The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

That would be the best place to leave the car while pulling the job, I decided. The next step was to carefully plan the escape route.

On the opposite side of the lot from the alley was East Central, the street by which I had entered town. I recalled that it was a stop street, clear to the edge of town, with no signal lights to slow you down.

Getting out a road map, I located a secondary road about a half-mile beyond the east edge of town which cut south for about two miles, then linked to a main highway which ran southwest. Southwest was the general direction in which I had been heading ever since I left New York.

I drove out East Central to the secondary road, cut across to the main highway, and turned right. I stayed on the highway for a good thirty miles to make sure no construction was going on which would sidetrack me into detours. Then I pulled into a station for gas, turned around, and drove back.

It would be unnecessary to heist a car for the job, I decided. Neither Fat Sam Cooney nor his bartender knew what mine looked like, and no one was likely to pay any attention when I drove off the parking lot after the job, because I planned to arrange things so that no alarm would be raised for some minutes afterward. I figured I should be thirty miles on my way before the cops could get road blocks set up or trace my car.

Parking on the supermarket lot, I carefully locked the car and walked up the alley to the tavern. I timed the walk by the sweep hand of my watch. It took me twenty-five seconds.

The square wasn’t as crowded as it had been yesterday, but there were still a lot of people roaming the sidewalks. Fat Sam’s was just as crowded, though.

Andy Carr wasn’t in the place.

I had one beer. Then, as it was now approaching noon, I crossed the square to a restaurant for lunch. I got back about one p.m. and sat at a table the rest of the afternoon.

The crowd never abated. As fast as customers left, others filtered in. As my partner had indicated, there was no period slack enough to make a heist feasible.

About four-thirty Andy Carr came in, gave me a distant nod and went to the bar, where he got into conversation with a miner. He was learning, I noted with satisfaction, because he didn’t throw a single furtive look in my direction.

He left again at five-thirty. I waited another twenty-five minutes, then phoned him from the tavern’s booth. He answered immediately.

All day I had been musing over what kind of diversion we could plan to take place at exactly a minute to five on Friday, but nothing had jelled. I said, “No ideas so far. How about you?”

“I haven’t figured anything.”

“Then I’ll call you again tomorrow,” I said, and hung up.

The tavern was closed on Sunday, which I didn’t discover until I had driven downtown in the afternoon and found the square deserted. I killed the day by checking the escape route once again, this time taking the main highway a full hundred miles southwest without running into any construction.

If only I could think of a practical diversion, it would be in the bag.

The idea hit me on Monday. After lunch, as I was leaving the restaurant across the square from Fat Sam’s, I noted a small crowd gathered at the southwest corner and ambled over to see what was going on.

I must be picking up the habits of the townspeople, I thought ruefully, when I discovered what the attraction was. Like them, I was beginning to rush to rubberneck at anything which might relieve the boredom.

A workman was removing a fire-alarm box from a post and installing a new one.

I had walked away before the idea hit me. The alarm box was diagonally across the square from the tavern. Fire trucks pulling up there with their sirens whining would certainly empty the tavern. And that was something which could be timed almost to the second.

When I phoned Andy Carr at the usual time that night, I said, “Meeting tonight, same time.”

Again he showed just before nine-thirty. When I had mixed drinks for both of us, I got down to business.

“I’ve figured out the diversion,” I said. “You know that fire-alarm box at the southwest corner of the square?”

After thinking, he shook his head. “I never noticed it.”

“Well, there’s one there. Friday, just before five o’clock, you’re going to turn in a false alarm.”

His eyes widened. “In front of everybody? The square’s jammed at that time.”

“You’d be surprised at what you can get away with in a crowd, if you act natural,” I said. “If you just casually reach out and pull the hook as you walk by, I doubt that you’ll even be noticed.”

“But there’s a glass you have to break first,” he objected.

“You can take care of that late Thursday night, when the square’s deserted. Nobody’s likely to notice the glass is missing, because they just installed a new box today. They won’t be checking it so soon.”