS-ROOMS. That would be a good spot to park one of the cars. The police wouldn't pay any attention to a strange automobile parked in front of such a building. "Turn here. Fourth house on the other side of the street. If a cruiser gets nosy, I'm being transferred out of the territory on my advertising job, and I'm breaking you in." I opened my briefcase and showed Dahl my Yellow Pages flyers.