Stan tried to lower the garage door carefully, but the springs groaned just as loudly as before. Apparently this time Pinter was in the kitchen and heard it, because as we picked up the metal framework and started past the U-Haul truck — me in front with my hands behind me — a floodlight over the garage door suddenly bathed us in a bright glare. A moment later we heard the back door open and a deep masculine voice called, “Who’s out there?”
We ducked out around behind the truck and heard the garage door springs groan again as the door was raised. Then there was a startled exclamation.
“Let’s split!” I whispered.
We took off with the framework at a loping run. We were across the street and a quarter of the way up the hill before the same voice roared from the entrance to the driveway, “Come back here, you thieves!”
All that did was increase our speed. He took out after us, but we had too much of a lead on him. He was only halfway up the hill when we heaved our prize onto the creeper in the back of the station wagon. Stan tossed the tire iron in after it, then scurried to the wheel. I slammed the lower part of the back door shut, leaving the upper part still raised, and ran to jump in next to him.
He had the engine started by the time I got in and took off without lights.
Spooky Lindeman’s junkyard was on the edge of Old Chinatown, in a district where there was nothing but small businesses. They were all closed at this time of night, but the main gate to the junkyard faced a street on which there was occasional traffic even this late at night. There was a rear gate giving onto an alley. As we drove into the alley I said, “Pull over as close to the gate as you can get.”
Cutting the lights, Stan parked within a foot of the gate. Within moments we had some company. Arab, the big German shepherd Spooky turns loose in the junkyard at night to devour burglars, came bounding over to the fence, showing his fangs and snarling.
Arab’s defect as a night watchman is that he remembers daytime visitors to the junkyard or he loves being called by name. When Stan said, “Shut up, Arab,” he instantly stopped snarling and began to wag his tail.
I got the tools from the car, put them in my pockets, and coiled the tow rope around my shoulder. Stan and I lifted the hi-fi innards and the creeper out onto the ground, closed the upper part of the rear door, and set the items back up onto the still-open lower half of the door. I climbed from there onto the car’s roof and Stan handed the metal framework and the creeper up to me.
As I set the framework down, I noted with gratification that Bert Pinter had put the screws in a plastic sandwich bag and taped the bag to the frame.
The top of the junkyard gate extended only about three feet above the roof of the car. As Stan was climbing up to join me I tied one end of the tow rope to the gate’s top bar and tossed the other end over inside the yard. Then I went over the fence and let myself down hand over hand.
The moment I reached the ground Arab put his oversized paws in the center of my chest and tried to lick my face. Pushing him away, I said, “Down, Arab!”
He got down but he continued to nudge my legs with his nose and wag his tail all the time Stan was handing me down the hi-fi innards and the creeper.
When Stan climbed down we set the metal framework on the creeper, picked up the creeper, and carried it past the jumble of wrecked automobiles, piles of pipe, and other junk to the building in the center of the junkyard. There was no point in trying to roll the creeper, the ground was so full of embedded stones and potholes.
What Spooky called the “warehouse” was a large square building of cinder blocks that housed his office and a storeroom for items that had to be kept out of the weather. We set the creeper down in front of the office door.
Both Stan and I were fairly good with simple locks, but people as distrustful as Spooky Lindeman don’t use simple locks. After examining the one on the office door we agreed there was no undetectable way we were going to be able to get into the building. I picked up a large rock and bashed out the glass panel in the door.
I tossed the rock off into the night. Since nothing was going to be missing from the warehouse — at least, nothing Spooky was aware had been there — it was likely he’d be more puzzled than suspicious of the broken window. I hoped he’d attribute it to a sonic boom.
Reaching through the glassless upper panel, I opened the door and we carried the creeper and its cargo inside. Arab tried to follow us but Stan shooed him outside and closed the door.
Stan located the light switch for the office, then opened the door to the storeroom off the office, found that switch, and turned it on. We carried the creeper in there and set it down. The huge room was lined with shelves loaded with everything from storage batteries to car radios. On the floor were hundreds of appliances, from toasters to color TVs.
Because Stan had helped Spooky carry it in, he knew exactly where the hi-fi cabinet was. As soon as he pointed it out, I knelt behind it and removed the back.
For some moments after I had taken the back off, Stan regarded the interior of the cabinet in silence. He was looking slightly sick. “That’s the first corpse I ever saw,” he said finally.
“Me too, I told him. “Shall we pull him out of there?”
There was another period of silence before he said, “I can’t touch him, Jerry.”
“He’s got to come out of there,” I said.
“You’ll have to do it alone,” he said in the same low voice. “I’m sorry. I can’t touch him.”
“Well, at least you can help me carry the creeper over here,” I said grumpily, and went over to where we had set it down.
We set the creeper down right behind the cabinet, lifted off the framework, and set it aside. I gripped the corpse by an arm and a leg and pulled.
He didn’t budge. He was stuck.
I continued to pull, but after a time I gave up and looked around for Stan. He wasn’t there. Then I saw him coming from a far corner of the room, carrying a four-foot crowbar.
“Try this,” he said, handing it to me.
I inserted the end of the crowbar beneath Mr. Stokeley’s neck and pushed it until it was wedged behind his left shoulder. When it was firmly in place, I put my foot against the end of the cabinet and drew back on the handle of the crowbar.
There was a popping sound and Mr. Stokeley skidded across the creeper to land on his side several feet beyond it. His position remained unchanged. His knees were still jammed against his chest and his toes were still pointed straight forward.
After staring at the corpse for a moment, Stan took the crowbar from me and carried it back to where he had found it. By the time he got back I had removed the small bag containing the screws from the metal framework. Together we lifted the framework into place. I screwed the four screws home, plugged in the wires, and screwed on the back.
“It ought to work,” I said. “Do you want to carry it into the office and try it?”
“No,” Stan said in a definite tone. “I prefer to have faith. Let’s get out of here.”
Replacing my tools in my pockets, I said, “O.K., but I can’t lift Mr. Stokeley all by myself. You’ll have to help me get him on the creeper.”
He shook his head. “I’m not touching him. ’
In a reasoning tone I said. “You’re going to have to help me carry him after he’s on the creeper even if I get him on there by myself.”
“Then I’ll only have to touch it, not him.
I gave in. Setting the creeper next to Mr. Stokeley’s back, I rolled him over onto it. He was stiff as a colonel s spine. He lay on his side on the creeper, still folded into a cramped capital N.