‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Carella said. ‘Thanks a lot, Maloney.’
* * * *
He had told Charlie Henkins that his name was Dennis Dove, and had asked him to make it ‘Den’ for short. Charlie didn’t realize it, but the words den dove were Swedish. In Swedish the word den meant ‘the,’ but dove was not a white bird of peace. The word wasn’t even pronounced the way it was in English. In Swedish dove meant ‘deaf man.’ Den Hove, then, was the Deaf Man.
‘The thing I still don’t understand,’ Charlie said, ‘is why you want to do it on Christmas Eve. I mean, the situation is exactly the same on any night. The money’ll be there in the vault any night we pick.’
‘Yes, but that’s when I want to do it,’ the Deaf Man said.
Charlie scratched his head. He was not a particularly bright human being, but then again most armed robbers weren’t. The Deaf Man had chosen him because he knew how to use a gun and was not afraid to use it. Charlie had, in fact, served a great deal of time at Castleview Prison upstate precisely because he’d used a gun while holding up a liquor store. The owner of the store was now confined to a wheelchair for life, a minor detail that disturbed Charlie not in the least. The way Charlie figured it, he’d had to burn the owner of the store because the man was reaching for his own gun under the counter. Charlie hadn’t considered the fact that two cops in a cruising police car up the street would hear the shots and would, within the next three minutes, have Charlie in handcuffs. Those were the breaks. He who hesitates is lost, dog eat dog, and easy come, easy go. Charlie knew all the proverbs and tricks of the trade, and he had learned a few more of them while serving his time upstate. Everybody learned a few tricks in the slammer. The Deaf Man figured Charlie was perfect for the job he’d planned. Charlie had twinkling blue eyes and a little round pot belly.
‘What I usually like to do on Christmas Eve,’ Charlie said, ‘is I like to watch television. They do a lot of specials on Christmas Eve. Last Christmas Eve I watched Perry Como on television. He used to be a barber, you know? My cousin Andy used to be a barber, too, before he got into doing burglaries. Not that Perry Como does burglaries.’
‘You’ll be home by seven-thirty,’ the Deaf Man said. ‘You can watch television all night long, if you like.’
‘I go in at a quarter to seven, huh?’ Charlie said.
‘Into the vault at a quarter to seven,’ the Deaf Man said.
‘Yeah, sure, that’s what I meant.’ He scratched his head again. ‘You sure Lizzie gave you the right numbers?’
‘Positive.’
‘The combinations, I mean.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean. The numbers are absolutely correct.’
‘And there’s this little push-button pad on the outer door, right?’ Charlie said.
‘Yes. Set in a panel to the right of the door.’
‘Steel door, huh?’
‘Steel.’
‘And another door after that one.’
‘Yes, with another pad and a second set of numbers.’
‘And inside there’s the safe with still more numbers.’
‘Yes.’
‘Think it was fuckin’ Fort Knox they got there.’ Charlie said.
‘Not quite,’ the Deaf Man said, and smiled.
‘Still. Three sets of fuckin’ numbers.’
‘Don’t worry about the numbers,’ the Deaf Man said. ‘You’ll have them memorized long before you actually use them.’
‘Yeah,’ Charlie said.
‘Before we’re through, you’ll know those numbers the way you know your own name.’
‘Well, yeah,’ Charlie said.
‘Does that bother you? Learning the numbers?’
‘No, no, I just don’t want anything to go wrong, that’s all.’
‘Nothing’ll go wrong if we’re prepared for the eventuality of something going wrong. It’s possible, of course, that you’ll forget those combinations even after we’ve gone over them a thousand times. But it’s not probable.’
‘I don’t even know what that means, probable,’ Charlie said.
‘A possibility is something that is capable of happening or being true without contradicting proven facts, laws, or circumstances. A probability, on the other hand, is something that is likely to happen or to be true. To put it in simpler terms...’
‘Yeah, please,’ Charlie said.
‘It is possible that our Christmas Eve adventure may go terribly awry, in which case we will both spend a good deal of time behind bars. It is probable, however, that all will go as planned, and we’ll come out of it richer by half a million dollars.’
‘Which we split three ways, right?’ Charlie said. ‘You, me, and Lizzie.’
‘Three ways, yes,’ the Deaf Man said.
Charlie nodded, but he looked troubled. ‘Just two broads inside the vault there, huh?’ he said.
‘Just the cashier and her assistant, yes.’
‘And you want me to take care of both of them, huh?’
‘Immediately. As soon as you’re in the vault.’
‘Well, that’s the easy part, taking care of them,’ Charlie said.
‘What’s the hard part?’ the Deaf Man asked.
‘Well ... learning the combinations, I guess. There’s eighteen numbers to learn, you know. Six on each of those pads.’
‘You’ll learn them, don’t worry. You mustn’t think of them as a single set of eighteen numbers. ‘They’ll be easier to remember if you think of them as three separate sets of six numbers each.’
‘Yeah,’ Charlie said.
‘Three separate and distinct combinations.’
’Yeah.’
‘In fact,’ the Deaf Man said, smiling, ‘combinations are a good way of differing between possibility and probability.’
Charlie looked at him blankly.
‘Let’s start with something simple,’ the Deaf Man said. ‘Take two numbers. How many possible ways are there of arranging those two numbers?’
‘Two?’ Charlie asked uncertainly.
‘Exactly. If the numbers are, for example, one and two, you can either arrange them as one-two or two-one. There are no other possibilities capable of being true without contradicting proven facts, laws, or circumstances. Now let’s add another number. The number three. We now have three numbers. One, two, and three. How many possible ways can we arrange those three numbers?’
‘Easy,’ Charlie said. ‘Three ways.’
‘Wrong. They can be arranged in six different ways. Here,’ he said, and picked up a pencil and moved a pad into place on the table. Writing swiftly, he listed the six possible combinations of the numbers one, two, and three: