11 Harrowhouse (24 page)

Now Chesser and Maren knew what they were up against.

The System had two subterranean levels, accessible only by a small elevator—the same elevator that Chesser had seen Sir Harold enter from the ground floor foyer. Both subterranean levels ran the entire length and width of the building. The first level down was compartmentalized into various workrooms—receiving, evaluating, sorting areas. The lower level consisted of one huge oblong room which Watts referred to as “the vault.” That was where the inventory was kept.

The elevator did not offer direct access to the vault. There was a shallow, boxlike antechamber preceding the vault door. The vault itself was enclosed on all sides as well as above and below by four-inch armor plate: a specially smelted combination of exotic metals that had been tested at an official armament-proving grounds and had been found to be impervious to a seventy-five millimeter shell fired at point-blank range. The thick vault door, made of the same material, functioned electronically and was programmed with an automatic timing device that opened it at nine each week-day morning and locked it at six each night. Whenever the vault was locked, various alarms and other security devices were irrevocably in effect. These were the primary reason for the vault's antechamber. A horizontal pattern of unavoidable electronic beams would set off an alarm if interrupted by anything. A complex heat-sensitive device, originally developed by space research, detected any living presence. And, as if all other precautions were not enough, another, even more formidable obstacle had been installed just outside the vault door—an arrangement of eight small mirrors, permanently and exactly set at congruent angles so that they reflected a network of laser beams. The contemporary death ray.

Within the vault, contrary to the great pile of diamonds Chesser had envisioned, the inventory was stored with extreme systematic care. Each of fifty matte-black steel cabinets accommodated thirty long, very shallow drawers, inner-lined with black velour. These contained the uncut gem-quality stones in more than two thousand classifications, depending upon the three C's of the world of diamonds—carat, color, and clarity. For example, the white diamonds alone were graded to two hundred various shades, and accordingly categorized. There were special, deeper drawers for larger stones, but the bulk of the inventory, about ninety-five per cent of it, consisted of stones ranging from one-half to ten carats. Nearly all space in the vault was taken up by the storage cabinets. Even the middle space, where cabinets were placed back to back, forming an island and an all-around aisle arrangement.

Two of the cabinets against one wall were purposely shorter than the others and were used as work surfaces, upon which were situated a pair of Diamondlites, for standard quality evaluation. The Diamondlites were portable, merely plugged into regular wall sockets. As senior in charge of grading, Watts spent most of his hours right there, checking the stones that other graders brought down from the workrooms, making sure they were properly catalogued and put in their correct place.

There was a special note: a certain area of the vault was reserved for diamonds from Russia. A special inventory was kept for the Soviet, per agreement made during highly confidential conferences held in Moscow in 1968. Undoubtedly the Russians demanded this arrangement in case they might wish to withdraw their surplus at some future time, although, of course, their primary interest was to sell.

The roof of number 11 was sealed. No entry. The entire roof surface was equipped with a special pressure alarm that would be activated whenever anything weighing in excess of ten pounds came down on it. The ten-pound limit prevented activation by pigeons and other birds.

All alarms and prohibitive devices were set by and transmitted to a central control maintained by The System's Security Section on Harrowhouse, directly across from number 11. Security had a minimum of six men on duty at all times and kept various weapons ready for any emergency. Automatic rifles, side arms, and gas grenades. Security also operated a long-range radio on the unregistered frequency of ten and three hundred eighty megacycles. Every member of the Security staff was especially selected for the job and given extensive training. For example, taught to kill with hands. A sort of elite corps. Miller, who tended door at number 11, was rated expert by Security.

People: Sir Harold Appensteig was no longer active in day-to-day operations, was stepping aside, being phased out. Meecham, who was actually in charge, would soon be officially moved up to the chairman's post. The board of directors met twice annually at number 11. There were six outside members on the board. The major outside share was held by the Rathshield family, the same so prominent in international banking.

The final page of Watts's documentary was devoted to an estimate of the value of The System's inventory, based on current market prices as of the previous Friday.

Twenty-two million, four hundred thirty-two thousand, one hundred and three carats.

Worth twelve billion, five hundred thirty-two million, six hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Massey had been incredibly accurate.

Chesser blamed the radishes for the discomfort he had in his stomach. Maren felt suddenly empty, very small. They lay there in silence. Until nearly midnight, when Chesser finally stirred, grunted, got up and shoved Watts's report into the drawer of a Regency chest sticky bottom drawer, never used, inconvenient. Maren understood his reason for putting it there. Not to hide it as much as to try to disregard it.

For the next three days they tried to be content with routine diversions. They made no verbal pact not to mention the diamond project, but it was as though they had; neither spoke of it even once. And, significantly, they didn't once go down to the cellar for shooting practice.

They went out to see a play featuring better nudity than dialogue, to dinner at Alvaro's, to the zoo, to Sotheby's, where Maren bid on nearly everything just for spite and ended up owning a pencil sketch for eighteen thousand dollars, which, at that rate, Picasso had done for a hundred and forty dollars per second.

Or they stayed in and read anything, watched the telly without really seeing it, amputated yellow roses from the garden, played backgammon, and made so many ridiculous errors it seemed they were both trying to lose. No lovemaking, by silent, passive agreement.

Regardless of what they did they merely went through the motions. Frequently one would ask the other to repeat what the other had just said. They were each preoccupied with the same subject, which was, of course, the vault. That great buried tank of a room encased in four-inch special armor. Their separate imaginations attacked it from every direction, but its invulnerability defied them. There was simply no way into it, and even if they could get in, how could they carry off eight thousand pounds of diamonds without getting sizzled to death by laser or, at least, perforated by Security Section's sharpshooters?

Impossible.

That was Chesser's conclusion. But he hated giving up. He'd grown accustomed to the prospects of extravagant reward and maximum revenge. He'd call Massey that day and tell him it was no go. No need even to discuss it with Maren. Evidently she now realized how right he'd been when he'd told her nobody beats The System.

Chesser decided he'd take a walk first and, when he returned, place the call to Massey.

He went out, intending to be out ten or fifteen minutes at most. He turned up Albany Street, went across Gloucester Gate and into Regent's Park. The day was one of those big cloud days, with the sun frequently shut off. Everything was dull one moment and turned on bright the next. Appropriate, thought Chesser.

He claimed an empty bench. Sat there facing a vast open area of park grass, which was occasionally punctuated by children running around their mothers. And lovers horizontally together. Chesser noticed how the lovers used their bodies to conceal their hands between them. A park policeman came by, patrolling, sanctioning the mothers and dutifully delivering half-hearted warnings to the lovers, who pulled apart until he was past and then reunited, confident he wouldn't look back or come back, if he did.

Chesser started for home. But when he reached Prince Albert Road he gave way to impulse and went down Parkway to Camden Town. Along the way he looked at store windows containing mostly cheap things, stiff, dead fish, synthetic dresses, and clear, plastic, female lower halves immodestly inverted to show off pastel panty hose. At a bakery, scones that looked as light as meringue tricked him into buying half a dozen. They were heavy as plaster. He left the sack of them on the step of a public doorway and felt sorry for the hungry unfortunate who would find them.

He went back up Parkway loaded with depression. He told himself to lose some of it along the way, not to take it home to Maren. So he stopped in at a bookstore he hadn't noticed before. Thumbed through an illustrated volume that made Portugal look pretty and thought maybe he'd suggest to Maren that they just take off for there. He perused a bound collection of photographs: nudes of a woman in the reach of the sea,
Naissance de Aphrodite
, glistening beads hung in the mounded growth at her intersection, the sockets of her thighs in tension, and all the shapes of her skin dimensionally aroused. Chesser promised himself and Maren much and better loving in Portugal.

His mood was rising. He brought his attention to an entire wall of paperback books. He'd buy a few. His excuse for being out so long. He was glad, though, that Maren was possessive. He chose three paperbacks at random. And it was at that moment it came to him, just as Mildred had predicted it would—the meaning of
black will oblige
. At least it was a possible interpretation of that cryptic message. He took another paperback down from its place. Strange, he thought, the way it had come to him, as though he had been guided right there to suddenly experience a sort of revelation. Not that it mattered now, but he was certain Maren would consider it a vindication of Mildred.

Returning home, he found her in the main reception room. She had some Led Zeppelin on the stereo and little more than nothing on herself, just a huge square of that finest sheer cotton called lawn. She'd pinned it snugly beneath her chin so it contained all her hair, framed her face angelically, but otherwise fell and gathered over and around her. She was on the floor, her back against the sofa, with her legs arched up to sustain a large sketch pad on which she was making notes. The pages of Watts's report were scattered about.

She completed her thought before looking up to Chesser. He knew immediately that her disposition had changed. She was his irrepressible Maren again. He thought she also must have finally become resigned to the fact that the diamond-stealing project was canceled due to impossibility.

He sat down beside her and took her offered hello kiss. It was good to be really ensemble again. He told her, “I figured it out.”

“You did?” She seemed disappointed.

“I think so. It just came to me.”

“So, how do we get into the vault?”

“We don't.”

“Exactly,” she said.

“What I meant is, it occurred to me what
black will oblige
means. At least, what it might mean.”

He took out one of the paperback books he'd bought. Its cover was a photograph of the author, a black man looking straight out, strong and belligerent.

“I used to know him,” explained Chesser.

“He doesn't look very obliging,” was Maren's opinion.

Chesser had to agree with her. He glanced at her sketch pad. She guarded it from his view. He only caught a glimpse of some of her handwriting in Swedish. He couldn't read Swedish anyway.

“I called Mildred,” she said. “I asked her if she could do an apport.”

“A what?”

“An apport. Making things dematerialize so they can pass through matter and be brought back to their original state somewhere else. It has to do with the transmutation of energy in the fourth dimension.”

“I should have known that.”

She agreed. “It's common knowledge.”

“Done every day.”

“It would have been the best way to get the diamonds,” she said, “but Mildred can't do it.”

“She's not much help.”

“She does apports all the time but this would take too much power—you know, all those diamonds. She doesn't have that much power. It would have been interesting, though, doing it that way.” She smiled thoughtfully, was silent a moment, then asked, “How much is a carat?”

“Seven thousandths of an ounce,” he replied, “point zero zero seven.”

“I mean how big.”

He thought of several ordinary comparisons and then a better one came to him. He told her, “About half the size of your most very sensitive spot.”

She had to grin. “No larger than that?”

“At its best,” he added.

“Draw one … a carat for me,” she said, handing him the pen and turning to a fresh page of the sketch pad.

He drew a circle about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

She studied it a moment. “And ten times that is ten carats.”

He drew an approximation of ten carats.

“That's not too big,” she judged seriously.

“I've
got
to call Massey,” said Chesser. He started to get up.

“You're not supposed to call, remember? Massey was emphatic about that. Besides, I just got through talking to him.”

Chesser dropped back down. “He called you?”

“No. I told him to start renovating his building as soon as possible.”

“What building?”

“His. The one he owns, on Harrowhouse next to The System.”

“Renovate? Why?”

“To create a diversion, among other things. When there's a lot of unusual activity around the place no one will notice a little more.”

Apparently she hadn't yet given up on the deal. Chesser admired her spirit but not her obstinacy. Calmly, unequivocally, he told her it was impossible to get into the vault.