spat and arched and wondered idly why they never recognized Cat in gray makeup. Then he turned to the mayor and said, "Well, what's it gonna be? Do we get paid or not?"
"Really, Mr. Crow!" spouted Banker Foster, "there was never a question about paying your fee, as such. It was just that the expenses seemed somewhat - "
"Foster, you are such a goddamn bore," Crow drawled. He turned to the mayor. "Yes or no?"
"Yes" was decided upon. The procession made its way across the square to the bank. Anthony walked side by side with Crow, but every other member of the team - especially the crane operator and the still-writhing (and now silently giggling) Cat - stayed firmly in place. Crow noticed that there really weren't as many cops as he had at first thought. Perhaps a half-dozen or so counting state troopers and the sheriff's real deputies. The rest were the same crowd present at the mansion all afternoon.
There was some trouble at the bank door, it being ten o'clock at night. Banker Foster claimed he had no keys on his person and suggested they all wait until the next morning and while he chattered away about the door Sheriff Ortega kicked it in with a size-thirteen Tony Lama. It wasn't so much the kick that won Crow's heart but the mischievous grin on Ortega's face while he was doing it.
The vault itself, time lock and all, was a different problem but one Crow & Co. had met before. "You got a cashier's check machine, don't you?" Anthony asked bluntly. So the check was made out and Crow endorsed it and gave it to gray-faced Cat amidst a surprising amount of good-natured laughter - especially from the cops - and Cat drove away to mail it from any other nearby township.
Though Jack Crow was something less than a PR wizard, neither was he a complete fool. "Party time," he announced gaily, being sure to invite each and every one of the city fathers and cops present. Most accepted. The liquor store owner was persuaded by Ortega's dead-eyed smile to give Jack credit. The "store," as befitted a dry county in a God-fearing state, had no sign but was amply stocked. By now everyone was getting into the spirit of the thing. It took only twenty minutes to overload the Jeep with everybody helping.
"To the motel! - hoa!" cried wagonmaster Ortega, waving a bottle of bourbon from the window of his patrol car - Chevy pickup.
"Rock and roll!" chirped the little mayor who then blushed while everyone else laughed and cheered.
And the party began.
Part One Chapter 3
The crossbow bolt through the Dr Pepper machine aroused the motel manager from his bed to find Crow and Sheriff Ortega - arms around shoulders, swaying gently in unison - outside his office.
"We wuz outta change," said Ortega. The sheriff was being helpful.
"I can vouch for him on tha' one," added Crow, and they grinned at each other and pounded backs.
The manager simply stared. This (to be kind) bizarre sight of two giants grinning down at him - and worse, nodding so fiercely at him out of synch it looked like a pair of paddling heads - it was all too much. The manager went back to his bed and pulled his pillow down over his ears.
There were equally valid excuses for most of the other destruction. High spirits could be blamed for some of it, true enough. And carelessness. But most of the sheer carnage was entirely unavoidable due to the very nature of competitive sports at this, the Championship level. The list of events included Spin the Coffee Table, Pike Vaulting and the ever-popular Ash Tray Rug Hockey. All of this being merely ancillary to the main event: Drinking Yourself Blind While Waiting for The Goddamn Whores to Show Up, which, as everyone knows, is strenuous enough by definition and only becomes uglier the longer it takes.
All in all they did $5,000 worth of damage to the motel.
It was a lot of fun.
The party started out with about two dozen members, counting Team Crow, the locals, and the cops. It later swelled to about fifty or so. But by 3 A.M. it was back down to the twenty or so serious-minded. Father Hernandez turned out to be hilariously funny. He sang dirty limericks in Spanish and English. Most thought that a little weird. But it turned out that Hernandez had once been a real father, as in husband, with two little