Their voices, though whispers, shushed around the room and added to the funereal atmosphere.
'Took four Anacins,' Bates said. 'But I feel like I'm about to lose the top of my scalp.'
'How you been?' Tucker asked.
'Fine, until I ran into those kids. Screaming like banshees.'
'Doing much work lately?'
'Whenever it looks good.'
'I need a jugger.'
'And I'm here to listen,' Bates said.
He was a solid man, an inch or two shorter than Tucker, at least forty pounds overweight, although he was not fat. With big rounded shoulders, broad chest, and short, thick legs, he might have been a Russian peasant who had spent most of his life in the fields. His face, too, was Slavic, square and well lined, capped with a shock of bushy white hair.
Although he was sixty years old, not much younger than Clitus Felton, Edgar was a long way from retirement. He not only liked what he did, he defined himself almost entirely in terms of his unorthodox profession. He had no wife, no children. His talents meant so much to him not merely because they earned him large sums of money but because they made him valuable as a man, respected and appreciated by his peers. He was good, the best jugger Tucker had ever seen. He was almost an artist. He could break, file, acid-breach, finesse or blow a safe faster than any other man in the business. If he worked another twenty years, he would most likely still be the best safecracker in the country when he checked out of it.
'There's a shopping center in California that was just made to be hit,' Tucker said.
'Shopping center?'
'Hear me out.'
'Shopping center?' Bates wrinkled his flat face.
'I know it sounds ridiculous. It isn't.'
'Go on then.'
'It's a very exclusive mall,' Tucker explained quietly, his voice whispering unintelligibly around the long display room. 'It doesn't cater to the average citizen. It's as if you were to round up twenty of the best businesses on Fifth Avenue and put them all under one roof. There are a handful of very exclusive dress shops-Markwood and Jame, Sasbury's? There's a furrier, an art gallery where the prices start at five hundred dollars a throw, a Rolls Royce dealership, a London-style tailor? best of all, there's a savings bank.'
'Ahhh,' Bates said, nodding and smiling, still looking up at the bird-god.
Tucker also looked at that evil wooden countenance rather than at Bates. From a distance they seemed to be discussing the totem. 'We're going to hit the bank. But the vault's probably going to be open.'
Bates looked away from the totem, grimaced as if in imitation of the bird-god's face. 'Open? You mean you're hitting it during business hours? Then why do you need me?'
'It's an after-hours job,' Tucker assured him.
'And the safe will be open?'
'Most likely. I'll explain why in due time. First-'
'But if it's open,' Bates said, 'why take me along?'
'Just in case it isn't open,' Tucker explained. 'And we'll also need you to break the safe in the jewelry store next door.'
'You're taking jewelry?' Bates asked.
'Unset stones.'
Bates shook his head disapprovingly, turned and looked up at the totem pole once more. His face was hard, the Slavic softness gone. His eyes were squeezed half shut, heavy but alert. 'Merchandise!' he said, strong on the sarcasm. 'You'll have to fence the damned stuff. And you know what a risk that is.'
'I know. But-'
'It's almost as big a risk as taking the stuff in the first place,' Bates said gruffly. 'And what the hell can you get from a fence anyway? One-third the real value? More than likely, only one-fourth.'
'I can get a third on this,' Tucker said.
'Small potatoes.'
'Maybe better than a third.'
Bates cleared his throat, would have spat on the floor if this had not been a museum. 'It's always best to take cash. Only cash. Never merchandise.'
'I agree,' Tucker said. 'You've worked with me before. You know I usually pull cash jobs. But unset stones are eminently fenceable. And these ought to be worth half a million. Perhaps two hundred thousand to us when we sell them. I'd be surprised if we get more than a hundred thousand out of the bank.'
'Half a million in uncut stones tucked away in a little jewelry-store safe?' Bates asked, surprised.
'It's a big, expensive safe,' Tucker said, smiling. 'I told you this was no ordinary shopping mall. This jewelry store makes rings and necklaces to order. It doesn't sell nineteen-dollar watches, Edgar.'
'Tell me more,' Bates said.
Tucker told him all of it, the whole layout and every step of the plan. He tried to make it sound especially sweet, for he wanted Edgar Bates more than he did any other jugger. Although he had a reputation as an extremely cool and calm operator, Tucker was routinely frightened and tightly wound when he was in the middle of a heist, regardless of whether the job was going well or disastrously. He always projected an aura of self-assurance, was always quick to lead, a sure commander-all the while seething inside. However, when he worked with men like Edgar Bates, he was considerably more relaxed than when he had to deal strictly with Frank Meyers's type. 'If the jeweler's safe isn't too difficult for you, we should be able to pull off the entire operation in less than one hour.' He looked sideways at Bates. 'Sound reasonable to you?'
'Sure,' Bates said. He looked away from the Eskimo artwork. 'But what about this Frank Meyers?'
'What about him?' Tucker asked.
'You trust him?'
'Do you know him?' Tucker parried.
'I've heard the name, I think. But I've never worked with the man. Do you think he noticed everything he should have noticed? No guards or alarms that he might have overlooked?'
'He's got every detail,' Tucker said, remembering the care put into the diagram of Oceanview Plaza. He did not mention his other reservations about Meyers. If Bates came in on this, the two of them could make up for any boner that Meyers might pull. 'Are you with us?'
'You the boss?' Bates asked.
'I always am.'
'Just checking.' He looked up and down the display room and saw that they were alone except for a thin, bearded young man who was studying a totem twenty yards away. He turned his gaze on the bird-god again, studied the splintered beak and the madly gleaming eyes. A group of thirty or forty screaming schoolchildren raced past one of the doors, filling the chamber with maniacal echoes, remnants of eerie high-pitched laughter. When silence returned like a fog drifting in, the jugger said, 'I'm along for the ride, then.'
Tucker almost sighed aloud with relief.
'When?' Bates asked.
'Next Wednesday.'
'Suits me.'
'We'll stay in Los Angeles,' Tucker said. 'I have a hotel picked out. It has over four hundred rooms, so no one will notice us or remember us later. We'll check in separately and drive out to the mall for the job.'
'Will we have a chance to look this Oceanview over firsthand?' Bates asked.
'Of course. We can explore it all afternoon before we hit it at closing time.'
'Three men,' Bates mused, 'doesn't seem like enough.'
'It is.'
They ironed out the minor details of time and rendezvous in Los Angeles, then left the display room by different exits. The leering, hawk-nosed, painted faces of the monstrous totems stared after them with fierce intent.
