Then one night the building inspector came. We were just resting for a moment, with no cars in sight, when we looked around and there he stood. It startled us, because absolutely no one was allowed in the basement. "What do you want?" Slim asked, and just then a car appeared on the ramp, coming down to the reducer. "I'm the building inspector. I'm checking on the weight you're putting in this building. It's an old building, you know." And all the time his eyes were darting everywhere. "Did LaBombard send you?" asked Slim. The car was halfway down. "Well, not exactly; we're interested in this from the safety angle." A second car's nose showed around the curve. I began to sweat. "Okay," said Slim. "Look us over. We do the parking upstairs." "What do you do down here?" The inspector stared at the reducing stall. "That's a new-fangled washing apparatus." "What are all these toy cars on the floor down here?" I practically swallowed my tongue. I had known that was coming. 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." "Will I have time to get a haircut?" I asked hopefully. "No. Get your hair cut in L.A." He went on dreamily, "We should have five thousand. We can start up again, and this time we'll start off right, so we can run indefinitely without anybody catching on. We've got some capital to work with now." * * * * *