Inside, there were two-by-fours in a vertical-horizontal network, plus electric cables, and backed by a wall of concrete block. While Mainzer went to work with a small saw, removing some of the two-by-fours, Parker and Carlow began chipping away at the cement between the concrete blocks.
This part took longer, but by three-thirty they had pulled out eleven blocks, leaving a hole five feet high and about two feet wide, unobstructed by either two-by-fours or electric cables. On the other side of the hole was a blank sheet of plywood.
It was cumbersome to get at the plywood, but they managed at last to drill a series of holes in it and then to get to work on it with the saw, and in half an hour they had the plywood taken out in four pieces and were looking at a blank gray French door.
This was one of the doors Parker had seen in the ballroom, behind the maroon plush curtain. Apparently, in the days before this building had been here, there had been some sort of balcony or terrace off the hotel’s ballroom, to which the French doors had led. When this building was erected the French doors were nailed shut on the inside, covered with sheets of plywood on the outside, and more or less forgotten.
Parker reached in with a screwdriver handle and tapped the door twice. Lempke was supposed to be on the other side, was to have been in the ballroom since three o’clock—over an hour now—to let them know when it was safe to make the final breakthrough.
Parker’s knock was almost immediately followed by three slow raps from the other side. That meant everything was safe. If other people had been around, or if for any reason Lempke had wanted them to wait, his answer would have been two fast taps.
Mainzer did most of the last part. The door had been nailed into its frame, and Mainzer now had to pry it loose, while standing crouched half in and half out of a hole five feet high with jagged edges of plywood all around its perimeter. Nails came out slowly, reluctantly, with shrill squeals, as Mainzer forced the door away from its frame an inch at a time. Mainzer had to stop and rest twice, but after the second time the door suddenly gave all at once, fell away from the frame, and leaned sagging against the maroon curtain on the other side.
Mainzer stepped back, grinning, pleased with himself; beads of perspiration on his forehead gleamed like quicksilver in the dim blue-white light. He made an after-you gesture at the hole, saying, “There you go, Parker.”
Carlow said, “We did a little bit, too, Otto.”
Mainzer turned to make a sharp answer, but Parker said, “Let’s see what it looks like on the other side.” He stepped between them, diverting them, and led the way through the hole, wrestling the door off to one side.
The nearest break in the drapes was a few feet to the right, being held open by Lempke, who was just a dim small silhouette in the darkness. As Parker came through, Lempke whispered, “Christ, you made noise in there. I been hearing you half an hour.”
“Anybody come by?”
“No, but they could’ve.”
Parker stepped out of the way, and Carlow came through, carrying a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. He said, “I left the kit “That’s good,” Parker said.
Carlow had looked at Mainzer in disgust, but hadn’t said anything. Now he got to his feet and said, “I’ll go now. See you Saturday, Parker.”
“Right.”
After Carlow had left, Mainzer said, “What is he, Parker, do you know?”
“What do you mean, what is he?”
“What kind of name is Carlow? Is it Jewish?”
Parker looked at him and didn’t say anything.
Mainzer spread his hands. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I’ll work with anybody. Just so they know their job, that’s all.”
“That’s the way to be,” Parker said.
“I was just wondering, that’s all.”
“Wonder next week.”
Mainzer laughed. “That’s what I’ll do,” he said. “See you Saturday.”
“Right.”
Mainzer left, and Parker waited a few more minutes and then followed him. He went down the stairs, and stopped off at the mezzanine to open the ballroom door and take a look inside. It looked the same as before, with nothing to show it had been breached.
PART THREE
One
TERRY ATKINS of Terry-Kerry Coin Company drove into Indianapolis from Chicago Thursday afternoon in his Pontiac station wagon and arrived at the Clayborn Hotel at about six-thirty. A short dark man of twenty-nine, he and his partner Kerry Christiansen had operated a dealership together for the last five years, clearing between eight and eleven thousand dollars a year apiece. Most of their business was mail order, supplemented almost every weekend by coin conventions such as this one, which they took turns attending.
Crossing the lobby on his way to the desk, Atkins saw three other dealers he knew, got into a brief conversation, and arranged to meet them all in the bar a little later. He went on to the desk, picked up his key, and took the stairs up to the mezzanine to register for the convention at the table that had been set up there by the local coin club. He got his convention badge, attached it to his lapel, and went back downstairs to arrange for a bellboy to bring his things up from the car, now in the basement garage. He had one small suitcase with clothing and such in it, and two large heavy coin cases, the contents of which had a current market value of around thirty-five thousand dollars. These went directly to the Lake Room on the mezzanine, now being used as the security room, where a blue-uniformed Pinkerton guard gave him a claim check which he tucked away in his wallet. He then stopped off at the West Room, down the hall, looking for a friend of his who was in charge of a display of military scrip that would be shown here, but the friend wasn’t around so he went on up to his room, showered, changed, and went down to meet the other dealers in the bar.
Thursday at these conventions was always slow and relaxed. The tables wouldn’t be set up until tomorrow, so there was very little business to be transacted, except in a desultory way among the dealers themselves. Mostly there was shop talk and drinking and intramural gossip. Atkins had dinner at a downtown restaurant with the other three dealers, made a tentative arrangement to sell one of them a pair of Mexican gold coins tomorrow, and bar-hopped around Indianapolis with them till midnight.
He was up at seven Friday morning, had a quick breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, made his mandatory call to his wife in Chicago, got his coin cases out of the security room, went to his assigned table in the bourse room—number 58, midway along the drape-covered rear wall—and set up his display, stopping from time to time to chat with convention acquaintances who wandered by. There were perhaps two hundred people in the world that he knew fairly well and had never seen anywhere other than at coin conventions; in no other way did they impinge on his private life nor he on theirs.
The bourse opened at ten, but was slow at first. During the morning there was barely a sprinkling of local hobbyists, window-shopping, renewing acquaintances, looking at what was available, but not doing much buying.
Atkins went to lunch at one o’clock with two other dealers. He draped a white cloth over his display table before going, secure in the knowledge that the Pinkerton men and the local coin club’s security detail and the dealers at the adjacent tables would among them see to it his table wasn’t rifled while he was gone.
In the afternoon he could have spent some time looking at the exhibits in the display rooms, or at the cost of a dollar and a half he could have joined a club-sponsored tour of the city to include the Indianapolis Speedway and its Museum, but a coin convention was primarily business to him, so he went back to the bourse and spent the afternoon sitting in a folding chair behind his assigned table.
Business grew gradually brisker during the afternoon, but there was still plenty of time for small talk with people who mm \ came wandering by. These included his friend who had the display of military scrip, and also a local coin dealer named Billy Lebatard. Atkins had no use for Lebatard socially, considering him a bore, but he was a somewhat important dealer, having been able on more than one occasion to fill a specific oddball order from one of Atkins’ customers. This time, with no specific business to transact, they chatted together somewhat hesitantly, and Atkins was pleased when they were interrupted by a teenage boy interested in half-cents from the eighteen-thirties.