Well Now My Pretty

Fifteen yards down the passage, Perry, his broad back blocking Regan's view of the vault door, continued to listen to the old man's story of a gambler who, having lost all his money, had offered his mistress on the next spin of the wheel.

"With his luck running so bad," Regan said, grinning, "I'd have taken the bet. She was quite a chick. Mind you, I like 'em built big, and this chick was the original feather bed." He shook his head. "They threw him out and the chick as well . . . a darn shame."

Leaving the gas masks on the floor, Chandler and Wash, Wash walking backwards, moved down the corridor, carrying the carton.

Perry glanced over his shoulder.

"Well, I guess the boys have fixed it," he said. "Glad to have talked to you, mister . . . a privilege. You sure have been interesting. I'll get the truck open."

He walked into the hot, still night and opened the truck. Maisky, dying little deaths, heard the doors open. He started the car's engine.

Regan adjusted his spectacles and looked at Chandler as he and Wash moved past him.

"Taking the old one away. . . it's snarled up," Chandler said, sweating under the load. "They're happy now . . . so long, mister."

Regan nodded.

"So long, boy."

At this moment Mike O'Brien, the top security guard of the Casino, decided to look in at the vault. This he did every three hours, and this was to be his last visit.

He arrived out of the darkness as Chandler and Wash were loading the carton into the truck.

Maisky, sitting motionless behind the steering wheel, saw him coming, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had no means of warning the other men that a guard was approaching.

Chandler had shut one of the truck doors and was shutting the other when he felt, rather than saw, Perry stiffen.

The next second he found himself confronted by a solidly built, middle-aged man wearing the uniform of the Casino's security guards, his level, dark eyes regarding him with a hard scrutiny.

"What's going on?" O'Brien demanded.

Chandler was vaguely aware that Perry had melted into the shadows. He saw Wash, out of the corner of his eyes, take a slow step back.

Chandler was professional enough to realise this moment was his. This was the reason why Maisky had chosen him. This was why he would earn three hundred thousand dollars.

Keeping his face dead pan, his eyes slightly surprised, Chandler said, "Emergency, pal. We've just changed the calculator in the vault." He was a little uneasy to hear his voice sounded so husky. "Mr.

Lewis's orders." He slammed the other door of the truck. "My luck! What a time to have an emergency."

"Hold it!" O'Brien snapped. "Open up. I want to look in the truck."

Chandler stared fixedly at him.

"Know something, pal? I want to get home. But okay, take a look," and he opened one of the truck doors.

O'Brien peered in the dark truck.

"What's in that box?"

"The calculator . . . the one that's broken down," Chandler said, now aware that he beginning to sweat.

"You got a pass-out?" O'Brien asked.

"Why, sure . . . old man river gave it to us," Chandler said and jerked his thumb towards the glass box where Regan was watching what was going on.

"I want to see what's inside that box," O'Brien said. "Open it up."

Perry, listening, eased out his Colt .38. To the short barrel there was screwed a four-inch silencer.

Chandler felt sick. This was about to become the moment of violence he had been dreading, but without hesitation, he pulled the carton towards the end of the truck.

O'Brien moved forward. His broad back was turned to Perry. Wash, watching, felt his heart constrict. This fool! he was thinking. This conscientious fool! If he could only let the truck go!

Listening to all this, Maisky put the clutch out and gently moved into gear.

Perry lifted his gun and squeezed the trigger as O'Brien reached forward to open the carton.

The .38 slug smashed through O'Brien's rib cage and cut his heart in two. The sound of the gun was no more than the sharp clap of hands.

O'Brien fell forward as Maisky released the clutch and sent the truck shooting forward.

For a brief moment Perry remained motionless . . . a wisp of smoke drifting from his silencer, then he jerked up the gun and fired once more. The slug smashed through the door of the truck that had swung shut as the truck shot forward.

For a paralysed moment, Sid Regan watched his old friend O'Brien as he fell, then with a reaction astonishing for a man of his age, his hand slid under the desk to where a .45 revolver had lain, gathering the rust, for several years; a gun O'Brien had given him and which Regan had treated as a joke. His horny fingers found the trigger, hooked around it and pulled with violence. The gun in the confined space went off with a nerve-shattering bang, the bullet ploughing through the wooden partition of Regan's box and whistling past Chandler so close that he felt the wind of it against his face.

As Regan fired, he rolled off his stool and out of sight behind the wooden partition.