Surrounded

almost always the best, Tucker and Bates intended to walk right up to the bank and take it over, subdue the late-working manager and his assistant without any skulking around. But it was not going to be that easy. The sliding glass panels that fronted the bank were closed and locked. Inside, the darkness was relieved only by two blue night lamps above the vault door and immediately behind the short row of tellers' cages. No manager or assistant manager was diligently toiling away after hours. The bank was deserted.
        "Christ," Bates said miserably. "They probably work late every Wednesday night, month in and month out-until tonight."
        Tucker pressed his face to the glass and carefully examined the unlighted room beyond. There was definitely not anyone in there. Meyers had said that the front doors would be open and that maybe even the vault itself would be standing wide. He had said there would be only two meek bank officers to be dealt with. And here it was, empty, closed up tight. "You'll have to do it the hard way, Edgar."
        "Blow this safe as well as the one at the jewelry store."
        "And circumvent two sets of alarms."
        "I thought this might be, for once, an easy job," the old jugger said, obviously delighted that the challenge was greater than he had anticipated. He was in his element. He was no longer nervous. Putting down his satchel, slipping on the pair of thin cotton gloves, he peered at the glass panels where they joined, studied this transparent barrier that separated them from the bank. "I'll bet there's an alarm in these, too."
        "You shouldn't have to worry about that," Tucker said.
        "Oh?"
        "Either Chet or Artie will have the keys."
        "To the bank?"
        "They'd have to have keys in case a fire started in one of the stores." Tucker grinned at the jugger's sudden frown. "Don't worry, Edgar. They won't have the vault combination. You'll still have plenty of work to do."
        Bates blushed. "Well, I was merely-"
        Off in another part of the mall five shots were fired in rapid succession.
        

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        When Tucker ran out of the south corridor and into the public lounge under the peaked ceiling, he saw that Frank Meyers was not down at the east exit where he was supposed to be. The hall was empty. Tucker knew at once where to look: at the opposite end of the building from the warehouse and the two disabled watchmen-at that one room Meyers had left out of the diagram. He ran past the fountain into the west corridor. He passed Henry's Gaslight Restaurant, the House of Books, a clothing store for teen-agers, a shoe importer, a florist, Craftwell Gifts… Breathing hard, his heart pounding like a sledge on an anvil, he slid to a stop outside of the half-open door of the mall's business office.
        "Frank?" He stood warily out of the line of fire but covered the doorway with his Skorpion.
        "In here," the familiar hoarse voice answered.
        "What's wrong?"
        "It's over."
        "You okay?"
        "Yeah." Meyers sounded in the best of spirits as he approached the door on the other side and pulled it open. "It's finished. Come in."
        "You bastard," Tucker said. "This was planned, wasn't it? You were after someone, weren't you?"
        Meyers grinned. "And I got him."
        Confused and angry, Tucker pushed past him into the room. This was the outer office, a reception area. The walls were cream-colored, the carpet a deep forest green, the furniture all dark and heavy and vaguely Mediterranean. Three good oil paintings caught his eye, held it for a moment.
        In the center of the room an extremely pretty young woman sat behind an enormous desk. She was in her late twenties, with a dusky Italian complexion and thick black hair that fell to her shoulders. She was terrified. Her brown eyes were open wide. She was sitting as stiff as a statue. Her hands were on the blotter in front of her where Meyers had probably told her to keep them, and the long fingers were knotted like trysting worms, the knuckles white.
        "Who's she?" Tucker asked.
        "His secretary," Meyers said.
        "Whose secretary?"
        Meyers pointed at the open door to the inner office.
        Tucker went in and looked at the dead men. One of them was on the floor to the right of the desk, the focal point of a widening pool of blood. In his hand he had a gun he had not used, and he