Nobody's Perfect

Until the bobby came wandering past at about five to two, and stopped to chat. "Out late, are you?" He was a young police officer with a moustache the size and shape and color of a street-sweeper's broom, and he wasn't in the least suspicious of Chauncey and Zane and the cherrypicker. Quite the opposite; a bit bored on these silent empty late-night commercial streets, he'd simply stopped off for human contact, a little shop talk with another pair of night-workers.

Every Englishman, and every American who spends any time at all in England, believes himself capable of imitating a cockney accent, and Chauncey was no exception. Do

"Canadian, are you?" asked the bobby.

"Err-yuss," said Chauncey.

Inside, Dortmunder and Kelp, peering out through the eye-holes in the itchy ski masks they were now wearing, entered the cashier's office and told the two guards, "Stick em up."

"Whurr," said one of the guards, and the other clattered his teacup into its saucer, turning to stare with blank astonishment and say, "Ere! Where'd you two come from?"

"Stick em up," Dortmunder repeated.

"Stick what up? Me mitts? I'll spill me tea."

"Put the tea down," Dortmunder told him, "and then stick em up."

"Well, I like that," grumbled the guard, plunking cup and saucer on top of a handy filing cabinet.

"Stickler for ritual, that's what he is," said the other guard, remaining calmly in his chair with his feet up on the desk as in leisurely fashion he stuck em up.

"Trade unionist," agreed the first guard, sticking his own up at last. "Brotherhood a Smash an Grabbers."

Dortmunder pointed the incredibly long barrel of his target pistol at the seated guard – it kept reminding him, unfortunately, of Hansel's stick-finger used to fool the witch about his ski

The seated guard lowered his feet from the desk and his hands from the air. "Two more upstairs, is it? Where'd you come by that idea?"

"One in an office on the second floor," Dortmunder told him, "one on a chair in a corridor on the fourth."

The guards gave each other impressed looks. "Knows his business," said the first.

"Got the floors wrong, though," commented the second.

"Probably Canadian." The first looked at Dortmunder. "You Canadian?"

"Australian," Dortmunder said. He was tired of being Canadian. "And in a hurry."

"Do like he says, Tom," the second advised. "Get on the blower."

"And be careful what you say," Dortmunder told him.

Outside, Chauncey was being extremely careful what he said, in his conversation with the bobby. They'd discussed the weather – was the summertime drought to be an a

In the bobby's breast pocket was a miniature walkie-talkie, which occasionally spoke; disconcerting, at first, to be in conversation with a person whose pocket suddenly joins in. The bobby abruptly responded to one of its staccato a

"Ta-ta," Chauncey agreed, and watched in the cherrypicker's rear-view mirror as the bobby hied himself away toward Vigo Street.

"I was about to shoot him," Zane said.

"I was afraid you were." Chauncey glanced over at Parkeby-South. "And what's taking them so long?"

Nothing. Things were going very well, in fact. Tom had gotten on the blower and had talked first with Frank and then with Henry, telling them both to pop down to the office a minute, and here they came. Dortmunder and Kelp flanked the door, and in less than no time all four guards were having their hands tied behind their backs by Kelp, while Dortmunder stood well back, pointing the long-barreled gun as though at a slide in a lecture.

"All set," Kelp said at last. "Should I tie their ankles, too?" This was a previously rehearsed bit of dialogue, and Dortmunder gave the prepared response: "No. We'll bring em with us. I want my eye on em till we're out of here." Meaning, in truth, just the reverse. The guards would be witnesses that neither of the bandits had ever gone upstairs.

Kelp led the way out of the office, followed by the four guards. Dortmunder brought up the rear, pausing first to pull a pocket flash from his jacket and aim it toward the nearest window: on-off, on-off, on-off.

"At last," said Chauncey. Climbing down from the cab, carrying the rolled-up imitation Veenbes in a black vinyl umbrella sheath, he went around to the back while Zane slid over behind the wheel. Chauncey climbed into the cherrypicker's bucket, which contained its own controls, and with some hesitation sent himself upward. He was a bit awkward at first, nearly whacking into the lamp post and then coming within a hair of braining himself on the light, but with practice came assurance, and after only modest adjustments he very quickly brought himself up to that blessed window that had so fascinated Dortmunder. From his jacket pocket he took a rather large magnet, which immediately fastened itself inexorably to the side of the bucket. "Bastard," muttered Chauncey, and pried the son of a bitch loose. Moving it with difficulty toward the window – it was like walking an Irish setter puppy on a short leash – Chauncey went to work.

This part he was already good at. Dortmunder had fixed a bolt to one of Chauncey's windows, and Chauncey had practiced over and over again the manipulation of that bolt through the window with this magnet. First the magnet slides up the window, up the window, turning the little bolt, freeing its little handle from the little slot. Then the magnet slides across the window, slowly, gently, and the obedient little bolt slides slowly and gently out of its nest in the window frame. Repeat with the second bolt, and the window is unlocked. (Over and over Dortmunder had returned to the question of this window, wanting to know if the bolts were brass or iron, and finally Chauncey had cried, "Iron, for the love of God!" "I hope you're right," Dortmunder had said, "because a magnet won't work on brass." Which was the first Chauncey had known about the magnet, and he too had been hoping he was right ever since. It was quite a relief to discover the bolts really were iron – he'd been guessing.)

Now, Chauncey slid open the window and stepped from bucket to staircase, carrying the umbrella sheath and pausing to close the window behind himself. ("We don't want any guards noticing any unexplained drafts," Dortmunder had pointed out.) Up the half flight of stairs Chauncey hurried to the value room, where he took from his pocket the string-tied bundle of keys given him by Kelp. ("I'm no expert on English locks," Kelp had said, "but if you got the brand right and the appearance right, one of these keys should work on each lock." And he'd shrugged, adding, "If not, the caper's a bust.")

Two locks. Fumbling in the dark, jangling the keys out of haste and nervousness, Chauncey chose one at random and tried it in both slots. No. Second one; no… Third one–

The eleventh key worked in the top lock. The seventeenth key – only four from the last – worked in the bottom lock. Chauncey pushed open the vault-room door, and entered, as from downstairs there came the sound of glass breaking.

It was Kelp, smashing the front of a display case with the butt of his little Beretta. Reaching through the opening, he scooped up fistfuls of gold rings and transferred them to his pockets. In the background, Dortmunder went on pointing his curtain rod ("It's curtains for you! I brought my rod!"), while glancing from time to time at his watch.