‘Well, you know what I say,’ said the tall man. ‘Better late than never. Maybe we can set it up so they’ll take out Wol Pot for us.’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
BIRD
In Interpol’s highly classified files known as the Holy Ghost Entry and available only to those with first- and second-level clearance, the flier — he, she or them — was known simply by the code name Bird. The reports were deeply classified because none of the authorities in Europe or America wanted the press to get wind of the moniker. In particular, they didn’t want Bird — or the press — to know they had linked the Paris and Chicago jobs.
The Bird knew it anyway. He was flying at that very moment, seven feet above the floor of the French Impressionists room of the International Salon of Art.
Outside on Sixty-fourth Street life went on. Monday night: wives or husbands hurried home to their husbands or wives — from work, from their lovers, from a movie matinee, a business meeting or a quick drink on the way home.
The custodian of the Salon had left early, so the night watchman had cheated a little and locked up at five to six. In the last hour there had been only one customer, a strange fellow with a thick red beard, who was huddled in a bright yellow slicker. Apparently he had left the museum unnoticed. At least, that’s what the watchman thought.
But the Bird had not left. He had hidden himself in a hallway broom closet and waited while the watchman followed his usual procedure: he had locked up, turned on the alarms and electric eyes, punched out the digital combination that controlled the floor sensors, checked the eight screens that monitored each of the museum’s rooms. Then he sat down to watch Dan Rather and eat one of the two sandwiches his wife always prepared for him. Tonight it was his favorite, chicken salad wi.th a slice of pineapple dressed with hot mustard. He could get lost in chicken salad, pineapple and hot mustard.
The Bird waited until the watchman was just that, totally engrossed in his sandwich and the CBS News. He left the closet, walked ten feet down the hall to the small room containing the electric terminal boxes, and jumped the trigger switches for the window alarms and electric eyes. He ignored the floor sensor. It was too complex to bother with, and besides, it wouldn’t be a problem. He never went near the floor.
The Bird’s pulse raced as he made his way up to the roof. He loved the challenge. Working the air, he called it, and the tougher the job, the faster his pulse raced. The score didn’t matter nearly as much as doing it. He had stashed his kit on the roof two days earlier, presenting his forged fire inspector credentials to the day security man and then casually checking out the whole building without being disturbed. He had hidden his operating kit — a large black nylon bag filled with what he called ‘the necessities’ — inside the air-conditioning vent. This one was a cakewalk, almost too easy. Security was not that tough and the watchman would never suspect that the museum would be hit so soon after closing.
He pulled off the beard and slicker and stuffed them in the bag, blackened his face, then picked the lock on the skylight over the French Impressionists room. Attaching a large, aluminium vise to the sill, he threaded a thousand- pound-test nylon rope through the rings in the vise and the rings in his thick harness, and rappelled down.
Now he was flying seven feet above the floor, close to the south wall so the TV monitor could not see him, his lifeline attached to his waist. Using his head as a fulcrum, spinning around, sometimes hanging head down, sometimes feet down, the Bird was a living Peter Pan surrounded by Monets and Manets, Cassatts and Signacs, Gauguins, Van Goghs, Sisleys, Cezannes and Renoirs.
51
But as he swung in a leisurely arc, enjoying the wondrous works that covered the walls, his eyes suddenly fell on a bench in the center of the room. On the bench lay a cat.
The Bird froze. The ions in the air froze. Everything froze but the cat, who slept peacefully.
If that cat jumps, the Bird thought, the floor sensors will knock the old watchman into the middle of Canarsie. He swung on the end of his line for several seconds watching the cat, a big gray-striped feline. He had to move slowly and quietly and hope he did not wake it up.
The Bird slowly moved his head back and forth, swinging himself until he could almost touch the wall. He reached into his kit, took out two pressure clamps, then swung against the wall and quietly fixed the two suction cups to it, using them to stabilize himself.
He used a small pressure wrench to pry open each of the frames, lifted a Monet, a Cezanne and a Renoir and slid them out, carefully covered each with a sheet of tissue, rolled them tightly, and put them in the tube slung over his shoulder, which he strapped tightly to his back so it would not swing free. He released the suction cups and swung back in the air, free of the wall, his head hanging down toward the floor.
The cat rolled over on its back, stretched, opened its eyes and stared up at the biggest bird it had ever seen in its life.
