After half an hour I pulled on the rubber gloves, climbed out of the car, and picked the front door lock. It turned all right, but unfortunately the prudent householders had also used bolts. Always a toss up which door of the house people bolted. I walked round to the rear, and let myself in. There was a telephone on a table in the hall. I walked over to it, then turned, retraced my steps, left the door ajar, went round to the car, started up, and drove quietly away in the dead end direction, not stopping until I was off the metalled road on to the gravel, and round a couple of bends. I switched off the light and smoked a cigarette.
Another half hour passed. No lights went on along by the houses; no police sirens, no disturbances at all. I drove gently back, parked in the same spot as before, went round into the house, and called up Walt.
He wasn’t amused at being woken at 5 AM.
‘A slight change of timing,’ I said apologetically. ‘The police have already seen the mess.’
He drew in a sharp breath. ‘They didn’t catch you!’
‘No.’ No point in telling him how close it had been: he hadn’t approved of my going in at all.
‘I suppose you want me to come now, then?’ he said, with resignation.
‘Yes, please. As soon as you can. Leave the car keys at the inquiry desk at Los Angeles airport, and I’ll pick them up. The helicopter pilot I’ve engaged at Las Vegas is Michael King. He’s expecting you. Just ask for him. The helicopter radio will pick up the frequency of the bug I’ve got with me, so you won’t need to bring my recorder. Was there anything on the tape today?’
‘Yesterday,’ Walt corrected. ‘Not much. I went over after dinner last night and ran it through. Offen had a friend over. There was two hours of just ordinary yapping. I didn’t get back here to bed until one.’
‘When this is over you can sleep for a fortnight.’
‘Yeah?’ he said sarcastically. ‘Tell it to the marines.’
He put down his receiver with less of a crash than usual. Smiling, I took out a five dollar bill and left it stuck half under the telephone. Then I let myself out, relocked the door behind me, and went back to the car.
Three hours uneventfully went by. Night changed to day. The air temperature began its morning climb. A few energetic birds sang: and I smoked another cigarette.
Soon after eight a patrol car went up the road, siren fortissimo. Pittsville Boulevard woke up. I eased out of the car, walked carefully down towards the road, and tucked myself invisibly between a palm and a bush, from where I had a clear view of everyone driving up towards the Clives’.
From along the road I could hear several excited voices, most of them children’s: and a small boy and a girl came past close to me doing an Indianapolis on their tricycles.
Several cars drove down from the houses, all with men alone, going in to Las Vegas. One woman followed. Three women came the other way, all looking eager. At nine-thirty two men drove in from Vegas, one of them adjusting a large folding camera: the local press.
An hour later a quiet-engined helicopter drifted over and landed out of sight behind a fold of hill.
At ten-fifty the hawk came to the lure.
A sky blue convertible Ford, with the hood down. Matt, driving fast, hunched with anger. Youth, strength, and fury, knotted into one callous personality. Even in a speeding car the impression came across with the solidity of a shockwave. Standing on his brakes flamboyantly late, he screeched down from sixty to nil outside his own house, scattering children like pigeons.
Satisfied, I got stiffly to my feet and went back up the drive to the car. There I removed from the boot the white overalls, white cotton gloves and a cap, and put them on, along with a pair of sunglasses. With a screwdriver from the tool kit I opened the tin of paint and gave the oily yellow contents an encouraging stir; cleaned and replaced the screwdriver, and rested the paint lid gently back on the tin. Then, picking it up by its handle with my right hand, and carrying brushes and ladders with my left, I strolled out on to the road, and along to the Clives’.
Matt’s Ford stood at the door at a crooked angle to the patrol car. A good many people were still standing around, staring and gossiping in the sun. I meandered slowly through them and took a closer look at the blue convertible, and then withdrew discreetly to the edge of the proceedings.
Taking the bug out of my pocket, I talked to Walt, hoping he could hear. He couldn’t answer: it was strictly one way traffic on the midget transmitter.
‘Do you read me, Walt? This is Gene. Our young friend came in his own car, not a hired one or a taxi. His name is on the registration. Pale blue new Ford convertible, at present with the top down. Grey upholstery. Nevada plates, number 3711–42. I’ll do the paint if I possibly can, though he may deal with it, of course; and I’ll put this bug in the car. When he starts up, you’ll hear him. Good luck. And for God’s sake don’t lose him.’
Indirectly, vaguely, I again approached the car. No one took any notice. I was merely one of the time-passing onlookers, a workman who wasn’t working. Several of the children and some of their mothers had seen the state of the well-floured rooms, and thought it a dreadful shame. I leaned my ladder against the rear wing of the blue convertible, put the brushes and paint pot down casually on the flat surface of the boot, and mopped not too imaginary sweat off my face and neck.
Some of the blinds in the Clives’ house had been raised, so that in places one could see into the house. No one was looking out. I stretched a hand over the side of the car with the bug in my palm, and felt its sucker cling snugly under the glove shelf.
Still no faces at the windows.
I said to the nearest little boy, ‘Someone told me the intruder got in through the pantry window, round that corner.’
‘No kidding?’ he said, his eyes wide.
‘Sure thing.’
He told his mother. They went to look. Nearly everyone followed them, especially as someone nudged the press photographer, who said he would take a picture.
I took a last comprehensive look at the windows, turned to walk away, and with a quick backward flip of a gloved hand, tipped over the can of paint. The lid came off. The can rolled slowly across the flat top of the boot and clanked heavily to the ground. The result was a bright broad spreading pool of yellow on blue, and a proper lake on the gravel.
I was out on the road when the first child saw it and ran after me.
‘Your paint’s tipped over, mister.’
‘Yeah, I know. Don’t touch it. Don’t let anyone touch it, huh? I’m just going to fetch the stuff to get it off.’
He nodded importantly and ran back, and I made it safely along to the hired car, and drove away in peace towards Las Vegas, taking off the useful cap and gloves as I went. Back at the motel I showered, changed, packed, and paid my account; drove to the airport and returned the car to the Hertz agent: kept a very wary eye open in case Matt Clive had decided to travel by air; ate a much needed sandwich, and caught the first plane out to Los Angeles.
When I collected the car keys at the inquiry desk, there was a note from Walt as well.
You’re one great crazy guy. And don’t think I don’t realize what you risked. If you’re reading this, I guess you’ve made it, and aren’t behind bars. My pal in the CIA told me you could be relied on to do mad things, and boy, he was right. What do you use for nerves? Count me strictly out, next time.
Surprised, and not ungrateful that he should have bothered, I slipped his letter into my pocket and drove into the city to look for a good place for tape recorders. I managed in the end to hire for one week an elaborate recorder which would play at the ultra slow fifteen-sixteenths of an inch per second, the speed of my own, and with it sitting on the passenger seat beside me, pointed my nose towards Orpheus Farm, Los Caillos. Then I removed the full reel from the radio recorder and fixed it up with another: no one appeared to have disturbed it in its bush and boulder hiding place, and as far as I could tell, no one saw me come and go.