relaxed, and all he did after all was say, 'You jerks won't get away with this.'
'Then it would be even sillier for you to get killed over it,' Grofield said. 'Walk on out to the truck, Trig.'
Trig went. He walked slowly, to show he wasn't being pushed around.
Grofield turned his attention back to Walter. 'The three outside,' he said. 'Hal and Pete and Andy. Will they be coming to the stockroom?'
'To get more goods to bring out front, yes.'
'Fine. Come along with me, Walter.'
Hughes stayed back in the first room, by the door. Grofield and Walter went into the stockroom, a long high-ceilinged area piled high with boxes and cartons, some of the stacks reaching up eight or nine feet and forming aisles in between.
There were double swinging doors leading out to the store, with a small window at eye level in each. Grofield peered through one of these, saw the store brightly lit but none of the clerks visible, and turned back to look at the storeroom and set the scene.
'Walter,' he said, after a minute, 'you sit over there on those bags of dog food. Go ahead.'
Walter went over, puzzled but obedient, and sat down. He was now about eight feet from the swinging doors, and clearly visible to anyone who'd come through there. He was a bit to the left of the doors, toward the other room, where Hughes was waiting.
Grofield nodded, satisfied, and went to stand against the wall to the right of the doors. 'Now, Walter,' he said, 'as each of them comes in, I want you to say his name, and then say, 'There's a problem. We have to do what these people say' Got it?'
Walter repeated what Grofield had said.
'Good,' Grofield said. 'But with the name in front of it. If it was Andy, for instance – you'd say, 'Andy, there's a problem. We have to do what these people say.' See what I mean?'
' 'Andy, there's a problem. We have to do what these people say.''
It was just like blocking out a scene on stage, really, and using local amateur talent. No different, and no more difficult. 'That's fine, Walter,' Grofield said. Always praise your local amateur talent. 'Now let's relax. You can smoke if you want.'
'I don't smoke. I gave it up.'
'Smart. I did, too. Why shorten our lives, right, Walter?'
Walter gave a pale smile.
They had to wait three minutes before any of the clerks came back, pushing their stock carts through the swinging doors, but then it went like clockwork. The one called Pete came through first. Walter gave him the line, Pete took in the hood and the machine gun, and Grofield sent him over to the farther door, where Hughes picked him up – like a bucket brigade, it was – and sent him on to the truck. There, Barnes kept an eye on him while Tebelman lashed him and stashed him with the rest.
Andy came through a minute after Pete, and followed the same assembly line. But then five minutes went by, and finally Grofield said, 'Walter, I'm afraid you're going to have to call Hal in here. Just get up and push one of those doors open and call him to come in. Then go back and sit down, and we'll do it just like we did with the other two.'
Walter obeyed, and a minute later Hal joined the bucket brigade.
'And now you, Walter,' Grofield said. 'I want to thank you for your cooperation.'
'I didn't want any of the boys working for me to get hurt,' Walter said. He was apparently trying out the line he would use tomorrow when he explained to his bosses why he didn't get himself killed keeping the store from being robbed.
'That was best,' Grofield said. 'Go on over there now.'
Walter went through the assembly line, Grofield and then Hughes following him. Grofield left the machine gun leaning against the wall just inside the building, and while Barnes watched Tebelman tie and blindfold Walter, Grofield and Hughes took the ropes off that were holding the plywood against the end of the truck. They picked the plywood up and carried it down the length of the truck and out through the rear entrance, having to tilt it at a diagonal to get it through.
The door into the stockroom was an even tighter squeeze. They couldn't get it through at all at first. Grofield said, 'This is the one part we didn't case ahead of time.'
'How could we?' Hughes asked. He sounded irritable. 'Hold on a second. Hold the plywood.'
One edge rested on the floor. Grofield held the plywood vertical while Hughes took a screwdriver from his hip pocket and took the door off. That gave them the extra inch they needed, and they slid the plywood through, listening to it scrape at top and bottom.
Barnes and Tebelman joined them. They had closed the rear doors of the truck and shut the overhead door leading to the loading platform. Tebelman was carrying Grofield's machine gun and four aprons.
In the stockroom, they took off their hoods and jackets and donned the aprons. They were all wearing white shirts, and now they were supermarket clerks. Grofield this evening had sideburns and a bushy mustache, and had done a light makeup job on his nose and on the flesh under his eyes. He didn't want to be on stage some night, in his other profession, and have a member of the audience suddenly jump up and shout, 'You were one of the robbers at the Food King Supermarket in Belleville, Illinois!' Aside from anything else, it would beat hell out of his timing. And characterization.
There was much less trouble getting the plywood through the double swinging doors. Grofield,
