disagreement of a depth that was almost religious.
Carlow stayed out of the conversation completely. His own hobby-horse was racing cars, which had nothing to do with health or with proper care of the human body. He simply sat where he was, right hand under the table, watched the action around the room, and let the words wash unheeded over him.
Stan Devers did get into it from time to time. He himself was in good physical shape and always had been, but had never worried about it or adjusted his eating habits or life style to suit some physical ideal, and his belief was that Florio and Wycza were both crazy. He kept this opinion to himself most of the time, but every once in a while he would hear them agree on some piece of raving lunacy and he would just have to jump in and tell them he thought they were wrong. Then they’d team up on him, Wycza reeling off statistics, Florio telling horror stories about boxers and wrestlers and other great physical specimens who had ruined themselves with smoking or carbohydrates or improper sleeping habits, and Devers would retire again, overwhelmed but unconvinced.
It was turning into a grand social evening for everybody.
* * *
At twenty minutes to one Ralph Wiss drilled his sixth hole in the front of the safe, heard the snap of the mechanism inside, turned the handle down, and the safe door slowly opened. “Good,” he said to himself, packed his tools away in his leather bag, and got to his feet. He was stiff all over, but particularly in the knees and the back, and his mouth was incredibly dry. His mouth always became dry when he was working on a safe, but it was the result of his unconscious
There were paper cups with the water cooler. He drank two cups of water, crumpled the cup and threw it away, and went out by the men’s room to call down the stairs, “Frank.”
“Coming.”
Wiss held the flashlight so Elkins could see to come up the stairs. Elkins had been half dozing in the cashier’s booth, and he came up yawning and stretching and scratching the back of his neck. At the top of the stairs, he said, “You got it?”
“Sure.”
They went back into the office and took the money out of the safe, and it totaled ten thousand, four hundred fifty dollars. About half of it went in their pockets and the rest into Wiss’ leather bag with his tools. Then they took out handkerchiefs and gave a brisk rubdown to the few surfaces they’d touched, and went downstairs and out of the theater and walked to the car.
* * *
The phone said to Wycza, “We’re all set, now. Coming down.”
“Huh? Oh, right.”
He and Florio had been talking about polyunsaturates. Wycza, feeling a slight embarrassment, as though he were an insurance salesman pretending to be on a social call, hung up the telephone and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Florio, but it’s back to business.”
Florio looked startled for just a second. Then he glanced at Devers and Carlow, looked back at Wycza, and gave a sour grin. “You had me going there for a while,” he said.
“I wasn’t conning you, Mr. Florio,” Wycza said. “I wish we could keep talking.”
Florio studied him skeptically, then grinned again, not quite as sourly. “Yeah, I guess you do,” he said. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, pal. You didn’t pick yourself a job that’s too good for your health.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Wycza said. “But anyway, you’ll have to walk us outside now.”
Florio nodded. “I figured that much. Do I get hit on the head later? I’m worried about concussions.”
“We’ll work something out,” Wycza promised.
”Thanks.”
“Now,” Wycza said, and got to his feet.
Upstairs, Mackey was having a little more trouble with Flynn. “If I go out with you people,” Flynn was saying, “how do I know I won’t get shot down in the parking lot?”
“Because we’re not crazy people,” Mackey told him.
Dalesia said, “Why should we get ourselves wanted for murder?”
But it was Hurley who put in the clincher. “If we were going to shoot you, you asshole,” he said, “we’d do it right here, in the privacy of your office. So shut up and walk.”
Flynn shut up and walked. He and Mackey and Hurley and Dalesia walked out to the main gaming area, Mackey and Flynn side by side in front, Hurley and Dalesia carrying the dispatch cases behind them. George, the man on duty at the door, looked startled when they came out, but Flynn did his job well, talking to the man just the way Mackey had explained it. “Keep an eye on things, George,” Flynn said. “We have to go downstairs for a few minutes.”
George, plainly surprised and curious, said, “Okay, Mr. Flynn.”
“If anything comes up before we get back, I’ll be with Mr. Florio.”
“Yes, sir.”
They went downstairs, and found Florio and the other three standing in a tight conversational grouping near the front door. The two groups combined, and all eight men went outside and walked around to the parking lot, which now had about half the cars that had been there an hour earlier; Monday was an early night.
The parking lot was illuminated by floodlights mounted on high poles. As they all walked along, Wycza said to the others, half apologetically, “I promised Mr. Florio nobody’d get hit on the head. Why don’t we just take them a mile down the road or something? That’ll still give us the time we need.”
There was no objection. Shrugging, Mackey said, “Fine with me. Okay with you, Mr. Flynn?”
