Caper

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Yeah,” the Holy Ghost said hoarsely. “Who’s running the show?”

  “I am,” I said.

  “You? A lady?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She’s okay,” Donohue told the heavies. “I’m with her.”

  “Want to think it over?” Fleming asked them.

  “I already did,” the Holy Ghost said. “It’s before Christmas?”

  “About two weeks before,” Fleming said.

  “Good. I got a lot of gifts to buy. I’m in. You, Hyme?”

  “What?” the big man said dazedly. “Oh. Yeah. Sure. We should carry things?”

  “Of course,” Donohue said. “You got one?”

  The giant considered carefully.

  “I can get,” he said finally.

  “Good,” I said. “Now here’s what we’ve got …”

  “I like it,” the Ghost said after I finished. “Especially the cleaning truck angle. That’s cute.”

  “Yeah,” Gore said. “That’s cute.”

  “Like Bea said,” Donohue told them, “we’ll need maybe two, three more guys, so keep your eyes peeled for some hard cases. Maybe we’ll pick up a car the night before we hit. Nothing flashy. We’ll ditch it right after the take. It should be a four-door with some power under the hood. Also, we’ll need a place we can go to later. A garage would be best. Where we can pull in, unload, switch cars. We’ll leave the stolen heap and the van there. We can end up at the Harding. You could waltz into that place carrying the White House and no one would say ‘Boo.’ Also, we got to figure how to get coveralls for all of us from the cleaning service. I got an idea on that. Also, we should think of maybe like a diversion. Something happening, say, five blocks away the time we hit. Maybe a call to the cops that a bomb’s been planted. Or maybe a real smoke bomb. Hell, we could blow up a mailbox. Some such shit. Just to keep the local blues busy.”

  I looked at him in admiration. I hadn’t even thought of a diversion.

  “Also,” I said, trying to prove I really was the boss lady, “we’ll need masks or stockings. Something to hide our faces. Tape, rope, gags for the cleaning helper and the people inside the store.”

  “A peteman?” the Holy Ghost said. “In case that safe is locked?”

  Donohue looked at me.

  “No,” I said definitely. “If it’s locked we won’t have time to blow it. Or drill. And we don’t want the noise and can’t carry the equipment it’d take. There’s plenty in those showcases. All we’ll need is a hammer and a bag.”

  “That’s lovely,” the Holy Ghost said, tapping away frantically with fingers and feet. “A hammer and a bag. I love that.”

  “Yeah,” Hymie Gore said. “Lovely.”

  “Will you take your share in rocks?” Donohue asked them.

  “What?” Fleming said quickly. “I don’t follow.”

  “We’ll have to fence the stuff,” Donohue explained. “Or make a deal with the insurance company. That’ll take time. Weeks probably. Maybe longer. And the boys want the cash for Christmas. Will you guys take some of the ice as your cut? Fence it yourselves? Faster bucks. You take, say, a couple of nice rings, a necklace. Whatever. Then you don’t have to wait until the whole shmear is sold. You got your split right away.”

  “Yeah,” the Holy Ghost croaked. “That sounds good. I’ll take some of the rocks.”

  “Yeah,” Hymie Gore said, nodding violently. “That sounds good. Me too.”

  “Fine,” Black Jack said. “This is going to be a big one. Glad you boys will be with us. I’ll be in touch.”

  As if he had given them a command, they drained their glasses, rose to their feet and, nodding to me, shambled out of Fangio’s. We watched them go.

  “What do you think?” Donohue asked.

  “They’ll do,” Dick Fleming said in what I now recognized as his Big Caper voice.

  “Jack,” I said, “what was that business of paying them off with part of the loot? With actual stones?”

  He stared at me.

  “Don’t you get it?” he said. “I told you these guys were mutts. Pay them off in stolen property, and before you know it they’ll be trying to hock it or peddling the stuff in every bar on Broadway, including right here in Fangio’s. No self-respecting fence would touch them. They’re wingdings. So they peddle the stuff, and right away the blues pick them up. The rocks are identified as part of the Brandenberg heist, and the fuzz get big headlines about how they broke the cases so quick. You think they’re going to look for anyone else? No way! File closed. And we’re home free.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Dick Fleming said. “Won’t they talk if they’re picked up? Identify us? Cop a plea?”

  “Oh sure,” Donohue said cheerfully. “They’ll sing their little hearts out. What do you expect? But I’ll be long gone by then. Won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said hastily. “Long gone.”

  “Naturally,” Black Jack said. “The survival of the fittest. Wow, we’re really rolling now! Let’s have another round. This one is on me.”

  So we had one more drink. Then Donohue said he was going back to the Hotel Harding and get to bed early.

  I said I was going to drive Dick Fleming home, down to the Village. So we all shook hands and parted. I paid the check, including that last drink Donohue had grandly offered.

  THE CONFIDENCE MAN

  FOR THE NEXT THREE weeks, I spent most of my time in the guise of Beatrice Flanders, with Black Jack Donohue. He seemed to have no objection to my tagging along. In fact I think he enjoyed the opportunity to display his expertise.

  As we came closer and closer to that fatal Friday, his eyes sparkled, the brilliant grin became more frequent. “My luck has changed, babe,” he said to me, laughing and snapping his fingers. “It’s coming my way now. And I owe it all to you.”

  “Sure, Jack,” I said.

  The way he handled the problem of getting enough Bonomo Cleaning Service coveralls for the entire gang was very cute.

  Donohue had a dozen business cards made up showing that he was sales manager of the Big Apple Laundry and Drycleaning Co., at a fictitious address. Then he dressed in a conservative suit of dark-gray flannel and donned a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles fitted with window glass. The business cards bore a telephone number—the phone booth at Fangio’s.

  Thus prepared and accoutered, Black Jack paid a visit to the office of the Bonomo Cleaning Service. He claimed to be sales manager of a new company specializing in industrial laundry and drycleaning.

  “We are brand-new, sir,” he said to the boss of Bonomo. “Just started operations a month ago. Not yet listed in the telephone directory. But if you’ll just phone the number of my card, you can verify what I’m saying.”

  I was stationed near the phone booth at Fangio’s at the time Donohue told me to be there. When the phone rang, I grabbed it and said, “Big Apple Laundry and Drycleaning Company. Good morning.” A harsh voice asked if we had a man named Sam Harrison working for us.

  “Yes, sir,” I said briskly, as rehearsed by Donohue. “Mr. Harrison is our sales manager. He’s out of the office at present, calling on customers, but if you’d care to leave a message or a number he can call …?”

  “No,” harsh-voice said, “that’s okay.”

  So Donohue-Harrison made Bonomo a generous offer. He would take a dozen pair of dirty coveralls, have them back the following day, cleaned and pressed, at absolutely no cost to Bonomo. Just to prove the speed and efficiency of Big Apple’s service. And the cost for a regular contract with Big Apple would be a guaranteed 10 percent less than what Bonomo was currently paying.

  What did the harsh-voiced boss at Bonomo have to lose? At worst he’d never get back his dozen coveralls. Peanuts. At best, he’d get the dozen coveralls cleaned for free and could cut his laundry costs by 10 percent.

  So harsh-voice handed over twelve soiled, light-blue coveralls with “Bonomo Cleaning Service” stitched across the back. They ended up in Jack Donohue’s room a
t the Hotel Harding.

  “See how easy it is?” he said to me, laughing like a maniac. “Some fake paper, an earnest manner, lots of balls, and you’re in like Flynn. All life is a scam, babe. Some small, some big.”

  We didn’t score such a complete success with the fence, but it wasn’t a failure either. Donohue came up with the name of a man with a Wall Street address. He called, mentioned his contact, and set up an appointment for 4:00 P.M.

  I couldn’t believe a receiver of stolen property would be working out of an office in the financial district, but Donohue didn’t think it strange.

  “This is a big man,” he assured me. “Deals in millions. I mean hijacked truckloads, traveler’s checks, crates of transistor radios, airline tickets, computers, stock certificates, machine tools, bearer bonds—stuff like that. You think a man with the cash to handle deals like that would be working out of a phone booth? Bea, this guy is class.”

  I drove Jack down to Wall Street. The office we were looking for was in one of those buildings so high that it turned your stomach just looking up at it.

  But the office itself wasn’t much. Down at the far end of a marble corridor. The legend on the door read “Merchants Provisions, Inc. Asa Coe, President.” There was a small outer office where a pouty, middle-aged lady sat at a typewriter. She had an enormous beehive hairdo of glossy black curls, earrings just slightly smaller than barrel hoops, and rings on every finger. A gypsy. If she had shaken a tambourine, shoved a hand at us and said, “Cross my palm with silver and I will tell you secrets of your past, present, and future,” I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

  She looked up slowly as we came in.

  “Yes?” she said coldly, eyeing Jack.

  “Mr. Morrison,” Donohue said. “To see Mr. Coe. I called for an appointment.”

  “I’ll tell,” the gypsy said.

  She stood to go into the inner office. She had a bosom that looked like it was stuffed with goose down. But there was no doubt about it; it was hers.

  She was out in a few seconds.

  “He’ll see,” she said, giving Jack Donohue a slow, calculating up-and-down stare.

  The man in the inner office was, I guessed, about 342 years old. I thought it was hot as hell in there, but he had on a wool plaid shirt (buttoned to the neck; no tie), a cardigan under his suit jacket, and a wool scarf pulled across his scrawny shoulders. He was also slurping from a big mug of steaming tea.

  He was seated behind a beat-up wooden desk, and there was nothing else in his private office. I mean nothing. There was his scarred desk, his wooden swivel chair, and four dark-brown walls. No file cabinets, no chairs for visitors, no pictures, no papers on his desk, no coat rack. It looked as though he had just moved in five minutes ago and was waiting for the rest of his furniture. Or maybe was moving out, waiting for the brawny guys to wheel out desk, chair, and him.

  “Mr. Coe?” Donohue said.

  The mummy looked at him. His face was a road map of wrinkles, and his complexion matched the walls. He faded into the background. All you saw were bright eyes and brown-stained teeth.

  Then Coe nodded. That was some nod. It started slowly and then grew faster. For one horrible moment I wondered if he’d be able to stop, or if the nod would become more violent until the shriveled head snapped off the shrunken neck and bounded across the floor. But gradually the nod slowed, then stopped. The glittering eyes stared.

  “Yes?” he said. A whisper.

  “My name is Sam Morrison,” Jack Donohue said loudly. “This lady is my associate, Miss August.”

  “Yes?” Coe whispered.

  “As I mentioned on the phone, sir,” Donohue went on bravely, “Mr. Winowitz gave me your name and suggested I call. I presume you checked with him?”

  “Yes?” Coe said.

  I think he said “Yes.” It was so faint, all I heard was “Ssss.”

  “I’m expecting a shipment,” Donohue went on confidently. “About the middle of December. I wanted to explore the possibility of converting the merchandise to ready cash. As soon as possible after delivery.”

  We were both standing before that battered desk, two naughty students brought to the principal’s office. Mr. Asa Coe slurped his tea, watching us over the rim of his mug.

  “What?” he said.

  “Uh, precious gems,” Donohue said. “Set and unset. A large shipment.”

  “Large?”

  “Yes, sir. Very large.”

  “Ten,” Mr. Coe whispered.

  “No, sir,” Black Jack said. “Thirty percent. Best quality. Top notch.”

  The ancient sighed. Or maybe he was just blowing on his brew to cool it.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  “But you’re interested?” Donohue persisted.

  “We’ll see,” Coe repeated. “When you got, you call.”

  “All right, sir,” Jack said. “That’s good enough for me. We’ll be in touch.”

  So far I hadn’t said a word. I didn’t think Asa Coe had even glanced at me since we entered his office. But as we were leaving, at the door, he called softly, “Girlie.” I turned back.

  “Girlie,” he asked in his breathy voice. “The titties—they’re yours?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Didn’t think so,” he whispered, and put his shiny beak back down into his tea cup.

  I thought the whole interview had been a disaster, but Jack didn’t agree. On the drive back uptown, he explained:

  “The guy’s interested. That’s the important thing; he didn’t say no. Naturally he’s not going to say yes and set a final price until he sees what we’ve got. Winowitz told me what to expect.”

  “But that office! Empty. Hardly looks like a guy with enough bucks to swing a big deal.”

  “You expect him to keep records, Bea? It’s all in his head. When we’ve got the stuff, I’ll call again and he’ll set up a meet. I tell you, he’s interested.”

  We had other things to do. Hymie Gore and the Holy Ghost had been touring midtown Manhattan in Hymie’s battered Dodge, looking for a place where the car switch could be made after the robbery. They had located a padlocked garage in a row of abandoned tenements, stores, and small warehouses west of Ninth Avenue on 47th Street. The entire blockfront was empty, sheet metal nailed over the windows. It was scheduled for demolition, to be replaced by a high-rise apartment house. “No Trespassing” signs were everywhere, and at night the area was patrolled by a security guard with an attack dog.

  “We timed him,” the Holy Ghost said. “He makes his rounds on the hour. Takes him ten, twelve minutes. Then back to this storefront that’s still open. They’re using it like for an office. He sits in there watching this little TV set he’s got. Then, on the hour, he makes his walk again.”

  “Yeah,” Hymie Gore said. “On the hour.”

  We drove slowly down the block, the two heavies in the back seat of my rented Ford.

  “There it is,” the Ghost said. “On your right. See? Two steel doors. They’re padlocked. A five-and-ten lock. I could spring that with a toothpick.”

  “Looks good to me,” Donohue said. “But across the street, on the left, people still living in those slums?”

  “Oh sure,” the Holy Ghost said. “But this time of year they ain’t hanging out their windows. And they see us at the garage, who’s going to scream? A garage door opens, a car pulls in. At night this is. Or early in the morning. So it’s a car going into a garage. Big deal. No one’s going to panic. They figure it’s done so openly, the watchman’s got to know—right? And after we hit, we come back in broad daylight to make the switch. So if anyone sees, so what? Even if they call the blues, we’ll be in and out so slick, what can they tell?”

  “Mud on the license plates,” Donohue said.

  “Of course,” the Ghost said. “What else? Well? What do you think?”

  “The location’s good,” I said. “With luck, maybe ten minutes from the hit.”

  “Fifteen tops,” Donohue said, nodding.


  During dinner at Dick’s apartment that night, I gave Dick a report on the Great Coverall Scam, the meeting with the Wall Street fence, and the discovery of the abandoned garage on West 47th Street. He listened closely.

  “You know, Jannie,” he said slowly, poking at his bowl of stew, “I really think this thing could come off. I mean, if we were actually going to pull it, I think it would have a very, very good chance of succeeding. Don’t you?”

  “Damned right!” I said emphatically.

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Jannie, have you given any thought to how we’re going to get out of this? I mean, when do we disappear?”

  “I want to stay in until the last minute. We’ll have like a final briefing the night before. Then you and I will just fade away. I can leave my Bea Flanders junk at the Hard-On—I’ll never be using it again. We just won’t be there when the show is supposed to get on the road that Friday morning.”

  “And what happens then? Jan, you don’t suppose they’ll try to pull it without us?”

  “No way!” I say. “First of all, they’ll be spooked by our nonappearance on Friday morning. They’ll think we’ve chickened out, and they’ll start wondering if maybe we’ve gone to the cops. Also, they’re counting on my rented Ford and your VW in that 47th Street garage to make the switch of the loot. No, I don’t think we have to worry about them trying it on their own. The whole plan will be destroyed when we don’t show up.”

  He nodded. He shoved his half-finished plate of stew away. He drained his glass of burgundy, then refilled it and topped mine off.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “In a way. Aren’t you, Jannie?”

  “That we’re not going through with it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure, I’m sorry. In a way.”

  SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

  “BEA, THERE’S SOMETHING YOU and me have got to talk about,” Jack said. “We been putting it off, but we’re getting close now, and we should get it settled.”

  “The split?”

  “Right,” he said. “The split.”

  We had been trailing the Bonomo van all night, doing a final check on its Friday route and timing.