The Pan settled into his new job and rented the spare room above the bar in the Parrot and Screwdriver. The months passed and became a year.
Finding something he was good at suited The Pan. However, he would have preferred to pursue a legitimate career, as a chauffeur perhaps – or even better, a racing driver. He was beginning to enjoy the glamour of being talked about and yet, when he heard people lauding his exploits, it was frustrating not to be able to own up to them – especially to some of the girls. If only he drove a racing snurd, everyone would know it was him.
He was the one member of the anonymous Mervinettes who actually was anonymous. Everyone knew the identities of the other three, even if there was no evidence. Like any sensible crime lord Big Merv had a clean record and a series of watertight alibis, as did Harry and Frank. They denied any involvement in the sudden spate of robberies when asked. But everyone believed the Mervinettes were back in business because the snurd was a MK II and because, without openly admitting what they’d been doing, Harry, Frank and Big Merv let them.
Everybody was talking about the gang and speculating as to how Big Merv had managed to find a driver that good ahead of the Resistance.
The Pan would hardly have dared admit to himself, let alone to any of the other Mervinettes, that escaping from the best the Grongolian security forces could throw against him had been quite easy. He’d been interviewed about it by the Free K’Barthan Broadcasting Corporation, the unofficial, underground news provider for anyone in K’Barth who was sick of the Grongolian stations. Not as the driver, of course, even anonymously that would be suicide, but pretending to be a passer-by.
“What’s your theory as to the Mervinettes’ miraculous ability to escape?” the reporter had asked him.
“It’s hardly miraculous, is it? They’re being chased by drones following orders,” he’d said, “and don’t forget, each one of them is driving a set of Grongolian wheels, that is, just about the worst ever made, while the Mervinettes are in the best snurd money can buy! If the police want to actually catch our boys maybe they should send some smarter guards and give them snurds, then they might get somewhere.”
The bloke had given him a disdainful look and told him he was disrespecting the Mervinettes, being uncharitable about their driver’s skills, and unpatriotic.
That was the point when The Pan knew, for certain, he’d been an idiot. And too cocky by half.
He felt guilty about it now, even if it was true. The longer they sent drones the better. He shouldn’t go telling them how to catch him, even in the underground press.
The police would never be issued snurds, though, so he was probably safe there. And the MK II was in a league of its own. The Pan was beginning to believe he might survive his five year tenure and live to do something else.
In fact, the Resistance was far more likely to catch him, as it was offering a bigger reward for him than the Grongles were for Big Merv, a fact which had initially caused tension in the gang.
Most anxious not to join the Resistance at any cost, The Pan had procured a disguise. When he went to collect the MK II from Merv’s lock-up before each robbery he sprayed his hair and eyebrows white, donned a flat cap and tweed suit and stuck on a false moustache. To complete the picture he wore aviator sunglasses with brown tinted lenses which faded to clear at the bottom, and when his finances and Big Merv allowed he would puff on a fat cigar as he drove (though, after the robbery he was often compelled to hand the cigar over to Harry or Frank to finish off).
It was a pleasant enough routine. The robberies usually took place on a Wednesday afternoon every month or so – for the difficult ones, the planning process might take longer. That gave The Pan plenty of time to study the target bank, make maps and visit the site to familiarise himself with the surrounding area. The rest of the time was spent reading up on the latest gadgets for the MK II and liaising with the mechanics at Snurd to ensure it was properly prepared for its coming ordeal. He wore his disguise for all of these tasks but was especially careful at Snurd, having been there as himself, about his own wheels. With a vehicle as conspicuous as the MK II he didn’t want to run the risk of anyone there making a connection.
Despite the relative ease with which they were escaping, there was usually damage to be patched up after each robbery before the next job. Big Merv was fastidious to the point of mania about his snurd and liked it to be at its best whenever it appeared in public.
When the robberies took place, The Pan was never allowed to touch the loot (Harry and Frank would have smashed his face in if he had) but anything left in the snurd afterwards was considered fair game.
“Help yerself, mate. Driver’s perks,” was how Big Merv had put it.
The Pan felt no guilt at keeping the dropped booty. Why should he, when it was all Grongolian? Big Merv was a better PR man than to upset the populace by stealing from K’Barthan-owned banks. It also helped that K’Barthan banks were legally obliged to pay lower interest rates on savings and charge higher interest on borrowing than Grongolian banks. Nobody liked that. Of course, Grongles were the only life forms who could open an account at a Grongolian bank. As Big Merv had said:
“If they wanted us to leave ’em alone they should’ve played fair, shouldn’t they?” And The Pan agreed.
After each robbery he would check carefully under the seats. So far, he had acquired two gold rings, a diamond earring and a gold sovereign. Not much, but a start. He kept his booty carefully in a secret compartment behind one of the barrels in the cellar of the Parrot and Screwdriver. He planned to sell something soon to pay Gerry – the best mechanic at Snurd.
In The Pan’s eyes Gerry was a bit of a prodigy, despite his lowly position as Work Experience Creature. Lucky that, since he was the only one whose services The Pan could afford to procure.
Gerry had agreed to restore the SE2 in his spare time, for a small fee, to the same standard as the MK II. It was to be his apprenticeship piece. The Pan wasn’t going to be a Mervinette forever and if his identity was discovered he was going to need a premium-quality escape vehicle of his own, as there was no hope of ‘borrowing’ the MK II.
He wasn’t a patient man and waiting until the restoration process was complete was taking all his self-control. Not that he had any choice, Gerry was doing him a great kindness taking it on. The Pan therefore drove the MK II as crazily as he could after each robbery to maximise the amount of loot which fell out of the bags. Not for his own sake, of course, but for Gerry’s.