There was no sign of Harry. One of the elevators opened and a fat lady walked out; Harry was concealed behind her. Phillip felt annoyed at his partner's slight lateness when he saw him walking closely behind the fat dowager, luminent in paste, phony diamonds. Harry had a slight devil's smile. Then they caught each other's eye. There was a moment when Phillip smiled too. He thought Harry looked good, freshly awakened, dressed in the usual Burberry and crepe-sole shoes. They joined and went out the revolving door and into a black Dodge sedan.
Harry shifted into first, took a package from his coat and handed it to Phillip.
Phillip opened a bottle containing large, clear capsules, raised it to his nose and smelled. Then he took a butcher-like package and unwrapped it, exposing a chunk of raw meat, a little larger than a man's fist. Opening a small knife, Phillip repeatedly plunged the blade into the meat. Then he inserted six or seven of the capsules deep into the cuts. Pinching the openings closed, he rewrapped the meat.
Harry watched him out of the side of his eye. "It looks like that gives you a pleasure of its own."
Phillip said nothing. He put the package back into one of his coat pockets.
"I thought you despised violence?"
"I never said I was against violence," Phillip continued with his penetrating half-artificial smile. "Only unnecessary violence."
Their car moved slowly along the road toward Beacon Hill. Harry slowed to a stop opposite a twelve-foot stone wall. The wall was thinly vined, making strange shadows, giving it a foreboding aspect.
They left the car and walked across the street to the wall. Phillip took a small gadget from his pocket, and squeezed it erratically. It was a child's toy cricket. With the other hand he held the steel tube in his mouth and blew, silently, alternating with the cricket. There was a distant ominous growl, then barking. At a quick nod from Phillip, Harry sped away.
Phillip continued blowing the dog whistle and working the toy cricket. The barking became louder. He unwrapped the package and threw it to the howling animal.
Harry arrived at the outside corner of the medieval style wall. Then deftly, like a seasoned artist, he fitted a small grapple-like hook on the end of a tight coil of thin rope. He heard the furious barking of the dog.
What if it was a wolf and not a dog? In his imagination he saw Phillip torn to pieces by a slobbering wolf.
The barking stopped, utter silence again. Harry came out of his fantasy reflecting, "How the fuck did Phillip get naked anyhow?"
He tossed the hook over the far top of the wall to test the ropes tautness. He was unnerved by his lapse into the unconscious, something he hadn't allowed himself to do since he was a kid. "I hope it isn't an omen, Harry old boy," he said to himself more out of superstition than intuition. "But you never know. You never know."
He grabbed the rope tenaciously and pulled himself up and over.
Freeing the hook as he dropped to the ground, Harry faced a huge sweep of moonlit lawn. He had a sudden desire to masturbate under the huge yellow moon. To make another circle of luminosity on the smooth, close-cropped greenness of the lawn. In his mind's eye he saw himself a lone slender figure, his shadow behind him as he pulled on his penis, rubbing it not frantically, but assuredly. He would turn his head slightly and watch his shadow, like watching someone else jerk off. He would get hotter and hotter that way.
What a macabre idea! Here we are in the midst of the biggest hit yet, and I'm having wet dreams again. It must be the full moon, or my past is catching up with me.
He raced desperately across the lawn, as though running from himself and the thousand dark shadows in his brain. He disappeared around the back of the mansion. Phillip emerged swiftly from the darkness. They moved without noise together, like Indians stalking enemies. Now and then Harry would squeeze Phillip's arm almost passionately. Phillip did not understand this.
They moved toward a particular window. Phillip put the glass cutter to his mouth, and quickly passed his hand over the pane. He scored the glass with two swift, even, eight-inch diagonal strokes. He covered each score-mark with strips of adhesive tape. The sharp end of his cutter loosened the putty in each corner. Prying back slightly, the glass snapped. The diagonals fell out without a sound, hanging by the tape.
The gardener's cottage had a light on, but it was a night light. They were sure of this. However, they were not able to function with absolute impunity. Phillip reached through the broken pane and turned a knob in the wired copper alarm-box. Harry saw the door to the gardener's cottage open and a flood of light fell on the lawn.
When Phillip gently raised the window for expert entry, the gardener's head and shoulders showed in the doorway. They jumped through the window, sunk to the floor and looked over the window sill.
The gardener peered into the darkness, shrugged his shoulders, and closed the door.
Harry was holding a hooded flashlight. They were at the end of a long hallway. Phillip removed a whalebone collar-stay from his shirt.
With it he jiggled the lock of a large, arch-shaped door. Harry swept his flashlight around the room revealing a large library, book lined except for the outside wall, which was heavily draped with a dense vermilion velour. Taking opposite sides of the room, they started to look over and behind the shelves for the safe. Phillip ran his hand systematically along the upper inside corner of the shelves, from waist height to the shelf above his head, while Harry pulled books out in bunches, throwing them on the floor.
Phillip said suddenly, "Here, over here!"
Harry held the flashlight while Phillip reached under a high shelf and pushed a button. "Turn on the main switch, Harry, we need current."
Harry's mind was a blank now, deep in coordination. He threw on the lights. No movement in the gardener's cottage — he'd better be sleeping. The light was blinding for them; when they could focus, they saw an entire section the bookcase swing out. Phillip motioned to Harry to kill the lights as soon as he saw the panel he wanted.
Phillip pushed the panel back and exposed the safe. It was recessed in the wall about six inches. He rubbed his fingers together and began to spin the dial knob.
Harry parted the curtains slightly and looked out at the distant light of the cottage. Phillip's head was as close as it could possible be to the safe, he turned the dial slowly from right to left, pausing here and there.
He was perspiring heavily from the concentration. Harry moved nervously away from the window, lit a cigarette, and said softly, "Open thy portals." Phillip's hands and fingers were contorting with the insistence of a magician bent on amusing his audience.
Harry swallowed the smoke of his cigarette instead of exhaling it.
He did this unconsciously until he began to cough, then he spit the butt onto the carpet and ground it in. A faint ugly burning smell remained.
"OK Phillip! Let's bust it."
Phillip spun the dial impatiently. "Impossible. It's too heavy."
Harry grabbed his drill and pushed Phillip aside. Phillip was shocked at his aggressiveness. He picked up a crowbar and handed it to Harry.
"Use this, not the drill."
Harry took the small crowbar and worked furiously. The bar kept slipping out. On the floor about him were several tools, including a short sledgehammer lying near the smashed dial-knob. The steel punch was broken half off, protruding from the dial-hole of the safe. Harry was obsessed with the crowbar, nothing else appealed to him. He was banging it feverishly when Phillip put his hand on his shoulder hard.
"It's no good Harry. It's too far recessed; it would have to be blown."
After a pause, Harry stood up abruptly. His head lowered, he breathed like a man chased by a mad animal. Phillip spoke this time with authoritative decisiveness, "Come on, forget it. I'm sorry, but it's a bungled job."