Donald Westlake - What's The Worst That Could Happen?

A second guy in black pointed his pistol at the seated guards, and snapped at one of them, “Stay away from that button! Your foot moves over by that button, I’ll shoot your knee off!”

These guards were professional, highly paid, three of them ex-cops and the other two formerly military police. Normally, they would have caused a great deal of trouble for any three wiseguys with guns blundering in here. But tonight their reaction time was nil, their coordination was off, their brains were wrapped in cotton and their bodies in bubblewrap. Before the guard sitting near the emergency button could even think about moving his foot over to press that button—which would send alarms both to police headquarters and to the manager’s office behind the check-in desk—he’d been roughly hustled out of his chair and over against the wall, with his friends, including the sleeper, who was very rudely awakened indeed. All five of them were briskly disarmed, and then, blinking, open-mouthed, fuzzy-brained, they stared at their captors and waited for whatever would happen next.

“Uniforms off,” one of the guys in black said.

The guards didn’t like that, not at all, but the guys in black were insistent, so off came the trimly pressed shirts with the pleats, and the shiny gun belts. More difficult were the trousers; all five guards had to sit on the floor to remove their pants, or they would have fallen to the floor and possibly hurt themselves.

There was a locked gunrack full of shotguns and rifles and handguns along one wall, with a heavy barred gate locked across the face of it. The guys in black forced the guards, now in their underwear, feeling foolish and ill-used but unable to stop the occasional giggle at the sight of one another, to sit on the floor under this gunrack. Then they were trussed, ankles and wrists (behind back), with duct tape, and more duct tape was looped under their armpits and through the bars of the gunrack gate, so they wouldn’t be able to crawl across the room; toward the emergency button, for instance.

“Let’s move this along,” said one of the guys in black. “I’m beginning to feel it.”

“Jeez,” the first guard said, shaking his woolly head, body hanging there suspended from the gunrack by duct tape. “What’s goin on here?” he wanted to know.

The guys in black were stripping out of the black and into the uniforms. One of them paused to say, “Oh, don’t you know? It’s a heist goin on here.”

One of the other guards, the one who hadn’t managed to get to the button, tried to snarl, “You won’t get away with this,” but the threat came out softer than he’d intended, almost caring, and was further diminished by a loud snore: the sleeper had returned to sleep. All of which should have made the failed snarler mad, but somehow it didn’t. He chuckled instead, and shook his head, and grinned at the heisters now zipping up the uniforms. “You’re crazy,” he told them, and laughed. So did the other still-awake guards.

“That’s okay,” one of the heisters said. He had the extra uniforms and their own former clothing wrapped in a big ball in his arms. “See you later,” he said.

Which the still-awake guards—now down to three—found very funny indeed. They were still laughing as the heisters went out and the door swung shut behind them, leaving the guards in their underwear alone on the floor in here with nothing but the air-conditioning.

It’s quiet out there. Too quiet.

That’s what Earl Radburn told himself, as he patrolled the general area of the hotel, moving around the Battle-Lake, the pools, the tennis courts, the outside bar (shut for the night), the parking lots, the main entrance. He never went into the casino or the coffee shop or the lounge; there was nothing in there of interest to him. What was of interest was outside, was somewhere around cottage one, was one insane but determined burglar aimed at Max Fairbanks.

But where was he? Earl knew the fellow was around some place, he could feel it, like a tingle on the surface of his skin, as though all his pores were breathing in, smelling the villain out there. But where?

Quiet; too quiet. Earl saw his own guards here and there, saw the hotel’s security people, other hotel staff around and about. He saw the bored doorman at the main entrance, saw the black chauffeur in the stretch limo waiting for the last of the high rollers, saw the parked cars in the employee parking lot around back and the guest parking lot to the left of the entrance, and the nonresident visitor parking lot off to the right of the entrance, and nothing was suspicious. That’s what was so suspicious about it all; nothing was suspicious.

The local head of security, Wylie Branch, had gone home at midnight, stating his opinion that nothing would happen in the middle of the night, and his intention to be back on duty “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” as he’d phrased it, at six in the morning. Which was all well and good for Wylie Branch, but Earl Radburn knew you could never be sure, never be absolutely sure, what would happen, or when. This was the burglar’s last clear shot at Max Fairbanks. Would he wait till morning to make his move? Earl didn’t believe it.

But where was the fellow? Earl roamed and roamed the territory, moving constantly back around the cottages, then out again, moving, moving, questing, like a hunting dog that’s lost the scent. And it remained quiet out there. Too quiet.

He walked again around the side of the hotel toward the front, one more time, and saw the big motor home just turning in from the Strip, bowing and nodding up the entrance drive to turn rightward, toward the nonresident visitor parking lot. There seemed to be a woman driving it, in a hat.

Earl watched the big vehicle move across the nearly empty lot, the only moving vehicle in sight. It came to a stop over there, and Earl turned away, aiming his attention elsewhere. He walked past the front of the building and saw the doorman seated beside the entrance on a little stool, half asleep. The stretch limo was still there, the patient chauffeur at the wheel; he gave Earl a friendly wave, and Earl waved back. Poor fellow; had to wait out here hour after hour. And here it was, almost four in the morning.

Earl turned back, retracing his steps, looking this way and that, and his eye was snagged by that motor home. The woman was still seated there, at the wheel. Nobody had got out of the motor home, though its lights were on inside, behind drawn shades.

Why would a motor home come visiting at four in the morning? Why would it stop, and nobody get out of it?

Hmmmm. Earl strolled over that way, seeing that the woman’s hat was one of those tall things with fruit, like a salad. She was just sitting there, as patient as the chauffeur, hands on the wheel.

Was she waiting for somebody who was supposed to come out of the casino at this hour? Waiting, like the limo driver? Earl’s curiosity was piqued. A sixth sense told him there was something meaningful about this motor home. He walked closer to it, wary, watching this way and that, watching the door in the side of the thing, waiting for it to open, but it didn’t.

The woman finally did turn her head to smile down at him when Earl stopped beside her window. “Hello, there,” he said.

The window was closed, and probably she couldn’t hear him. She smiled, and nodded.

Mouthing carefully, raising his voice a bit, Earl said, “Who are you waiting for?”

Instead of answering, the woman smiled some more and pointed backward, gesturing for him to walk along the side of the motor home. He frowned up at her, and also pointed down in the same direction: “Down there?”

Her smile redoubled. She nodded, and made rapping motions in the air with one fist, then pointed down along the vehicle again.