Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“Nice, huh?” Necessary said.

“Who owns it?” I said.

“Some guy called Bolberg.”

“I mean this house.”

“It belongs to Phetwick like almost everything else in town. He just keeps paying taxes on it and waits for the price to rise. I understand it’s up to about two thousand dollars now.”

“For the house and lot?”

“A front foot,” he said. “I think it’s on the tax rolls for about five thousand dollars, and that does include the house and lot.”

“That light over there’s sure as hell going to save us,” Soderbell said again, as if to himself. The light that arched over the furrier’s metal door was about a hundred watts and was encased in a wire-mesh shield.

“What if they bust it?” Necessary said.

“Then we’re shit out of luck,” Soderbell said. “Let’s break out this window. It’s too dirty to shoot through.”

“Why not just open it?” Necessary said.

“I tried. It’s nailed shut.”

“Wait a minute,” Necessary said. He took a roll of masking tape from his pocket and started to tape the window in an intricate, cobwebby pattern. He took off his shoe and tapped the window with its heel. It broke and we spent the next few minutes removing pieces of taped glass until Soderbell said he had enough space to shoot through.

We waited five more minutes, until it was 3:20. The lights of a car turned into the alley from its far right end.

“You ready?” Necessary said to Soderbell.

“Always,” Soderbell said.

The car rolled down the alley slowly. Spotlights on both sides flashed along the rears of buildings. One of them flicked across the house we were in, but not above the first story. “That’s why I said second story,” Necessary muttered. “Nobody ever looks up. You can tell ‘em till you’re purple, but they won’t look up.”

The car fixed a spotlight on the iron door of the furrier’s and kept it there. Soderbell’s camera was whirring faintly. The car was black and white and had Swankerton Police Department stenciled on its side along with a nice, official-looking shield. Big white letters on its black top spelled SPD. It slowed, almost to a stop, and then drove on by. The spotlights went out.

“Get its number, boy, get its number,” Necessary whispered to Soderbell.

The camera kept on whirring and then stopped. “I got it.”

“That’s the lookout crew,” Necessary said. “They’ll cruise around the block from now on.”

We waited four or five minutes more until another set of lights approached from the right end of the alley. I looked at my watch. It was almost exactly 3:30 A.M. The car cut its lights when it was slightly past the furrier’s steel door. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that the car had two occupants. It was a dark color, either blue or black, and it had no markings.

“The thieves,” Necessary said.

Whoever was in the car made no move to get out. Another minute went by before yet another set of car lights turned into the alley from the right. Then its headlights went out and the driver used his amber parking lights instead. He switched them on and off in rapid succession four times. The new arrival parked on the other side of the furrier’s back door and from where I stood I could see that it was another black-and-white police car. Soderbell’s camera whirred some more.

Two men got out of the police car and stood in the pool of light made by the shielded bulb above the metal door.

Soderbell whispered directions to them. “Move, you sonofabitch. Now turn this way and look up just a little... a little more, you mother... oh, that’s fine... that’s just fine... your shield and everything.”

The two men who got out of the squad car wore the gray-and-blue summer uniforms of the Swankerton police. They waited by the door until they were joined by two men in dark clothing who had waited in the unmarked car. One of the men carried a small bag. The two policemen took up positions so that they could watch both ends of the alley. The man with the bag handed it to his fellow thief and bent over the door. He turned his head two or three times, and the other man passed him something.

“He’s fixing the alarm system,” said Necessary, who furnished us with a running commentary on the methodology of the theft. In a few minutes the man in the dark clothes had the door open. His fellow thief went back to the unmarked car, stored the bag away, and opened the trunk.

The two thieves, accompanied by one of the policemen, entered the building. Soderbell got a few shots of the remaining cop as he walked in and out of the circle of light. It was almost another five minutes before the two thieves and the policeman came out, all burdened with armloads of furs. They dumped them into the open trunk of the unmarked car. After that, they made three more similar trips. Soderbell filmed it all, muttering unheard directions to the silent stars of his back-alley drama.

During the thieves’ final trip into the warehouse, the policeman on guard moved over to the driver’s side of the squad car. He reached in with his left hand and did something else with his right, but we never could see what it was because the car’s spotlight blazed on. It blinded Soderbell and transfixed him before the window with his camera aimed directly at the spotlight. He stood there like that until the bullet hit him somewhere in the chest, I thought, and hurled him back into the room a few, wild staggering steps. He fell in a lump, still holding the camera, and in the brief, total silence that followed, I listened to it whir.

The cop must have been nervous because he fired through the window twice more. Then the spotlight went out and I could hear the four of them jabbering in the alley. I was flat against the wall next to the window. Necessary was already bending over Soderbell. He rose quickly and I saw that he had the camera in his hands.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, his voice tight, fast and low.

“Do we carry him or drag him?” I said.

“We leave him. Let’s go.”

I could hear an engine start in the alley. A car trunk lid slammed closed, then two car doors thunked. Tires squealed in high-pitched protest for what seemed to be a long time but could only have been less than a second. Thieves’ getaway, I thought. It was an idle, almost lazy thought.

“We can’t leave him,” I said because it seemed to be the thing to say.

“He’s dead, goddamnit,” Necessary said and headed for the door. I could think of nothing better to do than follow. We went down the stairs to the long hall much faster than we had come up. I felt or sensed that Necessary turned right instead of left.

“Where the hell you going?” I whispered, a little frantically, I suppose.

“Out the alley entrance. They’re around in front by now.”

As if to prove it, something large and heavy crashed against the front door of the old house. Something about the size and weight of an archless foot encased in a number eleven shoe. It crashed again as Necessary thrust the camera into my arms and started to fumble with the lock and bolts on the rear door. On the third crash I could hear the front door splinter open. Necessary got the last lock undone and swung the rear door wide. We went through it and down four steps. I stumbled on the last one, almost falling, almost dropping the camera. I recovered and ran after Necessary, who had turned right, heading for the squad car that was still parked in the alley, just beyond the pool of light that came from the bulb above the furrier’s still-open door.

Necessary opened the left door of the squad car, reached inside, and came out with the keys. He threw them as far as he could into the darkness. Then he fumbled his hand in again. Once more the spotlight on the driver’s side blazed on. I looked up and saw the too-white faces of the cops through the hole in the broken second-story window. They closed their eyes against the glare and I saw why it had been an easy shot for the cop who’d killed Soderbell. It would be hard to miss.