Metzger's Dog by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

with some activity, like a laboratory or a clinic, with more than one room, and right about now they’d be putting the cocaine into a safe. Chinese Gordon started on the top floor and began to work downward. It wouldn’t be on the ground floor, because somebody would think of that as a security risk. On the fourth floor he found what he was looking for. The sign on the door said “Institute for Psychobiological Research. Director: Gottlieb.” Stenciled in big red letters on the door was “Admittance by Appointment.” Chinese Gordon admired that way of putting it: No sense offending those invited to come in for a free toot of cocaine, and no sense spending the day fighting off a crowd of marble-eyed beggars with noses like snorkels. Chinese Gordon kept moving. He knew that these people would be closing up for the day now, and they’d be in the hallways within minutes.
    On the third floor things were about the same. There were a few classrooms, a lot of little offices, and not much else. Near the far end of the hall, he passed an office that seemed to have an unusual amount of activity. There were too many people coming out. The place didn’t look big enough to hold them. Three of them were probably secretaries, women in their late twenties or thirties who wore high heels and makeup and expensive, conservative clothes. Then there were others, people too old to be undergraduate students, wearing work shoes and sneakers and boots, their outfits all reminiscent of lumberjacks or cowboys. He decided to wait near the stairwell. For something to do, he unraveled a few feet of insulated wire from the spool on his tool belt and began cutting and splicing it into insane patterns that would intimidate anyone who saw them.
    At five-fifteen two men came out together. The first didn’t look as though he belonged in a university. He was in his middle thirties, wearing a beautifully tailored gray suit and carrying a briefcase of lustrous Italian leather, so thin that it seemed designed to carry two-page letters or maybe contracts. The second man was older, his coat a worn and ageless tweed, and his briefcase was of the voluminous sort that might have held books, or the term papers of a fair-sized class. He was saying, “It’s very disruptive.”
    The first man answered, “The work will be done this weekend. By Monday the whole security problem will be solved.” As the two disappeared into the elevator, Chinese Gordon smiled.
             
    W HEN C HINESE G ORDON RETURNED to the van it was dark outside and the few cars that passed were moving as quickly toward the campus exit as the narrow, winding street permitted. He opened the door of the van and Immelmann and Kepler climbed out. Both were now wearing gray work shirts like his. Over the left breast pocket each had a patch sewn on that said “Dave.” Immelmann had stolen them from a dryer in a Laundromat.
    “Okay,” said Chinese Gordon. “Make it look heavy.”
    The two lifted out a large cardboard box that said “HOTPOINT POWER PLUS” on it and followed Chinese Gordon into the building. The hallways were now empty, and the steps of the men echoed on the tiles. Chinese Gordon noted with satisfaction that the elevator was waiting on the first floor. Nobody had gone up, but somebody had come down.
    The fourth floor was only dimly lit, another indication to Chinese Gordon that things were going well. He held the box while Kepler and Immelmann flipped a coin to see who would open the door. Kepler picked the two locks and then stood back.
    “There must be an alarm. Let’s check it out first,” he whispered.
    “I don’t see any lights,” said Chinese Gordon.
    “How about strips?” said Immelmann.
    “No, but there must be something,” Kepler muttered. “My high school principal had an alarm in his office twenty years ago, for Christ’s sake, and the locks were a hell of a lot easier to pick than this.”
    “That was when you were there,” Chinese Gordon