The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection

by Harry Harrison

  While at the same moment a draught of air touched my face and a familiar voice called out close by.

  ‘What’s going on in here?’

  The guard! And he had opened the door. How very nice of him. I moved along the wall, avoiding him easily since he was still shouting in the darkness, then followed the billowing smoke out into the light of day. Blinking at the brightness and at the other guard who was stationed just before me, grabbing me.

  ‘Just hold it right there. You ain’t going nowhere.’

  He could not have been much wronger, I mean grabbing onto a Black Belt like that. I eased him to the ground so he wouldn’t hurt himself when he fell, threw the box into the van, looked around to see that I was totally unobserved, closed the door, started the engine, then drove slowly and carefully away from fun-filled Loona Park.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘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 of 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 the interesting fact that the box was empty. The tops of packets and containers protruding above the box were 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 Billville.

  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 of whisky from the bar and poured a stiff shot. I sipped it, wrinkled my nose at the awful flavour, 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 some day, 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 colour 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.

  1.R–K4XB

  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 analyse 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 labour 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 book 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 on the next one up. Or rather it should be called White King 2 because it is also Black King 7 from the point of view of the other player. (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 called Algebraic Notation that assigns a letter and a number to each of the 64 squares on the board. The eight files, looking at the board from left to right for White, are lettered from ‘a’ to ‘h’. So Knight four can be either b4, g4, b5, or g5.

  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 four – what can that mean? The fourth night of what? The fourth night of the Modern Music Festival in the city of Pearly Gates, that is what. And this fourth night is also the 24th day of the year, which is – that’s correct – also known as Knight 4 in its first permutation. That is if b is understood as the second letter of the alphabet, so b4 can be read as 24. With this added verification The Bishop would be sure that some crime would take place on the fourth night of the festival. A crime involving money of course. My mental fingers were crossed in the hopes 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 en
d 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 theatre. As I walked the rest of the way I soon found myself braving the elements among other black-garbed, 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 dissonances 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 carefully 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 labelled 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 the 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 shovelling 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 theatre 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 of 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 Thuringia 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 smarmily 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 realised 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 arrest,’ the plainclothes detective said, holding out his jewelled badge. His companion pointed a large gun at me just to make sure that I understood.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘What … what …’ I said, or something very like this. The arresting officer was not impressed by my ready wit.

  ‘Put on your coat. You are coming with us.’

  In a daze I stumbled across the room and did just as he commanded. I should leave the coat here, I knew that, but I had no will to resist. When they searched it they would find the mask and key, everything that would betray me. And what about the money? They hadn’t mentioned the bag.

  As soon as my arm was through the sleeve the policeman snapped a handcuff on my wrist and clicked the other end to his own wrist. I was going nowhere without them. There was little or nothing I could do – not with the gun wielder three steps behind us.

  Out the door we went and along the corridor, to the elevator, then down the lobby. At least the detective had the courtesy to to stand close to me so the handcuffs were not obvious. A large, black and ominous groundcar was parked in the middle of the no-parking zone. The driver didn’t even bother to glance in our direction. Though as soon as we had climbed in and the door closed, he pulled away.

  I could think of not
hing to say – nor were my companions in a conversational mood. In silence we rolled through the rainy streets, past police headquarters which was unexpected, to stop before the Bit O’ Heaven Federal Building. The Feds! My heart dropped. I had been correct in assuming that breaking the clues and catching me had certainly been beyond the intelligence of the local police. But I had not reckoned upon the planetary investigation agencies. By hindsight – which is not very satisfying – I saw my error. After years of absence The Bishop strikes again. Why? And what does the bit of chesswackery mean? Put the cryptologists on it. Oho, a bit of bragging, scene and date of next crime revealed. Keep it Federal and out of the hands of the local and incompetent police. Watch the cash with the most modern of electronic surveillance techniques. Track the criminal to see if others are involved. Then pounce.

  My state of black depression was so great that I could scarcely walk. I swayed when our little procession stopped before a heavy door labelled FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, with Director Flynn in smaller gold letters beneath it. My captors knocked politely and the doorlock buzzed and opened. We filed in.

  ‘Here he is, sir.’

  ‘Fine. Secure him to the chair and I’ll take over from here on out.’

  The speaker sat massively behind the massive desk. A big man with sleek black hair, who was made even bigger by the enormous quantity of fat that he was carrying around. His chin, or chins, hung down onto the swelling volume of his chest. The size of his stomach kept him well back from the desk, upon which the fingers of his clasped hands rested like a bundle of stout sausages. He returned my shifty gaze with his steady and steely one. I made no protest as I was guided to the chair, dropped into it, felt the handcuffs being secured to it, heard footsteps recede and the door slam.