"Don't let anyone get past us here, Jock," Erikson ordered. "Let's go, Earl."
"The tool kit," I reminded Erikson.
He looked at McLaren, who went back to the car and brought it to me. "Good luck," he said.
Erikson and I crossed the sidewalk. "Let's take the doorman up to the penthouse with us, since he doesn't know you," I suggested as we entered the lobby. "Otherwise he might call ahead and alert a welcoming committee."
"Good thinking," Erikson agreed.
The uniformed doorman was standing just inside the heavy revolving door. He nodded to me, but his gaze lingered on Karl. I stepped in close to him while shoving a hand into a jacket pocket. "No noise," I warned, nodding toward the penthouse elevator. "Get moving."
He stumbled a step backward, his eyes on my hand submerged in the pocket, then turned meekly and preceded us. I punched the single button when the bronze doors closed behind us. Nobody said anything. I could hear the doorman breathing.
The elevator doors opened, and I enjoyed the usually imperturbable Erikson's first goggle-eyed look at the sumptuous apartment. "Stay the hell out of the way now," I said to the doorman who looked as if he were trying to decide to have a fit or a chill. I opened the elevator fuse box and removed the fuse, anchoring the cab until we were ready to use it again.
I led the way across the highly polished black-and-white squares of the foyer to the steps leading down to the sunken living room. I could see that we were none too soon. The Moorish swords and armor were gone from the walls, and the antique vases had disappeared from the end tables. Someone was packing the Turk's belongings for a final departure.
The arrival of the elevator must have triggered a signal somewhere in the apartment, because Abdel appeared in the farther bedroom doorway with a puzzled look on his flat features. He had a pile of folded clothing over one arm. The giant did a double take at the sight of me, dropping the clothing. He moved toward us swiftly, his slippered feet making no sound in the deep-pile carpeting.
"Don't shoot," Erikson said to me as I reached across my chest. He moved in between Abdel and me. "Get started on the safe."
I drew the.38 anyway. I'd seen Erikson in action before, but I'd also seen Abdel. Felt him, rather. The two men collided in the center of the room like two bull moose. Abdel's arms enveloped Erikson in a bear hug as the giant tried to wrestle the smaller man off his feet. Erikson's shoulders bunched and writhed, and Abdel staggered backward with an incredulous look on his dark face, his hold broken.
I set down the tool case in order to be ready to use the.38 immediately, if necessary. Erikson pursued Abdel closely, though, and his right arm moved sideways and slightly upward in an arc like a man hurling a discus. The bladed edge of Erikson's palm thudded mightily into Abdel at the joining of neck and shoulder. I saw the whites as the giant's eyes rolled upward. He tottered, remained upright for an instant, then plunged forward on his face. The windows rattled when he landed.
"The safe," Erikson repeated to me impatiently without another glance at the unconscious Abdel. I reholstered the.38, picked up the tool case, walked to the picture in front of the safe, and swung it up and down twice as I'd seen Bayak do.
I studied the face of the safe when it came into view. I'd been hoping for a box made from welded sheets of pressed steel with asbestos packing, a type designed principally for fire protection. Instead, this safe had been machined from a solid block of steel and fitted with a circular door. Protection was not an idle word with this kind of safe.
"How about it?" Erikson asked at my elbow.
"Better tie up Abdel," I told him. "This is going to take awhile."
"You haven't much time," he warned, but walked into one of the bedrooms. He came out in a moment tearing a sheet into strips. He knelt down and began expertly binding the still motionless Abdel while I went into the liquor storage closet adjoining the safe. I did some measuring there, and then made a ballpoint-pen outline on the wall as I visualized the side of the safe just beyond it.
Erikson joined me. "McLaren brought you the acetylene torch, you know," he said. "Can't you burn off the front?"
"Not this kind of box. These solid steel varieties are machined so well that heat jams them beyond repair. And there's another reason. I know the safe is booby trapped from having watched Bayak work the picture. Presumably I've disarmed it by doing the same thing that he did, but if the booby-trap device is sophisticated enough, there could be another trigger inside to be activated if the front of the safe is tampered with. It's a lot safer to go through the side of it."
Erikson looked at his watch significantly, and I unrolled the leather tool case and began laying out equipment I knew I'd need. An experimental cut through wall plaster and lath with a powered skil-saw disclosed that I'd figured correctly about the safe's location. I enlarged the cut to expose the entire side of the safe plus its top.
"See those?" I said to Erikson who was standing beside me in the closet, brushing at the fine white particles of plaster floating about.
"Those" were two tanks atop the safe. I reached in carefully and disconnected the lever arm which would have activated them. The fingers of my hand came away covered with a bright purple dye when I removed my arm.
"A jet spray of purple dye would have covered anyone standing in front of the safe who managed to bypass the explosive device," I said. "The second tank is probably a flame thrower. The combination would make anyone who caught it in the kisser kind of stand out in a crowd."
Erikson didn't reply. I selected a powered grinding wheel, plugged it in, and went to work on the few thousandths of an inch thickness of case-hardened steel on the safe's exterior. When I had a bare spot, I fitted a special one-eighth-inch drill into a bit and braced my arms and shoulders as steel shrieked against steel.
It was hot work, and perspiration ran down my face. I ran the drill alternately in long and short bursts to prevent its overheating. It broke through finally, and I reversed it to get it out. I replaced it with a drill an inch in diameter and went to work again. It went more easily with the pilot hole already established.
When the second drill punched through and I withdrew it, I took a long-handled dentist's mirror and a penlight from the tool case. I inserted the dentist's mirror through the hole and then beamed the light from it, angling the mirror so that I had a good look at the safe's interior. I wanted no unpleasant surprises.
I could see nothing but loosely stacked papers and-in the rear of the safe-packets of wrapped money. I found a pair of medical forceps in a pocket of the tool case and went to work extracting documents. The forceps brought the papers to the edge of the hole, and my other hand folded and crumpled them enough to pull them through. Erikson snatched them from my hand as fast as I could produce them.
"I need more light," his voice said impatiently from behind me. I turned in time to see him carry a double handful of letters and official-looking documents from the liquor storage closet to the living room.
I went to work with the forceps again. I maneuvered a wrapped packet of money nearer the front of the safe with the forceps, broke the strap, then forced green bills through the hole in the safe a few at a time. I worked fast, not stopping to count or even to stack. I pulled bills through and let go, pulled bills through and let go. The floor at my feet and then my shoes were covered with money. This time there was going to be a payoff on a job I did for Erikson, and not only for Hazel.
When I couldn't reach any more money packets, I scooped up the money on the floor and stashed it behind a wine rack. I repacked the tool case, brushed the plaster dust off my trouser legs, and went out into the living room. Erikson was reading and discarding papers and documents with increasing haste, glancing at his watch almost with each discard.