Disclaimer: As per the usual, I don't own any of these characters or songs,
and I don't make any money from this.
Chapter 3: Three to Get Ready
(11:30 p.m. Sunday)
You had to hand it to Beverly Hills, Jigen thought. The weather was horrible and the people were worse, but at least you could expect a well- stocked wet bar in your hotel. He took a long, savoring sip of his scotch on the rocks, and turned his attention back to the blueprints Lupin had spread out on the coffee table.
"The salon has three rooms: two for display, and a back wing for storage and security. The building does have a basement, used for utilities only, accessible from these tunnels"--here Lupin pointed to a spot on the blueprints--"which are part of the sewage system. Apparently the idea was to have repairmen get to the building's utilities without walking through the salon itself. The tunnel entrance has been sealed, but it's no longer alarmed." He flipped through a manila file folder and pulled out a stack of glossy black-and-white photographs. He handed the first of them to Goemon. "Think you and that pointy friend of yours can handle this?" Goemon examined the picture closely.
"Most assuredly."
"All right, so we get into the basement. There's a door to the upstairs, but we're going to bypass it, because it locks from the outside, and I don't want to cut more up than we have to. This is a minimum-damage operation, guys. The sale is to take place early enough in the morning as it is, and I'd like it if our little visit isn't discovered until sale time. When the store opens, they should have no idea it's been robbed."
"Okay, fair enough," Jigen said. "So how're we getting from the basement to the salon?"
"Through this." Lupin handed the stack of photos to Jigen. "The main ventilation shaft. The portion large enough for us to crawl through takes us straight from the basement into the second display salon, out of view of the street--just an extra plus."
"You take these?" Jigen asked, tipping up the brim of his hat to look at the pictures.
"Sort of," Lupin replied. " 'Abe Chenowski' of Duluth, Minnesota paid the House of Winston a most educational visit this afternoon, while you guys were unpacking."
"Ah," said Goemon. "The 'fascinated tourist with a camera' bit is always quite useful in California."
"Funny how people never wonder why I'm taking pictures of doorways and ventilation shafts instead of landmarks and famous people."
"Indeed."
"Well," Jigen said grimly, "nothing against 'Abe,' but these pictures of his are pretty discouraging."
"That was going to be my next topic," said Lupin. "It's no cakewalk. It's no Mask of Tutankhamen, either, but it definitely has its drawbacks."
"Such as?" Fujiko looked up from her nail file.
"Oh, so you're listening after all," Jigen said snidely.
"Stow it, Jigen," Fujiko retorted impatiently. "Three rooms, access to a basement through the sewers, and the basement door should be no match for Goemon's Zantetsu. Where are the drawbacks?" Lupin held up the first of the photographs.
"I'm getting to that," Lupin assured her. "This second room, where we'll land once we crawl through the ventilation shaft, is rife with motion sensors and video cameras." He pointed to their positions on the blueprint.
"Could we not cut the power, as we have done in the past?" Goemon asked.
"Ah, not this time. That's another thing I'm getting to. The salon consists basically of three rooms, as I said," Lupin explained, "but within this third back room there are a number of different sections for jewel storage. Each section locks individually, with a slightly above-standard combination lock. That's time consuming, potentially, but no big deal. It's this first door, between the display lounge and the storage wing, that's the doozy." He held up the last picture.
"Ooh," Jigen winced. "Voice recognition. That's harsh."
"Yeah. The lock only recognizes two peoples' voices: the head manager, and Harry Winston himself. And so if we cut the power..."
"We won't be able to open the voice-recognition lock."
"Precisely."
Jigen stroked his beard thoughtfully, and took another swig of scotch.
"Well then," he said, "it's a good thing we're no amateurs. You got our assignments, man?"
"Have I ever told you, Jigen," Lupin asked, "how much I like the way you think?"
**************************************************************************** *******
(9:00 a.m. Monday)
From his perch atop a rocky, brush-covered hillside, Goemon Ishikawa watched a few thin rays of sun fight to shine through Southern California's early-morning cloud cover. Far below him, red stucco rooftops and winding roadways filled the expanse of land between him and the city.
"Hey," Jigen said brightly, sipping a cup of convenience store coffee. "Beverly Hills isn't so bad, once you get twenty or thirty miles beyond the city limits."
"It is really a most distressing vista," Goemon said, waving one thin hand toward the rust-colored smog staining the heavens above Los Angeles. "Like the smudged handprint of man impressed upon nature's beauty." Jigen finished buttoning on a pair of coveralls, pulled a workman's cap over his long hair, and sighed.
"Goemon, you could make a man start drinking before lunch, you know that? It's kind of impressive."
"It *would* be impressive, if the man in question were not you, Daisuke."
"Touche," Jigen replied. As he placed a matching workman's cap on Goemon's head, he gave it a tug and pulled it down over the samurai's eyes. The two stood up and made their way to the van parked just beyond the side of the road, marked "Airtight Security Systems." Goemon pulled the van back out onto the street, where he stopped a moment.
Jigen leaned out his window and called out, "sorry about the inconvenience, guys. Thanks for the wheels!" The two bound and gagged men lying in the roadside brush merely groaned. Goemon sped away down the hillside, in the direction of the smog.
**************************************************************************** ***** (1:30 p.m. Monday)
"WELcome to the House of WINston," a salesman gushed as a well-dressed older gentleman shepherded a stunning blonde girl into the salon. "And what might we be looking for today? Perhaps something to rival Madame's exquisite beauty?" The gentleman let his eyes travel over the salesman, from his too-large tie clip to to his bad shoes.
"My good man," he said, stroking his whiskers, "I've no idea what *you're* looking for. But tonight is this young lady's first movie premiere, and *she* is looking for something to complement her gown. And *I* am not looking for anything at all--I'm merely financing this little escapade."
"I see," the chastened salesman replied meekly. He signaled to a middle- aged woman who stood some distance away, at a counter. "Eliza will help you with any item you care to see." Eliza came out from behind the counter and shook hands warmly with the gentleman and his companion.
"See here now, Eliza," the gentleman said kindly. "We've got a premiere tonight, and I want this girl here to shine like the sun. Can you help us?" Eliza nodded, and turned to the young woman.
"What is your name, dear?" The girl shyly cast her eyes down before murmuring,
"Marilyn."
"Now, Marilyn, my dear, why don't you tell me all about your gown." Eliza took Marilyn by the elbow and they walked off into the second room of the salon, leaving the older gentleman to wander about the store.
It was lucky for Fujiko that a young ingenue on her first trip to Harry Winston is expected to seem awed and excited; for despite her considerable acting skill, she could not suppress a tremble at the sight of so many exquisite gems. She took advantage of her reaction to grab hold of the doorway into the second room, as if to steady herself, and slipped a tiny metal disk onto the door frame--just across from the door's motion sensor. "Marilyn" gushed most genuinely as Eliza placed garlands of diamonds and emeralds against her bare neck, making sure to rest her girlishly eager hands on the cases and tap more of the disks into place on their stands. Finally, only one sensor remained; but it was mounted in the upper right hand corner, just inches from the ceiling. Moreover, Eliza's constant attentions prevented "Marilyn" from wandering in that direction. She checked her watch; they had only a few minutes before the Star of the East was scheduled to arrive. But before she had time to begin worrying, a realization struck her.
"The watch!" She thought. It was the same watch she had worn to plant a homing device on the Ukiyoe print in New York--the one with the spring loader embedded in the face. While Eliza went on about the proper balance of a neckline and a necklace, "Marilyn" clasped her hand demurely over her wrist, and slipped the final disk onto the spring. A moment later, Eliza brought out an exquisite diamond and platinum corsage; "Marilyn's" clasped hands flew to her face, and her index finger touched an almost imperceptible button on the side of her watch. The disk sailed upwards and hit its mark.
"Whew," she breathed.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Marilyn?" Eliza gave her a puzzled look.
"Oh," she replied, "that corsage just plain takes my breath away!" Before Eliza had a chance to respond, four men in dark suits entered the salon, each one handcuffed to a black, wheeled jewel cart. Behind them walked a staid elderly man with a portfolio tucked under his arm. "My goodness, but they look all official," Marilyn said. "Who are they?" Eliza leaned in close to whisper her reply.
"The one at the back is Harry Winston himself; those other men are bringing in a gem delivery."
"But so many carts!" Marilyn whispered back. "Are they very large stones?"
"I ought not to be telling you this, but Mr. Winston has been preparing for some time to conduct a very large sale. One of those carts," she said, in excited low tones, "even contains the famous Star of the East!"
"No!" She exclaimed in disbelief. Eliza nodded, and the pair resumed their examination of the corsage.
When the procession reached the door at the back of the room, Harry Winston walked to the front of the line and touched the keypad mounted on the door frame.
"Please establish identity," a thin mechanical voice said.
"Harry Winston."
"Please give the password."
"Diamonds," he said in a raised, singsong voice, "are a girl's best friend."
"Voice patterns verified. Enter." The lock opened with a resounding clap, and Mr. Winston opened the door. He waved the carts in, one by one; as the last one entered, however, he caught sight of a well-dressed gentleman wandering much too close to the door for his comfort. Bristling, he confronted the man.
"Excuse me, sir, but this area is not for customers. May I ask what you are doing here?"
"Ah, whoops," Lupin stammered. "I'm all turned around. Could you point me towards the emeralds?"
The manager eyed him suspiciously. "It's just over there, to your left, where that lady in purple is standing."
"Thanks, buddy. Nice store you've got here." He flashed Winston a disarmingly embarrassed smile and sauntered over to the counter in question as Jigen's voice came over his earpiece.
"We got it, Lupin. Crystal-clear."
Lupin snickered. He watched from the corner of his eye as Winston followed the carts into the vaults. At the emerald counter he praised his "ingenue," who really did look radiant in a teardrop-shaped emerald pendant. But for once, Fujiko's chest did not have Lupin's undivided attention. He kept one eye on the vault door until all four delivery men, followed by Harry Winston, emerged from the vaults and re-locked the door. Lupin and Fujiko checked their watches simultaneously; it was 1:42.
**************************************************************************** *******
(2:30 p.m. Monday)
The Assistant Manager at the House of Winston was starting to get all puffed up in the face. Nobody had told him about the extra security checks that had been ordered, in light of the day's special delivery. But now here were two men with toolboxes and stepladders slung over their shoulders, showing a work order for a full shop-floor inspection. How could he be expected to fulfill his duties as Assistant Manager, he asked the two impassive workmen, if he could not count on communication from his superiors? Yes, the checks were warranted, he was sure. No, he didn't want to interfere with any sort of protocol when there were special circumstances, as--he told them in hushed tones--there certainly were today. But the whole thing was highly irregular.
"By all means, gentlemen," he finally said when he had finished puffing, "go about your work. We at Harry Winston certainly appreciate your expertise. Highly irregular, though," he muttered to himself as he walked back to his post. "No respect for my position here, that much is clear. Most uncalled-for."
"Sheesh," Jigen whispered to Goemon as the manager swept from the room. "If I ever needed a reminder of why I don't have a day job..."
"Hmm," Goemon assented.
"You have such a way with words. Well, let's get to work." Jigen slid the stepladder off his shoulder and climbed up to the security camera that hung just above the storage wing's door. He looked at his watch; it was 2:45, exactly one hour and three minutes since the manager's exit from the vaults. Jigen rewound the tape accordingly, and stopped it just after the moment in question. He then waited for the area under surveillance to empty out, and let the camera record for a period of sixty seconds. He stopped the tape, rewound for one minute, and then reset the camera to play, rather than record.
Not too bad, he thought to himself. Anyone watching the tape would see the Star of the East enter the vault, see the manager exit, and then see a door left completely untouched for the rest of the day. Jigen repeated this process for the four other cameras in the room, then folded up his stepladder and joined Goemon.
Goemon, meanwhile, sat next to one of the display cases, a tiny remote device in his hand.
"Where are they?" Jigen asked. Goemon nodded toward the sides of the two nearest display cases, the doorway into the first display salon, and the upper right hand corner of the room.
"Gotcha," Jigen said, catching sight of Fujiko's planted devices. "Damn, that sensor in the corner's gonna be a bitch to disable. Where'd she put the bug?"
"She did an admirable job, though Buddha alone knows how she did it: the bug is stuck directly on top of the motion sensor." They were conferring in low tones, so as not to arouse the suspicions of the few customers milling about and perusing necklaces.
"Well, what do you know," Jigen said, shaking his head. "That broad's always been full of surprises; guess there had to be a few *good* surprises in there, too. All right, start cranking that little sucker up."
Goemon raised up the remote and began turning the dial in tiny, careful increments. Jigen smiled, hands on his hips. These impulse generators, calibrated to match electrical frequencies and produce interference, were some of his favorite toys. The remote itself had come in handy in Loch Ness a few years back; he'd used it to detonate a field of land mines, so that his feet--and Goemon's and Lupin's--wouldn't have to. The mines had actually been what gave him the idea for the little "bugs." The bugs, once activated, would interfere with the motion sensors, masking the thieves' movements while keeping their hands free--in other words, he wouldn't have to disable the sensors one by one with his remote. On a time-sensitive job like this, they were no less than a godsend; Jigen was damn proud of those bugs.
A brief, high-pitched whine pierced Jigen's eardrums, and the store's alarms began to ring.
"Got it," Goemon said, noting the remote's setting. Jigen pulled a stopwatch out of his coveralls and began timing just as the assistant manager came racing into the second room.
"What! What is this? What's going on?" Goemon waved his hands placatingly.
"We were merely testing the motion detectors' response times," he assured the red-faced manager in tones loud enough to carry over the alarm. "Sorry for the disturbance. Next time we will disable the sound on the alarm system, so as not to disrupt your customers." Goemon turned the remote dial off, and the alarms stopped. The manager mopped his brow with relief.
"Oh," he said shakily. "Quite so. Good, good, gentlemen. Carry on!" Sirens could be heard from the street, headed for the store. Jigen and Goemon walked into the main display room just as a squadron of police pulled into position in the street. Jigen checked his watch.
"Six minutes," he whispered to Goemon. "In daytime traffic. Let's shave a minute off our estimate to be on the safe side." They returned to the second room and began packing up their things, then walked out of the store unnoticed, leaving the manager sputtering his explanations to the police.
"No no, officers, just...routine tests....security measures...special circumstances today, you see...nothing to worry about...highly irregular of course...won't happen again!"
Jigen threw the stepladder and toolbox into the back of the van, exchanging them for two black duffel bags, and followed Goemon across Rodeo Drive to the Rodeo Cafe. Two men in workmen's hats and coveralls drew a few stares from the cafe's customers as they proceeded to the bathrooms. Emerging from the bathrooms, however, the fedora-topped gangster and the stern samurai in his traditional gi attracted no attention whatsoever.
California is a strange place indeed, Goemon thought.
The two men made their way to a corner table near the window, where Lupin and Fujiko had already ordered their first round. Halfway through the room, a slim, redheaded woman rose from her booth and backed up straight into Jigen. The faint scent of lavender reached his nose, and for a moment afterwards, he couldn't breathe.
That hair, he thought. And the scent. It couldn't be...
It wasn't. The woman gasped and spun around; Jigen had a chance to examine her face as she sputtered an apology. No, he reassured himself. She was much too young, hardly twenty-five by his estimate.
"No, no," he mumbled. "My fault, excuse me." He continued on to his table, still feeling like he'd seen a ghost.
"Well done, gentlemen," Lupin sang out as they took their seats. The waitress came by, bearing two martinis, a scotch, and --to Goemon's surprise-- a glass of sake. "Everything's just about ready to go. We'll arrange the getaway cars and so forth when we meet back up at the hotel-- how's midnight sound? Think you guys can entertain yourselves somehow until then?" Three heads nodded. "All right then, midnight it is."
Jigen downed his scotch in a single gulp. "I think I'm just gonna go back to the hotel now. All this sunshine and color's really starting to get to me. Thanks for the drink, man. Catch ya later."
"Hmph," Lupin said, looking at the discarded scotch glass. "Wonder what's eating him?"
"He was perfectly at ease a moment ago," said Goemon. "But bumping into that woman a moment ago seems to have unsettled him."
"Ooh, 'that woman'?" Fujiko chimed in. "Maybe our sour, cynical Jigen is just an old romantic at heart, after all."
"Somehow," Goemon replied, "I am not fully inclined to doubt you."
"Well," said Lupin, "romantic or not, he's only cheated himself out of a second round. More sake, Goemon?"
Chapter 3: Three to Get Ready
(11:30 p.m. Sunday)
You had to hand it to Beverly Hills, Jigen thought. The weather was horrible and the people were worse, but at least you could expect a well- stocked wet bar in your hotel. He took a long, savoring sip of his scotch on the rocks, and turned his attention back to the blueprints Lupin had spread out on the coffee table.
"The salon has three rooms: two for display, and a back wing for storage and security. The building does have a basement, used for utilities only, accessible from these tunnels"--here Lupin pointed to a spot on the blueprints--"which are part of the sewage system. Apparently the idea was to have repairmen get to the building's utilities without walking through the salon itself. The tunnel entrance has been sealed, but it's no longer alarmed." He flipped through a manila file folder and pulled out a stack of glossy black-and-white photographs. He handed the first of them to Goemon. "Think you and that pointy friend of yours can handle this?" Goemon examined the picture closely.
"Most assuredly."
"All right, so we get into the basement. There's a door to the upstairs, but we're going to bypass it, because it locks from the outside, and I don't want to cut more up than we have to. This is a minimum-damage operation, guys. The sale is to take place early enough in the morning as it is, and I'd like it if our little visit isn't discovered until sale time. When the store opens, they should have no idea it's been robbed."
"Okay, fair enough," Jigen said. "So how're we getting from the basement to the salon?"
"Through this." Lupin handed the stack of photos to Jigen. "The main ventilation shaft. The portion large enough for us to crawl through takes us straight from the basement into the second display salon, out of view of the street--just an extra plus."
"You take these?" Jigen asked, tipping up the brim of his hat to look at the pictures.
"Sort of," Lupin replied. " 'Abe Chenowski' of Duluth, Minnesota paid the House of Winston a most educational visit this afternoon, while you guys were unpacking."
"Ah," said Goemon. "The 'fascinated tourist with a camera' bit is always quite useful in California."
"Funny how people never wonder why I'm taking pictures of doorways and ventilation shafts instead of landmarks and famous people."
"Indeed."
"Well," Jigen said grimly, "nothing against 'Abe,' but these pictures of his are pretty discouraging."
"That was going to be my next topic," said Lupin. "It's no cakewalk. It's no Mask of Tutankhamen, either, but it definitely has its drawbacks."
"Such as?" Fujiko looked up from her nail file.
"Oh, so you're listening after all," Jigen said snidely.
"Stow it, Jigen," Fujiko retorted impatiently. "Three rooms, access to a basement through the sewers, and the basement door should be no match for Goemon's Zantetsu. Where are the drawbacks?" Lupin held up the first of the photographs.
"I'm getting to that," Lupin assured her. "This second room, where we'll land once we crawl through the ventilation shaft, is rife with motion sensors and video cameras." He pointed to their positions on the blueprint.
"Could we not cut the power, as we have done in the past?" Goemon asked.
"Ah, not this time. That's another thing I'm getting to. The salon consists basically of three rooms, as I said," Lupin explained, "but within this third back room there are a number of different sections for jewel storage. Each section locks individually, with a slightly above-standard combination lock. That's time consuming, potentially, but no big deal. It's this first door, between the display lounge and the storage wing, that's the doozy." He held up the last picture.
"Ooh," Jigen winced. "Voice recognition. That's harsh."
"Yeah. The lock only recognizes two peoples' voices: the head manager, and Harry Winston himself. And so if we cut the power..."
"We won't be able to open the voice-recognition lock."
"Precisely."
Jigen stroked his beard thoughtfully, and took another swig of scotch.
"Well then," he said, "it's a good thing we're no amateurs. You got our assignments, man?"
"Have I ever told you, Jigen," Lupin asked, "how much I like the way you think?"
**************************************************************************** *******
(9:00 a.m. Monday)
From his perch atop a rocky, brush-covered hillside, Goemon Ishikawa watched a few thin rays of sun fight to shine through Southern California's early-morning cloud cover. Far below him, red stucco rooftops and winding roadways filled the expanse of land between him and the city.
"Hey," Jigen said brightly, sipping a cup of convenience store coffee. "Beverly Hills isn't so bad, once you get twenty or thirty miles beyond the city limits."
"It is really a most distressing vista," Goemon said, waving one thin hand toward the rust-colored smog staining the heavens above Los Angeles. "Like the smudged handprint of man impressed upon nature's beauty." Jigen finished buttoning on a pair of coveralls, pulled a workman's cap over his long hair, and sighed.
"Goemon, you could make a man start drinking before lunch, you know that? It's kind of impressive."
"It *would* be impressive, if the man in question were not you, Daisuke."
"Touche," Jigen replied. As he placed a matching workman's cap on Goemon's head, he gave it a tug and pulled it down over the samurai's eyes. The two stood up and made their way to the van parked just beyond the side of the road, marked "Airtight Security Systems." Goemon pulled the van back out onto the street, where he stopped a moment.
Jigen leaned out his window and called out, "sorry about the inconvenience, guys. Thanks for the wheels!" The two bound and gagged men lying in the roadside brush merely groaned. Goemon sped away down the hillside, in the direction of the smog.
**************************************************************************** ***** (1:30 p.m. Monday)
"WELcome to the House of WINston," a salesman gushed as a well-dressed older gentleman shepherded a stunning blonde girl into the salon. "And what might we be looking for today? Perhaps something to rival Madame's exquisite beauty?" The gentleman let his eyes travel over the salesman, from his too-large tie clip to to his bad shoes.
"My good man," he said, stroking his whiskers, "I've no idea what *you're* looking for. But tonight is this young lady's first movie premiere, and *she* is looking for something to complement her gown. And *I* am not looking for anything at all--I'm merely financing this little escapade."
"I see," the chastened salesman replied meekly. He signaled to a middle- aged woman who stood some distance away, at a counter. "Eliza will help you with any item you care to see." Eliza came out from behind the counter and shook hands warmly with the gentleman and his companion.
"See here now, Eliza," the gentleman said kindly. "We've got a premiere tonight, and I want this girl here to shine like the sun. Can you help us?" Eliza nodded, and turned to the young woman.
"What is your name, dear?" The girl shyly cast her eyes down before murmuring,
"Marilyn."
"Now, Marilyn, my dear, why don't you tell me all about your gown." Eliza took Marilyn by the elbow and they walked off into the second room of the salon, leaving the older gentleman to wander about the store.
It was lucky for Fujiko that a young ingenue on her first trip to Harry Winston is expected to seem awed and excited; for despite her considerable acting skill, she could not suppress a tremble at the sight of so many exquisite gems. She took advantage of her reaction to grab hold of the doorway into the second room, as if to steady herself, and slipped a tiny metal disk onto the door frame--just across from the door's motion sensor. "Marilyn" gushed most genuinely as Eliza placed garlands of diamonds and emeralds against her bare neck, making sure to rest her girlishly eager hands on the cases and tap more of the disks into place on their stands. Finally, only one sensor remained; but it was mounted in the upper right hand corner, just inches from the ceiling. Moreover, Eliza's constant attentions prevented "Marilyn" from wandering in that direction. She checked her watch; they had only a few minutes before the Star of the East was scheduled to arrive. But before she had time to begin worrying, a realization struck her.
"The watch!" She thought. It was the same watch she had worn to plant a homing device on the Ukiyoe print in New York--the one with the spring loader embedded in the face. While Eliza went on about the proper balance of a neckline and a necklace, "Marilyn" clasped her hand demurely over her wrist, and slipped the final disk onto the spring. A moment later, Eliza brought out an exquisite diamond and platinum corsage; "Marilyn's" clasped hands flew to her face, and her index finger touched an almost imperceptible button on the side of her watch. The disk sailed upwards and hit its mark.
"Whew," she breathed.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Marilyn?" Eliza gave her a puzzled look.
"Oh," she replied, "that corsage just plain takes my breath away!" Before Eliza had a chance to respond, four men in dark suits entered the salon, each one handcuffed to a black, wheeled jewel cart. Behind them walked a staid elderly man with a portfolio tucked under his arm. "My goodness, but they look all official," Marilyn said. "Who are they?" Eliza leaned in close to whisper her reply.
"The one at the back is Harry Winston himself; those other men are bringing in a gem delivery."
"But so many carts!" Marilyn whispered back. "Are they very large stones?"
"I ought not to be telling you this, but Mr. Winston has been preparing for some time to conduct a very large sale. One of those carts," she said, in excited low tones, "even contains the famous Star of the East!"
"No!" She exclaimed in disbelief. Eliza nodded, and the pair resumed their examination of the corsage.
When the procession reached the door at the back of the room, Harry Winston walked to the front of the line and touched the keypad mounted on the door frame.
"Please establish identity," a thin mechanical voice said.
"Harry Winston."
"Please give the password."
"Diamonds," he said in a raised, singsong voice, "are a girl's best friend."
"Voice patterns verified. Enter." The lock opened with a resounding clap, and Mr. Winston opened the door. He waved the carts in, one by one; as the last one entered, however, he caught sight of a well-dressed gentleman wandering much too close to the door for his comfort. Bristling, he confronted the man.
"Excuse me, sir, but this area is not for customers. May I ask what you are doing here?"
"Ah, whoops," Lupin stammered. "I'm all turned around. Could you point me towards the emeralds?"
The manager eyed him suspiciously. "It's just over there, to your left, where that lady in purple is standing."
"Thanks, buddy. Nice store you've got here." He flashed Winston a disarmingly embarrassed smile and sauntered over to the counter in question as Jigen's voice came over his earpiece.
"We got it, Lupin. Crystal-clear."
Lupin snickered. He watched from the corner of his eye as Winston followed the carts into the vaults. At the emerald counter he praised his "ingenue," who really did look radiant in a teardrop-shaped emerald pendant. But for once, Fujiko's chest did not have Lupin's undivided attention. He kept one eye on the vault door until all four delivery men, followed by Harry Winston, emerged from the vaults and re-locked the door. Lupin and Fujiko checked their watches simultaneously; it was 1:42.
**************************************************************************** *******
(2:30 p.m. Monday)
The Assistant Manager at the House of Winston was starting to get all puffed up in the face. Nobody had told him about the extra security checks that had been ordered, in light of the day's special delivery. But now here were two men with toolboxes and stepladders slung over their shoulders, showing a work order for a full shop-floor inspection. How could he be expected to fulfill his duties as Assistant Manager, he asked the two impassive workmen, if he could not count on communication from his superiors? Yes, the checks were warranted, he was sure. No, he didn't want to interfere with any sort of protocol when there were special circumstances, as--he told them in hushed tones--there certainly were today. But the whole thing was highly irregular.
"By all means, gentlemen," he finally said when he had finished puffing, "go about your work. We at Harry Winston certainly appreciate your expertise. Highly irregular, though," he muttered to himself as he walked back to his post. "No respect for my position here, that much is clear. Most uncalled-for."
"Sheesh," Jigen whispered to Goemon as the manager swept from the room. "If I ever needed a reminder of why I don't have a day job..."
"Hmm," Goemon assented.
"You have such a way with words. Well, let's get to work." Jigen slid the stepladder off his shoulder and climbed up to the security camera that hung just above the storage wing's door. He looked at his watch; it was 2:45, exactly one hour and three minutes since the manager's exit from the vaults. Jigen rewound the tape accordingly, and stopped it just after the moment in question. He then waited for the area under surveillance to empty out, and let the camera record for a period of sixty seconds. He stopped the tape, rewound for one minute, and then reset the camera to play, rather than record.
Not too bad, he thought to himself. Anyone watching the tape would see the Star of the East enter the vault, see the manager exit, and then see a door left completely untouched for the rest of the day. Jigen repeated this process for the four other cameras in the room, then folded up his stepladder and joined Goemon.
Goemon, meanwhile, sat next to one of the display cases, a tiny remote device in his hand.
"Where are they?" Jigen asked. Goemon nodded toward the sides of the two nearest display cases, the doorway into the first display salon, and the upper right hand corner of the room.
"Gotcha," Jigen said, catching sight of Fujiko's planted devices. "Damn, that sensor in the corner's gonna be a bitch to disable. Where'd she put the bug?"
"She did an admirable job, though Buddha alone knows how she did it: the bug is stuck directly on top of the motion sensor." They were conferring in low tones, so as not to arouse the suspicions of the few customers milling about and perusing necklaces.
"Well, what do you know," Jigen said, shaking his head. "That broad's always been full of surprises; guess there had to be a few *good* surprises in there, too. All right, start cranking that little sucker up."
Goemon raised up the remote and began turning the dial in tiny, careful increments. Jigen smiled, hands on his hips. These impulse generators, calibrated to match electrical frequencies and produce interference, were some of his favorite toys. The remote itself had come in handy in Loch Ness a few years back; he'd used it to detonate a field of land mines, so that his feet--and Goemon's and Lupin's--wouldn't have to. The mines had actually been what gave him the idea for the little "bugs." The bugs, once activated, would interfere with the motion sensors, masking the thieves' movements while keeping their hands free--in other words, he wouldn't have to disable the sensors one by one with his remote. On a time-sensitive job like this, they were no less than a godsend; Jigen was damn proud of those bugs.
A brief, high-pitched whine pierced Jigen's eardrums, and the store's alarms began to ring.
"Got it," Goemon said, noting the remote's setting. Jigen pulled a stopwatch out of his coveralls and began timing just as the assistant manager came racing into the second room.
"What! What is this? What's going on?" Goemon waved his hands placatingly.
"We were merely testing the motion detectors' response times," he assured the red-faced manager in tones loud enough to carry over the alarm. "Sorry for the disturbance. Next time we will disable the sound on the alarm system, so as not to disrupt your customers." Goemon turned the remote dial off, and the alarms stopped. The manager mopped his brow with relief.
"Oh," he said shakily. "Quite so. Good, good, gentlemen. Carry on!" Sirens could be heard from the street, headed for the store. Jigen and Goemon walked into the main display room just as a squadron of police pulled into position in the street. Jigen checked his watch.
"Six minutes," he whispered to Goemon. "In daytime traffic. Let's shave a minute off our estimate to be on the safe side." They returned to the second room and began packing up their things, then walked out of the store unnoticed, leaving the manager sputtering his explanations to the police.
"No no, officers, just...routine tests....security measures...special circumstances today, you see...nothing to worry about...highly irregular of course...won't happen again!"
Jigen threw the stepladder and toolbox into the back of the van, exchanging them for two black duffel bags, and followed Goemon across Rodeo Drive to the Rodeo Cafe. Two men in workmen's hats and coveralls drew a few stares from the cafe's customers as they proceeded to the bathrooms. Emerging from the bathrooms, however, the fedora-topped gangster and the stern samurai in his traditional gi attracted no attention whatsoever.
California is a strange place indeed, Goemon thought.
The two men made their way to a corner table near the window, where Lupin and Fujiko had already ordered their first round. Halfway through the room, a slim, redheaded woman rose from her booth and backed up straight into Jigen. The faint scent of lavender reached his nose, and for a moment afterwards, he couldn't breathe.
That hair, he thought. And the scent. It couldn't be...
It wasn't. The woman gasped and spun around; Jigen had a chance to examine her face as she sputtered an apology. No, he reassured himself. She was much too young, hardly twenty-five by his estimate.
"No, no," he mumbled. "My fault, excuse me." He continued on to his table, still feeling like he'd seen a ghost.
"Well done, gentlemen," Lupin sang out as they took their seats. The waitress came by, bearing two martinis, a scotch, and --to Goemon's surprise-- a glass of sake. "Everything's just about ready to go. We'll arrange the getaway cars and so forth when we meet back up at the hotel-- how's midnight sound? Think you guys can entertain yourselves somehow until then?" Three heads nodded. "All right then, midnight it is."
Jigen downed his scotch in a single gulp. "I think I'm just gonna go back to the hotel now. All this sunshine and color's really starting to get to me. Thanks for the drink, man. Catch ya later."
"Hmph," Lupin said, looking at the discarded scotch glass. "Wonder what's eating him?"
"He was perfectly at ease a moment ago," said Goemon. "But bumping into that woman a moment ago seems to have unsettled him."
"Ooh, 'that woman'?" Fujiko chimed in. "Maybe our sour, cynical Jigen is just an old romantic at heart, after all."
"Somehow," Goemon replied, "I am not fully inclined to doubt you."
"Well," said Lupin, "romantic or not, he's only cheated himself out of a second round. More sake, Goemon?"
