Elmo had briefed him late the previous night. They had learned that the owner of the house at 12 West 62nd Street was away, and that a dog walker came every day, morning and evening, to walk a black Pekinese named Mao Mao.
Today McAllister would pose as an employee of the dog-walking company. Ethan had ordered some associates to intercept the regular walker this morning after he left on his route. They planned to hold him until the end of the day. The plan was for Ethan and Elmo to break in and steal the healing book while McAlister distracted the caretaker.
They didn’t know what kind of safe it was, but felt Ethan could crack it regardless of the brand. Elmo, still undercover as the Tibetese expert Dr. Bertram, would authenticate the Blue Beryl, which they assumed would be in the safe. Then they would exit the house.
The entire plan was based on the assumption that McAlister would not be allowed past the foyer when he picked up the dog for his walk. He would return early, claiming that the dog had cut his foot. The team believed that the caretaker would let McAlister carry the dog into the kitchen to clean and bandage his foot, which would afford Ethan and Bertram the opportunity to sneak inside the house, enter the first-floor office, crack the safe and steal the Beryl.
As of last night, Bertram had not known how he and Ethan were supposed to get out of the house, which DJ thought was odd. He knew that in addition to being designed to keep people out, houses with complicated alarm systems were sometimes also designed to keep people inside after a crime.
DJ, who rarely needed to break into private residences, was skeptical. But McAlister’s failures were his successes. If McAlister failed, then McAlister, Ethan and Elmo would all land in jail. DJ could have Elmo out in half an hour. If McAlister was successful, that was fine too; DJ’s plan was geared to have Elmo in a position to steal the Blue Beryl soon after McAlister acquired it.
DJ felt that McAlister’s dog-walking disguise was poor. He had tried to dress like a coffee-slurping Soho-pre-tech-bubble bohemian, but he’d made the mistake of buying all new clothes. Even the baseball cap was new. DJ knew better, and had purchased his current tourist-disguise clothes at a secondhand store in Chelsea.
The group across the street reached 62nd Street and rounded the corner. DJ crossed the street, cautiously entered the block and quickly bounded up the steps to an enclosed porch that would serve as his observation point. He’d scouted the neighborhood last night; not only did this porch afford him a perfect view of number 12, but there had been no lights on and it appeared that the owners were out of town. He took out pair of Steiner Commander V binoculars and watched the operation unfold.
Ethan and Elmo stopped two houses away from number twelve and melted into a nicely landscaped front yard garden. DJ noticed there was no landscaping cover in front of number twelve.
He watched as McAlister walked confidently to the front door and rang the doorbell.
Chapter 41
Thomas McAlister took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
After a moment, a very old Chinese man with a shriveled face and impeccably manicured goatee opened the inner door. The outer screen had inch-thick steel bars running vertically, reinforced with four horizontal bars running from top to bottom.
“Yes?”
“Uh, yeah, hi. I’m here to walk the dog.” McAlister glanced down at a rumpled sheet of paper, and said, “Mao Mao.”
The man looked into Thomas’ eyes, tilted his head the way Thomas had seen countless dogs do and said, “Where is Chris?”
“Sick, I guess. They don’t tell me anything. Just where to be and when. And I get this profile.” Thomas handed the man a one-page profile of what they knew about Mao’s schedule. They’d made up “likes” and “dislikes” and had inserted a digital photo they’d taken yesterday with a zoom lens. Then printed it out, made a copy, and then a copy of the copy to reduce the quality. At that point it looked like an adequately stupid profile that a dog-walking company owned by dog lovers might produce.
“Where did you get that?”
“From my boss at ADSBF. Sorry, I mean, A Dog’s Second Best Friend.”
“They normally call when Chris is not in.”
“They probably forgot today. A lot of walkers called in sick. Typical. You know, man, ‘cocktail flu.’” McAlister winked at the caretaker.
The Chinese man paused, and for a second McAlister thought he might call the dog-walking office to confirm that Chris had not come into work. McAlister was sure the scheme was doomed when he saw the man reach for the phone, but instead of picking up the receiver, that man began entering numbers into a keypad and suddenly the door clicked open and the old caretaker waved him in.
The foyer was twenty degrees cooler than the temperature outside. It was dark, and smelled of lemon oil and mothballs. He tried to look past the man to get an idea of how the house was furnished, but it was too dark and he could only see a few feet of wall and tile floor on each side of the hallway.
As McAlister’s eyes adjusted, he noticed he was standing next to two large Oriental screens that ran along the left wall. He recognized them as being classics from the Shanxi Province, each probably worth over a million dollars.
McAlister heard growling and looked down to see the faint outline of a black Pekinese snarling at him, displaying his crooked eyeteeth.
“Mao! This is….what is your name, sir?”
“Mark.”
The old man waved his finger at the dog, “Mao Mao, this is Mark. He will walk you today. You must be nice to him!”
Mao stopped growling and sniffed McAlister’s pant leg.
The man handed McAlister a small red dog biscuit and said, “Bend down and let him smell your hand, then give this to him.”
McAlister did as the man instructed, and Mao seemed to accept him.
The Chinese man produced a leash and McAlister fastened it to the dog’s collar.
“Thirty minutes. No more or he gets cranky.”
McAlister took the leash. “Okay….oh, I didn’t get your name.”
“Master Ben.”
McAlister wondered if it was Master as in Master of martial arts, or Master of the house. “Okay Ben, we’ll see you in thirty minutes. Come on, Mao Mao.”
McAlister walked down the steps to the sidewalk. His mind was on getting Ethan and Bertram into the house, but he also wondered how he was going to bring himself to slice open the foot of this majestic old Pekinese.
Chapter 42
Elmo was not only worried about getting caught, but he was impersonating an expert in ancient Tibetan history and was terrified of being called upon to identify or even offer an opinion on the authenticity of the Blue Beryl.
Further, if it was somehow discovered that he was impersonating Dr. Bertram, he was not sure what Ethan might do to him. Though an elegant, knowledgeable, high-end thief, Elmo had seen Ethan’s file and knew him to be a hardened ex-IRA terrorist, capable of terrible violence.
Suddenly, Elmo saw McAlister hurrying back toward 12 West 62nd with the dog in his hands, blood dripping down onto his faded jeans. As McAlister neared, Elmo saw the blood-soaked cloth wrapped around the dog’s front paw and the gaping tear in McAlister’s t-shirt where the cloth had obviously come from. Nothing about it looked staged; in fact, there was a lot of blood and Elmo wondered if McAlister hadn’t mortally wounded the dog.
Elmo was walking east, Ethan west. They’d timed it so that they’d be 30 feet from the entrance of the house when McAlister reached the door. Ideally, McAlister would be let in and would carry the bloody dog back to the kitchen. In all the excitement and chaos surrounding the situation, hopefully the old Chinese caretaker would leave the front door open and unlocked.
McAlister reached the door and rang the bell; Master Ben opened it almost immediately. Elmo could see the concerned look on his face. He saw McAlister point and heard him say the words broken glass. A moment later McAlister disappeared inside the house, still carrying the dog.
This was the crucial moment.
/> Ethan, who’d been walking toward Elmo, moved with catlike grace to the screen door. Before Elmo reached the front walkway, Ethan was already peering in from the side, his hand on the door handle. Elmo reached him and stood quietly behind, just as they’d practiced.
After a moment Ethan entered and Elmo followed. It was Elmo’s job to make sure the door did not make any noise as it closed. They knew the large, heavy front door would likely chime when opened or closed; the screen door would not, but it must not slam or click shut.
The pneumatic cylinder on the door was slow and took longer to close than Elmo or Ethan had anticipated. Once closed, Ethan firmly grasped Elmo’s arm just above the elbow and led him down the dark hallway, pulling him into the first doorway on the right. Elmo hadn’t expected it to be so dark. He couldn’t see, and the pressure Ethan was putting on his arm was painful and disorienting. Why was Ethan grabbing him so hard?
They slid through a doorway, took five hurried steps, and suddenly Ethan forcefully pushed him down to the floor. Elmo was shocked at how rough Ethan was being with him, and he wondered if Ethan was angry. Was it possible Ethan knew his true identity?
Elmo had noticed that the further they got into the operation, the more distant Ethan had become. Elmo knew Ethan had many underground contacts. It was possible that Ethan had discovered that Elmo was an FBI agent posing as Dr. Bertram.
Suddenly, Elmo was alone on the floor, and Ethan was gone. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness and he could tell he was behind a large desk. They were in Nuan Cai’s office. He could hear Ethan working on the other side of the room. Elmo put his hands on the floor to adjust his sitting position and his fingers sank into a tightly woven Persian carpet. He’d shopped for Oriental carpets once, and even splurged on a small one. He knew from touch that the one he was sitting on was expensive.
To his right was a desk chair. His nose was five inches from the seat and he smelled musky leather. Beyond the chair was a high wall lined with built-in shelves. At first, he couldn’t see what was on the shelves, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw that each shelf held a row of Chinese warrior statues. Museum quality. Likely priceless. He recognized a few from the books he’d been researching for this assignment. In each case, the owner of the collection had been private.
As he sat and marveled at the wall of treasures, he could hear water running in the kitchen and the voices of Thomas and old Chinese man discussing the wound. They were probably deciding whether they could treat it here, or if they needed to go to a veterinarian for stitches.
Suddenly, Elmo heard the sound of wood being slowly crunched and broken--a noise that usually comes with steady pressure. He looked up and saw Ethan pulling away pieces of a broken cabinet door, exactly where he’d predicted the safe would be, based on the RFP. Elmo saw the safe’s tumbler as Ethan worked. The noise had been loud, and Elmo hoped the running water in the kitchen had masked it.
The noise reminded him that they were breaking, entering, and stealing, and that there was no telling what the Chinese man might do if he discovered them. He was old, but as the major domo of a house containing many priceless artifacts, he was probably capable of self-defense. There was likely a gun somewhere on the first floor.
Suddenly the water stopped. Elmo could hear the man saying, “You should have been more careful! You exhibit negligence!”
Elmo’s heart froze. Ethan had stopped working and had his head cocked. Elmo could see the tumbler and the door to the safe. It was still closed.
He heard McAlister’s voice. “It was an accident, man. There was no broken bottle; it was just one piece of glass. It was impossible to see.”
Elmo saw Ethan connect a device to the door of the safe, and then suddenly he heard the caretaker say, “Just get out. Get out now. I will take care of this myself.”
He heard McAlister begin to protest but the Chinese man raised his voice another octave and said, “Out, now!”
He heard the man say, “Sit!” firmly, and then footsteps coming down the hall. Suddenly Ethan was crouched beside him. Elmo was sitting Indian style. He looked down and saw a gun in Ethan’s hand. The situation was getting out of control.
McAlister and the Chinese man passed the doorway. Elmo heard the man let McAlister out. He heard the door slam shut, the deadbolt being turned, and then four beeps indicating the alarm had been set.
At hearing the alarm, Ethan slowly shook his head. Elmo knew that if the man stopped and looked in the office, there was a chance he would see the broken cabinet door. It was dark, but the entire house was dark, so the man had to be used to it.
The footsteps led quickly back to the kitchen, and Elmo could hear Master Ben talking to the dog in a foreign language.
In a flash Ethan was back at the safe, reconnecting the device. Something new occurred to Elmo that he had not thought of before. Aside from wondering how they were going to get out of the house, he realized that they were in as much or more danger now that the dog was in the house with them. Dogs’ hearing ability and sense of smell were so superior to that of humans, it would only be a matter of time before Mao Mao realized that he and Master Ben were not alone in the house.
And, just after the thought drifted into his mind, Mao Mao started to bark.
Chapter 43
McAlister was frustrated that he had not been able to convince Master Ben to let him stay and help bandage the dog. He had planned to give Ethan and Bertram much more time to open the safe, verify the Beryl’s authenticity, and sneak out. His being asked to leave could ruin everything.
He walked down the street, reviewing the plan they’d discussed in the event that Ethan and Dr. Bertram got trapped inside the house.
He rounded the corner and started his way down the block. At the halfway point, he sat down on the steps of a brownstone and waited. There was always a chance that Ethan and Bertram would get caught. There was no question the dog would smell them. The only question was, would Master Ben allow the dog to walk through the house wounded and bleeding? Probably not.
If caught, Ethan and Bertram would fight their way out of the house. If that happened, there was absolutely nothing McAlister could do about it. But if they were not discovered, he needed to give them a little time to get into the safe and get the book.
Five minutes passed and he continued around the block until he was once more in front of 12 West 62nd. He rang the doorbell. It seemed improbable that Master Ben would allow him into the house again. Yesterday, during the planning session, it had seemed plausible. But now, in the current situation, it seemed like a stretch.
He waited, wondering if Master Ben would even answer the door. Finally, he heard the faint sound of an alarm code being entered, and then a double beep, which Ethan had explained was the signal most internal alarms used to denote “all clear.” The interior door swung open, but Master Ben stayed back, and left the outer door closed.
“Yes?”
“Is Mao Mao okay?”
“I have notified his owner. He is extremely displeased. Words cannot express….”
“Has the bleeding stopped?”
“What do you want?”
McAlister paused. Every second he could give Ethan and Dr. Bertram counted. “I lost my apartment key in your house. I need to get it. It’s my only one.”
Master Ben paused, looking hard at Thomas. He said, “You must be joking.”
“No, sir. I’m sorry, I’m not. I left it inside.”
“Where did you leave it?”
“I don’t know exactly. It might have fallen out when I pulled one of the paper towels out of my pocket. Remember, you asked me to put them in my pocket so they wouldn’t rest on the floor.”
“I remember. I’ll go look for it.” He slammed the door and McAlister heard the deadbolt click.
McAlister tried to think what a real dog walker would do in this situation. He turned and sat down, took off his hat, crossed his legs at the ankles, leaned back on his elbows, and pointed his face toward the sun.
“Sir, it has to be. Just let me look, okay? I know where I was. It may be in the bathroom by the kitchen--remember you sent me there to get soap to clean the wound. Just let me look.”
Master Ben paused for a moment and then unlatched the outer door, saying, “Quickly. This is preposterous. You have lost your key. You are a negligent American.”
As McAlister walked down the hall he heard the man whisper, “Stupid fool.”
As he walked past the office, without turning his head, McAlister glanced in and saw the smashed cabinet door. He could even see the dull silver façade of the safe beyond the broken door.
He turned over his other shoulder and said, “Sir, did you check the bathroom yet?”
Thankfully, the man looked at him, and answered. “No.”
“I’ll start there first.” McAlister entered the kitchen, where he saw the dog sitting on the floor. He continued on to the bathroom just off the kitchen. He glanced back and saw Master Ben bending over the dog.
“Do you mind if I use the restroom while I’m here?”
“Yes, I do mind. Please do not.”
“Well, I don’t see it in here.” Thomas joined the man in the kitchen, retracing his steps.
“Let’s see. I was here with you, helping rinse Mao’s foot. Then you sent me for soap. I came back; we worked here at the sink, and then came over here to get the towels.” McAlister walked over and made a point of kicking the key he’d left on the floor minutes earlier when he’d first been in the house.
The Chinese man heard it. “What was that?”
McAlister bent down, looking under the overhang of the lower kitchen cabinets. “Here it is!” He reached down and retrieved the key.
“You go now.” The man said.
McAlister had no way of knowing whether or not Ethan and Bertram had had time to get into the safe, but surely his return visit had at least provided time to safely get out of the house.
Book of Cures (A Thomas McAlister Adventure 2) Page 18