4

Grofield untied the extension cord, grabbed an edge of the blanket, stood up, pulled the blanket upward, and the man inside rolled out like a college parody of Cleopatra being delivered to Caesar. The blanket was soggy, and so was the man; he lay shivering on the floor, his skin and underwear both drenched. He had a new bruise on his left cheek, probably denoting the spot Grofield had hit with the gun barrel. The necktie, once a gag, dangled limply around his neck.

He glared up at Grofield, trying to make his expression tough and unafraid, but his voice gave him away, sounding weak and frightened when he demanded, "What the hell's going on?… Who are you?… Where is this?"

"This is my hotel room," Grofield said calmly. "And you, temporarily, are my prisoner."

"I don't know what you're up to, Mac-"

"Save that speech," Grofield told him. "I know what it says. Excuse me a minute." He carried the sopping blanket away to the bathroom and hung it over the shower curtain rod.

When he came back, the guy was hunching himself across the floor toward the door. Grofield said, "You really want to go out there? Let me help." He walked past him, and opened the door. Despite the verandah-style roof over the sidewalk out front, rain swirled in with gusts of wind. The room lights glistened on the headlights and bumper of Grofield's Chevy, parked out front, but beyond it was nothing but swirling wet blackness.

The guy on the floor had stopped moving, and had hunched himself into a ball against the wind. Grofield looked down at him, shut the door, and said, "You don't really want to go out there."

"You're gonna give me pneumonia." His teeth were chattering, and he didn't have secure control of his voice.

"Not if I don't have to," Grofield said. "What's your name, by the way? I need something to call you."

"You can go to hell."

Grofield opened the door. Speaking over the sound of the storm, he said pleasantly, "I'm dressed warmer than you are. I can stand it a lot colder, and a lot wetter."

"Jesus Christ!"

"That isn't your name. Tell me your name and I'll shut the door."

"Morton!"

"First name."

"Perry!"

Grofield shut the door. "That's very good, Perry," he said. He went over to the chair where he'd dropped the pillowcase. Lifting that up now, he emptied the clothing out onto the chair – both shoes bounced away onto the floor – and went through the pants pockets till he found the wallet. He opened it, got out the driver's license, and read aloud, "Perry Morton." He turned and smiled, saying, "Very good. Truth is your best bet."

Morton was glowering at the wallet. "If you had that, why go through all that shit with the door?"

"To let you know your best move, Perry, it's to answer my questions, and to tell me the truth every time. Do you know what would have happened if I'd looked in here and it turned out your name wasn't Perry Morton?"

"You'd of opened the door," Morton grumbled.

"More than that. I would have pushed you outside for a minute or two, and left you there."

"Like hell. You won't let me go until you're done with me, whatever you want."

"I didn't say let you go. Perry, do you know how many other moving cars I passed on my way here from the house where I got you? None. There isn't one car out there, not one pedestrian out there. I didn't see one lit window except for a couple that were obviously night lights. It's almost three-thirty in the morning, Perry. People in a small town area like this go to bed at ten o'clock. And it's a Thursday night, a weeknight, besides. And there's a storm going on. Where do you think you'd go if I pushed you out there, Perry, all tied up and in your underwear? Who do you think would help you?"

Morton looked sullen, but with a trace of slyness hiding behind it. "I guess you're right," he said.

Grofield said, "I know what you're thinking, Perry. You're thinking you'll lie to me until I do push you out there, and then you'll hop to one of the other occupied rooms, or maybe to the motel office, and you'll get help that way. But do you know what that means? That means whoever you wake up is going to call the cops. And what are you going to tell the cops?"

"Why not tell them you kidnapped me?"

"From where? What are you doing around here? Perry, I can convince the police you're lying, I never saw you before in my life. Believe me, I can. I can make them wonder who you are and where you came from and what's going on. I can arrange it so they hold on to both of us right on through till tomorrow afternoon. You don't want the local cops asking you questions tomorrow afternoon, do you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, well," Grofield said. "I hoped you wouldn't be such a slow learner." He walked over toward the door.

"Wait a second, wait a second! I didn't tell you any lies!"

Grofield stopped with his hand on the knob, and looked back. "What's going to happen tomorrow, Perry? What are you and the others supposed to do tomorrow?"

"They won't do it. When they wake up in the morning and I'm gone, they'll know something's screwed up."

"No, they won't, Perry. They'll simply think you turned yellow and ran away in the middle of the night. They're all hungry, Perry, they'll go ahead and do what they came here to do. Which is what, Perry?"

"You know everything," Morton said sullenly. "What do you ask questions for?"

"I'm lonely," Grofield said. "Also impatient." He opened the door.

"The brewery!" Morton yelled.

Grofield shut the door. "What about the brewery?"

"Jesus. We're going to knock it over. At two in the afternoon."

"For what? The beer?"

"The payroll. They've got a cash payroll."

"How many of you, Perry?"

"S-s-six."

"You cold? Listen, if you're good, and answer all questions promptly, I'll let you take a hot bath when we're done."

"I'm gonna get pneumonia," Morton said.

"Maybe not," Grofield said, carelessly. "What's the name of the guy who set it up, Perry?"

"Myers. Andrew Myers."

"And how are you going to do it?"

"We got a fire engine."

Grofield waited, but Morton had nothing else to say, so finally Grofield said, "Well, bully for you. So you've got a fire engine, so what?"

"Myers has it set for a fire to start there tomorrow. At the brewery. And we'll show up in the fire engine, that's how we'll get in."

"What about the regular fire engines?"

"We're blowing them up. Myers set that up, too, he's got a bomb in the police station. The firehouse and the police station are the same building, he's got a bomb in there to blow it up. So there won't be any other fire engine coming, and there won't be any cops chasing us when we leave."

"You're going to leave in the fire engine, too?"

"Sure."

"And go where? Back to the house where I picked you up?"

"Yeah. Not in the fire engine."

"Not in the fire engine."

"We got two cars stashed, right in town."

"Where in town?"

"There used to be a tank parts factory here, way back in World War Two. They're using the factory for something else now, but down behind it there's a warehouse and some railroad tracks they don't use any more. You know, tracks in from the regular tracks."

"A spur line," Grofield suggested.

"Yeah. They're all rusty, they're never used any more."

"And?"

"And we got two cars down by there. In the warehouse. We drive the fire engine in, we plant the other bomb, we drive the two cars out and split up and take off and meet back at the hideout."

"What other bomb?"

"We're gonna blow up the fire engine. So there's no fingerprints or clues. And to make more confusion in the town – to help us make the getaway."

"Myers has a very explosive mind," Grofield said. "So then you're going to drive the two cars back to the hideout. And then what? Wait a few days till the excitement dies down?"

"Sure."

That was another of Myers' flaws, though Grofield saw no point in mentioning it. But the kind of wave Grofield saw Myers making was not the kind of wave that died down very quickly. For at least a couple of weeks, the locals would be up in arms – vigilante groups visiting abandoned buildings; boy scouts searching the surrounding countryside; police roadblocks everywhere. If they stayed put, they'd be found. If they moved, they'd be caught. After the kind of ruckus Myers planned to make, the only thing to do was take off as fast as possible and not stop until you were separated from the scene of the crime by at least an ocean or a continent. Preferably both.

But back to another step in the plan. Grofield said, "Tell me about these two cars. What make are they?"

"One's a Buick and the other one's a Rambler."

"Colors?"

Morton frowned in confusion, but answered. "The Buick's kind of tan, and the Rambler's light blue."

"Both sedans?"

"Yeah. I don't get the point."

"You don't have to," Grofield said. "What's the plan? Three men in each car?"

"Right."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, Myers and two others in one-"

"What two others? Give me their names."

Morton looked troubled and truculent. "I don't think I ought to give you any more names. I don't know who you are or what you're up to."

"And you can tell the boys," Grofield said, "that you got your pneumonia for their sake. Assuming you ever see them again." He opened the door.

"All right!"

Grofield shut the door.

"I'll tell you," Morton said angrily. "But I'll tell you something else, too. If I ever get my hands on you, you're gonna wish you were a piano salesman instead."

"I'll remember that," Grofield told him. "But you remember something, too. When we see the way things work out tomorrow, you remember that I'm the only reason you aren't along with the rest of the boys. I'm saving you from a nice long prison sentence, and I may be saving your life. But don't thank me, just tell me who's going to be in what car."

"I wasn't going to thank-"

"You're wasting time, Perry. Tell me who's going to be in what car."

"Myers and a guy named Harry Brock and a guy named George Lanahan, they're going to be in one car, and-"

"Which one?"

"The Buick. And me and-"

"All right, that's all. What about any other vehicles? You using anything else in this caper beside the fire engine and the Buick and the Rambler?"

He shook his head. "No, that's it."

Grofield frowned, and considered reaching for the doorknob again. Instead, he said, "These bombs Myers set up in the police station and the brewery, how'd he do it?"

"What do you mean, how'd he do it?"

"I mean, how'd he get into the police station? How'd he get into the brewery?"

"I don't know… I guess he just walked in."

"Both places?"

"I don't know, I guess so."

"That brewery's supposed to be a tough place to get into."

"Well, he's got the bomb in there already," Morton said. "I know that for a fact."

"How do you know it for a fact?"

"Because Myers said it was there, and we're going ahead tomorrow. I mean, they're going ahead tomorrow. Myers wouldn't do it if he didn't have the bomb set up, would he?"

"I guess not," Grofield said. "But what about the Rolls Royce?"

Could the bewilderment on Morton's face be assumed? Morton said, "What Rolls Royce?"

Grofield believed him, really, but he thought he ought to make sure. He sighed and said, "And you were doing so well," and opened the door.

"I don't know about any Rolls Royce! It's the truth, it's the truth!"

Grofield shut the door again. "I guess it is, at that," he said. He nodded, and went over to sit down in the second chair, the one without Morton's clothes scattered all over it. "Now," he said, "let me tell you something. Tomorrow, when that fire engine drives into that warehouse and you switch vehicles, the loot will go into the Buick with Myers."

"Well, naturally," Morton said. "Myers is the one running the show."

"Yes, he is. And the Rambler will drive out to that farmhouse, and stop there, and wait for the Buick, and it will never show up."

"It'll show up. What do you think we are – mugs? We chose to see who'd be in what car. I know Lanahan, he's an old friend of mine, he wouldn't cross me."

"That's right," Grofield said. "But Lanahan is going to get killed very shortly after he's out of sight of the Rambler. Because I'll tell you where that Buick is going, with Myers and Brock in it. It's going north, on a road I was on this afternoon, a back road that crosses the border without any border guard. It'll stop at a barn up there across the road from a burned-out farmhouse. Inside the barn is a black Rolls Royce. Myers and Brock – or maybe just Myers, maybe he's going to kill Brock too – will get out of the Buick, they'll take the Quebec plates off the-"

Morton started. "How'd you-"

"How'd I know the Buick had Quebec plates? I followed it into town today from that barn I'm telling you about, after Brock brought the Rolls out there. Was that you he picked up at the hotel?"

"No, two of the other guys. You been following us around all the time?"

"Just today." Grofield glanced at his watch. "Yesterday, I mean. Anyway, they'll put the Quebec plates on the Rolls, and probably at that point Myers will kill Brock. Unless he fancies Brock playing chauffeur for a day or two. They'll head north, they'll go to Montreal or Quebec, and if by any unusual chance they are stopped they'll have solid Canadian papers, and the loot will be stashed in the spare tire or under the rear seat or someplace like that."

"They're going to cross us," Morton said, finally beginning to believe it.

"That's right. And believe me, I think I've probably been in more of these operations than you, the cops will be all over that farmhouse hideout before sundown tomorrow."

"But they'll talk," Morton said. "None of us are real pros, except Myers and Brock. Those guys won't keep quiet, they'll tell everything they know about Myers. He doesn't dare cross them."

"I hadn't thought of that," Grofield said. "In that case, I imagine Myers will be leaving another of his time bombs behind."

"At the farmhouse?"

"Or possibly in the Rambler. That might be trickier to do, but it would more surely eliminate everybody."

Morton frowned at the opposite wall. "It makes sense," he said. "It really makes sense that way." He looked at Grofield. "I don't know what your part is in all this, but I'm glad you grabbed me out of it."

"My motivations were selfish," Grofield said.

Morton peered at him. "You're after Myers."

"I have a grudge against our friend Myers that goes back before you were born," Grofield said.

"Well, I got a grudge against him, too."

"As they say in bankruptcy court, get in line. And as they also say in bankruptcy court, they're isn't going to be much left by the time he gets to you. You want that bath now?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Grofield got to his feet. "It would be dumb to make me use the gun I have in my pocket."

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna try to do anything."

Grofield went over and squatted behind him and went to work untying the shoelace holding Morton's thumbs together. Morton, speaking over his shoulder, said, "I could throw in with you. You could use a second man."

"Not to insult you," Grofield said, "but I think I'll be better off on my own. Tough knot, this… There! Do the toes yourself."

"Sure."

Grofield sat down in the chair again, and watched Morton pick at the other lace. He said, "Maybe I'm too suspicious, Perry, but I'm not going to trust you entirely. You can take your time in the bath, and afterward I'll loan you some dry clothes, but then I'm going to have to tie you up again and lock you in the closet while I get some sleep."

"If I gave you my word-"

"I'd regretfully have to give it back. I have no use for it. Go take your bath, Perry."

Morton had finished untying the lace holding his toes together, and now he got awkwardly to his feet. "I'm in something over my head," he said. "I know I am. I won't give you a tough time. I don't know how you operate, but you don't have to kill me. I mean, I keep seeing in my mind you coming into the bathroom and holding my head under."

"Don't worry," Grofield said. "I'm not a nut. Myers is the nut."

Morton said, "I mean, that crack I made about the piano salesman and like that-"

"To tell you the truth," Grofield said, "it didn't worry me. Go take your bath."