The Procane Chronicle

by Ross Thomas

  I must have looked dubious because Wiedstein gave me another sardonic grin. “Still sounds a little rich?”

  I nodded. “A little.”

  “It’s not really. It’s just that I found out something about myself.”

  “What?”

  “That I can substitute one compulsion for another,” he said. “Now I’d rather steal than drink.”

  14

  MYRON GREENE WOULDN’T EVEN comment on the half-million dollars that was to be anonymously contributed to the Harlem drug abuse clinic, or whatever it was, until he checked with Procane to see whether it was really any of my business.

  When he called back he said, “Well, it’s just as Mr. Procane told you. He intends to contribute the money sometime next month and he’s asked me to handle it. It’s really no great problem although the tax aspect has some interesting angles.”

  “You mean it’s deductible?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that. It depends on how we decide to raise the money. There are capital gains to be considered and quite a few other technicalities that I won’t bore you with.”

  “You’re not boring me,” I said.

  “I fail to understand your interest, Philip.”

  “I’m just curious about whether you can make any money by giving away a half-million dollars.”

  “You can’t make any money, but you can save a great deal on your current and future federal income tax.”

  “Give me a for instance.”

  “Well, Mr. Procane’s income is such that it falls within what is called the fifty percent contribution base. In other words, he can contribute fifty percent of his income each year and claim it as a tax deduction.”

  “I aspire to that base.”

  “No you don’t. Next we will probably decide to make the gift in the form of securities that have not appreciated in value since they were purchased.”

  “They’ll be like those dogs that I bought.”

  “Yes, but I warned you about those. So, Mr. Procane will contribute a half-million dollars in securities this year. However, there is a special five-year carryover provision. This means that for the next five years he can deduct up to half of his income as a charitable contribution.”

  “So what do you think Procane makes each year, a couple of hundred thousand?”

  “I’m not sure that’s really your concern.”

  “He has to make that much to live like he does. So if he donates the half a million this year he can write it off during the next five years and it really won’t cost him anything.”

  “That’s an oversimplification.”

  “But essentially correct.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so.”

  “He’s all heart, isn’t he?”

  “I happen to think that it’s an extraordinarily generous and worthwhile gesture.”

  “So does Procane. Good-bye, Myron.”

  I decided that it was still going to be a very, long search for the good thief. The five hundred thousand dollars that Procane planned to hand over to the drug clinic was the five hundred thousand that he would have to pay anyway in income tax over the next five years. His half-share of the million he stole would probably be spirited off to Switzerland or Panama and cautiously reinvested from there. His tax diddle wasn’t illegal, although stealing a million must be. But since he was stealing it from the drug merchants, I really wasn’t sure what law Procane would be breaking, and somehow I didn’t feel that Myron Greene was really the right person to ask.

  It was one o’clock by the time that I got through talking to Greene. Before I could ask him about Procane’s wonderful generosity, I’d had to tell him all about how I’d retrieved the journals, omitting no detail because he especially liked those.

  Talking to Myron Greene usually made me hungry for some reason that I’d never bothered to think about so I decided on a Danish sardine sandwich which I created between two thick slices of dark German rye, and garnished with Bermuda onion, Dijon mustard, and Romaine lettuce. It was accompanied by a bottle of Filipino beer that had something of a kick to it. I was sitting there at the poker table, savoring the international flavor of my lunch and not at all worried about its gastric consequences, when somebody knocked at the door.

  I took the last bite of the sandwich and swallowed the rest of the beer and with my mouth full I went to the door, put the security chain on, and opened it. I didn’t recognize him at first because he wore a gray, double-breasted worsted suit with a neat chalk stripe and a blue shirt with longish collar points that framed the plump knot in his blue-and-white figured tie. His black, pebble-grained loafers were burnished and gleaming.

  He could have been from the insurance company or even a high-class collection agency, but he wasn’t. He was from the cops and the last time I’d seen him he had been wearing dark blue along with a pair of handcuffs that he’d locked around my wrists. He was Officer Francis X. Frann, once of the New York Police Department’s motor-scooter patrol who, for all I knew, had now been promoted to plainclothes detective because of his brilliant work on the St. Ives case.

  “Hello, Mr. St. Ives,” he said.

  I said hello, but it must have come out a little muffled after it went around the mouthful of sardine sandwich;

  “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  I swallowed and nodded, closed the door, took off the chain, opened the door wide, and waved him in. He moved to the center of the room and then turned slowly, his eyes sorting out the furnishings as if he suspected that most of them were stolen property.

  “What have we got to talk about?” I said.

  “I’m on my day off.” I’m sorry.

  “Why?”

  “Your clothes. I thought you might have been promoted.”

  “That’s why I’m here on my day off. I’d like to be.”

  “You’re poking around in the Bobby Boykins murder.”

  He nodded.

  “On your own.”

  He nodded again.

  “That’s nice. I wish you luck.”

  His eyes started to inventory my furniture again. They were still dark brown and they didn’t look as if they cried easily. Somehow they didn’t go with his twenty-four- or twenty-five-year-old face that was all pink and white with some light-blond eyebrows, a snub nose, a girlish mouth, and a prizefighter’s chin.

  When he got through checking out the furniture for the second time, he said, “I’ve got a friend or two down at Homicide South.”

  “It’s nice to have friends. I’m going to have a beer. You want a beer on your day off?”

  He hesitated a moment and then said, “Well, sure, a beer would be good.”

  I took two beers out of the Pullman kitchen’s built-in refrigerator, poured them, and handed him a glass.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Try that chair over there.”

  He tried the chair along with a swallow of his beer and said, “Hey, that’s good stuff.”

  “It’s from the Philippines.”

  He looked suspiciously at his glass, but took another swallow anyway. “Like I said, I’ve got a couple of friends down at Homicide South.”

  “What about them?”

  “They let me take a look at that statement you gave Oller and Deal.”

  “So?”

  “Well, it got me to thinking that maybe you knew more about this guy Boykins than you told Deal and Oller.”

  “It made them think the same thing.”

  “Yeah, I read their report, too. They said you weren’t too cooperative.”

  “I’m sorry they feel that way.”

  Frann shook his head. “No you’re not.”

  “All right. I’m not sorry.”

  “You wouldn’t tell em who you were workin for.”

  “You’re trying to bust this case by yourself, huh?”

  “That’s right. By myself. I never had a murder one right on my beat. There’ve been a bunch of manslaughters, but no murder
ones.”

  “I’m glad things’ve picked up.”

  “It could give me a chance to show what I can do.”

  “I take it you want to make detective.”

  “I don’t wanta stay on a motor-scooter, for Christ sake.”

  “And you think I can help.”

  Frann nodded his big chin a couple of times. “You can help all right, but it don’t seem likely that you will.”

  “But you’re going to try me anyway.”

  “I’m going to ask you some questions.”

  “Which I don’t have to answer.”

  He shrugged and stretched out his feet in front of him. He seemed to be settling in for a long stay. “This go-between business you’re in. It must make you a lot of money.”

  “Not so much.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He made his left hand perform a negligent wave. “Nice midtown pad, imported beer, poker table all set up, and ready to go. I imagine a guy like you plays table stakes.”

  “You’ve got a good imagination.”

  He nodded. “I don’t think it’s so bad. I imagine that on a deal like you were on the other night you’d make about nine or ten thousand dollars. I counted that money you were carrying, you know.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Money always makes me think.”

  “About what?”

  “More money.”

  It was beginning to sound like a shakedown, but I wasn’t sure. He was taking an awfully long time to make his point and most shakedown artists like to get right down to business and to hell with the social niceties. There was nothing to do but let him talk.

  “I figured if I could find out who you were working that go-between deal for the other night, I might get a lead on who killed the old man.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So this morning I sort of followed you.”

  “Sort of?”

  “I’m a pretty good tail. You didn’t make me.”

  “That’s right, I didn’t.”

  Frann took out a small, spiral-bound notebook and flipped it open. “At nine thirty-three this morning you came out of here and caught a cab down to the West Side Airlines Terminal. You arrived there at nine fifty-one and then sort of fooled around outside. You were carrying a blue Pan-Am airline bag.”

  “I was meeting some friends.”

  “Huh. At ten sharp you went inside the building and then entered the men’s room upstairs. You stayed in there until thirteen after ten. Then you came out carrying a blue airline bag. But it wasn’t no Pan-Am bag; it was a United one.”

  “You’ve got a great future on the force.”

  “That’s when you made the switch—the buy back, wasn’t it?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I say this. I say you come out of the men’s room and meet two people, a man and a woman. In their twenties, about my age. All three of you get in a Carey Cadillac limousine and then go to a certain address on East Seventy-fourth. You want the number?”

  “No.”

  “It took me a little while to check this out, but that address is where somebody called Abner Procane lives. I couldn’t find out nothing about him yet. But that’s who you’re working for, I bet.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Making a payoff for him this morning. Buying him something back.”

  “What?”

  “Well, Christ, I don’t know that yet.”

  “You don’t even know that I’m working for him. For all you know he’s an old friend. I met two people at the airline terminal this morning. Maybe they’d just come in on a flight.”

  “They didn’t have no luggage.”

  “Maybe they lost it.”

  “Yeah, well what about the airline bags? You take a Pan-Am bag into the crapper and bring a United one out. What about that?”

  “I think you made a mistake. Or if you didn’t maybe I did. Maybe while I was washing my hands I picked up the wrong one. Maybe the bag I took into the men’s room contained some gifts for my friends and I didn’t notice I’d picked up the wrong one until I got to the address on Seventy-fourth. You haven’t got a thing, Frann, but a wasted day off.”

  His pink face got pinker. He rose and put the empty glass down. “I’m gonna check this guy Procane out, then we’ll see who made a mistake.”

  “You want some advice?”

  “From you?”

  “No charge.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “If you check Procane out, don’t check him out too hard. He’s got a few million dollars tucked away here and there and I don’t think you’ve ever had a few million dollars land on you.”

  “Money don’t scare me.”

  “Then you’ve got guts all right. No brains, but guts.”

  Frann shook his head slowly and then smiled at me. I could find nothing friendly in it. “I haven’t told you everything, St. Ives.”

  “But you’re going to.”

  “I’ve been saving a little.”

  “Okay. What?”

  “While I was waiting for you to come out of the men’s crapper.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, I seen who went in.”

  “And?”

  “And a blue United airline bag went in at the same time.”

  “So?”

  “So I happened to recognize the party that carried the bag in.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me who.”

  He shook his head again. “No, I think this Mr. Procane would be a little more interested in that than you are.” He turned toward the door and made it almost halfway there before he turned and grinned at me again with absolutely no humor. “Like I said, money don’t scare me none. It don’t scare me at all.”

  Then he was gone and I walked over to the phone and dialed Procane’s number. When he came on I told him about Frann and what he’d said.

  “What do you think?” Procane said.

  “He might be trying some kind of a shakedown. I’m not sure. But I’m going to try to get him off your back. At least for the next few days. But to do that I’ll have to promise something.”

  “What?”

  “To reveal the name of my client. You.”

  “When?”

  “Not before Friday or Saturday.”

  “Under the circumstances, I suppose it has to come out”

  “I can stall it though.”

  “All right,” Procane said. “Do what you think best.”

  After we hung up I called another number and then had to wait a minute or so before the extension I asked for wasn’t busy. Finally, I got through and when I did a gruff voice that was almost a snarl said, “Detective Deal speaking.”

  “This is St. Ives.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You’ve got a poacher.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You remember that young cop who was at the laundromat that night? His name’s Frann.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s using his time off to investigate Bobby Boykins’s murder.”

  “Yeah,” Deal said and put a little interest into the word, but not much.

  “He’s bothering me. I don’t like to be bothered by snot-nosed cops.”

  “Jesus, that’s really too bad.”

  “It’s not just that I don’t like it. What’s more important is that my client might not like it.”

  “I feel sorry for him too. Whoever he is.”

  “Get Frann to stop bothering me and I’ll tell you.”

  “You’re beginning to interest me, St. Ives. What’s Frann been doing to you?”

  “For one thing he’s been tailing me.”

  “When?”

  “This morning—and I suppose this afternoon.” There was a brief silence and then Deal said, “When do you want to talk?”

  “Friday is as soon as I can make it.”

  “Okay. Friday’s fine.”

  “What about Frann?”

  �
��Oller and I’ll take care of him.”

  “Can I count on that?”

  “As much as you can count on anything.”

  15

  I TOOK A RISK, of course, when I called Deal to get Officer Francis X. Frann off Procane’s back. It might have been worth a little money, or even a lot, for Procane to learn who Frann had seen going into the airline terminal men’s room. Whoever carried the United bag in may have been a member of the team that had killed Bobby Boykins, thrown Jimmy Peskoe out of a hotel window, and was now planning to knock off the million-dollar heroin buy in Washington and then blame it on Procane.

  But it seemed logical that if Frann had recognized whoever it was that had gone into the men’s room, Oller and Deal would know all about it within a few hours—as soon as they caught up with Frann. A young rookie cop doesn’t hold out information long from two seasonal homicide detectives, not if he likes his job. Or even if he doesn’t.

  And, too, once Deal and Oller found out who it was that Frann had spotted, they just might catch up with him in time to spoil whatever plans he had for stealing the drug merchant’s million.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening indulging in a mild bout of self-congratulation on how my cleverness and cunning probably had saved Procane no little money and much grief. I even made some notes that I felt might be included in the report that I’d been commissioned to write on the million-dollar steal. I was still feeling a little puffed up and debating about whether to open a bottle of fine $2.98 California champagne when the phone rang. It was Janet Whistler.

  “Are you busy?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’m downstairs. In the lobby. And I’m hungry.”

  “Come on up and we’ll figure something out.”

  When she took off her coat I saw that she wore a dark-blue dress that was low at the hem and high at the neck. Like most males, I was a fiercely partisan supporter of the miniskirt, but we seemed to be losing the battle to whoever it was that hated women enough to dress them up in clothes that made them look like they were all set to go duck hunting.

  “I thought you’d be plotting far into the night,” I said as I hung up her coat.

  “That’s all done. Procane believes in relaxing before a job.”