Thefts of Nick Velvet (3 page)

He studied the sky for a moment, watching the progress of fluffy white clouds. “No, the wind direction is about the same as yesterday.” He checked the bulges in his various pockets, and decided the two of them were ready.

As Jeanie drove the truck slowly through the service gate, a uniformed zoo patrolman turned toward them curiously and started walking in their direction. Nick left the truck and hurried forward.

“You working here?” the patrolman called out.

“Cleaning the tiger cage.”

“Huh?” The patrolman kept coming, looking puzzled.

“Somebody threw a bottle in there during the night. Broken glass.” Nick hoped that the real keepers hadn’t already found the glass and removed it. He’d had to hurl the bottle over the fence from a distance of fifty feet, but his throwing arm was still good. It had dropped into the right cage and smashed in one corner of the clouded tiger’s domain.

The patrolman turned and stared at the broken glass and the pacing tiger. “Damn fool, whoever did that! I’ll make out a report.”

“The night man reported it.”

“Huh? All right.” He started to turn away as Nick jumped over the outer railing in front of the cage. Then, as an afterthought, the patrolman asked, “You got an identification card? I don’t remember you.”

“Wait till I finish this,” Nick told him. “I need both hands.” He shielded the padlock with his body and snapped the chain with a quick pressure of powerful wire cutters.

“What …?”

But now the cage door was beginning to rise, and Nick hoped that Jeanie was getting the truck into position. “Stand clear, officer. We don’t want an accident.”

“You going to clean the cage with those wire cutters, wise guy? Who the hell are you?”

Nick brought the heavy cutters up quickly, catching the guard on the temple. He gasped and started to go down, as Nick’s other hand pulled something else from his pocket.

Jeanie arrived with the truck, and was backing, it into position. Somebody shouted and Nick turned to see a keeper running toward them. Far off, near the gate, another guard had turned in their direction.

Nick paused only an instant to gauge the wind direction again, then hurled two smoke bombs at the oncoming figures.

“Nick!”

“Hurry! We’ve only got a minute!” He pulled a plank from the truck and laid it across the railing to the cage door. Then he tossed another smoke bomb into the cage and pulled the door open all the way.

The tiger, momentarily terrified, turned toward its den, then changed its mind and bolted out of the cage, up the plank, and into the waiting truck.

“Done!” Nick yelled, yanking out the plank and slamming shut the steel door of the pickup truck. “Let’s get out!”

One of the guards had made it through the smokescreen and was pawing at his holster when they heard the shots.

“Those came from the main gate,” Nick said, scrambling onto the seat next to the girl. “What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer, but thumped hard on the accelerator, shooting the truck forward through the service gate. He’d been prepared to smash through, but the gate was still open. Behind them a patrolman fired one wild shot and then they were away.

“This truck won’t be safe for long,” Jeanie said.

Nick glanced out the side window as the truck roared past the zoo entrance. The armored car was there, standing at the main gate with its door open. Two uniformed men were stretched out on the pavement near it.

“Never mind the truck,” Nick growled. “What about that?”

“What?”

“You know damn well what! Your friends have played me for a prize patsy!”

She spun the steering wheel like an expert, cutting off suddenly onto a side road. It was dusty and bumpy, and almost at once the tiger started to growl.

“You’re getting paid,” she told him. “Stop complaining.”

“Cormick didn’t want the tiger at all! You didn’t even care if I got it. The whole thing was just a diversion while Cormick and Smith knocked off the armored car.”

“I didn’t know there’d be any shooting,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road.

“If the guards caught me you’d have left me there. Did you do all this for a few thousand dollars in quarters?”

She snorted in disdain. “Use your head, Nick. The armored car stops at branch banks on its Monday morning run. With any luck we’ve got close to a million bucks!”

“They waited inside the zoo, jumped the armored car men, and took their keys. Both armored car men came into the zoo?”

“They always did,” she told him. “They figured it was a safe stop, like a church. All we had to do was distract the zoo guards somehow. That’s where you came in.”

“And I also make a good fall guy for the cops to chase.”

“I’m sorry, Nick.” Behind them the tiger roared again.

“I’ll bet you are! You just came along to keep me on schedule.”

“That’s about it. I’m leaving you with the truck and this damned tiger and taking my car.”

“Where are you meeting them?”

“Sorry, Nick. You’re not making the trip.”

He reached past her leg and switched off the ignition. The truck shuddered and rolled to a stop on the narrow dirt road. “Tell me,” he ordered.

Jeanie yanked open the door on her side and began to run as soon as she hit the dirt. He sprang after her, and she turned quickly, her hand coming out of her shoulder bag.

“I can take care of myself, Nick,” she said, swinging a tiny pistol toward his stomach.

“You crazy fool!” His own hand had moved almost as fast—to the pellet gun he carried in a bulky side pocket. He dropped to his knees and squeezed the trigger, putting a tranquilizer dart into the wrist of her gun hand a split second before she fired.

Nick left-her sleeping in a field and drove the truck to the shopping center where she’d left the car. Already the news of the robbery was on the radio, and he listened with a kind of foggy indifference.

“Two armored car guards were slain this morning in a daring holdup at the Glen Park Zoo. The zoo’s patrolmen, distracted by the theft of a tiger from its cage, were unable to assist the armored car personnel. The two masked gunmen escaped with an estimated seven hundred thousand dollars, while another man and a girl were stealing the tiger. The missing beast—a rare clouded variety—is described as being extremely dangerous.”

Nick switched off the radio as he turned into the shopping center, then changed his mind and turned up some loud music. The tiger was beginning to growl again. Nick wondered if there might really be a prince willing to pay $30,000 for the animal.

He found a road map in the glove compartment of Jeanie’s car, and studied it carefully. Four circles had been drawn with pencil. He frowned and thought about it. Cormick and Smith wouldn’t be near the zoo, or the airport, or the last place he’d seen the trailer. That left only one logical circle, and he decided to chance it.

“Say, mister,” somebody called as he went back to the truck, “you got an animal in there?”

He smiled at the man. “My dog. He’s a big fellow.”

“Sounds like it.”

Nick was still smiling as he wheeled the truck onto the highway. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the tranquilizer gun again.

There was a trailer camp where the circle had been drawn on the map, but Cormick and Smith were not there. Nick parked the truck in some nearby woods and waited. It was almost dark before they pulled in, near the edge of the camp. Nick smiled for the first time in hours.

When it was dark he slowly backed the truck against the side of the trailer and got out. “What in hell’s that growling?” he heard Harry Smith ask from inside. Nick unlocked the back of the truck.

It was Cormick who opened the trailer door, pistol in hand. “Who’s there? That you, Jeanie?”

“One tiger, as ordered, Cormick.”

“Velvet!”

“Hungry and mean, but in good condition.” Nick opened the back door of the truck.

The tiger leaped for the lighted trailer and made it to Cormick in a single bound. Behind him, Harry Smith started to scream.

Afterward, Nick used the tranquilizer gun on the tiger and then scooped up the loot of the holdup. He pushed through a gathering crowd of frightened spectators and drove away as the first police car was coming down the road …

Nick Velvet stopped at the corner grocery for a six-pack of cold beer. He walked slowly, enjoying the feel of the warm evening, until he came in sight of the house and saw Gloria waiting for him on the porch. Then he smiled and started walking faster.

“Hello, Nicky,” she said. “Home to stay?”

“For a while,” he answered, and opened a couple of beers.

“Y
OU STEAL THINGS, DON’T
you?”

Nick Velvet regarded her with a slight smile. “Only the hearts of beautiful maidens.”

“No, seriously. I can pay.”

“Seriously. What do you want stolen?”

“The water from a swimming pool.”

He continued smiling at her, but a portion of his mind wished he were back on the front porch with Gloria and a cold beer. The habits of the very rich had never been for him. “I could always pull the plug,” he suggested, still smiling.

The girl, whose name was Asher Dumont, ground out her cigarette with a gesture of angry irritation. “Look, Mr. Velvet, I didn’t arrange to have you invited here so we could trade small talk. I happen to know that you steal unusual things, unique things, and that your fee is $20,000. Correct?”

“All right,” he told her, playing along. “I don’t know exactly how you came upon that information in your circle, but I’ll admit it’s reasonably accurate, Miss Dumont.”

“Then will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Steal the water from Samuel Fitzpatrick’s pool?”

Nick Velvet had been approached by many people during his career, and as his peculiar reputation had grown, he’d been hired to steal many curious things. He’d once stolen a tiger from a zoo, and a stained-glass window from a museum. His fee for such odd thefts was a flat $20,000, with an extra $10,000 for especially hazardous tasks. He never stole money, or the obvious valuables that other thieves went after. He dealt only in the unusual, often in the bizarre—but in his field he was the best in the business.

“That’s a peculiar assignment even for me,” he told the girl. She was blonde, with shoulder-length straight hair in the tradition of girl folksingers. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see her back in his old Greenwich Village neighborhood, but somehow she seemed out of place sipping cocktails at a society reception in Westchester. It was only her dress, a gleaming satin sheath, that belonged at the party—not the girl.

“I understood that you specialize in the peculiar.”

“I do. When do you want it done, and where is the place?”

She sipped her cocktail and glanced around to make certain they weren’t overheard. “Samuel Fitzpatrick has an estate twenty miles from here, in Connecticut. I’ll find an excuse to take you over there. After that you’re on your own. Only one stipulation—it must be done before next weekend’s holiday. Before the Fourth of July.”

“I suggested pulling the plug. That would be the easiest way. It would save you twenty thousand.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Mr. Velvet—I
want
the water from that pool. I want you to steal the water, all of it, and deliver it to me.”

“Is this some sort of wild bet?” he asked. He could imagine nothing else.

Asher Dumont stretched her long tanned legs under the table and drew in on her cigarette. “I understood that you were a businessman. The reason shouldn’t be important to you.”

“It’s not. I was only being inquisitive.”

“Can you come with me to the Fitzpatrick estate in the morning?”

“By the way, who is this Samuel Fitzpatrick? The name is vaguely familiar.”

“He’s a writer and producer of mysteries. Two hits on Broadway and he’s had a very successful series on television. Remember
The Dear Slayer
?”

“I don’t follow the theater as closely as I should,” Nick admitted, “but I’ve heard of Fitzpatrick. That’s all I need to know about him. It gives me a talking point.”

“Then I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Velvet?”

“Since it’s business, Miss Dumont, I usually receive a $5,000 retainer in advance, and the balance when I complete the assignment.”

She didn’t blink, “Very well, I’ll have it for you.” Nick left her at the table and threaded his way through the reception crowd. In the outer hall he found a phone booth and dialed Gloria’s number.

“Hi, how’re things?”

“Great, Nicky. You coming home?”

“I’ll be a while. Maybe a week. We’re checking out some new plant sites in Connecticut.”

“Oh, Nicky! You’ll be away over the Fourth!”

“Maybe not. I’ll try to be home by then. Maybe we can have a picnic or something.”

He knew that would satisfy her, and after a few more words he hung up. Often on summer nights, sitting on the porch with Gloria, he’d be tempted to give it all up and take a job as a salesman or a bookkeeper. But always there was the odd invitation from somebody like Asher Dumont to get him back to work. The money was good, and he liked his “specialty.” He was a thief, and he knew he’d never change.

Asher Dumont picked him up in a little white sports car that seemed hardly big enough for her lanky frame and long legs. The top was down, and her long blonde hair spun out behind her like a banner as she wheeled the car onto the parkway and headed for Connecticut.

“You didn’t tell me to dress casually,” he said, commenting on her shorts and blouse.

“Sam would be suspicious right away if he ever saw me in a dress.” She steered the car around a truck and shot the speed up to seventy. “There’s a check for $5,000 in my purse. Take it out.”

“A check?”

“Go on, I’m not trying to get evidence against you. I don’t carry that much around in cash.”

“I’ll have to cash this before I finish the job.”

“Sure. Right now, though, tell me what kind of cover story you’ll use with Fitzpatrick. I’m introducing you as someone interested in his plays.”

“Better fill me in on the sort of thing he likes to produce.”

As she talked he had the distinct impression she was merely a rich girl indulging in a game. His business associates were more often shady gang figures or nervous diplomats, the people who could afford to hire Nick Velvet. He didn’t know if he liked it, but she was nice to look at and besides, he’d never been commissioned to steal the water from a swimming pool.