Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 (19 page)

 
          
The
next time they saw one another, they both started talking at the same time. Tom
opened the door and ushered the secretary into Eastpoole’s office, and Joe
snapped around from where he was glaring at the television screens, trying to
find out where everybody was.

 
          
Tom
said, “
There’s cops
out—”

 
          
Joe
said, “Where the hell—”

 
          
They
both stopped. There was so much tension in the air they could both have thrown
themselves on the floor and started screaming and kicking and thrashing around.

 
          
Joe
gestured at the phone on Eastpoole’s desk. “I tried to call you,” he said, “I
saw them come in.”

 
          
Tom
had shut the door behind him. Now he walked across toward Joe and the desk and
Eastpoole, saying, “I almost walked right into them. What are they doing?”
“Security for the astronauts.”

 
          
Tom
made a face. “Christ,” he said. Then, suddenly remembering, he said, “The
astronauts! We don’t want to miss the end of the parade!”

           
Joe turned and hurried to the window
and looked out. The paper snow was about two blocks away, approaching slowly.
He turned back to the room, saying, “We’re all right.”

 
          
“Good,”
Tom said. He took a blue plastic laundry bag out of his left rear trouser
pocket. It was all folded up small, into something about the size and shape of
a pack of cigarettes. He shook it open, and it opened out into a good-sized
laundry bag; big enough to put a couple of sheets in, plus a regular wash.

 
          
Meantime
Joe had walked over to the other area of the room, behind the white
latticework. There was a door there, next to the bar. He pushed it open,
reached in to switch on the light, and found a small but complete bathroom in
there. Just as it had shown on the blueprints filed downtown. Sink, toilet,
shower stall. It all looked very expensive, including the fact that the
hot-and-cold- water faucets were in the shape of golden geese; the water would
come out of their open mouths, and you’d turn their flared-back wings.

 
          
Tom
turned to the secretary, holding open the laundry bag. “Dump them in here,” he
said.

 
          
As
she dumped the bonds into the bag, Joe came back from his inspection of the
bathroom and said to Eastpoole, “Okay, you. Get up from there.”

 
          
Eastpoole
knew enough now to be obedient right away, but he was still terrified. Rising,
he said, “Where are you—7”

 
          
“Don’t
worry,” Joe told him. “You were a good boy, you’ll be okay. We just got to lock
you up while we get out of here.”

 
          
Tom
threw the bag over his shoulder. He looked like a thin blue Santa Claus with a
blue bag over his shoulder.

 
          
Joe
wiggled his finger at the secretary. “You, too, honey,” he said. “Come along.”

 
          
Joe
led them to the bathroom,
then
had them precede him
into the room. He took handcuffs out of his left hip pocket and said to
Eastpoole, “Give me your right hand.”

 
          
Tom
waited in the main part of the office. He didn’t think they could see
him
now, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

 
          
Joe
put the cuff on Eastpoole’s right wrist,
then
told
him, “Kneel down. Right here by the sink.” When Eastpoole did it, looking both
frightened and confused, Joe turned to the secretary and said, “You too. Kneel
right next to him.”

 
          
After
the girl had knelt, Joe crouched down with them and pushed Eastpoole’s right
arm so he could pass the handcuffs around behind the run-off pipe under the sink.
Then he took the secretary’s left forearm and held it back to where he could
hook the other cuff onto her. The position he had to get to, in order to do it,
all their heads were close together, like a football huddle. Their breaths
mingled, and Joe found himself squinting as he put the cuffs on, as though
there were bright lights on both sides of his face. Eastpoole and the secretary
both kept their eyes down, looking toward the floor; kneeling there with eyes
lowered, they looked like penitents.

 
          
Joe
straightened, and nodded in satisfaction. They wouldn’t be leaving this room,
not without help. “You’ll be getting out in a few minutes,” he told them. “I’ll
leave the light on.”

 
          
They
watched him now, neither of them saying anything. Eastpoole didn’t even say
they wouldn’t be getting away with it.

 
          
Joe
went out the door, and paused with his hand on the knob. “Don’t bother
yelling,” he said. “The only ones that’ll hear you
is
us, and we won’t come help.”

 
          
Tom,
across the room, standing near Eastpoole’s desk, watched Joe in the bathroom
doorway, and waited for him to come out and shut the door. When he finally did,
Tom turned the laundry bag upside down, grabbed it by the bottom, and shook the
bonds out onto the desk.

 
          
Joe
came hurrying across the room. “They’re closed in,” he said.

 
          
“I
know.” Tom was looking at the television screens, and there was nothing unusual
showing on any of them.

 
          
“There’s
no keyhole,” Joe said, “so they won’t be able to see what we’re doing.”

 
          
“They
better not,” Tom said. “How’s the parade?”

 
          
“I’ll
take a look.”

 
          
This
was the part they’d argued about, while planning things. It had been Tom’s idea
to do it this way, and Joe hadn’t liked it for a long while. In fact, it still
troubled him now, but he did finally agree with Tom that it was the best way to
handle things.

 
          
Joe
headed for the window to look at the parade, and Tom picked up a thin stack of
bonds; about ten of them. The top one was plainly marked “Pay
To
Bearer,” and the amount of it was seventy-five thousand
dollars. Tom gave the number a happy smile of welcome, shifted the grip of his
two hands on the papers, and ripped them down the middle.

 
          
Joe
was at the window. He looked out and to the right. He saw the parade, but he
also saw a cop at another window on this floor. The cop was glancing in this
direction, and when he saw Joe he waved. Joe nodded and waved back, and brought
his head back in.

 
          
Tom
was ripping the bonds into smaller and smaller pieces, working quickly but
efficiently. Joe came over to the desk, gave the stack of paper a regretful
look, and said, “Less than a block away.”

 
          
“Help
me with this.”

 
          
“Sure.”

 
          
Joe
picked up a dozen bonds and gazed at them. “This one’s for a hundred grand,” he
said.

 
          
“Come
on, Joe.”

 
          
“Right.”
Smiling sadly, shaking his head, he started to rip
up the bonds.

 
          
Outside,
the parade noises were getting louder; mostly the crowd noises, nearly blotting
out the sounds of the bands. Turning his head for a fast look at the windows,
Tom saw bits of paper already starting to flutter down. And less than a quarter
of the bonds had been ripped up so far.

 
          
The
two of them stood there, ripping paper. Shouting and yelling from down below.
Then, in a different broken rhythm, a foot started thudding against the
bathroom door.

 
          
They
looked at one another. Tom said, “Will it pop open?”

 
          
“Christ.”

 
          
Joe
dropped the paper in his hands and ran down to the other end of the office.
Eastpoole was kicking steadily and strongly at the door; apparently with the
flat bottom of his shoe, sole and heel together. The door itself seemed solid
enough to hold against that, but the catch could pop at any time and the door
swing open.

 
          
What
Joe would have liked mostly would have been to open the door and start doing
some kicking
himself
; but there was a chance Eastpoole
and the girl would Be able to see through the latticework what Tom was doing.
And the point of all this was that everybody
think
the
crooks had gotten away with the bonds.

           
Joe looked around, grabbed one of
the chairs away from the dining room table, and propped the back of it under
the doorknob. He kicked the rear legs to jam them more firmly into the carpet,
then stood back and watched. Inside, Eastpoole was still kicking at the door,
but there wasn’t even a tremor showing around the knob or the chair.

 
          
Tom
was still ripping paper, back by Eastpoole’s desk. Joe trotted over and said,
“Fixed. It won’t open now.”

 
          
“Good.”

 
          
There
was a mound of ripped paper on the desk, all little irregular pieces no more
than an inch square. Joe grabbed a double handful, carried it over to the
window, and leaned his head out slightly first to see if the other cop was
still visible down to the right He was, but he was turned the other way,
watching the roofline across the street

 
          
Down
below, through thousands of descending specks of paper, Joe could see the three
convertibles in a row, each one with an astronaut sitting up on the back,
waving and smiling. The lead car wasn’t quite opposite this building yet, and
they were all moving very slowly, no more than three miles an hour. The air was
full of cheers and paper.

 
          
Joe
grinned, and tossed his handful of ripped-up bonds out the window. The mass
went out like a snowball, and disintegrated at once, all the pieces mixing with
the rest of the torrent of paper coming down.

 
          
Tom’s
thumbs and wrists were getting sore. The bonds had been printed on heavy paper,
and he’d been tearing them up as quickly as he could, the stacks as thick as he
could manage. Now he took a break, grabbing up a handful of shreds and turning
toward the window.

 
          
Joe
was coming back. “Be careful leaning out,” he said. “There’s a cop down the row
to the right.
Waved at me.”

 
          
“I’ll
be careful.”

 
          
Tom
tossed the paper out without showing himself, or trying to see the cop at the
other window. When he turned back, Joe was picking up more paper. Tom hurried
over, saying, “No, not that.
Smaller pieces, smaller.
They aren’t ready yet”

 
          
Joe
nodded at the window. “They’re going by, Tom. The cars are going by right now.”

 
          
“Small,
Joe,” Tom said. “So nothing shows.” He pushed a little stack of paper together.
“Take this.”

 
          
Joe
gave an irritable impatient shrug, gathered up the stack Tom had made, and
carried it over to the window. Tom went back to ripping, and when Joe came to
the desk again he also started shredding the bonds that were still left.

 
          
For
the next minute or so the two of them stood side by side at the desk, tearing
the last of the bonds into tiny remnants. Then they threw them all out, double
handfuls fluttering down through the paper-filled air, disappearing. The three
convertibles had all gone by, were all in the next block by now, but there was
still enough paper coming down from all the buildings in this block so that Tom
and Joe’s contribution didn’t show.