Bigmouth put the car in gear and took off down the street. A few minutes later, we were on I-95. Heading east, toward Connecticut. I tapped on the back of his seat and raised both hands. What the hell, guys?
“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “Those rocks we stole are totally fake. They’re not even good cubic zirconium. They’re just junk. It took my experts here about three seconds to find that out, once they sobered up.”
Neither of them said anything. The one on my right shook his head slowly.
“It didn’t make any sense,” the Ox said. “This guy buys and sells real diamonds all the time. Why would he put a bunch of fake rocks in his safe?”
“So what we’re wondering is-” Bigmouth said.
“What I’m wondering,” the Ox cut him off, “like I told these numb-nuts today, is whether there’s another safe in the house. One that’s a lot harder to find, with the real diamonds in it. You see what I’m getting at?”
I had to think about that one for a few seconds. Then it all came together. The Ox was right. That safe was in such an obvious spot. The first place you’d look, way too easy to find. Then the fact that the safe was open, which of course these guys didn’t even know. Turn the handle and there it is… a perfect, beautiful little black velvet bag with-
God damn, how could I have not seen right through that? It was the perfect last line of defense. So perfect you could almost be forgiven for being so sloppy with everything else. Here they are, boys! A million dollars in diamonds! All yours! Don’t bump your heads on the way out!
“So we were figuring,” Bigmouth said, “if you don’t mind another little trip…”
“Our man can’t be back home yet,” the Ox said. “I mean, he’s away for the holidays, right? Who comes back home on New Year’s Day?”
I could hear the Ghost’s voice in my head. Walk away, hot shot. Just turn around and walk away.
Not that I could really do that at the moment, hurtling down the expressway.
But you can’t hit the same place twice, can you? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?
Or maybe this doesn’t even count. We really didn’t hit it at all yet, right?
That’s the line of bullshit I had running back and forth in my head, all the way back to that house in Connecticut. Some things you’ve got to learn the hard way.
We parked around by the back of the property, on the same playground. The house looked just as deserted today. I mean, the Ox was probably right about that. If the owner was gone yesterday, he’d probably be gone today, too.
Nobody stayed with the car this time. “We gotta find that second safe,” Bigmouth said. “We need all the eyes we’ve got.”
Another mistake, of course. This was no time to get sloppy. But I wasn’t going to start a fight over it. So all five of us went down along the tree line to the house. The same window was unlocked. The Ox pushed it open, and Bigmouth climbed inside. I went in next. I was assuming that somebody would stay outside to keep watch, at least. I mean, you can’t be that dumb, right? I guess I should have known better by then, but at that point I just wanted to find that second safe so we could get the real payoff and then get the hell out of there.
I knew I wouldn’t find it in the office. I went to the front of the house, then up the stairs. It was one of those houses with the sweeping staircase and the twelve-foot chandelier hanging over the foyer, but I didn’t have time to admire it. I went straight down the long hallway, looking into each room. Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, bathroom. Everything museum quality and looking like nobody had ever lived there. Finally, I got to what had to be the master suite. I went right to the walk-in closet, pushed the clothes aside, and looked carefully at each wall. I didn’t find anything.
When I came back out, I saw Bigmouth looking under the artwork, pulling each frame away from the wall and then letting it back in place. Something told me he wouldn’t find what he was looking for. Not that way. If your decoy is behind a painting, the real thing won’t be.
Bigmouth looked more and more frantic as he went through the room, eventually getting to the point where he was pulling the furniture away from the walls. When he got to the lady’s dressing table, he knocked over at least fifty bottles, nearly every one exploding when it hit the hardwood floor. A few seconds later, my nose was overwhelmed by several thousand dollars’ worth of high-class perfume.
“The fuck is this thing supposed to be?” he said. “If you were some kind of rich Jew bastard, where the fuck would you hide your safe?”
The more agitated he got, the more I felt totally calm. I shuffled through a few of the letters sitting on the desk. I picked up five or six of them and handed them to Bigmouth.
“What? What are these?”
I pointed to the name that appeared on every envelope. Robert A. Ward.
“His name is Ward. So what?”
The coin finally dropped in his head.
“Oh, what? So he’s not Jewish? Is that what you’re saying? Okay, excuse me, he’s not a rich Jewish bastard. He’s a fucking rich gentile bastard? Are you happy now? Are you gonna stop clowning around and help me find the fucking safe?”
I pointed to the bed. It was a king size, with a Persian rug underneath it. The only rug in the room.
“What? You think he hid the diamonds in his mattress? Are you trying to be funny again?”
I took one corner of the rug and waited for him to take the other. As we pulled, the rug and the bed on top of it both slid across the smooth hardwood floor. When we had pulled it as far as we could, I went around and looked at the floor we’d uncovered.
There it was. If it’s the most precious thing in the world to you, whether you think about it consciously or not, you want it right underneath you when you sleep.
There was a recessed handle in the floor, with an iron ring that fit inside like an old-fashioned trapdoor. I pulled up on the ring and opened it. The door to the safe was round and only about six inches in diameter. The way it was embedded so far under the floorboards… This is going to sound a little strange, but it actually made me feel claustrophobic. To this day, I still feel that a safe should stand free, so you can see the whole thing, run your hands along every inch of its skin.
I had to get down on the floor with my face as close to the safe as possible. Then I had to get my fingers on the dial. Instead of a turning handle, it had a simple knob that you’d pull up once you had the right combination dialed. I gave it a quick pull, but I knew this time around it wouldn’t be open.
“Do your magic,” Bigmouth said to me. “See if you can get this one open even faster, eh?”
Fat chance of that, friend. I started spinning the dial, parked all of the wheels, and then reversed. I picked up a wheel, then another, then another, then another.
Then one more.
Five wheels! I’d never even seen a safe with five wheels before. Meaning this wasn’t gonna be easy.
I felt for the contact area, parked the wheels on 0, and started doing my thing. Go back to contact, park at 3, back to contact.
Was that one already?
I went to 6. Damn, this was so hard. I felt like I was reaching down a well.
“How long you think this is gonna take?” Bigmouth said. Living up to his nickname yet again. “You about half done, ya think? A quarter done?”
I sat up for a moment, shaking out my hands.
“Is it open?” All excited now.
I shook my head, put both hands up, and shooed him away.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll be right over here. Quiet as a mouse.”
I wouldn’t bet on that, I thought, but I’ll do my best to pretend you’re not here.
I went back to the dial and kept working my way through. I could feel the contact area well enough, but it was so damned hard to tell when it was getting short on me. I had to keep my neck at an uncomfortable angle to get close enough, with most of my weight on my right arm. It kept falling asleep on me, so I had to keep stopping to shake it again.