Pleasure Thieves

He raced desperately across the lawn, as though running from himself and the thousand dark shadows in his brain. He disappeared around the back of the mansion. Phillip emerged swiftly from the darkness. They moved without noise together, like Indians stalking enemies. Now and then Harry would squeeze Phillip's arm almost passionately. Phillip did not understand this.

They moved toward a particular window. Phillip put the glass cutter to his mouth, and quickly passed his hand over the pane. He scored the glass with two swift, even, eight-inch diagonal strokes. He covered each score-mark with strips of adhesive tape. The sharp end of his cutter loosened the putty in each corner. Prying back slightly, the glass snapped. The diagonals fell out without a sound, hanging by the tape.

The gardener's cottage had a light on, but it was a night light. They were sure of this. However, they were not able to function with absolute impunity. Phillip reached through the broken pane and turned a knob in the wired copper alarm-box. Harry saw the door to the gardener's cottage open and a flood of light fell on the lawn.

When Phillip gently raised the window for expert entry, the gardener's head and shoulders showed in the doorway. They jumped through the window, sunk to the floor and looked over the window sill.

The gardener peered into the darkness, shrugged his shoulders, and closed the door.

Harry was holding a hooded flashlight. They were at the end of a long hallway. Phillip removed a whalebone collar-stay from his shirt.

With it he jiggled the lock of a large, arch-shaped door. Harry swept his flashlight around the room revealing a large library, book lined except for the outside wall, which was heavily draped with a dense vermilion velour. Taking opposite sides of the room, they started to look over and behind the shelves for the safe. Phillip ran his hand systematically along the upper inside corner of the shelves, from waist height to the shelf above his head, while Harry pulled books out in bunches, throwing them on the floor.

Phillip said suddenly, "Here, over here!"

Harry held the flashlight while Phillip reached under a high shelf and pushed a button. "Turn on the main switch, Harry, we need current."

Harry's mind was a blank now, deep in coordination. He threw on the lights. No movement in the gardener's cottage – he'd better be sleeping. The light was blinding for them; when they could focus, they saw an entire section the bookcase swing out. Phillip motioned to Harry to kill the lights as soon as he saw the panel he wanted.

Phillip pushed the panel back and exposed the safe. It was recessed in the wall about six inches. He rubbed his fingers together and began to spin the dial knob.

Harry parted the curtains slightly and looked out at the distant light of the cottage. Phillip's head was as close as it could possible be to the safe, he turned the dial slowly from right to left, pausing here and there.

He was perspiring heavily from the concentration. Harry moved nervously away from the window, lit a cigarette, and said softly, "Open thy portals." Phillip's hands and fingers were contorting with the insistence of a magician bent on amusing his audience.

Harry swallowed the smoke of his cigarette instead of exhaling it.

He did this unconsciously until he began to cough, then he spit the butt onto the carpet and ground it in. A faint ugly burning smell remained.

"OK Phillip! Let's bust it."

Phillip spun the dial impatiently. "Impossible. It's too heavy."

Harry grabbed his drill and pushed Phillip aside. Phillip was shocked at his aggressiveness. He picked up a crowbar and handed it to Harry.

"Use this, not the drill."

Harry took the small crowbar and worked furiously. The bar kept slipping out. On the floor about him were several tools, including a short sledgehammer lying near the smashed dial-knob. The steel punch was broken half off, protruding from the dial-hole of the safe. Harry was obsessed with the crowbar, nothing else appealed to him. He was banging it feverishly when Phillip put his hand on his shoulder hard.

"It's no good Harry. It's too far recessed; it would have to be blown."

After a pause, Harry stood up abruptly. His head lowered, he breathed like a man chased by a mad animal. Phillip spoke this time with authoritative decisiveness, "Come on, forget it. I'm sorry, but it's a bungled job."

Harry looked at the safe with fury. He wasn't going to leave, not now. Not with $200,000 in that box – no, no. "I'm not leaving without it," he shouted, his voice sharply raucous. "Tear down one of the drapes," he commanded Phillip.

Phillip, stunned by Harry's furor, crossed the room mechanically, like a somnambulist, pulled down one of the huge velour drapes and hurled it to him. It fell directly on top of Harry. He looked quite mad, Phillip thought, as he twisted himself out of the cloth.