Marcia Muller - The Plague of Thieves Affair

“What is it you want swiped?”

“One or two pieces of paper.” Assuming the formula was still in Cyrus Drinkwater’s office safe, but the odds were good that it was. The old reprobate had no real cause yet to have moved it elsewhere, nor to have had it copied. Though he might well do one or both when he got wind of Elias Corby’s arrest. Immediate action, therefore, was imperative.

“No money or other valuables?”

“Just the paper or papers, nothing more.”

“You mind if I ask why?”

“I told you. To right a wrong.”

“No, I mean why you picked me for the job?”

“Because you’re the best box man in California. And a closemouthed fellow when a job’s done and a proper price paid for it.”

The same sort of avarice that had been in his wife’s eyes sparked the cracksman’s. “How much?”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” Quincannon said. He could afford to be generous; James Willard would be the one to foot the bill.

The figure made Slick Fingers suck in his breath. “That’s a lot of lettuce. You must want them papers pretty bad.”

“I do, in order to close a case. Well? Is the fee enough to put you back in the game?”

“I dunno, I got to think about it. What kind of box is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Well, Jesus, Mr. Quincannon...”

“Does it matter? You’ve been known to brag that there’s not a safe made you can’t crack.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s true,” Slick Fingers said. “But I got to have some idea what I’m dealing with. If it’s one of these so-called burglarproof boxes they’re manufacturing nowadays, likely you got to blow the door to open it up. That takes a lot of work. And I don’t work with soup, you know that.”

“I wouldn’t want it blown open no matter what kind it is. Given the location, this job has to be done with as little noise as possible. And without damage to the safe.”

“What’s the location?”

“An office in a building near Civic Center.”

“Whoa.” Slick Fingers held up both hands, palms outward. “Office building, Civic Center... public places like that are too hard to get into.”

“Not for me.”

“You mean you got a key?”

“I don’t need a key. I’ll have no trouble getting us in.”

“Us? You’d be there, too?”

“The entire time,” Quincannon said. “Inside the building, inside the office. All you have to do is open the safe.”

“If I can.” Rigsby scratched his long fingers through the remaining few strands of hair clinging to his scalp. Then he said musingly, half to himself, “Downtown office... so it won’t be an old box, the kind you can crack with a hammer. A hammer’s out anyway... no noise, no damage. Won’t need to take my kit, just a dark lantern and a stethoscope, and hope it’s a box with a rotary combination dial.”

A cracksman’s kit, Quincannon knew, was a small valise packed with a carpenter’s hand brace, the drill bits known as “dan” and “stems,” a ball-peen hammer, and a pinch bar, among other items. He said, “Most safes have rotary combination dials, don’t they?”

“Most.”

“Then chances are this one will, too. And opening one of that type by ear and touch is your specialty. Slick Fingers Sam Rigsby, the best lock manipulator in the state.”

“Hell, in the entire West.”

“Are you in, then?”

“When’s the job to be?”

“Tonight. Late.”

“Tonight! Does it have to be so soon?”

“Yes. There’s no time to waste.”

Slick Fingers ruminated in silence for a clutch of seconds. Then he said, “Suppose the box is one I can’t crack by taking the high road.” Meaning his specialty method of lock manipulation; the use of tools and brute strength was considered the “low road” in safecracking. “Do I still get the two-fifty?”

“You do.”

“Guaranteed? Word of honor?”

“Guaranteed. Word of honor.”

The promise made up the cracksman’s mind for him. “All right, Mr. Quincannon,” he said. “You talked me into it. I just hope I ain’t gonna live to regret it.”

So did Quincannon.

Three A.M.

Neither vehicle nor pedestrian was abroad on the block of Turk Street where Cyrus Drinkwater’s office was located. A sharp night wind blew scraps of paper like will-o’-the-wisps along the empty passage. Electroliers cut pale strips of light out of the darkness, but the puddles of illumination on the cobblestones and sidewalks only deepened the shadows around them. All the windows in the two-story brick building were dark. Those in Drinkwater’s office above appeared to be curtained or blinded, though Quincannon couldn’t be absolutely sure from street level.

He went to work on the door latch with his lock picks, Slick Fingers beside him in the doorway keeping watch for a beat patrolman or anyone else who might happen along. No one did in the two minutes it took Quincannon to snap the last of the tumblers into place. He opened the door, led the way quickly inside the small lobby.

There was a single elevator, he recalled, in the left-hand wall and a staircase at the rear. He flicked a lucifer alight with his thumbnail, shielding the flare with his other hand, and used it to guide the way to the stairs before blowing it out. They climbed to the second floor in total blackness. Once there, he whispered, “To the right,” and turned in that direction, Slick Fingers close behind him. Drinkwater’s office, one of six in the building, took up the far right-hand corner, its windows overlooking both Turk and Hyde.

A few strides clear of the stairs, Quincannon halted and fired another match, again shielding the glow with his free hand. “Light your lantern here,” he said.

Rigsby went to one knee, took the small dark lantern from under his coat, and opened the shutter. Quincannon quickly lit the wick, shook out the lucifer as Slick Fingers lowered the shutter again — not quite all the way, allowing a sliver of a beam. By its glow they went ahead to Drinkwater’s door.

It took Quincannon even less time to pick the lock here. Before they entered, Rigsby completely shuttered the lantern’s eye. The darkness inside the outer office was complete, which meant that the windows were fully covered. He said as much to Slick Fingers, who then reopened the lantern to a slit.

The safe was not in this room; Quincannon would have noticed it on his previous visit if it were. The door to Drinkwater’s private sanctum was to the left, beyond a rail divider and his secretary’s desk. It wasn’t locked. Again, before entering, Slick Fingers extinguished his light — a precaution that once more proved to be unnecessary. The Hyde Street windows were also covered. Drinkwater had a fetish for the color maroon; the drapes and deep pile carpet were all of that dark red shade.

The safe was not positioned in plain view, but it took Rigsby, whose long experience had given him a sixth sense not unlike that of a hound on the scent, less than a minute to locate it — hidden behind a pair of doors beneath shelves on the wall next to a massive cherrywood desk. He opened the lantern’s eye halfway in order to examine it. It had a rotary dial, Quincannon was relieved to see. Slick Fingers peered at the manufacturer’s name in gold leaf on its black-painted front, then rotated the dial several times before turning his head and offering up a snaggle-toothed grin.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

Quincannon watched him take a doctor’s stethoscope from the pocket of his coat, fit the earpieces into his jumbo ears, place the chestpiece against the safe door just above the dial, and then set to work. Lock manipulation was a simple enough process in principle: the lock was used against itself in order to discover the combination, by feel and by the sound of the tumblers falling into place in proper sequence as the dial was slowly rotated. But it took a highly skilled cracksman with a clear understanding of the mechanical actions of locks, plus years of practice, to do the job properly and swiftly.