had driven the Renault inside the ambulance, where it fit snugly but did fit, and he was ready to leave for the stadium when the time came. And Kifka was driving the Buick to meet Rudd, to leave the Buick parked against the curb directly behind the truck, so that space would be sure to be available when it was needed.
The football game began at one-thirty, and the box offices closed at one-fifty. By five after two, as the second quarter was starting with Monequois ahead seven to three and Shelly was starting the ambulance engine and heading toward the stadium, the employees in the finance office were stacking the last of the gate receipts into the two suitcases. Parker checked with Negli, but the guards were still being good.
Two-fifteen. Monequois was ahead now ten to three, and Shelly was arriving in the ambulance at the stadium’s East Gate, where the patrolman waved him on through. Shelly, aseptic in white jacket and white shirt and white trousers, waved back and drove on into the stadium. A short cinder driveway led him around the corner of the end zone bleachers and out into the view of seventy-four thousand people.
As with most such stadiums, this one had been built for more spoils than football. A cinder track made a huge oval around the football field, for track events. Shelly drove slowly along this the length of the field, on the south side, and headed for the stadium building at the far end. On his left, thousands of people cheered and hollered and jumped up and down. On his right. Plainfield was finally on the march. Shelly fell a little self-conscious, but nobody was actually looking at him. There’s always an ambulance or two along the sidelines at a football game, but the fans don’t like to look at it or be reminded it’s there.
One hundred yards, still and all, had never been so long. Shelly honked for a girl cheerleader toting a huge megaphone to get the hell out of the way. She got, glaring at him. He passed a legitimate ambulance parked on the grass between the cinder track and the western end zone; the driver, lounging against the front fender, turned his head and waved languidly. Shelly waved back.
At the western end of the stadium, the cinder path ended and Shelly crossed a narrow patch of grass to a lane of blue-gray stones that led around to a blacktop parking area behind the building. Shelly drove around there and parked against the rear wall.
The parking lot was full of the cars of employees of the stadium and a few chartered buses from Plainfield. There was no one in sight; bus drivers and all, they were around on the other side of the building watching the game.
Upstairs, Parker went over to the window and looked out and saw Shelly down there. He motioned to him and turned back to help with the finishing up. The employees had to be tied and gagged like the guards and dragged into the storeroom. When that was done, Parker took the rope he’d brought in with him, tied one end to the radiator, and attached the other end to the two suitcases. Feccio helped him lower the two suitcases down to Shelly, who took them off the rope and slowed them away in the back of the Renault inside the ambulance. They lowered the machine guns next, and finally they came down the rope themselves, one at a time. Parker and Clinger trawled into the back of the ambulance and squeezed into the Renault. Feccio, still in his guard uniform, sat up front with Shelly in the cab of the ambulance, while Negli found enough room between the back of the Renault and the rear doors of the ambulance to be more or less comfortable.
It was now two twenty-five. Plainfield was on the Monequois eight-yard line, first and goal to go, three minutes and seventeen seconds left in the first half. Monequois was still leading ten to three. Plainfield had one chance to tie the score before the half. The seventy-four thousand fans present had never seen a more exciting ball game.
So it was just an added fillip when the ambulance came tearing around from behind the stadium building, red lights flashing and siren screaming, racing across the cinder track from one end of the field to the other while the Plainfield quarterback threw an incompleted pass into the end zone and cheerleaders scattered in all directions. The ambulance roared out through the East Gate, turned right, and shrieked away toward the city.
It went one block, and the siren stopped and the red lights clicked off.
Another block and the ambulance pulled to the curb. Feccio jumped out, ran around back, opened the rear doors, and helped Negli position the boards for Parker to back the Renault out. They were on a side street with no traffic and no pedestrians, but they didn’t care if they were seen or not. Neither of these vehicles mattered.
Feccio and Negli got back into the rear of the ambulance, shutting the doors after them. Shelly kicked the ambulance into motion again, turned left at the next corner, left again at the next, and drove for five minutes at high speed, rapidly leaving the city behind. He stopped at a roadside ice-cream stand, closed for the season, behind which Feccio and Negli had stashed their car. They abandoned the ambulance there, and Feccio and Negli drove Shelly to his hideout and then went on to theirs.
Behind them, Parker and Clinger had gone off in the opposite direction in the Renault. Clinger looked at his watch and said, ‘Two-thirty on the button.’
Parker said, ‘Good.’
He turned a corner, and three blocks ahead on the right was the truck. As he approached it, the Buick pulled out from behind it and stopped in the middle of the street. Kifka got out and ran around to the back of the van, where Rudd was already placing the boards.
Parker angled the Renault in behind the Buick and stopped long enough for Kifka and Rudd to be sure the boards were positioned right, and then he drove the Renault up inside the truck.
No one saw it happen. A factory, closed on Saturday, was on their right, and the high board fence of a junkyard was on the left.
Parker and Clinger got out of the Renault while Kifka and Rudd were shoving the boards back up into the truck. The four of them all worked inside the truck for a minute, moving the empty barrels into position across the opening at the rear of the truck, lashing them into place with ropes. Their unused pistols were tossed into the back of the Renault with the machine guns and the suitcases.
‘We didn’t need all this extra,’ Clinger said as they were putting the barrels in place. ‘They still don’t know what happened back there.’
‘You couldn’t count on it ahead of time,’ Kifka told him. ‘If the alarm went out right away, they’d know nothing but an ambulance had left the stadium recently, and they’d be all over the place looking for that ambulance. We had to be able to make a fast switch to another car, and then we had to be able to hide that car and the loot. That’s where baby came in.’ He motioned at the Renault. ‘It’s like a traveling briefcase. Out of the ambulance, into the truck.’
‘All the same,’ Clinger said, ‘I’m just as happy we didn’t need all this.’
They got down out of the truck, and Parker put the last barrel in position. Then he crawled through the glassless window at the front of the box into the cab. Kifka and Rudd and Clinger got into the Buick and took off.
