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The beer was flat again.

"You don't like it, go somewhere else. Go ask a cop if he knows where to get good booze around this town."

I shot him a sour look. "Very funny." I took another sip. It was still swill. Good thing I didn't go for the gin. Probably would have gone blind. "Another one, Lou."

"You know we don't let you run up a tab, Charlie. I'll have to see the color of your bread first."

I sighed.

"That's about what I figured. Go home, Charlie. Go back to your ever-lovin' wife."

"My ever-lovin' wife ain't so ever-lovin' any more. She told me not to come back without some more dough I could buy groceries with. If I had dough, though, I wouldn't need to go back there."

"Well, then I guess you sleep on the sidewalk tonight. Unless you was thinking of taking me up on my offer?"

I sighed again. "You're a hard man, Lou."

"It's why I'm still around. So what's it to be?"

"I gotta eat. What do I do?"

"Just wait around until I close up. Another 15 minutes oughta do it. I'll even give you another beer while you wait."

"You're all heart, Lou."

After Lou closed up, he took me upstairs and into a small room with no windows. "You know the situation?"

"Refresh my memory."

"Except for the location, it's a straightforward job. It'll be night there, too, so you just treat it like an ordinary bank job. There'll be a few guards, but the safe itself will be a piece of cake."

"So I get the money and you get the box?"

"That's the plan."

"I still say this is screwy. No way will it work."

"It will work. I've seen it work. The guy says the alarms work different there, so they shouldn't even pick you up. Long as you get back before it closes, you won't have any troubles."

"Lemme see the blueprints."

I made plans, and then we waited. Always likes to make us wait. After a while, though, the Perfessor came in. "Are all the arrangements made?"

"Sure. He's all ready to go."

Without a word to me the Perfessor pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket and started scribbling on the wall. Eventually, the whole wall was a mass of symbols except for a clear area near the center big enough for me to fit through. The Perfessor pulled a hip flask out from his pocket and finally turned to me. "You know the rules?"

"I got to do the job in an hour and be back or I'm stuck there."

"The exact time is 63 minutes, but that is correct in its essentials."

"How come? If you can open it up to the same place again..."

"But I can't. We're always a few pages off one way or another. The chances of opening up to the same one are very small, and, frankly, you're not worth that much effort to retrieve."

"Then how do you know the alarms won't get me?"

"I included it in the initial settings. Now hush." He walked to the wall and opened the flask. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

In a smooth motion, he poured the contents of the flask around the edge of the blank space. Instantly, the space turned black. "Now! Quickly!"

I ran to the wall and hesitated. No matter what I'd been told, that wall was wall a minute ago. I heard an impatient noise behind me and felt a sharp shove pushing me into the wall... and through it.

It was night. I was standing in the street in front of what called itself the First Internation Bank of Taiquan. And behind me was... a hole. The thing worked.

The hole was still there, but it was flickering around the edges. Looked like I was just in time. I took a step towards it.

What was back there for me, though? The booze was crap, and you could get brought in for drinking it, which certainly wasn't the case here. There I was an old bank robber with no special skills. Here... I could walk through any security system made, here. Why go back?

The hole started shrinking, and I watched it fade. Then I walked over to the bar I had seen on my way in. Pulled out a newdollar and flashed it at the pretty young thing behind the counter. Asked for a beer. She served it to me with a wink, and walked off. I took a long pull at it.

Damn.

The beer was flat again.