4 Shelter From The Storm by Tony Dunbar Read Free Book Online Page B

busting a fuse for some reason. They only get worried if they don’t hear from me in maybe twenty or thirty minutes.”
    “So, call them now,” LaRue instructed.
    “Right,” James said. “I’ll call them.” He trotted back into the booth and picked up a red phone.
    Off to the left of the guard booth the massive round door of the vault filled the wall. It was built of gunmetal-gray steel and was at least ten feet in diameter. It was properly outfitted in shiny brass wheels and fancy rods and gave the impression of absolute impenetrability. Everybody looked it over with interest, but the safe unfortunately was not their target. Only LaRue knew what that was. All Monk and Big Top were after was money.
    Their mission, for the next twelve or fourteen hours, lay at the other end of the hall. Past a walnut desk and a pair of light pink embroidered chairs was a marble-floored room containing the 1,200 safe-deposit boxes of the First Alluvial Bank.
    James jabbered a few syllables into the red phone which was all that was needed to allay the concerns of the spacey technonerds at SecureGuard headquarters. The array of equipment the company had installed at Alluvial Bank was notoriously prone to inexplicable shorts and blowouts. They gratefully accepted James’ opinion that the problem was the wiring at the bank.
    When this fine institution had been erected soon after the Great War, it had been the tallest building for a long ways, the Port of New Orleans handled every banana eaten in America, and the science of electrical service was in its infancy. Hidden behind the building’s repeatedly thickened walls were tapestries of circuits, computer wire, and telephone cables, and even miles of copper strands on porcelain spools left over from the birth of the Industrial Revolution that might or might not still do something. It was a wonder the lights came on. Rogue security cameras were routine.
    James could still control these cameras, however, and they responded to his touch. With a flip of his dexterous brown fingers, he restored to view, on his monitors, the upstairs lobby and the sidewalk outside the bank. He left blank the cameras on his booth and in the safe deposit room. Humming as he worked, he checked out the world above and said, “Ain’t hardly anyone left in the building now, and the bank’s closed up tight.
    “Shoo’ee, look at that rain outside,” Big Top said from over his shoulder.
    “Weather like this they ain’t gonna be no question about these cameras shorting out,” James said.
    “Long as we got juice to see by everything is A-okay, right Thelonious?” LaRue poked Monk in the stomach. “Now let’s get that generator fired up and go to work.”
    * * *
    Collette’s day before Mardi Gras had begun on a high note. Her mother had screamed up the steps to wake her a little after ten o’clock, it being a “teacher workday” and a student day off, to ask her if she wanted to speak to her friend, Norene, on the phone. Of course she did, and Norene had invited her to a pool party at her house on Versailles Boulevard. Norene said there might actually not be any swimming because her dad hadn’t cleaned the water since November and, being around 85 degrees, it was probably too cool by local standards anyway. But they would sit by the pool and maybe play some board games. Boys with beer were expected. Her parents were gone to Disney World with her younger brothers. Everything was going to be
tres
phat. Please, please come.
    Putting together a clean outfit and navigating past Mom were the only major problems. She had to run a load through the washing machine while she ate her strawberry yogurt and, to smooth the way, she also agreed to wash a load of her mother’s with only a token complaint.
    “Don’t forget bleach,” her mother cautioned.
    “Obviously,” Collette said. “I’m going over to Norene’s this afternoon.”
    “What’s she doing?”
    “Nothing. She’s lonely since her parents went to