The Duke was more confident. The cue ball was barely clear. The one ball had a straight roll down the table to the pocket. He squatted and squinted again. He studied the table, looking for an alternate shot. “Goddam rail,” he murmured. He took a deep breath and sighed. Then he stepped up and put his cue stick in position. He had to lean out over the table, sticking his leg out behind on the edge of the table. He paused and straightened up. He squinted again. He leaned over again. He lined up the cue stick, the cue ball, the six ball and the one. He shot it. The six snapped away from the cue ball and struck the one a glancing angle. The one came off the rail on an angle and wobbled down the side of the table. It died against the side rail, far from its pocket.
Slick Willie had one hundred and twenty balls bagged when he missed again. This time, the one ball was an inch from the rail. It sat there tantalizingly. The cue was in the clear. The three and the four lay near the mouth of the pocket. The sailor decided to blast it home for his one hundred dollars. He stooped, set and shot. The one ball caromed off the rail and rolled toward the pocket. Fast. It struck the three ball, it struck the four ball, and the three balls waltzed together and jammed the pocket. The one ball was an inch away from the pocket, barred by the four ball.
Walker shrugged and ran off thirty balls. He held his hand out. The sailor handed him the money. His eyes looked unhappily at the table. “You know what? I could beat you playing the other way around.”
“You could?” said Walker. “Wanna try?”
“Nah. We’re cleaned. I’ll be back. After I do a little homework.”
Willie counted the money and put it into his pocket. “I’ll wait for you. You got any more pool shooters on that destroyer?”
“If I find any, I’ll send them around.”
Willie smiled. “Hey, sailor.”
“What?”
“Remember. It’s just a game.”
The three sailors walked away into the night, far from their destroyer.
The evening fog had settled over Abbott’s eyes. He sat on the bench next to Brewer, folded into a vacant-staring slump, finishing his bottle, finishing his evening. A few more pulls on the bottle and he would wander out of the poolroom and upstairs to his bed.
Brewer watched Abbott’s head nodding. He seemed at all times about to roll down onto the floor. Then abruptly he’d sit up and clear his throat. “You know what, Brewer?”
“What?”
“You would have liked my Millie.” He stood up, took aim at the exit and walked toward it, tacking to port, then to starboard, correcting his course as he went. At the exit he turned and went up the stairs.
Brewer checked his wet hands again. Never, never, never. Sixteen stories straight down the side of the building to the slate roof, then across the roof spine and down under the eaves to Kotlikoff’s window. Then out of the window with Kotlikoff and up on the roof, across the spine and straight up the building, sixteen long, terrifying stories straight up. Brewer could see it clearly, like a photograph in a newspaper with a superimposed dotted line: the route followed by the criminals.
He knew he could never do it.
He looked around the room—at Willie Walker, shooting alone and wondering where the next hundred was going to come from, then at the bottle in the bag next to him. Tiger Rose: $3.85 and good night all. He thought again about the bosun’s chair.
A long night stretched ahead of Brewer. He lay on his bed and watched his cringing form in the bosun’s chair, swinging like a spider on a line, thin as silk. The line was springy, and it creaked, giving him the feeling at all times that the individual strands in the line were snapping one by one to be finally torn apart by his unremitting weight. When the line snapped, he’d see himself fall in darkness toward a vast, faint terrain below, crossed by a meandering river. He would sit up each time the line snapped, feeling the terrible dead spot in his gut when the line snapped, and he would hang there in the air for a brief moment before dropping away from the frayed ends of the life-saving line over his head. He fell straight down to his death.
Brewer knew that the only way from his furnished room back to his past was in a bosun’s chair dangling far above a peaked roof that waited for him to fall and smash himself on its spine.
After dawn, when a faint unchanging twilight appeared in the airshaft, he got an idea fixed in his mind: Somehow his future was in the hands of a tired old drunk: Abbott.
At eight, Brewer was up. He shaved hastily and unevenly, feeling old, then dressed and walked to the post office. His mail box held a quantity of mail for Charles McMurry—financial magazines, stock brokerage report, newsletters, correspondence from airlines and banks, bills from jewelers, a monthly statement from the Indian Cove Marina, unmarked envelopes from Switzerland, personal letters and two checks. There was also the library card Brewer had applied for. He put that in his wallet next to his counterfeit cards. His false identity was beginning to flesh out in a handful of cards like a winning poker hand.
In streaming sunlight, he walked over to Charles McMurry’s townhouse and pushed the mail through the gleaming brass mail slot.
He rousted Abbott at nine and brought him up to his apartment, there to set him in a hard-backed chair near the airshaft for coffee and doughnuts. Abbott was pale, with an unhealthy yellow around his eyes, and looked seventy, but he exhibited a sort of shambling jauntiness in his pajama top, baggy dungarees and broken slippers. The pajama top showed bright red stripes like a defiant banner.
“Breakfast at the Ritz,” he murmured into his coffee. “Tell me about the rig.”
“Okay. Swell. What rig?”
“The bosun’s chair.”
“What about it?”
“You said it’s possible to go down a sixteen-story building in a bosun’s chair and back up again.”
“I did? Sixteen stories? Hmmm, you’re going to have to have arms like a gorilla.”
“Can it be done?”
“Sure. If you’re in no hurry.”
“Suppose you wanted to bring another man back up with you.”
“Two in one chair? One line. Jesus.”
“No?”
“Nah. You should have two men in two chairs. They can lift a spare man between them.”
“Have you ever done anything like this?”
“Sure. I’m a qualified circus rigger.”
“Could you … ? Nah, forget it.”
“What? Could I what?”
Brewer considered Abbott’s ruined face. He asked himself again if there was another way. Unreliability was so clearly stamped on that face, he could almost hear the strands inside Abbott parting, the line stretching and breaking. Abbott wouldn’t bear much strain. Unreliability decked out in a bravely emblazoned pajama top. He was an old, rotted line, many-knotted.
“Here, have some more coffee.”
“Where’s this sixteen-story building?”
“Not far.”
“Show me.”
As they walked the bright streets, Brewer had another go at the fear hidden behind Abbott’s squinting eyes and cheerful face.
“When was the last time you saw your widow lady?”
“Oh, a while back.”
“Yeah? When?”
“Last year.”
“Yeah? When last year?”
“Oh—last year. Maybe it was the year before.”
“Two years!”
“Yeah, well, something.”
“Something? You mean maybe three years, or four?”
“Well …” Abbott rubbed his hands as though he’d felt a sudden chill.
Brewer said: “Beautiful.” On a sudden impulse he pulled Abbott by the elbow into a grim abandoned doorway. “Listen, Abbott. How would you like to qualify for a government pension?”
“Pension? Me?”
“Yeah. Listen. I’m going to tell you something: you can qualify for a U.S. government pension just like mine. You’ll be taken care of for the rest of your life—never have to worry about the room rent or thr
ee squares or a bottle of Tiger Rose. You won’t have to hustle pool games or scramble for one-nighters.”
“Yeah? What’s the catch? I got to tell you I’m no good if there’s going to be a bank robbery or a jewel heist, that kind of stuff.”
“Nah. Nothing like that. You’d be on a temporary secret assignment with me. It’s about an hour’s work. Maybe less. Okay?”
“Doing what?”
“Helping me get some guy up a sixteen-story wall.”
“Is that all? And I get a lifetime pension for that? There’s got to be a catch in there somewhere, Brewer. I mean, you can look in the Yellow Pages and find dozens of riggers who’ll do the job for a flat-out fee. You don’t have to give them a lifetime pension to go up a wall.”
“It’s not the same thing, Abbott. This is top secret. Nobody can know about it. And the guy we have to get is so important that you could get a medal from the government along with the pension. Come on, Abbott. You think I just come to the Sports Complex because I like pool? I’m on a special assignment. Look. This is my ID card. I’m on one of the hottest assignments I ever had in my whole career. And to bring it off I need you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the catch?”
Brewer and Abbott stood on the corner looking up at the building. It rose in the bright morning sky, its shape exactly as he remembered it. It seemed now even higher, loftier in sunlight, sharp-edged, even more terrifying. He turned and looked at Abbott’s measuring eyes. He realized for the first time that Abbott had pale blue eyes.
“What do you think?”
“We got to get some guy out of that window, across the roof and up that building?”
“Yeah.”
“Whyn’t you take him down? Lower him from the window to the alley.”
“I thought of that. Believe me, there’s only one way. Straight up.”
Abbott made a compliant mouth. “Okay. Straight up.”
“Can do?”
“The building’s no problem.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s the roof. Crossing that roof. I could walk that in my sleep, but if you’re not familiar with it—That’s slate.”
“What can we do?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Where can we get the equipment?”
“Easy—just some line and pulleys and three bosun’s chairs.”
“I don’t want anyone to trace them back to us.”
“Buy ’em from Fatty the Fence. He had a load of naval stores a while back.”
“And we may need some handguns.”
“Talk to Just John.”
Lido Tuscany Restaurant had a new chef and a new waiter. Both were from Siena; they were brothers.
Fatty the Fence had heard about them. He had heard that the chef was a singular master of Tuscan cuisine, that he had created a menu filled with exceptional dishes not found in any other Italian restaurant in New York. In order to savor the food and also to get the undistracted attention of both the waiter and the chef, Fatty decided to eat his dinner in the late afternoon.
He entered the restaurant at four-thirty, feeling a sense of pleasure at the mildness of the day, and took a table near the window and sat heavily down.
The new waiter regarded his girth and nodded.
The fat man studied the wine list.
“We got a nice Vernaccia from Tuscany,” said the waiter. “And there’s a great wine from Umbria.”
“Orvieto?”
“Yes. An Orvieto wine.”
“I’ll have it.”
“Mezzo litro?”
“No. A whole liter.”
The waiter returned with a pannier of bread in a white napkin and a bottle of wine. He screwed the cork puller into the cork, braced the bottle between his thighs and pried the cork out. It squealed, then popped. He poured a small amount of the Orvieto into the glass.
Fatty’s thick round fingers lifted the delicate tulipshaped glass by its stem and sniffed it. He tasted it, washed it around his gums and teeth and swallowed. His head nodded and the waiter filled the glass, then set the bottle on the table and waited with his order pad in hand.
“Ah, let’s see,” said the fat man. His large thick hand reached into the basket and lifted out one of the two half loaves of sourdough bread. He tore off a large piece—shattering the crust and showering the table with light brown crumbs—and put it into his mouth.
He discussed his dinner with the waiter, partly in Italian and partly in English. The waiter left. The fat man slowly ate the entire loaf of bread, washing it down with the wine.
The first course was Panunto garlic bread, Italian bread thickly sliced and covered with imported olive oil from the Lake Trasimene region in Umbria and broiled to a golden toast. The waiter told him that Italian gourmets considered it the finest olive oil in the world.
The fat man ate it with eager pleasure, chewing it loudly. The waiter brought another loaf of bread and filled the wineglass from the liter bottle.
Now he brought the soup—Stracciatella, a liquid batter of eggs, flour and grated Parmesan cheese, poured into a boiling broth and served subito. Fatty ate it still scalding from the hot spoon, sucking in air with it to cool the broth. With it, he ate a half loaf of bread and had more wine.
The waiter then brought a combination course, mezzi mezzi, of a buttermilk-curd Ravioli a la San Gimignano and an Italian rice dish with nutmeg sauce—Risotto alla Poggibonsi. The fat man noisily swallowed the remaining wine, making a quopping sound in his throat and sucking eagerly at the rim of his glass. He drank with his eyes squeezed shut, frowning with sensual concentration.
The waiter brought another liter of wine—a Chianti from the celebrated grapes of the Elsa Valley in Tuscany, sunburnt grapes that showed a clarity and redness that was characteristic. The waiter sniffed the cork carefully before pouring a taster’s portion into a glass. The fat man, watching, brushed a shower of crust crumbs onto the floor. He tasted the wine and nodded. “Stupendo!” He drank a full glass of it in several mouthfuls.
The waiter brought a Tagliatelle pasta in a rich meat sauce, a Sugo alla Orvieto. Twisting his fork into it, the fat man raised bulging rolls of the pasta to his mouth, making sucking, kissing sounds as he drew the dangling red-daubed ends of the pasta into his mouth.
The main course followed: a double portion of Pollo alla Diavola, served with a flaming branch of aromatic sage. With these two large quarters of chicken, the waiter served a large salad (insalata mista) and an oval platter of fresh fagiolini.
Fatty the Fence had begun to perspire. His face was covered by a soft dew which glistened in the waning sunlight that touched his face and torso. When the perspiration had begun to flow freely, he paused now and then to dab his face with the linen napkin. The waiter brought a clean one unbidden. The fat man’s teeth skillfully, deftly, removed the succulent strips of fowl from the bones. His quick hands seized the last hunk of the bread and wiped it in the sauce and fed it into his chewing mouth. He finished with a glass of Chianti, then dabbed his face, ready for the next course.
The waiter brought formaggio—Italy’s celebrated Bel Paese cheese—served with more bread. He poured chilled acqua minerale into the remaining wine. The fat man ate the cheese with gusto, shutting his eyes with pleasure as he chewed.
For the finale, the waiter served Frutta della stagione—a delicate ceramic basket done in a fruit motif. In a sparkling pool of fresh carbonated water lay several peaches and a bunch of grapes coated with multitudes of silver bubbles. The fat man ate the fruit daintily with knife and fork. He ate all the fruit, leaving the peach pits and the stems of the grapes, and finished the bottle of acqua minerale.
Licking his gums, he summoned the waiter, sternly, with a beckoning finger. The waiter, ready with the caffé doppio, approached, his eyes do
ubtfully searching the table for something amiss.
“Signore?”
“Tell the chef to do it again.”
“Again? The whole thing?”
“Yes. Starting with the Panunto, and tell the chef to be generous with the olive oil.”
The waiter walked through the heavy swinging door to the kitchen.
“Fatty?”
The fat man looked up. “What do you want, Abbott? Can’t you see I’m eating my dinner?”
“I want to talk to you about a little deal.”
“Maybe later. What kind of a deal is it—buy or sell?”
“Buy.”
The fat man smiled. “You? Buy? What do you want—a circus clown outfit?” His eye found Brewer standing just inside the doorway. “Two clown suits?” For a moment he held the humorless gaze of Brewer’s dark brown eyes, then he looked back at Abbott. “Later. Up the street, we’ll talk.”
The waiter brought a full liter of Orvieto wine and a fresh pannier of bread in a white napkin. He set them on a side table and put a fresh cloth on the fat man’s table and put a clean napkin on his thigh just in front of the huge belly.
With pleasure, Fatty watched him pull the cork from the Orvieto wine.
He was very happy.
The waiter said: “Buon appetito.”
They easily found what they needed.
The five-story industrial building, recently involved in a major fire, sat destroyed a few blocks south of the Complex, awaiting demolition, its lower windows and doors hastily boarded up. A few posters warned BUILDING UNSAFE. KEEP OFF.
It was shortly before six when Brewer and Abbott approached the blackened brick building and walked to the rear through dead weed stalks and around puddles of old truck oil to the loading platform. They found a door that had been pried open and left hanging by one upper hinge.
The entire ground floor looked like the bottom of a gigantic fireplace. Large fire-charred beams that must have boomed like cannon and shaken the earth when they fell in flames lay strewn amidst high mounds of dried water-caked ash. Through the char, twisted pieces of metal stuck up defiantly. Brick rubble lay everywhere. From the vast holes in the roof, five stories up, wan light reached down through the collapsed floors to ground level. The odor of charred wood was strong. Somewhere in the shadowed interior, water splattered loudly, and from the puddle in the middle of the floor, water meandered around islands of ash to the rear and flowed away under an exit door. The silence suggested paralysis, as though the building were still stunned by the savage mutilation of the fire.
Catch Me: Kill Me Page 16