Gangway! (17 page)

    Alarm bells, at a distance. Francis nodded, still studying the watch.

    The bells grew louder with incredible speed. Around the corner tore the great fire engine, preceded by its lunging white horses. It squealed to a halt at the alley mouth, firemen pitching off and dragging hoses.

    Francis clicked shut his pocketwatch, nodded, and ambled away.

    

    

    Vangie watched people walk by the window and listened to men's talk-Gabe and Ittzy and Francis and that horrid Roscoe.

    They were all crowded around a table at the window just inside the Golden Rule. Gabe was saying, "Roscoe. How about the crew?"

    Roscoe was still antsy in Francis's presence but he was capable of simple sentences. "All set," he said. "I got six guys to handle the ship. The rest of us can pitch in. I mean, we don't want to have to split with too many guys."

    "You split up your five thousand however you want."

    "Yeah."

    "Now tomorrow the New World's due to leave for Sacramento at seven in the morning. She won't be back till tomorrow night sometime. That gives us plenty of time. As soon as she's pulled out, I want you to move Captain Flagway's ship to the New World's pier."

    "No problem."

    Vangie sat shaking her head. It was never going to work.

    "Now," Gabe said. "Who knows about explosives?"

    They all looked at one another.

    "Nobody?" Gabe shook his head. "I'm in the middle of mining country," he said, "and I'm at a table with four people, and not one of them knows anything about explosives. You know what the odds are against that?"

    Nobody seemed to know that either.

    Vangie began to feel a little better.

    Then Gabe dashed it. "Well we can't bring in any more new guys at this stage. Ittzy, you're it."

    Vangie jerked her head around to stare at him. "What?"

    "Sure. Ittzy's our demolition man-we know he's safe. He'll handle the dynamite and he won't get hurt, right?"

    Roscoe said, "The what?"

    "Dynamite. Some guy invented it over in Sweden. It's a stick explosive. A lot safer to handle than nitroglycerine and a lot bigger bang than blasting powder." Gabe turned to Vangie. "We'll have to get Ittzy a book. You get a book for him, okay?"

    "A book?"

    "On dynamite."

    "A book on dynamite? You want it at the Mint at three o'clock in the morning?"

    "Right," Gabe said, grinning, and turned to Francis. "Now about the timing."

    "It's all set, old cock."

    "Think you ought to double-check it just once more?"

    "I suppose it couldn't hurt."

    "Well everything depends on that, you know."

    "Rest assured, old cock."

    Francis went, and Roscoe became much calmer. He said, "You want the ship moved tomorrow, you must be ready to go."

    "I am, if your brother's got time to be here by then."

    "He'll be here. I been in touch with him."

    Vangie brooded unhappily at both of them. She didn't want Gabe to be ready to go, and she especially didn't want anybody having anything to do with Roscoe's brother Percival Arafoot, about whom folks said there was moss growing down his north side.

    Gabe said, "The Mint's about to start stamping out coins in the next week or two. That means they're loaded with raw gold now… ingots. That's what we want. There must be upwards of a million in that vault right now."

    "A million," Roscoe said, and his face changed.

    Vangie closed her eyes. She felt more frightened than she'd ever been. During the preparations the reality of it had receded, but now it was staring her smack in the face. "Gabe, you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison."

    "Aagh."

    "You've seen the guards. The locks. Everything. You know it can't be done."

    "My plan's guaranteed."

    "But you saw how many guards they've got, you saw the guns, you saw…"

    "I saw the future," Gabe said, "and in it I am very rich."

    Sudden sirens started up: fire engine bells. They tore by the window.

    Ittzy said mildly, "Seems like a lot of fires lately."

    Vangie said dismally, "Then you're definitely going through with it."

    "Yeah. And I'll need some things."

    She sighed. "Another wagon?"

    "No, as a matter of fact. The Mint's got its own wagons, and they're built for the weight. We'll use one of theirs."

    "Then what do we need?"

    "I'm glad you said we."

    She shook her head.

    Gabe said, "We'll want the book for Ittzy."

    "Check."

    "And laughing gas."

    "Laughing gas," she said.

    "Like the dentists use. Two canisters. And half a dozen sticks of dynamite."

    "Dynamite," she said.

    "Half a dozen sticks. And a balloon."

    "A balloon?"

    

    

    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.

    

    

    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.