A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born

Chapter 8

"All fixed, everything just fine back there," I called out to the guard and he nodded while he pulled the gate open. I drove off in the direction the city, slowly around a bend - then turned sharply inland on an unpaved road.

My escape had been as carefully planned as the theft. Stealing money is one thing; keeping it is another altogether. In this age of electronic communication a description of me and the van would be flashed around the planet in microseconds. Every police car would have a printout and every patrolman verbal warning. So how much time did I have? Both guards were unconscious. But they could be revived, could pass on the information, a phone call would be made, warning given. I calculated that this would take at least five minutes. Which was fine since I only needed three.

The road wound up through the trees, made a final turn - and ended in the abandoned quarry. My heart was thudding a bit since I had to take one chance in this operation. And it had worked - the rental car was still here, just where I had left it the day before! Of course I had removed some vital parts from the engine, but a determined thief could have towed it away. Thank goodness that there was only one determined thief around.

I unlocked the car and took out the box of groceries, then carried it to the van. The side of the box swung down - revealing an empty box. The protruding tops of packets and containers, just the glued-together tops of packets and containers. Very ingenious, if I say so myself. Which I have to, since no one else knows about this operation. Money into box, close box, put in car. Take off work clothes, shiver in the cool breeze as I throw them into the truck. Along with moustache. Pull on sports outfit, actuate timer on thermite charges, lock van, get in car. Simply drive away. I had not been observed so there was no reason at all now why I shouldn't get away with my little adventure. I stopped at the main road and waited for a clutch of police cars to go roaring by in the direction of Loona Park. My, but they were in a hurry. I turned onto the road and drove slowly and carefully back to Biliville.

By this time the van would be burning merrily and melting down to a pool of slag. No clues there! The van was insured by law so the owner would be reimbursed. The fire would not spread - not from the heart of the stone quarry - and no one had been injured. It had all worked well, very well.

Back in the office I heaved a sigh of relief, opened a beer and drank deep - then took the bottle ofwhiskey from the bar and poured a stiff shot. I sipped it, wrinkled my nose at the awful flavor, then poured the rest of the drink into the sink. What filthy stuff. I suppose if I kept trying I would get used to it someday, but it scarcely seemed worth the effort.

By now enough time should surely have elapsed for the press to have reached the scene of the crime. "On," I called out to my computer, then, "Print the latest edition of the newspaper." The fax hummed silkily and the paper slid into the tray. With a color pic of the money fountain operating at full blast on the front page. I read the report with a glow of pleasure, turned the page, and saw the drawing. There it was, just as they had found it when they had finally opened the safe. A drawing of a bishop with a line of chess notation written below it. R-Kt 4 X B Which means in chess notation Rook to square Knight 4 takes Bishop. When I read it the warm glow of pleasure was replaced by a chill of worry. Had I given myself away to the police? Would they analyze the clue and be waiting for me?

"No!" I cried aloud. "The police are lazy and relaxed with little crime to keep them on their toes. They may puzzle over it - but they will never understand it until it is too late. But The Bishop should be able to work it out. He will know that it is a message for him and will labor over it. I hope." I sipped at my beer and had a good worry. It had taken me tedious hours to work out this little mind-twister. The fact that The Bishop used a chess bishop as his calling card had led me to the chess books. I assumed that he - or she, I don't believe that anyone had ever determined The Bishop's sex, although it was assumed the criminal was male - cared about chess. If more knowledge was needed he could consult the same books that I had. With very little effort it could be discovered that there are two different ways of noting chess moves. The oldest of them, the one that I had used, named the squares of the file after the piece that sat at the end of the file. (If you must know, "ranks" are the rows of squares that stretch from side to side of a chessboard. "Files" are the rows that stretch between the players. So the square on which the White King sits is King 1. King 2 would be the next one up. If you think that this is complicated don't play chess - because this is the easiest part! However there is a second form of chess notation that assigns a number to each of the 64 squares on the board. So Knight 4 can be either 21, 8, 22, or 45.

Confusing? I hope so. I hope the police never think it is a code and get around to cracking it. Because if they do I am cracked as well. This little bit of chess movement contains the date of my next crime, when I am going to "take bishop," meaning take The Bishop card to a crime. Meaning also I am going to take credit for being The Bishop. Also meaning I am taking The Bishop to the cleaners.

I have the scenario clear in my mind. The police puzzle over the chess move-then discard it. Not so The Bishop in his luxury hideout. He is going to be angry. A crime has been committed and he has been blamed. Money has been taken-and he doesn't have it. My hope is that he will worry over this chess move, see it as a clue, scribble away at it, and eventually solve it.

By thinking about the fact that Knight is a homonym for night. Night three - what can that mean? The third night of what? The third night of the Modern Music Festival in the city of Pearly Gates, that is what. And this third night is also the forty - fifth day of the year, which is - that's correct - also known as Knight 3 in one of its four permutations. With this added verification The Bishop would be sure that some crime would take place on the third night of the Festival. A crime involving money of course. My mental fingers were crossed in the hope that he would be more interested in me than in informing the police in advance about the crime.

I hoped that I had struck the right balance. Too complex for the police, but capable of solution by The Bishop. And he had exactly one week to solve it and come to the Festival.

Which also meant that I had one week to hype myself up and depress myself down, get too much sleep - then not enough sleep. And take pleasure only in the construction of plans and apparatus for this bold foray into the pockets of the public.

On the night in question it was raining heavily - which suited me perfectly. I turned up the collar of my black coat, jammed my black hat down on my head, then seized up the black case that held the musical instrument. A horn of some kind. This was made obvious by the swollen shape at one end, where the case swelled out to accommodate the bell. It might be a crumpaphone or even a dagennet. Public transportation took me close to the stage entrance to the theater. As I walked the rest of the way I soon found myself braving the elements among other blackgarbed, instrument-bearing musicians, I had my pass ready, but the doorman just waved us through and out of the rain. There was little chance that anyone would question my identity because I was only one of 230. For tonight was the premier of what was sure to be a head-destroying piece of so-called music modestly entitled Collision of Galaxies, scored for 201 brass instruments and 29 percussion. The composer, Moi-Woofter Geeyoh, was not known for the delicate disonances of her compositions. The choice of this piece of music had also made this the night of my choice; even reading the score gave one a headache.

There was a shortage of dressing rooms for the musical multitude and they were milling about all over the place emitting lost noises. No one noticed when I slipped away, drifted up a back staircase - and let myself into a janitorial broom closet. The service staff had long departed so I would not be disturbed - other than by the music. Nevertheless I locked the door from the inside. When I heard the sounds of tuning up I took out my copy of the score of Collision.

It started out calmly enough - after all, the galaxies had to get on stage before they could collide. I followed the score with my finger until it reached the red mark I had placed there. The score folded neatly into my pocket as I careftilly unsealed the door and looked out. Corridor empty, as it should be. With steady tread I walked down the corridor, the floor of which was already beginning to throb with impending galactic destruction.

The door was labeled "PRIVATE - KEEP OUT". I took the black mask from one pocket, removed my hat and pulled the mask on, extracted the key to the door from another. I did not want to waste time with lockpicks, so had made this key when I had scouted this location. I hummed along with the music - 'if that could be said to be possible - with the key in the lock. At the correct destructive crash I opened the door and stepped into the office.

My entrance had of course been unheard, but my movements caught the older man's eye. He turned and stared and the pen he had been using dropped from his limp fingers. His hands reached towards the ceiling when I drew the impressive - and fake - gun from my inside pocket. The other and younger man could not be threatened and dived to the attack. And continued to dive unconscious to the floor, knocking over and breaking a chair on the way.

None of this made a sound. Or rather it made a lot of sound, none of which could be heard over the music that was now rapidly working itself up to a crescendo that would drown out the crack of doom. I moved fast because the really loud parts were coming close.

I took two pairs of handcuffs from a coat pocket and locked the older man's ankle to his desk, then pulled his arms down before they got tired. I next secured the sleeping dreamer the same way. Almost time. I took the plastic explosive from another pocket - yes, there were a lot of pockets in this garment, and not by chance either - and slapped it to the front of the safe. Right over the time lock. They must have felt very secure here with their careful arrangements. All the night's ample receipts had been locked away in the safe in the presence of armed guards. To remain locked and secure until the morning when other armed guards would be present when it opened. I pushed the radio fuse into the explosive, then retreated across the room until I was out of line of fire along with the others.

Every loose object in the room was bouncing in time with the music now while dust rained down from the ceiling. It still wasn't time. I used the opportunity to rip out the phones by their roots. Not that anyone would be talking on a phone until after the concert.

There it was - almost there! I had the musical score in my mind's eye and at the instant when the galaxies finally impacted I pressed the radio actuator.

The front of the safe blew off in silent motion. I was stunned by the musical catastrophe way up here in the office - not by the explosion - and I wondered how many of the audience had gone deaf in the name of art. My wondering didn't stop me from shoveling all the buck bills from the safe into my instrument case. When it was filled I tipped my hat to my prisoners, one wide-eyed, one unconscious, and let myself out. The black mask went back into its pocket and I went out of the theater by an unwatched emergency exit.

It was a brisk two-block walk to the underpass entrance and I was just one other figure hurrying through the rain. Down the steps and along the corridor, to take the turning that led to the station. The commuter trains had left and the corridor was deserted. I stepped into the phone booth and made my unobserved identity change in exactly twenty two seconds, precisely the rehearsed time. The black covering of the case stripped away to reveal the white covering of the case inside. The flared bell-shape went too. That had been shaped from thin plastic that crunched and went into a pocket with the black cover. My hat turned inside out and became white, my black moustache and beard disappeared into their appointed pocket so that I could shed the coat and turn it inside out so that it too, that's right, became white. Thus garbed, I strolled into the station and out the exit along with the other arriving passengers, to the cab rank. It was a short wait; the cab rolled up and the door opened. I climbed in and smiled appreciatively at the shining skull of the robot driver.

"Mah good man, tay-ake me to thu Arbolast Hotel," I said in my best imitation Thuringian accent - since the Thuringar train had arrived at the same time I had. "Message not understood," the thing intoned.

"Ar-bo-last Ho-tel, you metallic moron!" I shouted. "Ar-bowb-bo-last!" "Understood," it said, and the cab started forward.

Just perfect. All conversations were stored in a molecular recorder for one month in these cabs. If I were ever checked on, the record would reveal this conversation. And my hotel reservation had been made from a terminal in Thuringia. Perhaps I was being too cautious - but my motto was that this was an impossibility. Being too cautious, I mean.

The hotel was an expensive one and tastefully decorated with mock arbolasts in every corridor and room. I was obsequiously guided to mine - where the arbolast served as a floor lamp - and the robot porter glided away smamnly with a five buck coin in his tip slot.

I put the bag in the bedroom, took off the wet coat, extracted a beer from the cooler - and there was a knock on the door.

So soon! If that was The Bishop he was a good tail, because I had not been aware of being followed. But who else could it be? I hesitated, then realized that there was one certain way to find out. With smile on face, in case it was The Bishop, I opened the door. The smile vanished instantly.

"You are under the arrest," the plainclothes detective said, holding out his jeweled badge. His companion pointed a large gun at me just to make sure that I understood.