I looked out the window again. The astronauts would be the wind-up of the parade, and that’s where the stream of ticker tape was coming down. It was closer, but still blocks away. But it wouldn’t take forever.
I looked back at the screens again. The girl in the vault was still picking through the file drawer. “Come on,” I whispered, too low for Eastpoole to hear me. “Come on, come on.”
But she kept doing it. The stack on the other drawer was getting pretty thick now, but she still wasn’t finished.
We’d wanted too much, that was all. We should have settled for half of that. Five million, that would get us half a million each. Five hundred thousand dollars, who needs more than that? It’s nearly forty years of my salary. We’d been greedy, that’s what, and it was taking too long.
Come on, bitch, come on!
Movement. I looked at the screen on the top right, the reception area. An elevator door had opened there, and three uniformed patrolmen were coming out of it, moving toward the two guards behind the counter.
I slapped a hand down on Eastpoole’s shoulder. He’d seen it, too, he was tensing up like fast-drying concrete. My throat was so dry my voice came out like steel wool. I said, “What’s going on?”
The three cops stopped at the counter, one of them talked to the guards. A guard turned toward the telephone.
I squeezed Eastpoole’s shoulder, clamping down on it. “What’s going on?”
“I d-don’t know.” I could feel him trembling under my hand, the concrete was breaking up. He was frightened for his life, and he had a right to be. “I swear I don’t know,” he said, and sat there trembling.
The guard was dialing. On the vault screen, that stinking bitch was still picking out papers, one at a time. All the other screens were fine.
The phone rang, on Eastpoole’s desk. Eastpoole stared at it. His head was twitching.
So was mine. I fought the goddam holster, I got my pistol into my hand. “By God,” I said, “you’re a dead man.” And I meant it. I thought we were both dead men, and if I was, Eastpoole was.
Eastpoole lifted his hands. He stared at the telephone. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He really and truly didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.
I kicked the chair out of the way that I’d dragged around behind the desk before. It went over on its side with a crash, and Eastpoole jumped. I crouched down beside him, so I’d be able to listen on the phone and still watch the television screens. I pushed the pistol barrel against Eastpoole’s side. “Answer it,” I said. “And be goddam careful.”
He had to take a couple of seconds to get some control, so he’d be able to move and talk. I let him have the time he needed, and then he reached out and picked up the phone and said, “Yes?”
I could only make out about half the words the guard said to him. But it didn’t seem as though there was any tension in the voice, or any sense of excitement out there in the reception area.
On the other hand, if they were here because they knew what was going on, they’d know we could see them on television, wouldn’t they?
But how would they know? There hadn’t been any breakdowns, there wasn’t any reason for anything to go wrong.
Eastpoole said into the phone, “But do they have to—? Well, one moment. One moment.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece, and turned to talk to me. “They’re here to check security for the astronauts,” he said.
I kept watching the screen. I said, “What do they want?”
“Just to station themselves at windows.”
We didn’t want cops in here. What the hell was the matter with them, why didn’t they pick some other floor? Why didn’t they go on the roof, for Christ’s sake, that’s where your snipers come from. “God damn it,” I said. I felt like blowing up into a million pieces. “God damn it.”
“I’m not responsible,” Eastpoole yammered, “I didn’t know they—”
“Shut up, shut up.” I was trying to think, trying to decide what to do. He couldn’t refuse, that wouldn’t look right. “Listen,” I said. “They can do it, but not in this office. Tell them that.”
He nodded, fast and nervous. “Yes,” he said, and into the phone he said, “Go right ahead, tell them it’s all right. One of you escort them in. But I don’t want any of them in here. Not in my office.”
I could read the guard’s lips on that one, see him say, “Yes, sir.” Eastpoole hung up, and so did the guard. The guard turned back to the three cops, said something to them, and then walked around the end of the counter to lead them in.
I looked at the vault screen, and the girl was finally finished. Carrying a double armful of papers like a schoolgirl with her books, she pushed the two drawers shut and turned toward the door.
I jabbed Eastpoole with the pistol again. “Call the vault!” I told him. “I want to talk to that girl.”
“There’s no phone in the—”
“The anteroom! The anteroom! For Christ’s sake, call!”
He reached for the phone. The girl was out of sight of the vault camera now. On the anteroom camera, I saw her come through the doorway. The stack of papers in her arms was maybe three inches thick, as thick as two ordinary books, but of course stacked somewhat looser. There were maybe a hundred and fifty sheets of paper there.
Eastpoole was dialing a three-digit number. The guard in the anteroom turned his head when the girl walked in, saw the stack of paper she was carrying, and jumped to his feet to open the hall door for her.
I kept jabbing Eastpoole in the side with the gun. “Hurry it up!” I said. “Hurry it up!”
The guard and the girl were both moving toward the camera, they’d be out of sight under it in a second. “Come on,” I said. I wanted to shoot everything in sight; Eastpoole, the television screens, the astronauts out in the street. The goddam drums were pounding away down there as though I didn’t have enough pounding from my heart.
“It’s ringing,” Eastpoole said, still terrified, still trying to show me he was cooperating. And just before the guard disappeared out of sight, I saw him look back over his shoulder toward the phone on his desk.
But he was polite, he was. Ladies first. He went on, he disappeared. The girl disappeared.
“It’s ringing,” Eastpoole said again, and from the sound of his voice and the look on his face I thought he was about to cry.
The guard appeared again, alone moving toward the desk and the telephone. I reached over and slapped my free hand down on the phone cradle, breaking the connection. On the screen, the guard picked up the receiver. He could be seen saying hello into it, being confused.
Eastpoole was jabbering, he was going to shake himself right out of his chair. Staring at me, he was saying, “I tried! I tried! I did everything you said, I tried!”
“Shut up shut up shut up!” The other cops were long since gone from the reception area. Tom and the girl would be walking through all those offices, Tom having no idea about the three cops.
Eastpoole was panting like a dog. The six screens were all normal. I stared at them, and bit my upper lip, and finally I said, “A phone on their route.” I looked at Eastpoole. “What’s their route back?”
He just stared at me.
“Damn you, what’s their route?”
“I’m trying to think!”
“Anything goes wrong,” I told him, shaking the pistol in his face, “God damn it, anything goes wrong, you’re the first one dead.”
Shakily he reached for the phone.