“Pretty nearly. Actually, I made it as small as possible to do what we want it to do.”
“And what’s that, Mr. Stacey?” Joe came out with it at last.
“Travel by Air Freight to Atlanta with you inside it,” Stacey said.
Joe drew in his breath sharply. He wanted to ask Stacey why, but heard himself asking instead, “When?”
“Tomorrow. Flight three-nine-three at noon.”
“I hate to fly,” said Joe. “Mr. Carr didn’t say anything about flying.”
“It’s not really flying, Joe. Only forty-five minutes in the air. You’ll be back on the ground before you know it.”
Joe protested, “But in the cargo compartment, in a wooden case! How high do they fly?”
“Twenty-six thousand top. You don’t need to worry about that, though. You’ll have oxygen if you need it.” Stacey stood up and put a hand on Joe’s arm. “Come over and have a look at it,” he said, pulling the ex-jockey to his feet.
They stepped over to the packing case. One face of it didn’t seem to be nailed down yet, because Stacey pulled at it and it came open. At least a kind of vertical oblong trapdoor came open between the steel straps that reinforced the case from without.
Joe decided that the door must be hinged on the inside. Its edges coincided unnoticeably with the edges of the other boards. Both top and bottom edges were studded with what must have been false nailheads, to give the impression the case’s contents were securely boarded up.
Joe looked inside. A metal oxygen flask had been clamped securely to the wooden top of the case, and a tube, fitted with a mouthpiece, depended from the shut-off valve.
“See that?” Stacey said with an odd note of pride in his voice. “All the comforts of home. Go on inside, Joe. Try it. You won’t even be cramped.”
Joe stooped his head slightly to get through the false door and past the oxygen flask, stepped into the case and turned around and straightened to his normal height. Stacey was right. His hair barely brushed the top.
“Look at the hand grips!” Stacey said. “To hold yourself steady with, while they’re handling the case.”
Joe nodded and stepped out. He said, “All right, Mr. Stacey. I’ll probably do it, whatever it is. Mr. Carr said you’d pay me a lot. How much?”
Stacey hesitated. “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
Hadley clamped his lips tight together just in time to choke off a shout of amazement. Twenty-five thousand dollars for flying forty-five minutes in a packing box! It was an unbelievable price. It made Joe very curious. He sat down again, on his pile of two-by-fours, yawned and knuckled his eyes. “You got yourself a boy, Mr. Stacey,” he said, “no matter what you’re trying to do.”
“Good,” said Stacey. “Welcome aboard.” He didn’t offer to shake hands. Instead, he watched while Hadley smothered a yawn, then asked, “What the hell is it with you, Joe? Does the mention of twenty-five thousand dollars make you sleepy, for God’s sake?”
Joe smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I was up most of the night getting here, Mr. Stacey. I had to hitch-hike.”
Stacey stared at him. “Don’t you have a car?”
“No.”
“Couldn’t you come on the bus?”
“No money for fare,” Joe said, and flushed once more in embarrassment.
“Why didn’t you tell Carr that?”
“I didn’t like to,” Hadley said.
“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to catch up on your sleep tonight. The truck will pick up the case here about nine tomorrow morning for delivery to the air-freight office at the airport.” Stacey thought for a minute, then added, “You can bed down right here in the shop if you like. It won’t be too comfortable, but you’ll be handy to your traveling case.” He uttered a barking laugh.
“Okay,” said Joe, looking around him. “Are you a carpenter, or what do you do, Mr Stacey?”
“I’m a designer of shipping containers for delicate, odd-shaped, hard-to-crate products made by manufacturers around town.” Stacey lit a long thin cigar, puffed out acrid smoke, then jerked his head at the shipping carton in which Joe Hadley would fly to Atlanta. “Like, for instance, that computer component.” He laughed again.
Joe said, “Can you tell me what I’m supposed to do, Mr. Stacey, to earn that twenty-five thousand bucks? I know it’s got to be something more than just riding in the box.”
Stacey nodded. “You noticed the fake door in the shipping container can be fastened shut from the inside?”
“I saw the hooks and clamps.”
“That’s so you can get out of the crate while you’re in the cargo hold. Any idea why we want you to get out?”
“To steal something else being shipped in the same load?”
Stacey clapped his hands softly together, mockingly. “Bravo, Joe!”
“What am I supposed to steal?”
Stacey seemed to take pleasure in feeding Hadley information only in bits and pieces. He said, “That’s where the fourth member of our team comes in.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. He’s more important to the operation than the rest of us all put together.”
“Who is he?”
“Never mind. You’ll never meet him, so you don’t need to know.”
“Then what’s so important about him?”
“He set this whole caper up. He’s the one with the necessary information.”
“What information?” Joe was tiring of this cat-and-mouse game.
“The vital information about the package being shipped to Atlanta on the same plane with you.” Stacey blew a cloud of smoke, his fox eyes gleaming. “It’s a package of considerable value, Joe, containing precious property which is fortunately negotiable.” Stacey turned serious.
“We want you to crawl out of your packing case in the plane and steal that precious property, Joe, between here and Atlanta. The property is in a metal chest, double-locked. We want you to open the chest, transfer the property it contains to your own shipping crate, then close up the empty chest, crawl back into your crate and fasten the door on the inside.”
Joe nodded understanding. “Mr. Carr will arrive in a pick-up truck to collect you at the freight office of Hartsfield Airport soon after your plane lands tomorrow. He’ll drive your crate to a safe place, where you will emerge from it, transfer the valuable property to Mr. Carr and receive your twenty-five thousand dollars in cash on the spot. After which you will never, I trust, mention the incident to a soul, if you want to live long enough to get rid of your twenty-five thousand.”
Stacey said all this in a level didactic tone, keeping his fox-eyes fixed on Joe’s sleepy ones. Only the last sentence carried any suggestion of threat. But it was enough to send Hadley into another shivering spell, despite his weariness.
Stacey waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, Stacey asked, “Is that all clear? Any questions?” He sounded like a platoon leader briefing a patrol.
Joe said, “What’s the property?”
“Negotiable securities. As good as cash.”
“A lot of them?”
“Put it this way — enough to warrant paying you twenty-five thousand dollars to steal them.”
“How do I break into this double-locked metal chest?”
“You’ll be supplied with keys.”
“By the important member of our team?” Joe essayed a joking manner, but it didn’t come off.
Stacey nodded without smiling. “Any other questions?”
“I work in the dark?”
“There’s a flashlight in a clip behind the oxygen flask inside the crate.”
Hadley said, “It’s a hell of a risk, Mr. Stacey.”
“It is not. It’s a damn sure thing.”