Mr. Sun Yee was, of course, Mr. Winch, who said that he took many names, "Winch" being closest to what his name really was.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Winch," said Bardwell to the shorter man who met him in a shimmering green kimono.
"Come in, Bardwell," said Winch. "I take it you did not see your target."
"Right. How'd ya know?"
"I know many things," said Winch and smiled. Bardwell felt uneasy about the smile, like a tickle in his stomach. If Lynette had not been so specific when they had started their journey to Scotland about Mr. Winch being the best thing—next to her of course—in Hawley's life, he might, even with his great respect, be suspicious of Mr. Winch. Great man, but that smile was something else.
"Well, let's see how much you have remembered," said Mr. Winch and Hawley Bardwell assumed the stance he had been drilled in and then redrilled in, and redrilled in. Knowing enough about the martial arts he knew there were other stances, but Mr. Winch had always said he must get this one right and feeling a hand on his spine, he knew he still didn't have it down perfectly.
This was the stance from which he had struck the blow in the castle. You stood with your weight within yourself, not rested on any foot, not so much evenly distributing the weight, but keeping the weight inside yourself, and being within yourself, you struck from the inside of your weight. From the outside, it looked like someone standing with feet slightly apart, almost slouching, and the blow came pop, first pushing the left-hand block back into your man's shoulder, then following. It sounded like po-pop when done right. Standing in the hotel suite, Hawley remembered the delicious sound of his hit's shoulder going po-pop.
Mr. Winch clapped and Hawley's big right arm slapped out first flat for the block and then instantly turning into the nukite hand sword it was supposed to be.
"Good," said Mr. Winch to Hawley Bardwell who stood with arm outstretched as if shaking hands with someone he didn't wish to get close to. "Very good."
"But this sort of leaves me open, don't it? I mean my whole body is open now. I've been practicing, and everytime I do this stroke, I think how open I am at the end of it."
"To add some protection to you," Mr. Winch said, "would make you less effective. Against the man who will be your target, your defensive blocks would become shattered bone. Of course, if you do not trust me…"
"I trust you, Mr. Winch."
"Good. Because now I will give you your man."
"Where will I find him?"
"He will find you," said Mr. Winch. He outlined a plan under which, if Hawley Bardwell followed it faithfully, he would not only have his man but $15,000 as well. And the $15,000 came first.
There were many strange things he did not understand, but to Hawley Bardwell this plan was a delight. Not only would he realize money, as Lynette always said he would if he stayed with Mr. Winch, but he would have his main target, and others, first, to practice on.
Yes, he could kill them if he first practiced the shoulder stroke, and no, there was no chance of his being caught by anyone, except the man who would be his ultimate target.
Bardwell was so excited he wanted to tell Lynette that the place he was going to take the $15,000 from was the very place she worked as a teller. But Mr. Winch had not said he could discuss it, even with his wife, so on the evening of his plan he just told her he was going for a little walk. The way he said it must have warned her, for she said, "Watch your ass there, Hawley," and he responded, "Sure enough," and then he just moseyed out onto the main street of Tenafly, New Jersey, with the shops closing and the police sleepily cruising the dwindling traffic and the crisp wetness of winter upon the New Jersey city waiting for the grace of snow.
As Mr. Winch had explained it, the whole operation was an extension of the stroke. Your protection was your offense.
Down the street he could see lights on in the second story of the Tenafly Trust and Savings Corp. He had two hundred dollars on deposit there, the most he and Lynette could put away on his gym instructor's salary. As she had said so many times, at least they weren't getting in the hole if they could put away even two dollars a week. Lynette always had such good reasoning. Perhaps that was why, of all the wives of his pupils, Mr. Winch seemed to favor her.
Bardwell moved on the street behind the bank. Mr. Winch had warned him not to cut into the narrow alley behind the bank until he was just opposite that building. Police were always checking for burglars in the back of the smaller shops and he should cut his alley time to the minimum. For the police, the bank was the one building that needed the least night supervision. It had the modern time-lock safe, the kind that had put safecrackers out of business. All the money went in there at five every night and was not available to human hands until 8:30 A.M. The illusion of safety was their biggest weakness, Mr. Winch had said.
Bardwell saw the high white concrete ledge of the bank roof rising above the yellow two-story frame house of this residential street just behind the main thoroughfare. He moved quietly down the driveway across a well-mowed yard and over a fence and he was in the alley. He could smell the rich pungent odor from the delicatessen and hear his feet make a small splash as he walked through a puddle left by that afternoon's rain. The bank had three doors, two of them with alarms and bars and wire mesh, for they protected the entrance to the main floor and vault. By financial logic, the third door needed no expensive alarm system for it led only to the executive offices of the president, the senior vice president, and the comptroller. It was secure because there was an effective alarm seal between their offices and the money below, a single inside door.
So Bardwell's hand closed on the key Mr. Winch had given him, and he took it out of his pocket and felt for the lock. He paused and listened. A footstep crushed a tin can. A flashlight sent a terrifying yellow beam down the alley. Bardwell pushed himself into the doorway as he felt the key click. He could disappear into the door but Mr. Winch had told him that at night movement, not objects, attracts attention. So he fought his instinct to put the door between himself and the light, and he kept stillness within him as Mr. Winch had taught. The light continued and the steps came right behind him and he expected a billy stick in his back. It was so close he could hear breathing. But the steps went on also, and when they were a good hundred feet down the alley, Bardwell eased himself into the alcove behind the door and, with a relieving click, shut the door between himself and the outside.
It was dark and he ran his left hand against the wall. He felt a linen-type wallpaper whose ridges were glossy smooth to the fingertips. His left foot bumped a solid vertical. The toe eased up until it was at the first level of the first step and then pushed forward until it hit another vertical. He pressed down on the foot and lifted the other, and slowly he began to climb the back steps. It seemed that the door came on him suddenly, bumping him in the chin.
"Hold it," he heard a man's voice. "Someone's at the door."
"Rubbish," came another man's voice.
"I heard something. I told you I heard something."
"You heard your losing streak. Shut up and deal."
Bardwell pushed open the door and stepped up into the lit office, a plush, beige-carpeted expanse of modern furniture and hanging chrome lights, leather couches, and a shining mahogany table in the shape of a hexagon. Five men looked up from their cards and chips. It was this room's light he had seen from Main Street. It was from this room that he would rob the bankers, despite their time-lock vault downstairs that would be as useless as marbles in a microscope.