“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant zipped into the chair, then looked attentively toward Wallah.
The captain said, “You got all that so far?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Go ahead, buh —”
Wallah raised an eyebrow and one side of his mustache. “Hello?”
“Nothing,” the captain said grumpily. “Go ahead.”
“Not much more to tell. It has the usual wiring in it, to be attached to regular commercial power company lines. It has baseboard electric heating. The bathroom fixtures feed out through the bottom of the unit and are adaptable to local plumbing codes. Roamerica delivered the unit to the site, connected up all power lines, water lines, sewage lines, burglar alarm lines, removed the wheels, leveled the —”
“Removed the wheels?” The captain’s left eye was completely shut now, maybe for good.
“Sure,” Wallah said. “It’s standard procedure if you’re going to —”
“Are you telling me that goddam trailer didn’t have any wheels?”
“Mobile home. And natu —”
“Trailer!” the captain yelled. “Trailer, trailer goddam trailer! And if it didn’t have any goddam wheels, how did they get it away from there?”
Nobody answered. The captain stood panting in the middle of the room, head hulked down between his shoulders, like the bull after the matador’s assistants have finished with him. His left eye was still closed, perhaps permanently, and his right eyelid was beginning to flutter.
Lieutenant Hepplewhite cleared his throat. Everybody jumped, as though a hand grenade had gone off, and they all stared at him. In a small voice he said. “Helicopter?”
They continued to look at him. Several slow seconds went by, and then the captain said, “Repeat that, Hepplewhite.”
“Helicopter, sir,” Lieutenant Hepplewhite said in the same small voice. And then, hesitant but hurrying, added, “I just thought maybe they had a helicopter and they might have come down and put ropes around it and —”
The captain glowered with his one good eye. “And take it off the Island,” he finished.
“Too heavy,” Wallah said. He opened his gray cloth plumber’s bag and took out a toy mobile home. “Here’s a scale model of the Remuda model,” he said. “Remember now, it’s fifty feet long. This one is pink and white; the stolen one is blue and white.”
“I see the color,” the captain growled. “You’re sure it’s too heavy?”
“No question.”
“I’ve got a question,” the captain said. Somehow he seemed to be holding the toy. Shifting it back and forth from hand to hand in some irritation, he said to Lieutenant Hepplewhite, “Phone the Army base. Find out if a helicopter could do the job.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get in touch with some of the men on the scene. Have them wake neighbors, find out if anybody heard a helicopter around there tonight.”
“Definitely too heavy,” Wallah said. “And too long and awkward. They just couldn’t do it.”
“We’ll find out,” the captain said. “Here, take this damn thing.”
Wallah took back the toy. “I thought you’d be interested,” he said.
“It’s the real one I’m interested in.”
“Exactly,” said the banker, Gelding.
Lieutenant Hepplewhite was murmuring on the phone. The captain said, “Now, if they didn’t take it by helicopter, the question is how did they take it? What about these wheels you took off, where would they be now?”
“Stored in our assembly plant in Brooklyn,” Wallah said.
“You’re sure they’re still there?”
“Nope.”
The captain gave him the full voltage of his one good eye. “You’re not sure they’re still there?”
“I haven’t checked. But those aren’t the only wheels in the world; they could have gotten wheels anywhere.”
Lieutenant Hepplewhite said, “Excuse me, Mr. Wallah.”
Wallah looked at him in amused surprise — probably at being called mister.
“The Army sergeant would like to talk to you.”
“Sure,” said Wallah. He took the phone from Hepplewhite, and they all watched him lift it to his face and say, “What’s happening, man?”
The captain turned resolutely away from the conversation, and while the lieutenant answered the other phone, which had suddenly started to ring, he said to Gelding, “Don’t you worry. It doesn’t matter how they did it, we’ll catch up with them. You can’t steal a whole bank and expect to get away with it.”
“I certainly hope not.”
“Sir?”
The captain turned a mistrustful eye on the lieutenant. “What now?”
“Sir, the bank had been resting on a foundation of concrete blocks. The officers on the scene have found tub caulking on top of the blocks.”
“Tub caulking on top of the blocks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And they decided to report that.”
The lieutenant blinked. He was still holding the phone. Next to him, Gary Wallah was in conversation on the other phone with the Army sergeant. “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said.
The captain nodded. He took a deep breath. “Tell them thank you,” he said in a soft voice and turned to Albert Docent, the safe-company man, who hadn’t as yet contributed anything. “Well, what good news do you have for me?” he said.
“They’ll have a hell of a time with that safe,” Docent said. Above the bow tie, his expression was clean-cut, dutiful and intelligent.
The captain’s left eye fluttered slightly, as though it might open. He nearly smiled. “Will they?” he said.
Gary Wallah said, “The sergeant wants to talk to one of you people.” He was offering the phone indiscriminately to both Captain Deemer and Lieutenant Hepplewhite.
“You take it, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Once again, they all watched and listened as Hepplewhite spoke with the sergeant. His part of the conversation was mostly “Uh huh” and “Is that right?” but his audience kept watching and listening anyway. Finally he finished and hung up and said, “It couldn’t be done by helicopter.”
The captain said, “They’re sure? Positive?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” said the captain. “Then they’re still on the Island, just like I said.” He turned back to Docent, the safe man. “You were saying?”
“I was saying,” Docent said, “that they’ll find that safe a tough nut to crack. It’s one of the most modern safes we make, with the latest advances in heat-resistant and shock-resistant metals. These are advances that come from research connected with the Vietnam war. It’s one of the ironic benefits of that unhappy —”
“Oh, wow,” said Gary Wallah.
Docent turned to him, firm but fair. “All I’m saying,” he said, “is that research has been stimulated into some —”
“Oh, wow. I mean, wow.”
“I’ve heard all your arguments, and I can’t say I entirely disagree with —”
“Wow, man.”
“At this time,” George Gelding said, standing at attention and looking very red-faced, “when some person or persons unknown have stolen a branch of the Capitalists’ and Immigrants’ Trust, and our brave boys are dying on far-flung battlefields to protect the rights of likes of you who —”
“Oh, wow.”
“Now, there’s much to be said on both sides, but the point —”
“I see those flaaaaag draped coffins, I hear the loved ones in their cottages and on the farms of America —”
“Like, really, wow.”
Captain Deemer glowered at them all through the remaining slit of his right eye. A bellowed shut up might attract their attention — all three were talking at the same time now — but did he want them to shut up? If they stopped arguing with one another, they’d just start talking to the captain again, and he wasn’t sure he wanted that.