Into the phone, Meyer said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Goldfarb. Yes, thank you.” He hung up. “The travel agency,” he said. “It’s next door to a bank.”
“Sure,” Kling said. “So you know why he’s doing this?”
“Why?” Byrnes asked.
“Because he’s not going to hit that bank under the loft at all. He’s going to hit one of the other twenty-three. The rest are just his smoke screen.”
“Which one is he gonna hit?” Meyer asked.
Kling shrugged. “That’s the big question, Meyer.”
“What do we do, Pete?”
“What’s today?” Byrnes asked.
“The twenty-eighth.”
“And his deadline is the thirtieth?”
“Yes.”
“That gives us two days. I imagine we can put some men on.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll cover those shops. I’ll have to get help from some of the other squads. One man to a shop. You say there are twenty-three of them?”
“So far.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of men to be throwing out of action,” Byrnes said. He shook his head. “I’d better call Headquarters on this. I’m going to need more help than the squads can give. We can’t put so many detectives out of action.”
“Why not patrolmen?” Kling said.
“They’d never catch him. He’d spot the uniforms.”
“Put them on special duty. Plainclothes. It’s only for two days.”
“That’s a good idea,” Byrnes said. “I’ll talk to Captain Frick.” He reached for the phone. “There’s only one thing that puzzles me,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“If none of these shopowners move—if none of them yield to his threat to get out by the thirtieth—how in hell will he pull his job?”
The men stared at each other blankly.
They had just asked the two-and-a-half-million-dollar question.
And none of them knew the answer.
13.
THE FOUR MEN SAT on the hillside overlooking the ice-cream factory. The factory was surrounded by a cyclone fence and within that fence there were at least thirty white ice-cream trucks lined up in three identical rows. Two smokestacks jutted up into the April sky, and a huge sign straddled the stacks:
PICK-PAK ICE CREAM
The Big Lick on a Stick
The four men looked like a group of congenial buddies who had been out for a late afternoon stroll, who’d discovered this grassy hillock overlooking the ice-cream plant, and who’d decided to sit and rest their weary feet. There was certainly nothing sinister-looking about any of the men. If they’d showed up at Central Casting for parts in a grade-B gangster film, each and every one of them would have been turned down. And yet three of the four men had police records, and two of the men were, at that very moment, carrying guns. And even though their conversation was carried on in low and gentle tones, accompanied by sincere facial expressions, these men were discussing the future commission of a crime.
The deaf man was the tallest and handsomest of the four. He sat looking out over the rows of white trucks, a strand of grass between his teeth.
“That’s where we get it,” he said.
Chuck, sitting next to him, fished for a cigarette in the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a single cigarette while leaving the package inside the pocket. He took out a book of matches, lifted the cover, bent one match over from the rest so that it was close to the striking surface, closed the cover, and then struck the match, all with one hand, the match flaming but still attached to the folder.
“Plenty trucks,” he said, and he blew out a stream of smoke.
“We only need one, Chuck,” the deaf man said.
“That’s for sure. When do we grab it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“The day before, huh?”
“Thenight before,” the deaf man corrected.
“What time?”
“I figured along about midnight. Rafe’s been casing the lot for a week. Rafe, do you want to fill us in?”
Rafe adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, let out a sigh and ran a busy hand through his straw-blond hair. He seemed reluctant to speak. It almost seemed as if speaking pained him physically.
“There’s a simple padlock on the gate,” he said, his voice very low, as if he had learned at an early age that people who speak softly are generally listened to. “I can open it with a bobby pin.”
“He’s speaking figuratively,” the deaf man said. He grinned. “Aren’t you, Rafe?”
“Sure, not a bobby pin, but this is a snap, believe me. Also, there’s no watchman in the yard. So once we’re in, we’re in.”
“Are the ignition keys left in the trucks?” Chuck asked.
“No. We’ll have to cross the wires.”
“No possibility of getting duplicates made?”
“I don’t see how.”
“That might be worth thinking about,” Chuck said, turning to the deaf man. “I mean, we can’t keep the thing running all the time, can we? And if the law shows, who wants to be fooling around with wires under the dash?”
“Once we get the truck away from here, I can rig a switch that works without an ignition key,” Rafe said. “Don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not worried, I’m only thinking ahead. This isn’t a penny-ante thing we’re involved in here, Rafe.”
“Nobody said it was.”
“Okay. Is the fence wired?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Apparently they’re not too concerned about the trucks. There’s an alarm for the plant, and there’s also a watchman who—”
“Uh-oh,” Chuck said.
“No, no, nothing to worry about,” the deaf man assured him quickly. “He never comes out into the yard, and we won’t make our play until he’s up on the top floor of the building.”
“How do we know when that is?” Chuck asked.
“It’s at elevenP.M .,” Rafe said. “He begins making his rounds at that time. Takes the elevator up to the sixth floor and then starts down on foot. We’ll start working on the fence at eleven. We’ll grab the truck when he reaches the top floor.”
“And how will we know when he reaches the top floor?”
“You can see his flashlight as he walks around. It lights up the whole damn floor. Okay?”
“Sounds good so far. We grab the truck and we’re out before he gets a chance to come all the way downstairs again, right?”
“Right.”
“Then what?” Chuck asked.
“We drive the truck to the store.”
“Think that’s smart?”
“Why not? It says Chelsea Pops, Inc. right on our window, doesn’t it?”
“Sure. But it says Pick-Pak Ice Cream on the side of the truck.”
“The truck’ll be in the back yard. Nobody’s going to go looking there. Besides, Pop can keep away any visitors while we work on it.”
Pop, who had not uttered a word thus far, cleared his throat and said, “Sure, I can do that. It’s Rafe and Chuck who’ll be taking the truck, is that right?”