“Take it easy,” Parker said. He took only one step into the room, then moved quickly to his left. Most of the left-hand wall was glass, and he didn’t want to be seen by anyone on the other side of it, not yet. For the same reason, Keegan stayed in the doorway.

The man at the desk was about forty, very stocky in a soft-looking way. He wore horn-rim glasses, a dark gray suit, narrow tie, white shirt with button-down collar. He came from the same planet as the stagehands. He said, “I don’t have any money in here.” His voice was high-pitched and frightened; he might do something fatal simply out of nervousness.

Parker said, his voice as low and calm as possible with the competition of the music, “We know that. We’re not after you, we’re not going to cause you any trouble.”

The man at the desk licked his lips, looking nervously at Keegan and then past Keegan toward the hall. “What did you do with the … what did you do with the man out there?”

“Mr. Dockery is perfectly all right. You’ll be all right, too. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Keegan came one step into the room, moved leftward to Parker’s side, put the toolkit down, shut the door. The man at the desk began to look more frightened again.

Parker said, “You’d be Mr. Stevenson, wouldn’t you?”

“What? I—that’s right. Who are you people?”

“Ronald Stevenson?”

“I haven’t done anything to anybody. Why do you want—?”

“I told you we’re not after you. What do your friends call you? Ron? Ronnie?”

“My—I’m, uh— Most people call me RG.”

“RG. Well, this is a robbery, RG. We’re not here to hurt anybody or scare anybody. We’re just going to take the money. The management is insured against this kind of thing, so it’s nothing for anybody to get killed over. We’d prefer a nice quiet operation, and so would you. So up to a point our interests are the same.”

“But I don’t have any money.”

Keegan said, “Next door they have money.”

Stevenson looked at the glass wall facing his desk. The glass started at waist-height and continued up to within a foot of the ceiling. A three-foot width of ordinary wall was at this end, and a door with a glass panel in it was at the far end.

Parker said, “Anybody looking at you, RG?”

“What?” Stevenson suddenly looked frightened again, and then guilty. “No, not at all.”

“Look down at the paper on your desk, RG. Good. Pick up your pen. Start to write.”

Looking down at his desk top, Stevenson said, “Write what?”

“Anything you want, RG. Just so the people next door see you looking normal.”

“Oh, I see.” Stevenson began to write. He didn’t really look normal, his shoulders were too hunched, the position of his head too tense, but a casual glance from the next room wouldn’t pick up that sort of detail.

Parker gave him half a minute to calm himself, and then said, “Okay, RG, keep writing while I talk to you. There’s three guards next door. What’s the name of the one in charge?”

Still writing, looking down, Stevenson said, “That would be Lieutenant Garrison.”

“First name?”

“I believe— It’s Daniel, I believe.”

“Is he called Dan?”

Stevenson nodded at what he was writing. “I’ve heard him called Dan, yes.” He was a precise man by nature, and now he was using that precision as a means of self-defense, as though to say, If I am very accurate and very proper, nothing bad will happen to me.

It was an idea Parker wanted to encourage. “Good,” he said. “And the other two? What names?”

Stevenson glanced up, looking through the glass into the other room again, as though to refresh his memory, then quickly looked back down at the paper, went on writing, and said, “The younger one is Lavenstein, Edward Lavenstein. He’s called Beau. And the other one is Hal Pressbury.”

“Dan Garrison, Beau Lavenstein, Hal Pressbury.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Good. Keep writing, RG, this’ll take a minute.”

Stevenson kept writing, though his shoulders hunched again. Parker touched Keegan’s elbow, and Keegan nodded and went down on one knee beside the toolkit. Putting his automatic on the floor, he opened the toolkit and took out an automobile rear-view mirror; just the rectangular piece of silvered glass, without the metal housing or the mounting arm. Carrying the mirror, he traveled on all fours diagonally past Parker to the glass wall, staying under the bottom edge of the glass. When he got to the wall he switched to a sitting position, legs crossed tailor- fashion and head stooped somewhat, and slowly raised the mirror up in front of him. He was sitting sideways to the wall, and had the mirror turned at an angle; when it was a little above his head, he said, “Got’em.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Double room. Double length, I mean.” The mirror moved slightly. “Two doors the hall, one near, one far. Sofa in between, one guard sitting at it. Table against the wall beyond the far door, one guard sitting in a chair at the table, facing the wall, playing solitaire.” The mirror moved. “Four desks down the middle of the room, with adding machines. Three men, one woman. Cash on all four desks. They’re counting it, banding it, dropping the stacks into metal trays on the floor. Back wall all filing cabinets, no door.” The mirror moved. “Right wall, four windows. Table

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