The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection by Harry Harrison Page A

clown’s mouth a torrent of plastic tokens would be vomited into the waiting receptacle. Disgusting – but I was obviously the only one who thought so.
    The money went into the building. Now I must find where it came out. I strolled about the base and discoveredthat the regurgitating dispensers did not quite girdle it. To the rear, behind the concealment of trees and shrubs, a small building snuggled up to the base. I pushed my way under the shrubs and found myself facing a private policeman stationed beside an unmarked door.
    ‘Get lost, kid,’ he said sweetly. ‘Employees only.’
    I dodged around him and pushed against the door – and managed to photographit at the same time. ‘I gotta go to the bathroom,’ I said crossleggedly. ‘They said the bathroom was here.’
    A hard hand pulled me away and propelled me back to the shrubbery. ‘Not here. Out. Back the way you came.’
    I went. Very interesting. No electronic alarms and the lock was a Glubb – reliable but old. I was beginning to like Loona Park after all.
    It was an excruciating wait until dark whenthe park closed down. Out of boredom I sampled the Glacier Ride where one hurtled through mock ice caverns with Things frozen into the ice on all sides – though they occasionally lunged out at the screeching riders. Rocket Rovers was equally bad, and in the name of good taste I will draw the curtain down over the heady joys of Candyland and the Swamp Monster. Suffice to say that the time did arriveat last. The token dispenser closed down an hour before the park shut. From a nearby vantage point I watched with avid interest as an armoured van took away a great number of solid containers. Even more interesting was the fact that when the money went – so did the security. I imagine that the logic behind this was that no one in their right mind would want to break in and steal the tokens.
    So I wasn’t in my right mind. As darkness fell I joined the exhausted celebrants as they staggered towards the exits. Except that I didn’t get that far. A locked door at the rear of Vampire Mountain unlocked easily under my gentle ministrations. I slipped into the darkness of the service area. High above me pale fangs showed and fake blood dripped; I felt very comfortable indeed tucked in behind acoffin filled with dirt.
    I let an hour go by, no more. This should clear the employees out of the way, but still leave enough revellers in the streets outside the park so that my disgusting outfit would not be noticed when I finally made my exit.
    There were guards about, but they were easily avoided. As I had expected the Glubb opened easily and I slipped quickly inside. The room proved to bewindowless, which was fine since my light would then not be seen. I switched it on and admired the machinery.
    A simple and clean design – I appreciate that in machinery. The dispensers were ringed about the walls. Silent now, but still obvious in their operation. When coins or bills were inserted they were counted and passed on. Machines above released the measured amount of tokens into the deliverychutes. Beside them pipes sprang out of the floor and terminated in a bin above. Undoubtedly, they were filled from underground conveyors that returned the tokens ready for re-dispensing. The bucks, untouched by human hands, were being conveyed through sealed and transparent tubes to the collection station where the coins fell into locked boxes. They were not for me since they were too bulkyto move easily. But, ahh, the bills, they were far lighter and worth far more. They slipped along the chutes until they dropped gracefully through an opening in the top of a safe. An operation that appeared to be relatively secure from light-fingered employees.
    Wonderful. I admired the machinery and thought about it, then made notes. The dispensers had been manufactured by a firm by the nameof Ex-changers, and I took pics of their trademark on the machines. The safe was a secure and reliable brand that