“Do what?” asked Gaston, who was no fool but still wasn’t very quick on the uptake.
“Not much,” said Paulo, smiling. “Just dig a tunnel. It starts in the room next to this; it’ll go under the yard, then under the street and come out just beneath the bank’s vault. If my calculations are right. If they’re not, then maybe we’ll find ourselves nearer the street side. If that happens, we go deeper and try again for under the very middle of the vault.” A short silence; and then he said, “What do you say about it?”
“Just a second, man. Give me time to think. It’s not quite the kind of job I was expecting.”
“Is it a big bank?” Gaston asked; this was not one of his brighter days. If Paulo had set all this going, and on such a scale, it was certainly not just for three packs of licorice.
“You walk by the bank tomorrow, and you’ll have something to say,” Paulo said, roaring with laughter. “Get this: there are eight cashiers. That gives you some idea of what they must handle by way of bills in the course of a day.”
“Christ!” said Gaston, slapping his thigh. “So it’s a real bank! Well, I am pleased. For once I’ll be in on a big-time job, in keeping with my title of big-time crook.”
Still with his broad grin of happiness, Paulo turned to me. “You got nothing to say, Papillon?”
“I don’t need any titles. I’d rather stay just plain mister with enough dough to carry out a job I have in mind. I don’t need millions. I’ll tell you what I think, Paulo: it’s a prodigious job, and if it comes off--when it comes off, I should say, because you must always believe in a job--we’re set up for the rest of our lives with enough for the rent and the telephone. But... - there are a good many buts to get around. I can ask questions, boss?”
“As many as you like, Papi. I meant to talk over every part of the job with you anyhow. For although I’m the top man, since it was me who worked it out, each one of us is risking his freedom and maybe his life. So ask all the questions you want.”
“Right. The first is this: from the room next door, where the shaft is, how far is it to the pavement on this side of the road?”
“Exactly eighteen yards.”
“Second, how far from the edge of the pavement to the bank?”
“Ten yards.”
“Third, inside the bank, have you worked out exactly where the door to the vault is?”
“Yes. I’ve hired a box in the safe-deposit room. It’s just next to the bank’s own vault and separated from it by an armored door with two combination locks. There’s only one way in, and that’s from the safe-deposit room. You go from there into the main vault. One day, after I’d been down there a good many times, I was waiting for them to give me the second key to my safe and I saw the armored door open. As it swung around, I caught a glimpse of the vault and the big safes lined up all round it.”
“Could you get an idea of how thick the wall was between the two rooms?”
“It was hard to tell on account of the steel casing.”
“How many steps down to the vault door?”
“Twelve.”
“So the floor of the vault is about ten feet below street level. What’s your plan?”
“We must try and hit just under the wall between the two rooms. We can guide ourselves by the bolts under the floor of the vault--the ones that hold the safes. That way we get into both rooms at once with just one hole.”
“Yes, but since the safes stand right against the wall, you’re likely to come out under one of them.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. If that happens, all you have to do is make the hole larger toward the middle of the room.”
“I think two holes would be better: one in each room, and each in the middle, if possible.”
“I think so, too, now,” said Auguste.
“Okay, Papi. We aren’t there yet, you know, but it’s just as well to think of these things well ahead. What next?”
“How deep’s the tunnel going to be?”
“Three yards.”
“How wide?”
“Two feet six. You have to be able to turn around inside.”
“Have you reckoned the height?”
“A yard.”
“The height and the width are fine; but I don’t agree with the depth. Six feet of earth overhead isn’t solid enough. If a heavy truck goes by, or a steamroller, it might collapse.”
“I dare say, Papi; but there’s no reason why trucks or heavy stuff should come along this street.”
“Sure. But it doesn’t cost us anything to make the shaft four yards deep. You do that, and you’ve got three yards of earth between the top of the tunnel and the street. Any objection? The only extra work is digging the shaft a yard deeper. It doesn’t change anything about the tunnel itself. Then four yards down, you’re almost certain of reaching the bank at the level of its foundations or even lower. How many stories in the building?”
“Ground floor and one over it.”
“The foundations can’t be very deep, then.”
“You’re right, Papi. We’ll go down to four yards.”
“How are you going to cope with the vault? What about the alarm system?”
“As I see it, Papi, that’s the main snag. Still, looking at it logically, systems are set up outside bank vaults. So long as you don’t touch a door, either of the bank or of the vault itself, it shouldn’t go off. And there can hardly be one right inside the rooms. Still, I think we’d better not touch the safes on either side of the door to the safe-deposit room or the ones by the armored door.”
“I agree with you. There is one risk, of course, and that is when you get to work on the safes the vibration might set things off. But taking precautions like you said, we’ve a pretty good chance.”
“Is that the lot, Papi?”
“You’ve thought of lining the tunnel?”
“Yes. There’s a workbench and everything we need in the garage.”
“Fine. What about the earth?”
“First we’ll spread it out right over the whole yard, and then we’ll make raised flower beds and lastly a platform all along the walls a yard wide and as high as it’ll go without looking queer.”
“Are there any inquisitive bastards around here?”
“On the right everything’s fine. A tiny little old couple who apologize every time they see me, because their dog shits just outside our gate. On the left, not so hot. There are two kids of eight and ten who never get off their swing for an instant, and the silly little buggers fly so high they can easily look over the wall and see what’s happening in our place.”
“But however high they swing they can’t see more than part of the yard--they can’t possibly see the stretch against their own wall.”
“True enough, Papi. Okay. Now, suppose we’ve made the tunnel and we’re under the vault. There we’ll have to make a big hollow, a kind of room, so as to store the tools and be able to work properly, perhaps two or three of us together. And then once we’ve hit the center of the rooms we’ll make a space under each, two yards square.”
“Right. And what are you going to cut the steel of the safes with?”
“That’s something we’ll have to talk over.”
“You start.”
“Well, the job could be done with oxyacetylene: that’s something I understand--it’s my trade. Or there’s the electric welder, and I understand that, too. But there’s a snag--you need two hundred and twenty volts and this villa only has one hundred and twenty. So I decided to let another guy in on the job. But I don’t want him to work on the tunnel: he’ll come a couple of days before we move in.”
“What’ll he come with?”
“Here comes my big surprise. Thermit is what he’ll come with. He’s a positive artist in the Thermit line. What do you say to that, everybody?”
“It’ll make five shares instead of four,” said Gaston.
“There’ll be more than you can carry, Gaston! Five or four, it’s all one.”
“
As for me, I’m in favor of the Thermit guy; because if there are a dozen safes to open, it goes quicker with Thermit than with anything else.”
“Well then, there’s the overall plan. Are you all in agreement?”
Everyone said yes. Paulo said one other thing: neither Gaston nor I should show our noses out of doors during the daytime on any pretext whatsoever. We could go out at night from time to time, but as little as possible and then very carefully dressed, with a tie and all. Never all four of us together.
We went into the room next door; it had once been an office. They had already dug a hole a yard across and three deep, and I was admiring the sides, as straight as a wall, when the thought of ventilation came to me. “And what have you laid on for air down there?”
“We’ll pump it down with a little compressor and plastic tubing. If the one working begins to suffocate, someone’ll hold the tube to his face while he gets on with the job. I bought a compressor in Caracas--it’s almost silent.”
“What about an air conditioner?”
“I thought of that, and I’ve got one in the garage; but it blows the fuses every time you switch it on.”
“Listen, Paulo. Nobody can tell what may happen to the Thermit guy. If he doesn’t turn up, the oxyacetylene is slow and the electric welder is the only thing for the job. We have to install two hundred and twenty volts. To make it look natural, you say you want a deepfreeze and air conditioning and so forth, and a little circular saw in the garage as well, because you like screwing around with wood. There shouldn’t be any difficulty.”
“You’re right. There’s everything to be said for putting in two hundred and twenty volts. Well now, that’s enough about the job for the moment. Auguste’s the spaghetti king; as soon as it’s ready, let’s eat.”
Dinner was very cheerful. After we’d exchanged a few unpleasant memories, we all agreed that when talking about the past we’d never bring up stories about life inside--only about happy things like women, the sun, the sea, games in bed, etc. We laughed like a pack of kids. Nobody had a second’s remorse at the idea of attacking society in the shape of the greatest symbol of its selfish power, a bank.
There was no difficulty about installing the 220-volt current, because the transformer was close to the house. No problem at all. To finish the shaft, we gave up the short-handled pick, which was too awkward in such a confined space. Instead we cut out blocks of earth with the circular saw, digging out each block with a handy trowel and putting it into a bucket.
It was a titanic job, but little by little it advanced. In the house you could scarcely hear the sound of the circular saw at the bottom of the shaft, now four yards deep. From the yard you heard absolutely nothing; there was nothing to be feared.
The shaft was finished. We started the tunnel, and it was Paulo, compass in hand, who dug the first yard through the very wet clay earth that stuck to everything. We no longer worked half naked but in dungarees that came down under our feet; so when we quit and took the dungarees off, there we were, as clean as a butterfly coming out of its cocoon. Apart from our hands, of course.
According to our calculations, we still had thirty cubic yards of earth to bring out.
“This is genuine convict’s work,” said Paulo, when he was feeling rough.
But gradually we pushed on. “Like moles or badgers,” Auguste said.
“We’ll get there, men! And we’ll roll in cash for the rest of our lives. Isn’t that right, Papillon?”
“Sure, sure! And I’ll have the prosecutor’s tongue and I’ll get my false witness and I’ll spring such fireworks at thirty-six quai des Orfèvres! On with the job, boys--this is no time to talk bullshit or play games. Here, lower me down the hole. I’m going to work another couple of hours.”
“Calm down, Papi. We’re all of us on edge. Sure, it’s not going fast, but we’re getting on, and the jackpot’s only fifteen yards ahead of us.”
I agreed to play a hand of cards to please the others and to relax a little.
No difficulty about carrying the earth out into the yard; it was eighteen yards long and ten wide, and we spread the stuff out over the whole width except for the garage path. But seeing the earth we dug was not the same as the topsoil, we had a truckload of garden loam brought in from time to time. Everything was going fine.
How we dug, and how we heaved up the buckets full of earth! We laid a wooden floor in the tunnel, because the water seeping in turned it to mud; and the buckets slid easily on these planks when you heaved on the rope.
This is how we worked: There was one man at the far end of the tunnel; with the circular saw and a little pick he filled a bucket with the earth and stones. Another stood at the bottom of the shaft and pulled the bucket back along the tunnel. At the top there was a third who hauled it up and emptied it into a rubber-wheeled barrow. We broke through the wall that divided the house from the garage, so the fourth man only had to take the wheelbarrow, push it out through the garage and appear quite naturally in the yard.
We worked for hours on end, spurred on by a furious urge to win. The far end of the tunnel was very uncomfortable in spite of our precautions: the air conditioner and the blast of pure air coming down the pipe we carried rolled around our neck so as to take a suck every now and then. I was covered with little red heat pimples; there were great blotches of them all over my body. It looked like nettle rash, and it itched horribly. The only one who did not have it was Paulo, because he just looked after the wheelbarrow and spread the earth in the garden. When we came out of that hellhole it took over an hour to recover even after a shower; then, breathing normally and covered with Vaseline and cocoa butter, at last we felt more or less all right. “Anyhow, we were the ones who started this labor of Hercules. Nobody makes us do it. So help yourself, bear it, shut your trap and heaven will help you.” That’s what I said to myself and what I said two or three times a day to Auguste, whenever he began to beef about having got himself mixed up with this kind of a job.
For slimming, there’s nothing like digging a tunnel under a bank. It’s amazing how supple you get, bending, crawling and turning yourself inside out. In that tunnel, we sweated as much as if we had been in a sauna. If you do exercises in every conceivable position there’s no danger of being overweight; and you work up splendid muscles, too. So there was everything to be said for it; and what’s more, there at the end of the tunnel a magnificent prize was waiting-other people’s money.
Everything was fine, except for the yard. With the level rising and rising, the flowers did not seem to grow but rather to sink; and that did not look altogether natural. If we went on, soon nothing would be seen but their petals. We hit on a remedy: we stuffed the flowers into pots and kept them flush with the earth as we dug it out. With the pots well covered, the plants looked as if they were coming right out of the surface.
This party was beginning to last rather too long. If only we could take turns at having a rest... But there was no question of that. We all four had to be there to keep things running smoothly. With only three of us it would never end, and we’d have to store the earth in the house for the time being, which would be dangerous.
The trapdoor over the shaft fitted to within a sixteenth of an inch. When we were resting, we could leave the room door open--not a thing could be seen. As for the hole in the garage wall, we covered it on the garage side with a huge wooden panel with handyman’s tools hung on it, and on the house side with an inmense Spanish colonial chest. So when Paulo had to have someone come to the house, he could do so without worrying at all. Gaston and I just hid in our first-floor bedroom.
For two days there had been nonstop torrential rain, and the tunnel was flooded. There was close to a foot of water, so I suggested that Paulo should go buy a hand pump and the necessary piping. An hour later it was set up. Pumping as hard as we could (another form of exercise) we sucked up the water and poured it down the drain. A long, tough day’s work for nothing.
December was coming nearer. If we could be
ready by the end of November with our little room dug out and shored up, under the bank, that would be perfect. And if the Thermit specialist appeared, there was no doubt Father Christmas would cram our stockings to the brim. If the Thermit specialist did not turn up, then we’d decided to work with the electric welder. We knew where to find a set complete with all its fittings. General Electric turned out some terrific models. We’d buy it in another town much more safely.
The tunnel crept on. On November 24 we reached the foundations of the bank. Only three yards to go and the room to make--about twelve cubic yards of earth to bring out. We celebrated with champagne, genuine brut from France.
“It tastes a little green,” Auguste said.
“All the better. That’s a good sign--it’s the color of dollars!”
Paulo summed up what there was left to do. Six days for bringing out the earth if there’s not too much of it. Three days for the casing. Total, nine. “It’s November twenty-fourth today, so that brings us to December fourth. That’s the big day, and we’ll be sitting pretty. The bank shuts at seven in the evening on Friday, so we go into action at eight. WTe’ll have the whole of Friday night, all day Saturday, Saturday night and the whole of Sunday. If all goes well, we ought to be able to leave the hideout at two in the morning on Monday. That makes fifty-two hours of work altogether. Everyone agreed?”
“No, Paulo, I don’t agree at all.”
“Why not, Papi?”