A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born

I took two pairs of handcuffs from a coat pocket and locked the older man's ankle to his desk, then pulled his arms down before they got tired. I next secured the sleeping dreamer the same way. Almost time. I took the plastic explosive from another pocket-yes, there were a lot of pockets in this garment, and not by chance either-and slapped it to the front of the safe. Right over the time lock. They must have felt very secure here with their careful arrangements. All the night's ample receipts had been locked away in the safe in the presence of armed guards. To remain locked and secure until the morning when other armed guards would be present when it opened. I pushed the radio fuse into the explosive, then retreated across the room until I was out of line of fire along with the others.

Every loose object in the room was bouncing in time with the music now while dust rained down from the ceiling. It still wasn't time. I used the opportunity to rip out the phones by their roots. Not that anyone would be talking on a phone until after the concert.

There it was-almost there! I had the musical score in my mind's eye and at the instant when the galaxies finally impacted I pressed the radio actuator.

The front of the safe blew off in silent motion. I was stunned by the musical catastrophe way up here in the office-not by the explosion-and I wondered how many of the audience had gone deaf in the name of art. My wondering didn't stop me from shoveling all the buck bills from the safe into my instrument case. When it was filled I tipped my hat to my prisoners, one wide-eyed, one unconscious, and let myself out. The black mask went back into its pocket and I went out of the theater by an unwatched emergency exit.

It was a brisk two-block walk to the underpass entrance and I was just one other Bgure hurrying through the rain. Down the steps and along the corridor, to take the turning that led to the station. The commuter trains had left and the corridor was deserted. I stepped into the phone booth and made my unobserved identity change in exactly twentytwo seconds, precisely the rehearsed time. The black covering of the case stripped away to reveal the white covering of the case inside. The flared bell-shape went too. That had been shaped from thin plastic that crunched and went into a pocket with the black cover. My hat turned inside out and became white, my black moustache and beard disappeared into their appointed pocket so that I could shed the coat and turn it inside out so that it too, that's right, became white. Thus garbed, I strolled into the station and out the exit along with the other arriving passengers, to the cab rank. It was a short wait; the cab rolled up and the door opened. I climbed in and smiled appreciatively at the shining skull of the robot driver.

"Mah good man, tay-ake me to thu Arbolast Hotel," I said in my best imitation Thuringian accent-since the Thuringar train had arrived at the same time I had. "Message not understood," the thing intoned.

"Ar-bo-last Ho-tel, you metallic moron!" I shouted. "Ar-bowb-bo-last!" "Understood," it said, and the cab started forward.

Just perfect. All conversations were stored in a molecular recorder for one month in these cabs. If I were ever checked on, the record would reveal this conversation. And my hotel reservation had been made from a terminal in Thuringia. Perhaps I was being too cautious-but my motto was that this was an impossibility. Being too cautious, I mean.

The hotel was an expensive one and tastefully decorated with mock arbolasts in every corridor and room. I was obsequiously guided to mine-where the arbolast served as a floor lamp-and the robot porter glided away smamnly with a five buck coin in his tip slot.

I put the bag in the bedroom, took off the wet coat, extracted a beer from the cooler-and there was a knock on the door.

So soon! If that was The Bishop he was a good tail, because I had not been aware of being followed. But who else could it be? I hesitated, then realized that there was one certain way to find out. With smile on face, in case it was The Bishop, I opened the door. The smile vanished instantly.

"You are under the arrest," the plainclothes detective said, holding out his jeweled badge. His companion pointed a large gun at me just to make sure that I understood.

Chapter 9

"What... what..." I said, or something very like this. The arresting officer was not impressed by my ready wit. "Put on your coat. You are coming with us." In a daze I stumbled across the room and did just as he commanded. I should leave the coat here, I knew that, but I had no will to resist. When they searched it they would find the mask and key, everything else that would betray me. And what about the money? They hadn't mentioned the bag.