“And now, in sports”
Hilliard Cathman sighed in exasperation; mostly with himself. He knew he should turn off this “news-radio” station, which was in truth mostly a sports-score-and-advertising radio station, and go to sleep, but lately he was having even more trouble than usual dropping off, and he had this need to know,to know when they did it. He had to know.
It would be a weekend, that much was certain, when the ship would be the most full of gamblers, when the most money would be lost. A Friday or a Saturday night, and soon. Possibly even tonight.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Tonight. Get it over with, get this tension behind him at last.
He knew the risk he was taking, the danger he was in. Sitting up in bed past midnight, lights on in half the house, the nightstand radio eagerly rattling off the endless results of games he cared nothing about, Cathman reminded himself he’d known from the beginning the perils in this idea, but had decided the goal was worth it. And it was, and it still was, though these days all Cathman could really see was the expression in that man Parker’s eyes. Which was no expression at all.
Marshall Howell had been different, easier to work with, easier to believe one could win out against. He’d been a tough man, and a criminal, but with some humanity in him. This one, Parker
It will happen, that’s all, and I don’t need to know about it the instant it does. When it happens, I’ll know soon enough, and then one of three things will happen. Parker will come bring me my ten percent, which is the least likely, and I’ll deal with him in the way I’m ready to deal with him. Or he and the rest of them will fade away, and I have his telephone number, and from that I have found his house, and I have seen his wife, none of which he knows, and I can finish it the other way. Or they will get caught, which would be the best thing, and I will be ready for that as well.
“The time is twelve fifty-two. In tomorrow’s weather”
Oh, enough. Cathman reached out and switched off the radio, but left the lights on. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, and for a long time he didn’t sleep.
Only Ruth was still at her station at the counter, dealing with vacuum canisters as they came down from the cashier’s cage upstairs. George could see the others, Pete and Helen and Sam and Susan Cahill, all seated like him on the floor, backs against the wall, duct-taped into silence and immobility. A degree of background panic gave his own breathing a level of fibrillation that scared him some, but he knew it was under control, that unless something else happened he’d be able to go on breathing through to the end of this.
What was coming down now, from the cashier’s cage, at nearly one o’clock in the morning, was mostly chips being cashed in, and very rarely a purchase of more chips by some diehard loser up above. There wasn’t much activity at all at this point, and it really would be sensible for the robbers to get out of here now, before they lost part of their loot to customers upstairs cashing in, which they seemed to realize. George watched them give one another little looks and nods and hand signals, and then the one who’d slapped Susan Cahill went over and opened the door, the door they’d come through that was never opened and how much better if it never had been opened and headed up the stairs.
George knew there was a guard on duty up there, though he’d never seen him, seated at a desk on the landing in front of the door at the top of the stairs. That guard would have seen this robber with Susan Cahill when they came down, he wouldn’t suspect a thing, somebody coming up the stairs like that, he’d been hired to keep people from going downthose stairs.
Yes. Here he came, a beefy young man in a tan uniform, looking bewildered and angry and scared, hands knitted on top of his uniform hat on his head, holster at his right side hanging empty, the robber now holding two guns, one in each hand, shutting the door with his heel as he came in.
The big one, the one who’d taped George, went smiling over to the guard, saying “Welcome aboard, Jack. You are Jack, aren’t you?”
The guard stared at all the trussed people. He stared at the big man. He burst out, ‘Jesus, you’re not supposed to dothis!”
The big man laughed. “Oh, I know,” he said. “We’re just regular scamps. Put your hands behind your back, Jack.” Then he laughed again and said to the one with the two guns in his hands, “Back Jack; how do you like that?” To the guard he said, “I’m so glad your name isn’t Tim I’m not even gonna punch you in the belly for not having your hands behind your back. Not yet, I’m not.”
The guard quickly moved his arms, like a panicky drowner lunging toward the surface, and when his hands were behind his back the big man duct-taped them, then his mouth, then helped him sit, then did his ankles.
During which George watched the man who’d claimed to be an assemblyman, but who now seemed much more believable as an armed robber, take a small screwdriver from his pocket and use it to open the control box next to the outer door, the door in the hull through which George and the others would exit at the end of their shift, through which the money would be carried into the armored car, and George saw that what he was doing was dismantling the alarm system in there. Supposedly, if this door were to be opened while the ship was in motion, an alarm would ring up on the bridge; but not now.
Surprised, George thought, why, they’ve planned it all out.
Carlow pushed Noelle’s wheelchair into the elevator. The four other people in the car smiled at her, and she smiled wanly back, and the tiredness she showed was probably real. Carlow felt the same way; this was the longest night of all.
When the elevator doors opened, one level down, the other four people dispersed themselves into the restrooms, the couple who’d been waiting here boarded the elevator after a smile at wan Noelle and Carlow pushed the wheelchair over to the door that led to the stairs down to the money room. It was a discreet door, painted to blend with the wall around it. Carlow turned the wheelchair around to face out, then rapped the door once with his heel.
The door opened inward. Carlow heard the click, and immediately went down to one knee. He grasped the handle of the box beneath the seat and pulled out a very different box from the one in the other wheelchair. This one was deeper and wider and much longer, and contained no bowl, empty or full. Carlow slid the box backward, looking down, and saw Parker’s hand grab it. Carlow stood, and the door behind him clicked shut.
They stood there for three minutes. A few people passed, and all smiled at Noelle, but all kept going. Everybody was tired, and they knew she must be tired, too, so they left her alone.
A knock sounded on the door behind him. Two couples, yawning together, waited for the elevator. He watched them, and then the elevator came, empty this time, and they boarded, and its doors shut.
Then Carlow rapped the door with his heel again, and went to one knee, and the box was slid out to him. It was much heavier now, filled with white plastic bags. Carlow slid it into place, stood, pushed the wheelchair over to the elevator, boarded it the next time it arrived.
The money usually went into heavy canvas sacks to be carried off the ship, and the robbers had thoughtfully cut air holes into these sacks before putting them over everybody’s head, but had then made sure the airholes weren’t placed so the people could see through them.
What don’t they want us to see, George wondered. There was a faint smell inside the money sack, not of money, but of something like a cabin in the woods or a thatched hut. The smell made George fearful again of his ability to breathe, but he kept himself from giving way to panic, and he breathed slowly and steadily through his nose, and he told himself he was going to survive, he was going to survive.