Gangway! (10 page)

    The anteroom was just an empty square space surrounded by walls without windows. The tracks went on through and out another doorway on the opposite side; the gold shipment with all its guards was just leaving the anteroom as the tour group filed in.

    The guide waited till everybody was in before going on with his spiel. "Now," he said, "we ain't allowed past this point, so I'll just let each of you come over here close to the door and peek past my shoulder if you'd like to see the vault. It's right through here, this doorway. Now mind you, not too close-these here boys get right nervous if they see anybody leanin' too passionately toward that gold inside, haw haw."

    Gabe was the first to step forward and finally Vangie had to drag him aside to let the other people have a look. She herself got only a glimpse into the vault.

    It didn't look extraordinary. Just a ten-by-ten room with a big steel door at the far end of it, into which ran the handcart rails. The guards were unloading the boxes and stacking them on shelves inside the vault at the far side of the room. The big steel door was open. A guard now came across from the steel door and slammed shut an open-grille door of steel bars, like a jail cell door, of which Vangie had seen one or two in her time. It didn't block anyone's view, but the steel bars looked about three inches thick. It was obvious nobody was going to open that door without a key and a lot of friends.

    She began to feel a little better about things. Gabe's idea was clearly impossible after all.

    "Now this here barred door is closed and locked virtually at all times, folks, except when there's a cart going through, as you just seen. And of course at these times we keep a minimum force of twenny armed guards in these two rooms, not to mention all the guards you saw around the rest of the Mint. So you can rest assured your money's safe, haw haw. 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."

    Vangie was absolutely positive the guide had said that strictly for Gabe's benefit. But Gabe was smiling faintly as if his head were filled with pleasant faraway visions. He didn't seem to be listening to the guide any more. He was looking up at the corners of the anteroom, just under the ceiling. Vangie looked up that way, but she couldn't see anything but walls and ceiling.

    The guide reached over to touch the heavy steel panel beside the barred door. "And this here solid steel door-this is armor plate, by the way-this is kept closed and locked at all times except visiting hours."

    Gabe obviously wasn't listening at all any more. His glance swiveled back from the vault room, and Vangie, following the direction of his gaze, didn't see anything that looked important. He was just looking out the corridor toward the loading platform at the far end.

    It was all one long straight line, she noticed. From the loading platform the rails came straight through the building, through the anteroom, and right into the vault.

    The guide took them out through the office-lined corridors that led to the front door. There seemed to be a guard at every turning.

    By the time they got out to the main gate, Vangie was feeling highly relieved. It was obviously impossible to crack this place. Now Gabe would have to give up the idea completely.

    Gabe nodded judiciously as they walked out through the gate. "Well," he said, "that shouldn't be too tough."

    He didn't seem to notice the look Vangie gave him.

    The street led directly downhill from the Mint's main gate to the Bay, which spread out before them in all its sunlit glory. They strolled down toward the center of the city, Gabe off in unguessable plans and speculations, Vangie fretting and fuming and wondering just how serious Gabe was about putting his head into this particular noose.

    A block or two from the Mint they passed a policeman and Vangie recognized him as Officer McCorkle, with his red hair sticking out from under his bobby helmet as though it were a wig. He was the one who'd arrested that fellow in the Golden Rule that time, the fellow who'd tried to shoot Ittzy Herz.

    Apparently Officer McCorkle thought he recognized Vangie and Gabe as well. He gave them both a searching glance as they passed him by, and when she looked back at him he had taken an enormous notebook from his hip pocket and was flipping through the pages. He selected one, took a stub of pencil from his shirt pocket, wetted it on his tongue preparatory to taking notes, and glanced again toward Vangie and Gabe.

    Vangie guiltily faced front. Beside her, Gabe walked blissfully along, unaware of everything. But she could practically feel that pencil writing away on the back of her head.

    He's just waiting for us to get in trouble, Vangie thought. It was obvious that McCorkle had his eye on them. Should she say something to Gabe? No, he'd just think she was trying to scare him out of planning this Mint robbery.

    Troubled, oppressed, but for the moment keeping her own counsel, Vangie walked along beside her man.

    

    

    Francis' pleasure in the day was about to be spoiled. "I don't understand," he complained, "why you want to go out to that awful place."

    Gabe said, "It's just a nice ride in the country, think of it that way."

    "A ride into disaster, you mean." Francis was sulky because the cancan shows were still forcibly shut down and none of his other potential projects had come through-the dress boutique, for instance, or the tea shoppe.

    Vangie said, "Oh, come on, Francis, it'll be fun. Fresh air and sunshine."

    Feeling betrayed by the girl, Francis said to her, "Why, I thought you didn't approve of all this."

    "I don't," she said. "But I wouldn't pass up a beautiful day in the country. Besides, you don't care about that old mine anyway."

    He did, in fact, he minded terribly, but he only sighed and said, "Oh, very well. If we must, we must."

    They were walking along through a light fog, of a pearly thinness so translucent that it hardly counted as a fog at all in San Franciscan terms. As they strolled down Front Street to Hansen's Livery, the fog rolled in more heavily from the Bay, entirely obscuring the world in white for thirty seconds or so, then whisking itself away like smoke in a magic act, revealing-a corral full of nags for rent.

    Francis, feeling a bit better now that he'd resigned himself to visiting the mine of his undoing, said, "My, that is a stirring sight, isn't it?"

    "I look best on a black horse," Vangie said.

    "Yes, you're right," Francis told her. "That would go with your coloring."

    Gabe said, "I look best in a buggy, so that's what we'll get."

    Pouting, Vangie said, "But I want to ride."

    Gabe said, "Vangie, I've never been on top of a horse in my life and I'm not about to start now."

    Vangie gave him a contemptuous stare. "You are a dude, aren't you?"

    "Horses are for pulling things," Gabe said. "I don't sit on them, and they don't sit on me."

    "Tenderfoot."

    "Better a tender foot," Gabe told her. "We'll take a buggy. Of course, if you want, you can stay here in town."

    Francis, seeing a battle brewing, made an attempt to soothe it. "Oh, really," he said, "sometimes a victoria can be fun. The breeze in one's face, a pleasant ride. Don't you think so, Vangie?"

    Vangie looked doubtful and mutinous. She seemed to be working out the exact phrasing of a statement that Francis was sure he didn't want to hear, so he hurried on, saying, "Come on, dear, we'll see if they have something interesting. Something really ladylike and nice."

    Vangie permitted herself to be led away by Francis, who took her around the side of the corral to where a number of bedraggled buggies and gigs were lined up along a muddy stretch beside a railed fence. Forcing himself to be lighthearted in the teeth of all this depressing naturalism, Francis said, "Well, do you see anything you like?"

    She turned her head slowly and gave him a look.

    Before Francis could decide what to do or say next, the stable hostler came gimping over. A crabbed man of indeterminate age, in filthy clothes, he gave the appearance that his entire body was in a permanent squint. "Ah, my good man," Francis said inaccurately. "We were hoping to rent a victoria for the day."

    "And how about a Myrtle for tonight?" The hostler giggled, wheezed and hugged himself until he noticed Vangie looking at him; then he got surly and just stood there, squinting over his whole body. "Got no victoria," he said, and spat something brown into the mud.

    "What do you have?" Francis asked. Years ago, he'd decided the only way to survive in this life was to pretend that everybody else was also civilized, no matter what they did. Sometimes the pretence was harder to maintain than at other times.

    "What you see right there in front of you," the hostler said, and jabbed a thumb at the line of wagons along the fence.

    Gabe joined them then and pointed to one of the wagons. "What's that?" he said.

    Everybody looked at him. Nobody could figure out what question he was asking. Doubtfully, the hostler said, "It's for rent."

    "I know. What's it called?"

    The hostler squinted more than ever. "You havin' fun with me?"

    Francis said gently, "Gabe, you're such a city person."

    "Yeah, I've noticed that about me."

    "It's called a buckboard."

    "We could all three sit up on front there, couldn't we?"

    "Yes, of course," Francis said. He frowned toward Vangie, wondering if she would accept a buckboard after he'd built her up to anticipate a much more elegant victoria. But her mulish expression hadn't changed at all, either for the better or the worse. "A buckboard," Francis said again, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Why, it might be a lot of fun at that."

    "It'll get us there," Gabe said, and turned to deal with the hostler.

    Once a swaybacked roan with a sty in its off eye had been attached to the buckboard and the squinting hostler had been dealt with in a financial way, Francis, Gabe and Vangie crowded together up onto the seat. Gabe said, "Okay. Who drives?"

    Francis looked at him in astonishment. "Can't you?"

    "I was never more than two blocks from the trolley line the first twenty-five years of my life," Gabe said. "What would I be doing driving one of these things?"

    Francis swallowed. "Well," he said, "I must confess I've always considered myself too butter fingered to want to…"

    "Oh, give me those," Vangie said in disgust, picking up the reins. "YYAAAAAAHHH!" she told the roan. "Giddap!"

    The wagon bolted away with a jerk that almost flipped Francis off the seat.

    

    

    The August sun on the Peninsula was hot, far too hot. Francis dragged his limp lace handkerchief over his face and regretted the moment of weakness in which he'd agreed to come out here. "I've only been to this awful hole in the ground twice in my life," he said. "I'm not sure I can find it again."

    "Oh, you'll find it," Gabe said. Between them, Vangie held the reins and watched the roan and occasionally glanced around at the barren countryside. Her bad temper seemed to have worked itself out on the act of driving, much to Francis' relief, and though there hadn't been that much conversation on the ride out at least they'd all been friendly to one another.

    But now there was the problem of finding the supposed mine. "But what if I can't find it?" Francis asked. "I'd hate to have brought us all out here for nothing."

    "You'll find it," Gabe told him, "because we're gonna stay out here and look for it until you do."

    The sun instantly became ten degrees hotter. "Uh," Francis said, and mopped his brow, and looked around harder for something to recognize.

    They passed a place where some hopeful hardrocker had tried to strike it rich. Vangie said, "I didn't know anyone ever found any gold on the Peninsula. I thought it was all in the mountains across the Bay."

    "Well they did find a few traces, apparently," Francis said. "But to my chagrin that's all they were. Traces."

    "But there's a tunnel," Gabe said.

    "Yes."

    "Well that's all we need."

    "For what?" Vangie asked.

    "Just an idea I have," he said.

    "It's still that craziness about the Mint, isn't it?"

    "Could be," Gabe said easily. "What's wrong with that?"

    "Only one thing," she said. "If you try anything anywhere near that Mint they'll catch you. If they don't kill you on the spot, they'll put you away somewhere until you've got a long grey beard. Or maybe they'll just fall all over you-ten or fifteen of those guards we saw up there-and by the time they get finished with you, your skin won't be worth tanning. That's what's wrong."

    "Well," Gabe replied obscurely, "chicken today, feathers tomorrow." And he grinned at her.

    It was all steep hills down the spine of the Peninsula here, stands of pine and redwood among the rocks. As they prowled farther into the morning and into the noon sun, Francis drooped lower and lower in the seat. He was afraid he'd missed the turnoff, and he didn't doubt that Gabe had meant what he'd said about keeping him out here until he found the mine. It looked like it was going to be a long dry spell… No. There it was, right ahead. He straightened up. "That little dirt track. Turn off the road there."

    Vangie swung the buckboard expertly into the twin ruts and they went jouncing up into the trees. It was cool here in the shade and Francis began to feel somewhat less suicidal. "Just ahead now, on the left. There'll be another fork and we take the left one."