Under the trailer, the four of them had taken out pencil flashlights and were looking around for the jacks. There was one jack folded up against the trailer bottom near each corner, and one man to each jack. They were held up there by clips screwed into place, but each man was also equipped with a screwdriver, and it didn’t take long to get the things unclipped, fold them down, and crank them till the bottom plates — which looked like duck feet — were placed firmly on the brick rubble underneath. All of this was being done in a space three feet high. It would have been easier if they could have moved around on their knees, but the brick rubble made that impossible, so they waddled around like ducks themselves, in tune with the appearance of the jack plates.
Once they had all whispered back and forth that they were ready, Dortmunder started a rhythmic slow counting, doing one turn on his jack crank with each number: “One … two … three … four …” Each of the others turned at the same rhythm, the idea being that the trailer would be lifted straight up, with no canting or angling that might inadvertently set off an alarm. For a long time, though, the trailer didn’t lift at all. Nothing happened except that the duck feet crunched deeper and deeper into the brick rubble.
Then, all at once, the bottom of the trailer went sprong! It was like an oven cooling and the metal side contracting. They all four of them stopped turning, and while Dortmunder and Victor froze, Herman and Kelp both lost their balance from astonishment and unexpectedly sat down hard on the rubble. “Ow,” whispered Kelp, and Herman whispered, “Damn.”
They waited half a minute, but nothing else happened, so Dortmunder said softly, “Okay, we’ll go on. Twenty-two … twenty-three … twenty-four …”
“It’s coming!” Victor whispered excitedly.
It was. All at once illumination from the corner streetlight made a thin crack between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the concrete block wall along the front.
“Twenty-five,” Dortmunder said. “Twenty-six … twenty-seven …”
They stopped at forty-two. There was now nearly two inches of air between trailer bottom and concrete block top.
“We’ll do the back wheels first,” Dortmunder said.
This was difficult. Not because it was complicated but because space was tight and the undercarriage was heavy. A broad metal strip was already mounted beneath the trailer at each end, to take the undercarriages. The strips contained bolt holes, but they hadn’t been able to judge ahead of time where to put the corresponding holes in the built-up under-carriages, so now they had first to position each undercarriage and mark the location of the bolt holes and then move the undercarriage — without ramming it too hard or too often into any of the jacks — and place it so Herman could make the holes with a battery-operated drill. Then they put the wheel assembly back against the metal strip, propped it up with extra rubble stuffed under the tires, and put on the bolts and washers and nuts, six bolts to each undercarriage.
It took an hour to get this far, and twice in that time the patrol car ambled by. But they were too busy to notice, and since they were using their flashlights sparingly and shielding the light as much as possible the police also remained unaware of them.
Finally they had the wheels on, and the ground beneath smoothed again, and now they went back to the jacks. When all four of them were ready, they started cranking back down, Dortmunder giving the count again, beginning with “one,” not “forty-two.”
There was no sprong on the way down, and the count ended at thirty-three. They clipped the jacks back into place and restored the screws, and then Dortmunder crawled out from under to check the relationship between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the concrete block wall. They had blown the tires up extra hard, figuring they could let a little air out in order to lower the trailer an inch or so if need be, but as it turned out they didn’t have to. The weight of the trailer was enough to use up practically all the leeway they’d left so that there was maybe half an inch at the lattice end of the front wall and practically no space at all down at the Kresge end, where the safe was. Maybe an eighth of an inch.
Dortmunder checked the back, and it was the same there, so he went down to the open end and called softly, “It’s okay. Come on out.” They’d been waiting in there to be told to let air out of this tire or that.
They came out, Herman carrying his black bag, and while Dortmunder and Victor hooked the lattice back in place Herman and Kelp went around front to finish the job. Herman had a tube of tub caulk, the rubbery stuff that squeezes out soft and never does entirely harden, and while he moved along the wall, squirting this into the crack between the trailer and the concrete blocks, Kelp followed him, smearing dirt onto the caulk to make it blend into the concrete. They did the same thing in the back and then joined the others, who were already in the truck. Murch, who had come out of the cab for the purpose, closed the doors behind them and trotted back up front to drive them away from there.
“Well,” Dortmunder said as they all switched on their pencil flashes so they could see one another, “I’d say we did a good night’s work.”
“By golly!” Victor said excitedly. His eyes sparkled in the light. “I can hardly wait till Thursday!”
16
Joe Mulligan stumbled on his way into the bank and turned to glare at the top step. This was the seventh consecutive Thursday he’d been on this job; you’d think by now he’d know the height of the steps.
“What’s the matter, Joe?”
It was Fenton, the senior man. He liked the boys to call him Chief, but none of them ever did. Also, even though they didn’t have to be on duty till eight-fifteen, Fenton was always on the job no later than eight o’clock, standing right by the door to see if any of the boys were going to be late. Still, he wasn’t such a bad old bird; if you did happen to be late any time, he might give you a word or two on the subject himself, but he wouldn’t ever report it to the office.
Mulligan tucked down his dark-blue uniform jacket, readjusted his holster on his right hip, and shook his head. “Getting stumble-footed in my old age,” he said.
“Now me, I feel like I got a spring in my step tonight,” Fenton said, grinning, and he rocked up onto the balls of his feet for a second to show what he meant.
“I’m glad for you,” Mulligan said. As for himself, he would be very pleased — as always on these Thursday nights — when it came around to nine o’clock and the last of the bank employees had gone home and he could sit down and relax. He’d spent a lifetime on his feet and believed there would never be a spring in his step again.
He had arrived tonight at eight-fourteen, according to the clock on the wall up behind the tellers. All the other guards were here already except Garfield, who tromped in a minute later — just under the wire — smoothing that Western-marshal mustache of his and looking around as if he hadn’t decided for sure whether to guard the bank or hold it up.
Mulligan had by this time taken up his usual Thursday evening post, against the wall near the pretty girl at the courtesy desk outside the counter. He’d always been partial to pretty girls. He was also partial to her chair and liked to be the nearest one to it.
The bank was still open and would be until eight-thirty, so for the next fifteen minutes it would be very crowded, what with its normal complement of employees and customers added to by the seven private guards, Mulligan and the other six. All seven wore the same police-officerlike uniform, with the triangular badge on the left shoulder reading Continental Detective Agency. Their shields, embossed with CDA and their number, were also police-like, and so were their gun belts and holsters and the.38-caliber Smith & Wesson Police Positive revolvers within them. Most of them, including Mulligan, had been police officers at one time and had no trouble looking natural in the uniform. Mulligan had been on the force in New York City for twelve years but hadn’t liked the way things were going and had spent the last nine years with Continental. Garfield had been an MP, and Fenton had spent twenty-five years as a cop in some city in Massachusetts, retired on half pay, and was working for Continental now as much to keep himself occupied as to augment his income.