Lemons Never Lie

'My God!' Grofield said. 'The brewery?'

'You know about it?'

'That's how I met him, too. Weeks and weeks ago. Is he still peddling that idea?'

'I didn't think that much of it,' the rat-voice said seriously. 'I'll tell you the truth about myself, I'm maybe not as experienced as you are. I don't want to go into my qualifications over the phone, you know, but in comparison with some of you people I'm like small potatoes. So I don't figure my attitude and my opinion count for very much. But I thought it was a little-'

Grofield let the silence go on for a reasonably long while, and then suggested, 'Reckless.'

'Yeah,' said the rat-voice, relieved. 'That's a good word. Reckless. That's why I figured I'd rather stay out of it.'

'But some of the others stayed in?'

'Sure.'

'Are they, uh, small potatoes, too?'

'Sure. All except Harry. And Myers.'

'And they've left Vegas by now, to go up there.'

'That's right.'

'When do they plan to do it, do you know?'

'Pretty soon. I don't know exactly for sure.'

'Well, thanks,' Grofield said. 'And you may not be very experienced, but you've got good instincts. That thing of his is a great one to stay away from.'

'I figured that way. You know the name of the town?'

'I know it,' Grofield said. 'Thanks again.'

'Any time.'

Grofield hung up, and sat for a second smiling at the phone. 'I know it,' he said. He'd forgotten all about the David Garrick biography. 'Monequois, New York,' he said, and got up from the bed, and started to dress.

1

It was raining in Monequois. Grofield sat hunched behind the wheel of his Chevy Nova and thought about warmth and sunlight. And Mary. And the theater. And money. And Myers. And that goddam brewery across the street.

With the windows rolled up, they steamed up. With them down, cold wet wind came in. Grofield compromised – opened the vent across the way on the passenger side. The seat was getting wet over there, the windows on that side of the car were clear of steam – but not of raindrops and running water – and the windshield and side windows over by Grofield were steamed up.

So was Grofield. This was Thursday, and he remembered from Myers' briefing back in Las Vegas weeks ago that Friday was payday around here. Which meant Myers was more than likely going to hit tomorrow, or have to put it off till next week. If he was really here.

And if he was really here, where the hell was he? You can look at photographs and maps and charts, that whole suitcase full of counterspy stuff he liked to tote around with him, only up to a certain point, and after that certain point what you had to do was go around and actually stand in front of the place you were going to rob and look at it. Sooner or later, you would have to look at it.

So where were they? Grofield used his sleeve to remove steam from the side window for the twentieth time, and looked across the cobblestone street at the high brick wall surrounding the brewery building. There was a gate across there, and two armed private guards in gray uniforms were on that gate, and they had the kind of conscientiousness that can only come from having a paranoid employer. They checked the identification of every vehicle driver and every pedestrian to go in or out of that gate over there – every one. In the rain. Including the drivers of their own goddam delivery trucks. In the rain.

It was a part of Myers' scheme that the gang would get through that gate in a fire engine, responding to an incendiary blast that Myers would have previously set somewhere inside the building. Myers was going on the assumption that the gate guards wouldn't check IDs on firemen responding to a fire, but now that he'd seen those gate guards in action Grofield wasn't so sure he was right. And even if he was, how about that previously set blaze? An incendiary bomb with a time mechanism was a simple thing to prepare and would be a simple thing to hide somewhere in the building the day before, but just how did Myers expect to get in there to hide it? He couldn't pull the fire engine stunt twice, that just wouldn't work. So he'd have to do something else. Besides which, he or some members of the gang he'd put together were going to have to come down here and look at this building, they just had to. So where were they?

In the rain, he almost missed them. If Harry Brock with a chauffeur's cap on hadn't stuck his head out of the driver's window of the Rolls Royce to say something to the gate guards Grofield wouldn't have seen him at all. A chauffeur-driven Rolls had rolled up the cobblestone street and turned at the gate. Grofield had noticed the chauffeur behind the wheel and the dim figure in the back and had taken it for granted he was looking at the paranoid who owned all this. But then, when the Rolls stopped rolling and Harry Brock stuck his head out in the rain with his chauffeur's cap on to say something to the guard, Grofield became suddenly alert.

So that was Myers in the back seat, was it? The bastard was bold, that was one thing you had to give him. Myers wasn't the type to grab a lunchbucket and try to slouch in past the guard like a workman; no, his style was to show up in a Rolls Royce.

Whatever the story Myers had to go with the Rolls, it was good enough to get him through. Grofield watched the guard and Harry Brock talk, watched the guard go into his office for a minute, and watched him come back out into the rain and wave Harry Brock through. And the Rolls disappeared inside.