Lemons Never Lie

22 22 22 22 22 22 22.

Grofield thought, I must be crazy. What the hell am I stamping the prices on these things for?

But he couldn't help it. He couldn't knowingly do a bad job; stamp the wrong price on each can, put the canned goods on the wrong shelves, put them up with no prices stamped on them at all. He had found the spot where Hal had been working, and had simply continued where Hal had left off. Spaghetti sauce. Twenty-two cents. Therefore: 22 22 22 22 22 22 22.

Light flickered at the perimeter of his vision. He turned his head and saw headlights sweeping across the parking lot out in front of the store. He was in the middle of the middle aisle, standing there next to the stock cart, the price stamper in his hand, the purple inkpad open in the stock cart's tray. The shelves on both sides of him – what did they call them? gondolas? – they were higher than his head, but the aisle itself was rather wide and had a pale cream vinyl tile floor. He felt both exposed and hemmed in, that he could be seen but he couldn't see, and it was difficult not to turn his back on those headlights and the expanse of windows.

I am a stock clerk, he thought. I must stay in character. For a long while, he had tended to visualize dramatic situations around himself wherever he might be, as though he were in a movie – even though he would never actually consent to appear in a movie – complete with sound effects and soundtrack music and clichй storylines. He'd drifted out of that habit in the last couple of years, maybe since getting his own theater, but now he consciously did it again, bringing back the old habit for the sake of calming his nerves and helping himself stay in character.

A spy movie. The Russians are watching the embassy, of course, and are confident they'll track down the daring American spy before he manages to turn over the information. What they don't know is that the spy has had a liaison of a romantic nature – ski lodge, fireplace, snow heavy on the roof, a wolf howling in the distance – with the embassy cook, a charming girl who is now his willing slave. And every day she comes to this market for fresh flounder. Today, with the flounder, she will receive – the microfilm!

But the headlights are approaching across the deserted parking lot. Has the NKVD learned what he's up to? The American spy, secure in his disguise as a simple stock clerk, goes on pricing the cans of spaghetti sauce.

22 22 22 22 22 22 22.

10

Two feet up from the floor, the back of the safe had sprouted a hook. It was a large thick hook, on a round metal base pressed flat against the metal surface of the safe. Barnes was in the process of looping two fifteen-foot lengths of chain over the hook. There were padded handholds at each end of each chain.

Grofield said, 'You're sure that glue's gonna stick? I'd feel like a damn fool if we all of us started pulling and the hook popped off and we all fell on our butts.'

Barnes said, 'You ever see the demonstration where they glue a hook to the roof of a car, and then a crane picks up the car by the hook? Well, it's this glue. It's an industrial glue, pressure sensitive type, and there is no way on earth you could take that hook off that safe. You could get cars pulling in opposite directions, and the back of the safe would buckle outward before that hook would come off.'

'You know your business,' Grofield said.

'That's just what I do.'

Each of them took an end of chain, and they spread out backwards until the chains were taut. Barnes said, 'We give pressure together, when I say heave.'

Everybody got set, leaning backward, feet apart, both hands wrapped around the padded grip.

'Heave!'

It didn't move. Grofield pulled, feeling the muscles stretch in his shoulders, and nothing happened. They all relaxed again, looking at one another.

'Heave!'

Tebelman shouted, 'It moved that time! I felt it!'

'About a quarter inch,' Barnes said. He sounded disgusted. 'Come on, let's get that goddam thing out of there. Heave!'

Two inches.

'Heave!'

Each time, as more of the safe was on the smooth vinyl flooring and less remained on the rougher concrete flooring it had been standing on, it got a little easier, and they managed to pull it a little farther. When it was about halfway out they stopped for a three minute rest – working their shoulders and arms, walking around a little – and Grofield felt as stiff as though he'd been in a football game. Then they went back to it, and pulled the safe out the rest of the way, and for some reason when they were done pulling Grofield felt physically better than before, not worse.

The others seemed affected the same way. Maybe it was the sudden knowledge that the idea of the heist was going to work out. The painted safe-front was still in place, ready to fool anyone who would look in the window. The safe itself was back where it could be gotten at, out of sight of any window.

They had pulled it a good foot and a half away from the line of the partition, so Barnes would have enough room to work in. Now he picked up his toolkit, a long heavy metal box in dark green, and stepped through the space to stand in front of the safe and study it for a while. 'Fred,' he said, 'you stick around to help out. You other two guys better go show yourselves; that sheriff's car is gonna come through again pretty soon.'

'Right,' Grofield said, and he and Tebelman headed away from the safe.

Tebelman said, 'We might as well stick together. Two guys working the same aisle will look as natural as anything else.'

'Sure,' Grofield said. 'Come on along.'