But Slim said casually, "Oh, we're making Christmas presents in our spare time." The first car was about to enter the reducing stall.
The inspector stared at the two thousand cars on the basement floor. "They look plenty real."
I held my breath. If he should ever try to pick up one of those cars, it would be all over for us. I could just imagine what two thousand owners would say if they should find out their cars had been reduced to six inches. People are not too broad-minded about such things.
But Slim had him by the elbow. With the savage shake of his head at me and the reducing stall, he said, "I'll take you up and show you around." They rode the ramp upstairs.
Right then I wanted to lie down and pass out with sheer relief, but the cars were beginning to pile up. I worked like a horse for half an hour, doing double duty. Then Slim came back with a haunting sadness in his eyes, and a faraway look that was not encouraging.
"We've got to get out of here," he said. "He knows too much. Too many parking-lot people are putting on the heat."
"You mean he knows how we are packing them in?"
"No, but he knows that we are taking in as many as three thousand cars a day, while half the parking lots in town are begging for customers."
I sighed. "When are we leaving?"
Slim's eyes were looking far away. "At the end of the week," he said. "We've got enough money in the bank to pay all our bills. We've got a couple thousand in the safe, and we'll take in three or four more. Tomorrow's Friday. The next day will be Saturday and we should handle four thousand cars. We blow Saturday night. We'll go to the coast."