More than seventy-two hours of driving. We relieved one another at the wheel. Paulo took endless precautions; every time we stopped for gas, the man who was driving put the others down three hundred yards from the pump and picked them up afterward.
Gaston and I had been waiting half an hour in the driving rain, waiting for Paulo to come back. I was furious. "You really think all this act is necessary, Paulo? Just look at us. We'll catch our goddamn deaths."
"What a fucking bore you are, Papi. I had air put in the tires, changed a back wheel and filled up with oil and water. You can't do that in five minutes."
"I never said you could. But I tell you I don't see the point of all these precautions."
"Well, I do, and I'm the boss. You may have had a fourteenyear stretch, but I copped ten of solitary in our loving homeland; so I don't think you can ever do enough in the way of precautions. Suppose there's a tip about a car, a Chevrolet with one man in it, say-well, it's not the same as a car with three men in it."
He was right. Ten hours later we reached the town we were aiming for. Paulo dropped us at the end of a road with villas on either side.
"Take the pavement on the right. The villa's called Mi Amor; it's along there. Walk in like you owned it, and inside you'll find Auguste."
There was a yard bordered with flowers, and a neat path leading to the door of a pretty little house. The door was shut; we knocked.
"Hi there, brothers, come right in," said Auguste, opening the door. He was in shirtsleeves; he was covered with sweat, and his hairy arms had earth on them. We told him Paulo had gone to park the car at the other end of the town. It made sense not to have a Venezuelan license plate seen too often in the road.
"Did you have a good trip?"
"Yes."
No more than that. We sat down in the dining room. I felt the decisive moment was coming, and I was rather tense. Gaston had no more idea than I what the job was all about. "It's a matter of trust," Paulo had said in Caracas. "Either you come along or you don't. Take it or leave it. Just one thing: it means more liquid cash than you've ever dreamed of." Okay, but now it was all going to have to be clear, open and exact.
Auguste gave us coffee. Aside from a few questions about our journey and how we were, there wasn't a word that shed any light at all. They were prudent, tight-mouthed, in this family.
I heard a car door slam in front of the house. It must be Paulo, who'd hired a car with local plates. Just so.
"Here we are," Paulo cried, coming in and taking off his leather jacket. "Everything's going just fine, boys." Calmly he drank his coffee. I said nothing; I was waiting. He asked Auguste to put the cognac bottle on the table. Without any hurry, and still looking thoroughly pleased with life, he poured some for us; and then at last he came to the point. "Well, boys, here you are on the spot; this is where we work. Listen, now: just in front of this little house, on the other side of the street you came by, there's the back of a bank. Its main entrance is on the big avenue that runs parallel with our little road. And the reason why you see Auguste's arms all covered with clay is because he knew you were idle, good-for-nothing bums, and he set to work so there would be less for you to do."
"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?"
"The bank opens at seven for the cleaners. At that moment the whole thing may turn sour: at seven in the morning, that is to say not long after we've left. This is what I suggest: we finish the job by six on Sunday evening. By the time we've shared it out, it'll be about eight. If we leave at eight, that will give us at least eleven hours' start if the thing blows up at seven, and thirteen hours if it holds tight till nine."
In the end everybody fell in with my suggestion. We drank our champagne, and as we drank it we put on records Paulo had brought-Maurice Chevalier, Piaf, the Paris of the little dance halls… – Sitting there with his glass, each of us dreamed of the great day. It was there, so close you could almost touch it with your finger.
Your bill, Papi, the bill you've got there engraved on your heart, you'll be able to collect on it in Paris pretty soon. If all goes well and if luck's with me, I'll come back from France to El Callao and fetch Maria. My father: that would be for later on. Poor, wonderful Dad! Before I go and embrace him I'll have to bury the man I was, the hustler… – It won't take long once I've had my revenge and I'm fixed up properly.
It was two days after our champagne celebration that the thing happened, but we didn't know it until the day after that. We'd been to look at a General Electric welding-and-cutting set in a neighboring town. My pal and I, dressed very properly, set out on foot and joined up with Paulo and Auguste in the car about a mile away.
"We've deserved this trip, boys. Breathe it in, breathe it in deep; this is the wonderful air of freedom!"
"You're dead right, Paulo; we've certainly deserved it. Don't drive too fast; let's have time to admire the countryside."
We split up and stayed in two different hotels, spending three days in this charming port stuffed with ships and swarming with cheerful, motley crowds. Every evening we all met. "No nightclubs, no brothels, no girls off the street; this is a business trip, men," Paulo said. He was right.
Paulo and I went to look at the set, taking our time about it. It was terrific but it had to be paid for in cash and we didn't have enough. Paulo wired Buenos Aires and fortunately gave the address of the hotel in the port where he was staying. He decided to take us back to the villa and then return by himself a day or two later to get the dough and the welder. We drove back, thoroughly set up by these three days of holiday,
Paulo dropped Gaston and me at the corner of our little road as usual. The villa was a hundred yards away. We were walking calmly along, pleased with the idea of seeing our masterpiece of a tunnel again, when all at once I grabbed Gaston's arm and stopped him dead. What was going on outside the villa? There were cops, a dozen people milling around, and then I saw two firemen heaving earth out of the middle of the road. I didn't have to be told what had happened. The tunnel had been discovered!
Gaston began to tremble as though he had a fever, and then with his teeth chattering he stammered out, "They've smashed our beautiful tunnel in! Oh, the shits! Such a beautiful tunnel!"
At this very moment this guy with a pig's face you could tell a mile off was watching us. But the whole situation seemed so comic to me I burst out in such cheerful, genuine, open laughter that if the pig had had some slight doubt about us, it passed off right away. Taking Gaston's arm I said out loud in Spanish, "What a fucking great tunnel those robbers have dug!"
And slowly we turned our back on our masterpiece and walked away from the road-no hurry and no hitch. But now we had to get moving quick. I asked Gaston, "How much have you got on you? I've nearly six hundred dollars and fifteen hundred bolivars. What about you?"
"Two thousand dollars in my _plan_," said Gaston.
"Gaston, the best thing to do is for us to part right here in the Street."
"What are you going to do, Papi?"
"I'll go back to the port we came from and try to get a boat for no matter where-straight for Venezuela, if possible."
We could not embrace one another there in the open street, but Gaston's eyes were as wet with emotion as mine as we shook hands. There's nothing that makes such a bond between men as the experience of danger and adventure.
"Good luck, Gaston."
"Same to you, Papi."
Paulo and Auguste went home by different roads, the one to Paraguay, the other to Buenos Aires.
I managed to get on a boat for Puerto Rico: from there I took a plane to Colombia and then another boat to Venezuela.
It was only some months later that I learned what had happened. A water main had burst in the big avenue on the other side of the bank and the traffic was diverted into the streets running parallel. A huge truck loaded with iron girders took our road, passed over our tunnel, and plunged its back wheels into it. Shrieks, amazement, police; they grasped the whole thing in a moment.