Gangway!

  "A balloon?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The morning of the Great Mint Robbery the fog rolled in very thick and white across the Bay, covering the world as though with the ghost of a great snow. Voices were muffled on the streets, but footsteps sounded with unnatural clarity. Crimpers crimped policemen, prostitutes propositioned one another, and down on Division Street a pickpocket sprained two fingers when he tried to boost a wooden Indian.

  Captain Flagway leaned on the taffrail of the San Andreas, a pipe in his mouth and a fishing rod in his hands. The line extended down toward the water from the end of the rod, disappearing into the fog at just about the level of the captain's boots; he had to take it on faith that the other end was actually in the water, occupying itself with the business of getting him breakfast.

  It was all well and good to be involved in a major robbery scheme, where big numbers like 'one million dollars' were tossed around like apples, but in the meantime life went on. Reality was reality, and a man had to arrange for his own breakfast.

  Would the robbery ever actually take place? Would the captain ever see Baltimore again, his Daddy, and his Daddy's drugstore? Would the harbor master seize the San Andreas and thus rob Captain Flagway of the very roof over his head? He stood at the rail, musing on these questions, puffing from time to time on his pipe and occasionally jiggling a bit at the fishing rod, while the fog rolled like great imaginary pillows and his stomach growled gently about the lack of breakfast.

  He didn't know he'd been boarded until he heard the clump of boots right behind him. He turned, startled, and out of the fog stamped Roscoe Arafoot and half a dozen toughs who looked like fugitives from Yuma Penitentiary. "Oh!" Captain Flagway said-a tiny cry lost in the fog-and dropped his pole in the drink.

  Roscoe said, "We're supposed to move the ship now."

  "Oh," Captain Flagway said. He'd thought they were here to crimp him. "Yes," he said, and swallowed. "Well, I'll just…" He pointed in several directions, cleared his throat, twitched and smiled aimlessly, scampering out of their way.

  He felt a bit safer in his cabin, with the door more or less locked. That is, the door did have a lock, but a five-year-old child could have gotten through it by leaning on it. Once, off the coast of Peru, a high wind had blown that door open while it was locked. Still, it was the thought that counted, and it relieved the captain's mind somewhat to be able to throw that useless bolt.

  Next to the brave door was a porthole, with an all-too-clear view of the deck. The captain stood peeking out this porthole and watched obscure figures moving out there in the fog. At least none of them were moving in his direction.

  The fog began to lift as the sails were raised, and soon the full glory of the San Andreas could be seen in the thin translucent light of a pale morning sun. The ship's sails looked like patchwork quilts. She tended to heel over at a steep angle on even absolutely calm water, and the bow preferred to dig itself through the water rather than sail over it.

  The lifting of the fog didn't do much to lift the captain's spirits. It only meant he could see those ruffians more clearly, and nothing about them reassured him. They looked to be a breed of man which spent much of its time biting other people and being bitten in return. There was a frayed, toughened, gnawed, tooth-marked look about them, with here and there an eyepatch, or a dangling sleeve, or a suspiciously stiff leg.

  Slowly the San Andreas slipped away from her pier, with Captain Flagway watching through his cabin porthole. The crew might be truculent and frightening, but they appeared competent, moving about their duties in a sea-manlike fashion that Captain Flagway himself had never been able to duplicate.

  The ship sagged across the Bay toward the pier normally occupied by the New World, where the other day they had all gone into the water in the rented wagon. Roscoe's crew tied up broadside to the end of the pier and then ran a pair of wide planks out onto the pier from amidships.

  Captain Flagway remained where he was, watching. He'd been present for all the planning discussions, of course, and so knew exactly what was going on, and yet he found himself as fascinated as if all this activity were as mysterious and opaque as the fog had been. People at work. Captain Flagway could watch them forever.

  Roscoe went ashore. The crew remained aboard ship, strolling around the deck in a kind of angry, dangerous boredom, growling at one another from time to time like lions irritated by fleas.

  The captain stayed in his cabin. His stomach rumbled softly, not like a lion at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The balloon came sailing through the foggy air. There was utter silence up here, the streets and roofs seen patchily below through breaks in the fog like a dream incompletely remembered. In the basket swaying beneath the great bulb of the balloon sat Gabe, Vangie, Roscoe and Ittzy, each one silent, pensive, waiting, thinking his own thoughts. This was the highest from the ground that any of them had ever been, and none of them much liked it.

  Gabe sat on a coil of heavy rope, Roscoe hunkered between the canisters of laughing gas, Vangie stood braced against the side of the basket with her arms folded and her chin lifted in the heroic pose of a woman going down on the ship with her man, and Ittzy sat on a wooden box marked DYNAMITE and read slowly but soberly in a book titled THE HANDLING OF A. NOBEL'S DYNAMITE IN CONSTRUCTION, DEMOLITION AND MINING EMPLOYMENT, Or, The Art of Explosives in the Modern Age.

  Vangie spoke only once during the voyage through the air. "Gabe," she said, "I want you to remember what I'm saying, in the years to come. You aren't going to get away with this. I'll be baking a fresh cake for you every month in prison-fifty years, that's six hundred cakes."

  "Uh huh," Gabe said.

  Vangie frowned at him. Then a breeze touched the basket, making it hop, and distracted her into grabbing the suspension cords to keep her balance. By the time she looked back at Gabe, he had twisted around and was watching over the side of the basket toward the ground, looking for landmarks.

  It was hard to make things out in the fog. Still, through the occasional wispy holes it was possible to recognize the ornate elaborate decorations on the rooftops of the Nob Hill mansions. One more hilltop to cross, if Gabe's calculations were correct, and they would be over the Mint.

  He faced the inside of the basket again. Vangie continued to frown in his direction but had nothing more to say. Roscoe looked almost as uncomfortable in the air as he usually did around Francis. Ittzy continued to read his book, occasionally licking a fingertip and turning a page, then licking the fingertip again and turning the page back, to frown at what he'd already read. The book appeared to be heavy going for Ittzy, but Gabe's confidence in him was undimmed. Ittzy would be all right.

  Gabe licked his own finger, and held it up to test the moist foggy wind. It was still on course, easy and steady, leading them to the Mint. He smiled contentedly, ignored Vangie's disapproving looks, and when he next twisted around to look over the side of the basket there was the Mint, dead ahead.

  The fog was beginning to break up; they weren't getting here a minute too soon. In ever-largening misty holes in the fog layer Gabe could see the Mint yard down below, with the tour guide gathering his charges for another pass through the interior of the building. It was midmorning now, visiting hours; the main gates were open and people were wandering in, well-surveyed by the guards.

  The balloon-brightly colored, painted in astrological and other cabalistic signs, and bearing in great red letters the name PROFESSOR NEBULA (whoever he might be)-drifted over the courtyard and then over the main building of the Mint. At the right point, as he judged it, Gabe yanked the bag-release cord to open the valve and let enough gas out to lower the balloon to the roof.

  Nothing happened.

  Gabe frowned at the cord in his hand, frowned up at the balloon, frowned over the side at the roof of the Mint, drifting slowly by no more than ten feet below. He tugged again at the cord, and again nothing happened.

  Vangie said, "What's the matter?"

 
"Nothing," Gabe muttered, and yanked at the cord some more. "Not a damn thing."

  Everybody was now looking at him in alarm. They were drifting along, at the wind's pace. Soon they'd drift past the Mint and right on out over the Bay… Finally in desperation, Gabe pulled the whisky flask from his hip pocket and shot a hole in the balloon.

  Something began to hiss.

  But they weren't descending.

  Gabe yanked the cord again, but it broke and he stood staring at the useless frayed end in his hand.

  They were almost past the Mint when Roscoe removed an enormous horse pistol from his sash and shot a bloody great hole in the balloon.

  Now it descended. In fact it descended very rapidly, till the basket thumped solidly onto the roof of the Mint. Gabe was half-crushed by warm bodies; he pushed them away, but the deflating bag of the balloon settled on down and draped itself in billowing folds over them all.

  Finally they came batting and pawing their way out from under. Vangie was muttering how she'd known it was never going to work. Ittzy was still reading the book on explosives.

  Roscoe emerged with vast pistols in both hands, ready to demolish any army that might appear.

  But none did. Evidently nobody had been alarmed by the gunshots. For one thing gunshots were not unheard of in San Francisco. For another it was not an instinctive reaction for people on the ground to look straight up in the air when they heard shots.

  When they were sure no one was coming to investigate their arrival on the roof, they all ducked back under the collapsed balloon again to drag out their equipment. Pulling the canisters and the rope and the dynamite, they emerged from the balloon once more and Vangie took the opportunity to whisper in Gabe's ear, "Gabe, this is an omen. Things are going to go wrong. We can still give it up, mix with the regular people in the tour, get out of here just as though it had never happened."

  He gave her a surprised look. "Everything's fine," he said. "What's the problem?"

  Roscoe asked, "What was that thing you were shooting?"

  "My flask," Gabe said. "It holds six shots." Vangie picked it up.

  Roscoe shook his head in admiration. "They make guns to look like almost anything, don't they?"

  "I guess so."

  To one side Ittzy continued to read his book.

  "Bring the rope," Gabe told Roscoe, and headed for the chimney of the ventilator shaft protruding from the center of the red tile roof. Gabe worked the lid off the chimney, looked around, and said, "Put the book down, Ittzy. Time to go to work."

  "This is real interesting," Ittzy said. He seemed pleased and somewhat surprised to find that a book could be interesting. Tucking it away, he came forward to stand patiently while Gabe tied the rope securely around his waist. Then he climbed up onto the chimney and prepared to be lowered down the shaft. His legs went in, his torso went in, and then he stopped.

  Gabe said, "What's the matter?"

  "I'm too big. I don't fit."

  "It's that book," Gabe said. "Give it to me."

  Ittzy struggled the book out of his shirt and handed it over, then squirmed around some more. "I'm still too big," he said.

  Roscoe said, "It's the gun."

  Ittzy had been given one of Roscoe's huge pistols, a weapon chosen more for its impressive appearance than for Ittzy's ability to use it. He said, "But I need the gun. I can't go down without it."

  "We'll lower it to you," Gabe said. "Come on, hand it over."

  Ittzy hunkered and squirmed upward out of the chimney, got the pistol out of his trouser pocket, handed it over to Roscoe, and tried again.

  "Nope."

  Gabe looked at him. "What do you mean, nope?"

  "I'm just too big," Ittzy said.

  "Maybe it's his belt buckle," Roscoe said.

  Ittzy told him, "Roscoe, you'll have me naked, first thing you know, but I still won't fit in this godalmighty ventilator shaft. I'm just too big."

  "Maybe we could sort of press down on you," Roscoe suggested.

  "Well, no," Ittzy said. "I don't think you could do that."

  "Drat," Gabe said.

  Ittzy said, "Can I get out of here now?"

  "Yeah, come on out," Gabe said, and stood glaring at the chimney.

  "There, now," Vangie said. "It's all over, we can forget it, we can go home."

  Gabe turned to look at her. His eyes squinted a bit as he studied her. "Hmm," he said.

  She leaned away, watching him suspiciously. "What do you mean, hmmmm?"

  "You're smaller than Ittzy," he said.

  "Gabe…"

  "You'd fit."

  "Now, wait a minute," she said. "It's bad enough I'm along here. I'm not going to…"

  "It's safe as houses," Gabe told her. "Roscoe and me, we'll just let you down slow and easy."

  "I don't want to be let down at all."

  "There's nothing to it," Gabe insisted. "And when you get to the bottom, you just do what Ittzy was going to do."

  "I'm not Ittzy!"

  "I know. You're smaller. Come on," he said confidentially, encouragingly. "You can do it."

  She was weakening. "I don't know," she said.

  Gabe handed her the pistol Ittzy had been carrying. "Just aim it," he said. "That's all you've got to do."

  "I can't." She held it in both hands, struggling. "It's too heavy to point."

  Gabe took the pistol away again, reached into his pockets, and handed her the whisky flask and the knuckle-duster. "These'll do, then."

  "This is crazy."

  He took her aside and peered into her eyes. "Vangie."

  "Yes?"

  "Do you love me?"

  "I…"

  "Do you trust me?"

  "Well…"

  "Okay, then everything's all right. You got nothing to worry about; we'll be right there as soon as you let us in."

  "I trust you," she said doubtfully, allowing him to tie the rope around her waist as he had done with Ittzy.

  Vangie couldn't climb on top of the chimney, so Gabe lifted her up and lowered her into the top of the shaft like a wine cork. "You're doing fine." he said.

  "I haven't gone anywhere yet," she said. Her voice trembled slightly and she had two round patches of white on her cheekbones.

  "You're going now," he told her, and Roscoe began paying out the rope.

  She saw Gabe smiling and waving by-by, and then there was nothing to see but the filthy dark brick wall of the ventilator shaft. She was lowered in fits and tugs, the rope around her chest under her arms and just above her breasts, causing her to hang hunched up like a vampire bat. "I'm giving up my looks for that man," she muttered in the shaft. "I'm losing my posture for him."

  Finally she reached bottom, and could take the confining rope off. She tugged on it to show she had safely arrived, and the rope was whisked back up again. A little blue light showed up there. She gazed upward wistfully, then looked around at where she was instead, which was standing on the grille-framework in the ceiling of the vault-room. She put her face close to the grating and looked into the room.

  There wasn't anybody inside. The barred door to the anteroom was locked. Beyond it, through the bars, she could see the backs and shoulders of the two guards who stood facing the other way.

  She looked up. Gabe was lowering the canisters on the rope. She caught them, untied the rope, placed them to one side, and waited while they hauled the rope up and lowered the box of dynamite. After it came down, she took out Ittzy's screwdriver and began to unscrew the grating. This is ridiculous. It'll never work. Not in a million years.

  They hauled up the rope and walked softly across the roof to the back corner. Roscoe tied the rope to a bolt in the corner and they dropped the length of rope down the back wall. Then they slid down to the paved yard one at a time; Ittzy first, then Roscoe, then Gabe. At the bottom Gabe looked at his red palms. "Next time," he muttered, "gloves."

  They walked around the building and at the loading platform separated. Gabe and Ittzy walked innocently to the corner
of the building and engaged the attention of the guards; behind them, Roscoe shifted one of the empty Mint wagons into position at the end of the handcart rails on the loading platform. Nobody took any notice; he might have been a Mint employee. When Roscoe finished he joined Gabe and Ittzy at the corner and they walked around into the courtyard to join the guided tour.

  "Now and then we stamp an issue of five-dollar half eagles, but it don't happen very often here so if you find a half eagle with our stamp on it maybe you want to hang onto it. They're as rare as a pair of clean socks around a bunkhouse."

  Vangie had the metal grating unscrewed. She lifted it out of its frame and set it aside on the ceiling beams. She waited until the minute hand of the watch she'd stolen last week came around to exactly ten-thirty, and then she dropped silently into the vault room.

  She slipped across the room, keeping close to the wall. At the front corner she turned, went across to the barred door, and waited just inside it.

  The tourists entered the anteroom beyond.

  "… rest assured your money's safe. Nobody's ever tried to rob the United States Mint, of course-nobody's ever been stupid enough to try. I reckon someday somebody will, but you probably won't even read about it in the papers because whatever they do they ain't gonna get anywheres near your Government's gold."

  Finally the group turned and left the anteroom. When the tourists turned left, Gabe, Roscoe and Ittzy turned right and waited just around the corner until the group was gone.

  Vangie stepped to the barred door. She had the flask in one hand and the knuckle-duster in the other.

  "Stick 'em up."

  The guards whipped around in amazement and stared at her. "Huh?"

  "Stick 'em up. These are guns."

  They grinned. One of them pointed to the whisky flask. "That one must have quite a kick," he said.

  "I mean it. They really are guns."

  "Sure they are." The guard lifted his key ring. "I don't know how you got in there, honey, but you're about to come out." He began to unlock the door.