Crang Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Jack Batten

time downtown.

      “Besides,” I said, “all rented cars smell new. Comes from a spray patented by Mr. Avis.”

      The lights were out in the Majestic and the parking lot was empty of cars. I parked the Dart at the rear of the lot under a tree with overhanging branches that were thick with leaves. It would be tough for anyone passing by to spot a black car.

      “Now what?” Harry said.

      “Across the street,” I said, “that’s our destination.”

      A white handkerchief was fluffed out of the breast pocket of Harry’s jacket. He had on a business suit and shirt and tie. He looked over at the Ace building and used the handkerchief to wipe the perspiration off his forehead.

      “Place looks like the Queen Mary,” he said, “all those damned lights.”

      “Okay, James,” I said into the back seat, “do your stuff.”

      I got out of my door and pulled back the seat to let James exit with his bag and stool. He was wearing his black outfit from the night before and he trotted with deliberate speed across the parking lot and over the street to the people gate in the chain-link fence around the Ace property. The bag was in his right hand, the stool in his left. He dropped both on the ground in front of the gate and took a short, thin wire out of the bag. He leaned over and applied it to the padlock on the gate. In half a minute he straightened up and yanked at the padlock. It opened. James pulled the gate toward him and stepped through it with his bag and stool. He put them on the path inside the grounds and pushed the gate back into position. He left the padlock dangling loose and open.

      “The kid’s fast,” I said to Harry.

      “You think that’s going to make me relax?” Harry said.

      “And he’s slick,” I said. “You should appreciate slick.”

      Across the street, James scooted up the cement path to the door into the Ace building. He took a pair of pliers out of his bag and another piece of wire. This wire was of the thick industrial variety and about three feet long. James positioned his stool on the ground under the alarm box over the door. He stood on the stool.

      “Planning ahead,” I said. “You like that, Harry?”

      “Just let him get the hell on with it,” Harry said.

      James balanced himself on the stool, reached up, and used his pliers to clip off the wire leading into the alarm box from the left side. With a roll of black electrical tape that he took out of his back pants pocket, he bound one end of the piece of industrial wire into the loose strand on the top of the door. He ran the wire over the alarm box and performed the same operation on the right side of the box. Clipped the wire leading out of the box and taped in the industrial wire. If James had things correctly doped out, the alarm box was now neutralized and out of commission.

      I looked at my watch.

      “Four minutes and fifteen seconds,” I said.

      Harry grunted.

      “Was that approbation?” I said.

      “Oh, shit,” Harry said. He was ducking his head and pointing toward the street.

      The headlights of a car cut through the darkness from somewhere down the road beyond the Majestic.

      “Red alert,” I said.

      I tapped the horn once and lightly. It was enough to catch James’ ear. He looked out to the street. My view of the car with the headlights was blocked by the Majestic. James scooped up his stool and bag and scuttled toward the corner of the building away from the approaching car.

      “Must be about a block up the road,” I said to Harry, “and not coming fast.”

      Harry said, “It doesn’t matter how far up the car is if whoever’s driving it saw the kid doing all that suspicious stuff.”

      “It’s not suspicious,” I said. “It’s criminal.”

      The headlights grew brighter and the car came into sight around the outline of the Majestic.

      “Damn, damn,” Harry whispered. He crouched in his seat below the level of the window.

      The car on the street was a yellow cruiser. Two cops sat in front. The cruiser was moving at not much more than twenty miles an hour, and as it pulled even with the Ace building, James disappeared around the back corner out of the cops’ range of vision. Their range of vision seemed limited anyway. The driver was talking and the cop in the passenger seat nodded his head and laughed. Both were looking straight ahead. Swell watchdogs. The talk and laughter carried from the cruiser’s window across the parking lot. It made a companionable sound in the late night. The cruiser moved out of my sight down the street.

      “Start breathing again, Harry,” I said.

      I got out of the Dart.

      “When I signal,” I said to Harry, “give the horn a soft honk.”

      “Crang, for chrissake, my hands are shaking,” Harry said. He held up both hands. They were shaking.

      “Use your foot,” I said.

      I walked across the lot to the edge of the road. The cruiser’s rear lights were drifting away, growing fainter as I watched. When the lights were the size of a couple of glowing cigarettes, I raised my hand to Harry. The car horn gave a harsh blare that echoed off the wall of the Majestic. James stuck his head around the rear corner of the Ace building. I held up my arm to him in a stop motion and looked back down the road. Two or three minutes went by and there was no sign of a returning cruiser. I waved at James. He came out from behind the building with his bag and stool. I walked back to the Dart.

      “I’m not cut out for this, Crang,” Harry said. His hands were making knots with the white handkerchief.

      “You’re doing fine, Harry,” I said. “Little heavy on the horn, but that’s not your specialty.”

      “Hardly touched the damned thing,” Harry said, “and it went off like that.”

      James was hunched over the door into the Ace building. His body cut off the view from the Dart of what he was up to. After three or four minutes he straightened up. He had a small implement in his right hand, another toy from the cloth bag. James turned in our direction and flapped the hand without the small implement.

      “We’re on,” I said to Harry.

      “Wait a minute,” Harry said. “He hasn’t got the damned door open.”

      “He wants his audience.”

      Harry and I crossed the parking lot and went through the gate into Ace and up the paved walk.

      “I’m done,” James said. If he was feeling triumphant, his face wasn’t ready to give it away.

      “Turn the knob, James,” I said.

      “Hold it,” Harry said. He looked at James. “You positive the alarm up there isn’t going to ring?”

      “I bypassed it,” James said.

      “Yeah,” Harry said, “well, how do you know there isn’t a backup alarm?”

      “No more wires,” James said. Along with aplomb and brevity, James had patience. My own wasn’t unlimited.

      “Harry,” I said, “when we get inside, James isn’t going to second-guess your accounting techniques.”

      I nodded at James. He reached out, turned the knob on the door, and pushed. Harry made a loud swallowing noise and held his briefcase to his chest. The door swung open and bumped against the inside wall. The bump was the only sound in the night. No clanging alarm broke the silence.

      “Textbook job, James,” I said.

      James grinned. The grin was part smirk and part snigger. James’ face wasn’t built for grinning. Or maybe he