"Ouit your worrying, Baxter, this plan is foolproof,'' Freedman said while constantly re-arranging the plans and the diagrams strewn over the coffee table, as if he couldn't believe it himself.
Baxter, his head swimming in confusion with figures and layouts, shook his head.
"I don't know, Freedman, I just don't know.""C'mon Baxter, you know it'll work if we just commit ourselves."
Baxter needed some way to end this discussion.
"Let's ask Sandy. She'll give us an unbiased opinion."
That one made Freedman laugh.
With growing irritation, he said, "I thought you had more faith in me than that. Now I find out you don't even respect me enough to disagree with me honestly. You use your crazy wife to knock my plan for you. You're just evading the decision!""Freedman, you're not being fair to her!"
Baxter knew Freedman was right and he felt like a jerk for carrying on as he did, but he did anyway.
"She'll give you a good, honest opinion of your plan. Sandy!" he cried. "Come in here a minute!"Sandy wandered in from the kitchen impatiently, tossing a dish-towel angrily behind her and asking, "All right, what is it?"
"It's Freedman's new plan," Baxter answered, "I want you to take a look at it."
"Oh, all right," she said, shoving Baxter aside so she could sit in his place.
"This, Sandy," Freedman began in a patronizing tone, as he quickly organized his papers, "is my plan to break into Fort Knox."
Sandy didn't laugh as Baxter had expected, but one corner of her mouth did begin to curl. Still, Freedman was a little encouraged by her silence.
"This," he said, handing her one pile of papers, "is a complete layout of Fort Knox, exact to the drinking fountains and ashtrays."
Then he picked up a black notebook marked "Confidential" that was stuffed with computer printouts in the back.
"And here is the official description of all security systems there. Oh and I took the liberty of stuffing all the up-to-date lock combinations in the back. And here," he said, picking up a final pile of notes, "is my plan, spelled out in precise detail, taking care of every possible contingency, and," he added with visible pride, "completely cross-referenced with the other notes for your convenience."
Sandy showed obvious interest in the black notebook.
"Don't ask me how it got it," Freedman added, not waiting for any questions, "but rest assured that it's completely genuine. It was on the President's desk only four days ago."
At this Sandy only raised an eyebrow.
The next three hours were pretty boring for Baxter and Freedman. They really had very little to say to each other after the argument and Sandy had absolutely nothing to say to anyone. All she did was read Freedman's notes and the documents he'd gotten, however he'd gotten them, using Freedman's cross-references, checking over parts she'd already read, sometimes reading one section three or four times before she went on to the next. Finally, after Freedman and Baxter had both balanced their minds somewhere between falling asleep and going mad, Sandy began to chuckle to herself for the first time.
"I'll be damned," she said to herself, shaking her head. Her face blossomed into a wide grin and she cried, "I'll be God-damned! Freedman, this is brilliant!"
She reached over the table, grabbed him and kissed him violently. Then she grabbed her husband and them both to her in a wild embrace.
After a few moments she threw them both back to their seats and, with a positive glow on her face, said, "Well guys, when can we start?"
Baxter was absolutely stricken by his wife's behavior. He sat, dumfounded, staring first at the radiant Sandy, then turning to Freedman, who, he saw, was as shocked as he.
They looked at each other with their mouths open, then Freedman, who'd been asked the question, turned back to Sandy and said, in a tiny voice, "As soon as you like -- the sooner the better I'm sure.""Great! Listen fellas, I know where we can get just the chopper we need. The National Guard is running a recruiting tour of the area high schools. We can get all the equipment we need together -- I'm sure we've got everything we need between us -- then, the next day, we pick up the chopper, take it out to the desert, do one run through and go to the bank by the end of the week!"
Sandy's enthusiasm was becoming infectious, but her mouth was still running miles ahead of the others' brains.
"Wait a minute, Sandy," Baxter said. "Shouldn't we notify the rest of the gang first?""Yeah," added Freedman.
"No," Sandy answered softly but firmly. "Baxter has some new equipment that'll be far superior to brute force. I say we go with high technology rather than raw manpower. This is a new era in robbery."
"Sandy, you've got it all wrong!" Freedman cried with rare passion. "This is a human operation, run according to human values. Listen to me! Andrea -- Frogman -- Hashford -- Fillmore -- these are the names of real human beings with real human hopes and fears, needs and abilities, not some tools made obsolete by automation!"
With that Baxter began applauding wildly.
Sandy raised her hand and silenced him, then she edged close to Freedman and, placing her other hand on his knee, said softly, "Those people were made obsolete by the first stone tools. Anyway, for their sakes, for all our sakes, we have to keep this operation as simple as possible. The more people we have, the more people we have running around getting confused and shot at.""Yes, but," Freedman protested weakly, "what about their money needs? Where are they going to get any if they don't steal it? Andrea needs more bridgework, Frogman has his habit, Hashford and Fillmore have their charitable causes...."
"Oh, don't worry about that," she answered. "We'll have enough to be very generous when we get back."
And they believed her too.