Robby pulled away from the curb, and they drove eastward out of the city.
The Cortina was there, parked at the curb just beyond the driveway. Frank was nowhere in sight. “Good,” said Kelly.
Robby drove the Mercedes up to the purple garage door and stopped. He and Kelly got out their guns — unloaded, but that was their secret — left the Mercedes, and walked back to the VW, which had stopped behind them. The driver and the second man had gotten out and were standing together beside the truck or bus or station wagon or whatever that kind of Volkswagen is. Kelly and Robby showed them their guns, and Kelly said, “Stick ’em up.”
The two men looked at the guns in patent disbelief, and failed to raise their hands.
Robby said, “Hande hoch. Elevette les mains. Manitas arriba. What language do you two speak, anyway?”
“English,” said the driver. “What’s going on?”
“Highjack,” Robby told him. “That’s English.”
The men looked at each other. The driver said, “It is?”
The purple door rolled up, and Frank came walking out to the sunlight, in blackface. Also in black hands. Also in a black wig.
Kelly looked at him and said, “You do Jolson once and we run the caper without you.”
Frank looked sad.
The two men looked at Frank, and one of them said something fast to him in dialect. Kelly said to Robby, “What did he say?”
Robby said, with a touch of irritation, “How do I know? I’m from Boston.”
“Why don’t you ask me?” Frank said. He used his own voice.
The two men still didn’t have their hands up. Kelly was getting mad. “Are you two going to put your hands up,” he demanded, “or are we going to have to shoot you down like dogs to teach you a lesson?”
The driver said, “Don’t you want the rug?”
“I’m going crazy,” Kelly said.
Robby said, patiently, “Listen, fellows. This is what’s going to happen. We’re going to steal your truck. You’re going to be—”
“Oh, no you’re not,” said the driver. “I have deliveries today. You’ll get me in trouble with—”
“Crazy,” Kelly said.
“You’re not going to get in trouble,” Robby said. “You’re going to be tied up and left in the garage there. We’ll let people know where you are this afternoon.”
“Tie us up?” said the second man. “What do you mean, tie us up?”
“Tie you up,” Robby explained, “as in tie you up. With rope. And gag you. Then we’re going to take your truck away—”
“For nefarious purposes,” put in Frank.
“But you people are American,” said the second man. “You don’t need our truck. Americans have all the money in the world. You don’t have to take our truck.”
“That’s right,” said the driver. “This truck is all we have, but you people have the Empire State Building, and Pan American Airlines, and—”
“And the New York Central Railroad,” said the second man. “And Wall Street.”
Kelly was getting mad. “You two put up your hands!” he shouted. “I’m sick of this! You just put up your hands, and do it this minute or you won’t get tied up at all!”
“Good,” said the second man. “I don’t want to get tied up.”
“I mean you’ll get shot,” Kelly said.
“You wouldn’t shoot us,” said the driver.
Kelly began to look wild-eyed. The hand with the gun in it started to tremble.
The driver said, “Wait a second.” He was becoming alarmed.
Frank, employing Randolph Scott, said, “Better hoist those hands, partners. When Baby Face Preble gets his dander up, they’s no stopping him.”
The driver, still a bit doubtful, raised his hands. The other man hesitated a few seconds longer, but then he shrugged and raised his hands too.
“Good,” said Kelly. He was breathing hard. “Now,” he said. “March into that garage.”
“You fellows can get in trouble for this,” the driver said.
“No more argument!” Kelly snapped. “Get in there!”
The driver shrugged. “All right,” he said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He and the second man walked on into the garage.
Frank said, “It’s on the second floor, all the way down the hall from the stairs.”
Robby said, “No elevator?”
Frank said, “It’s only two stories high, they don’t need an elevator.”
Robby said, “I was thinking about the rug.”
Kelly said, “What’s in the rooms around it?”
Frank said, “Men’s room past it, the only other thing before the end of the hall. Conference room this side, small, got a round table, half a dozen chairs. Big conference room and broom closet across the hall.”
Kelly said, “What’s the chance of people in those rooms?”
Frank said, “Men’s room, who can say? But none in the conference rooms.”
Kelly said, “How do you know?”
Frank said, “I remembered the numbers of those rooms. Twenty-five and twenty-eight. Downstairs by the desk there’s a notice board, says what meeting is where at what time. The smaller conference room has nothing scheduled all day, and the bigger one has nothing till three o’clock this afternoon.”
Kelly said, “All right. What about the projectionist? In the room with her?”
Frank said, “No. There’s two doors in there, almost right next to each other. They’re marked twenty-seven and twenty-seven A. Twenty-seven lets you into the screening room, twenty-seven A lets you into the projectionist’s booth. There’s a high step up just inside the door.”
Kelly said, “Any way from the projectionist’s booth into the screening room?”
Frank said, “No. Only out to the hall and in the next door.”
Kelly said, “How big’s the booth?”
Frank said, “Maybe five by eight. Really cramped. The two projectors are on the two sides, with the clear space in the middle. There’s a folding chair there, and a table top that lets down from the wall. When it’s down, two people in there wouldn’t be able to get past each other. Up above it there’s a sliding-door peephole into the screening room.”
Robby said, “What about the screening room? How big’s that?”
Frank said, “Regular room size. The screen’s a permanent fixture, against the wall opposite the door, over where the window would be if there was a window. There’s ten good-sized theater seats facing it, five on either side of a center aisle. They’re in two rows, two on each side in the front row, three on each side in back. They’re dark blue, with white plastic, and there’s spaces between them, and ashtrays built into the left arm. They’re wider than regular theater seats. And more comfortable. There’s wide space between the back row of seats and the wall of the projectionist’s booth. Covered with blue carpet.”
Robby said, “Wide enough for us?”
Frank said, “Guaranteed. Room to spare.”
Robby said, “Any side doors into the screening room? Any other way in besides the door from the hall?”
Frank said, “No, that’s it. Just the one entrance.”
Robby said, “They got to have a fire exit. You can’t run a theater with only one way out.”
Frank said, “This isn’t a theater, it’s a screening room. The most people they’re set up for is ten. They don’t need a lot of exits.”
Kelly said, “Besides, this isn’t New York City.”
Frank said, “I got a question of my own.”
Kelly said, “Ask it.”
Frank said, “What if she’s got a guest?”
Kelly said, “Like who?”
Frank said, “How do I know? Somebody she meets on the way into the hotel, some old friend. Or maybe the hotel manager, he wants to be alone in a dark room with Sassi Manoon.”