Love's lovely counterfeit - James M. Cain [58]
They went around to the door now, and shot the flash at it. It was of heavy planking, and fastened with a modern lock. She stood thinking, then ran over to the car. When she came back she had a tire iron and the tow line. With the tire iron she had him force up the cheap little window. The tow cable she fastened to the bars inside. "Now when I back up you hook this on the rear axle." In a moment she was in the car, backing it unlighted into the lot, up to the shack. When she stopped he looped the cable around the axle and made it fast with the hook. She started the car. The cable tightened, then began to deliver all the incredible power of a modern automobile. The shack shook and made creaking noises. Then, to Ben's astonishment but evidently not to hers, it teetered for a moment and came crashing over on its side. She jumped out, and then stood watching to see if the noise had attracted somebody's attention. Traffic went by on Memorial as indifferently as it had before. She looked at him, excited, exultant. "I told you. I can go though walls."
Freeing the cable and putting it back in the car, so they could leave in an instant if they had to, they next gave their attention to what the shack had covered. But they no sooner shot the flash into the pile of tools now exposed to the night than she gave a little scream. He patted her arm, said it was nothing but a rat, said scat. Then the hair rose on his neck at what the rat had been carrying. It was a hand. Then he knew that here, some place, was all that was left of Arch Rossi, the boy who simply disappeared. She recovered before he did, and pointed to a ring in the boards. He put his finger into it, lifted, and a trapdoor came up. Under it was a hole, with a ladder leading into it, and concrete on one side. Guiding himself with the torch, he crept down the ladder, looked around. On three sides of the hole was raw earth. But on the fourth side, built into the concrete, was a steel door, and in the middle of it the shiny knob of a safe dial. "O.K., come on down."
"Somebody ought to stand guard."
"I'll need you."
"All right."
She was beside him in a few seconds. He handed her his little red book, after finding a page and turning it down. "Read me those numbers, one at a time, then soon as you read one, shoot the light on the dial."
"R six."
"Right six it is."
"L twenty-two."
"Left twenty-two."
There were six numbers in all, and as she read them he manipulated the dial. After the last spin, there came a faint click and he pulled. The door swung open and he grabbed the flash, shooting it inside. Visible were several large canvas sacks. "Ha, he had the right idea, but they were too fast for him, just like they were for me. O.K. Now I'm going to climb halfway up the ladder and you hand me the sacks. Set the light on the floor, up-ended."
She could drag the sacks out of the vault but she couldn't lift them, and he had to come clear down the ladder, shoulder one, creep up, and buck it out onto the grass. Even so, it was only a few minutes before they were all out of the hole and in the car. He piled them on the floor of the coupe, so there was hardly room for his legs, and she took the wheel, and they scooted. He slid the clasps, got a sack open. "What is it, Ben?"
"I don't know, looks like bonds."
"They can be sold, can't they?"
"I think so."
He got another sack open, gave a quick, startled cry. "Dorothy! It's money! It's dough! Fives! Packs and packs and packs of them."
"Oh my, let me see."
"Look."
"And tens, Ben—and twenties!"
"Now, thank God, we got a chance."
"In twenty-four hours, by taking turns driving, we can be in Mexico. We won't get any sleep, but we can do it."
"...Mexico's out."
"We can't stay here."
"We're going to Canada. We're going to Canada, and we're going to join up for the war. Maybe