Walker went through the surprisingly long and complex process of making choices. Each decision he made was based on the pair of glasses he had found in the dead man’s pocket. When he had finally found the right shade of lens and the right frames, he said, “Perfect.” He saw Stillman give a slight nod.
Mr. Foley was walking back toward the workshop. “Let me see, though. I’m not sure if I have this size in a plain tinted lens right now.”
Walker looked toward Stillman, but Stillman ignored him. He had opened his leather bag, and was fiddling inside. Walker saw the distinctive titanium gleam of the new video camera. Stillman moved the bag about an inch, aiming it at the mirror behind the counter, then closed and zipped it.
Foley returned. “I’m sorry to say I don’t have it. Are you gentlemen from the area?”
“No,” said Walker. “California. We’re here on vacation, and I forgot my sunglasses.”
“If you’re going to be here for a day or two, I can get the lens from my supplier as early as tomorrow morning,” said Foley. “I could have them in for you by this time in the afternoon.”
“How much are they?” asked Walker.
“One ninety-five for the frames. The lenses will be another fifty-five. Two fifty total.” He looked apologetic. “But at least there’s no sales tax here.”
“I guess I’ll take them,” said Walker. “I can wait a day.” He felt a certain vindication of his lifelong habit of buying cheap sunglasses.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for a deposit. Would half be okay?”
“Do you take credit cards?”
“Sure.”
“Then you might as well charge it all now. It’s easier to keep my records straight.” Walker took out the David Holler credit card and rested his thumb on the fake driver’s license, but Mr. Foley didn’t ask for it, so he didn’t offer. Foley typed some numbers on his cash register, swiped the card on a magnetic reader, then waited for a few seconds while Walker held his breath. The tape printer began to type, scrolling out a receipt. He tore it off, plucked the pen out of his breast pocket and handed it to Walker, then watched him sign.
Next he said, “Don’t leave yet. I have to take a couple of measurements before you go.” He ushered Walker to one of the seats at the counter and sat across from him. He put the frames on Walker’s nose, held a small ruler across the top of them, made some notes on a pad, measured the distance to the top of Walker’s ear, fiddled with the frames a little, then said, “Good. One more moment.”
He went to the computer keyboard behind the counter, and Walker could hear keys clacking. “Name . . . David Holler . . . local address?”
“The Days Inn over on Key Road.”
“Would you know the number there?”
“Sorry, I—”
“It’s okay. I’ll only need to reach you if my supplier doesn’t have what we need or something, and if that happens, I’ll look it up. Home address?”
Walker surreptitiously tipped his wallet under the counter so he could read his driver’s license. He lived in Los Angeles.
“Phone?”
Walker made one up.
“Thanks,” said Foley as he finished typing. “I don’t know if we’ll need any of that, but there’s a two-year warranty on the glasses. If you break them, we’ll replace them, no questions asked.”
“Thanks,” said Walker.
“I’ll call this in to my supplier now, and see you tomorrow.”
Walker looked up and saw Stillman’s reflection in the mirror. Stillman’s reflection gave a small nod. Walker said, “Good-bye.”
When they reached the motel, Stillman opened the door of his room and said, “Come on in.” He opened his leather case. “I set this up so the camera shoots out this end of the bag.” He carefully extracted it, ejected the videocassette, and inserted it in a recorder that was on top of the television set.
Walker hadn’t seen the recorder before. “Did you buy that in Nashua too?”
“Got a good deal on it.” He turned on the television set, then pressed the recorder’s PLAY button.
Walker could see the inside of the store, but it seemed reversed. Stillman had set the recorder on the counter, aimed at the mirror. Walker saw Mr. Foley walk into the back room. Then Walker saw the picture jerk from side to side, until Stillman achieved the angle he wanted. The camera was looking into the mirror behind the counter at the image of the mirror on the back wall behind the computer screen. Then the camera zoomed in so that the computer was all that was visible, and stayed there.
Walker heard the recorded voice of Mr. Foley, and then his own voice, sounding less deep and less pleasant than he had remembered it.
Stillman leaned over the cassette recorder. He pressed the FAST FORWARD button and rushed the tape until a pair of hands appeared, then let it slow. The optician pressed the space bar and the screen said password: he typed RFOLEY. Then he typed SALES. The screen display changed to show a series of words with lines beside them: NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE, DESCRIPTION.
Walker watched him type in the information for David Holler. “Okay,” Walker said. “You got his password and the customer file name for only two hundred and fifty bucks. Now what? Do we go copy his files on a disk? I assume you bought a computer too.”
“No,” said Stillman. “I didn’t know he had one. I was picturing something more like a card file. But we’ll adjust.”
26
At eight, Stillman and Walker left the motel and strolled to Main Street, watching people enjoying the warm summer evening. There were older couples just coming out of the restaurants on both sides of the street after early dinners, and a stream of sunburned families who had probably stopped for the night in preparation for climbing Mount Monadnock, or heading north to the White Mountains or the lake country.
Walker said, “Have you picked out a restaurant yet?”
“I’m afraid we won’t be having dinner for an hour or so. If we see a good one, we’ll stop on the way back.”
Walker said warily, “I thought we were killing time until later. You want to break into a store on Main Street at eight o’clock? The streets are full of people.”
Stillman answered, “It’s the best time. Right now there are still plenty of businesses open, still lots of strangers out on foot. If we wait until after midnight, it will just be us. A light showing through a store window will bring everybody on the public payroll but the governor.”
“But there’s an alarm. There were electric eyes on the floor inside the door. Don’t you remember the
Stillman sighed. “Not all alarm systems are the same. Businesses like banks have systems you don’t want to think about, because what they deal in is money. What Foley’s got to sell is eyeglasses. They’re expensive enough so he doesn’t handle much cash, and certainly doesn’t leave it overnight. Stealing frames and lenses isn’t practical, because there’s no resale. Nobody who needs glasses is going to get them ground and fitted by a thief. Foley’s got expensive tools and instruments, but they’re no use to anybody but an optician.”
“How do you know Foley sees it the way you do?”
“He’s a sensible sort of man. He bought himself an Impler 2000, which cost him five hundred and ninety-five. It’s got three settings: chime, so he knows when a customer comes in the door, off, and alarm. What happens when it’s on alarm is the door opens and breaks that beam you saw. Then Mr. Foley has forty seconds to punch his code on the keypad and turn it off before a god-awful noise begins.”
“Do you know his code?”
“I don’t need to. There’s a shutoff switch, located inside a locked metal box somewhere on the premises. A thief can’t go in, find the box, open it, find the switch, and flip it in forty seconds.”
“I take it you can.”
