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He spent some time examining the entrance door, turned to the kitchen and bedroom doors, to which he gave a lesser amount of time, finding them seated in the same sort of flange encountered at the closet. Jaeger was panting from his efforts, his coat had been laid on the sofa, sweat was running down the front of his shirt. For the first time, he was conscious of fatigue, thirst began to bother him. He glanced at his watch, deliberately forcing himself into a chair to rest.

After a time he rose to try the windows, his tongue wandering over his drying mouth and lips. Grunting with the effort, he picked up one of the heavy chairs, driving one of the legs into the window. He was shocked to find that it resisted his attack. He tried again, bringing the chair around in a clumsy arc, the rebound throwing his overbalanced body to the floor, consuming him in a fiery streak of pain which rushed up his arm and shoulder. He was furious with rage when he picked himself up off the floor, trying every portable object in the room against the glass, finally, ignoring the shock of pain which tore up his arm and wrist, he battered the window with a solid ceramic dish until a jagged hole made entrance of his arm possible. He felt the bars in front of it, shook them savagely, knowing that even if he managed to batter the rest of the window down, he could never get around the steel bars between him and the shutters.

Jaeger was bone-tired now, his arm throbbing painfully. He checked his watch again, sitting for a long time, one hand rubbing injured arm and wrist, the racing minutes ticking by.

Finally, he arose and shoved the desk against the landward wall, placing a chair against it to serve as a step. Taking a broken chair leg in his hand, he reached up to scratch the ceiling, a vast sigh of relief escaping from him when a sandy handful of plaster came down in his face. Dropping to the floor, he placed another chair on the desk, forcing his injured and aching arm to function. He was angry with himself for not having chosen the ceiling as his first point of attack. He stood first on the chair that was on the floor, then stepped to the desk to work from that position, then stood on the seat of the chair that he had placed on the desk. The speed with which the plaster fell pleased him. He scraped methodically, first through the whitecoat, then through the material beneath it, exposing a portion of the metal lath. He tried the strength of the lath, punching the broken chair leg up against it, hitting it again and again with the end of the stick, and, finally, with his bloody fist.

“Cement,” he said. “Cement between the joists.” Wearily, he descended to the floor, his face working, tears of frustration pouring down his cheeks. Suddenly enraged, he rushed the closet door, smashing into it with such a thudding crash that he was bounced grotesquely to the floor. His head spinning, his mouth making little inarticulate cries of rage, he rushed to the window again and pounded at it in a frenzy, finally sinking in a futile heap upon the floor.

There were thirty minutes left. In the closet, two small metal arms crept closer and closer toward a contact.

Perhaps it will not work, Jaeger thought. But he knew it would.

Six miles and a number of city blocks away, Daggett’s ferret face was wary in the dim light of the bar. Motioning Archer to a seat, he poured a shot of whiskey in a glass. “Here,” he said.

Archer reached for the drink.

“Sit here. I’ll be back.”

Archer’s eyes went to the clock while Daggett poured some drinks for a handful of noisy customers nearby.

“Couldn’t sit it out alone?” Daggett whispered as he returned.

Archer shook his head.

“What time’s the fireworks?” Daggett said.

“Twelve o’clock. In a quarter of an hour.”

“Play it cool. There won’t be any problems. Jaeger doesn’t make mistakes.”

Archer’s voice was barely audible. “He made one.”

“When? Where?”

“Last year. When he torched the clothing store.”

“Who told you that?”

“How do you suppose I got your name, Daggett? You set ’em up. He does the work. The client collects the insurance.”

Daggett leaned across the bar. “You’re nervous, boy. You better watch your mouth.”

“There was a fire chief killed in that store fire.”

Daggett’s hands clawed at the bar top. “You trying to shake me down?”

“No. Just thought you ought to know. The man who was killed was my father.”

“Why, the fire chief’s name was Stimson.”

“I know. That’s my name, too. Archer Stimson.”

Daggett stared in horror. “And you mean to say you hired Jaeger to do your job?”

“A job’s a job,” Archer replied. Daggett jerked around to look at the clock.

“That’s it,” Archer said. “Twelve o’clock.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Daggett said, after a moment. “Now I’ve heard ’em all. Have one on the house.”

“One on the house,” Archer replied, as he threw the glass of whiskey straight in Daggett’s face.

“You’re crazy,” Daggett said. “Crazy.”

Archer stood solidly before him for a moment, then calmly turned to go.

“Wait a minute!” Daggett hissed. “Tomorrow you’ll be up to your neck in insurance investigators. You talk, and you’ll go up, too.”

“There won’t be an insurance investigation,” Archer Stimson said. “I cancelled the insurance on my father’s house a week ago.” He turned, and walked into the sunlit street.

Con Man Par Excellence

by Albert Ujcic

You all know that safecrackers are somewhat obvious and decidedly blatant. However, style — the elegant flourish, the masterly bon mot — is well thought of in some criminal circles.

The wind and sea shot craps with everything on deck not bolted down. The boat moved up and down and every way that motion goes. Me, I hung onto a lifeline while the deck slanted, sea-water washed to my knees, and the wind sand-blasted my face. Only it wasn’t sand, but little pellets of salt water. A whole world full of them. Here I stood knee-deep in the lower left-hand corner of the Gulf of Mexico, my fare paid from Veracruz to Merida, with no guarantees.

Lightning and thunder, a sea full of stabbing stalagmites, and then suddenly the pitch of the deck changed. What junk hadn’t washed overboard blew around me, iron like paper glancing off my feet and calves, breaking nothing I noticed.

Quite a few hours later I pried my fingers from around the lifeline. We’d escaped the witches. Their big dark skirts billowed over on the horizon. Putty water rolled under the boat.

I crossed the deck, closed the cabin door against still howling wind. Nobody was there but me, by myself. So I got out of the life jacket, out of my slicker and coat and shirt and pants. In my shorts and money-belt, I shivered. Before I got dry clothes though I dug a finger into the belt just to make sure I had the big stone. I had it all right. I took it out. A million of me stared back from the facets. How it shone. It occurred to me that I could’ve used the diamond as a reflector if I’d been washed into the gulf. Occurrences like this come to me all the time. I skip over the improbability of their working. Improbabilities I ignore.

Now I might as well tell you. You probably guessed it already from the flashy way I have of describing things. My imagination is keen. It’s a gift.

Like this stone was a gift. Practically. A gift from the gods. Because there I sat in the lounge of Del Prado in Mexico City, minding my own business, when these ladies at the bar started laughing. Laugh and laugh. Until all of them had out their handkerchiefs, wiping their eyes dry of joke-water. On the floor by my foot I saw the stone. Something connected with my hair-trigger imagination went to work. I covered the stone with my foot.