“What is that thing, anyways?” asked William.
“Oh,” said Nura, dropping her hand self-consciously. “It is nothing. It is a nazar boncugu—a charm against the Evil Eye.”
William bent forward and examined it skeptically.
“It preserves the wearer from harm or evil,” she explained, “especially from a covetous glance. In my country we say that when someone looks with envy on something precious to you, they bring upon it the curse of the Evil Eye, and it will soon be stolen or lost or grow sick and die. So we keep the nazar as protection.”
“No kidding,” said William. “Were you wearing it when you lost the package?”
Nura nodded solemnly.
“Well then, you might want to take it to a repair shop,” he said with a grin.
Nura scowled at him, then couldn’t help smiling, too. “Perhaps I do need a new one,” she said. She held the charm to her ear and rattled it like a broken watch.
The rain fell yet. Somewhere far off in the city a car horn honked, but a ghostly canopy of fog dampened every sound.
“Looks like the White Rat is staying put,” said Maxine finally.
“Come on, let’s go take a closer look,” William replied. “We didn’t walk all this way for nothing.”
Nura and the cousins crossed the street and peered down into the dark stairwell. At the bottom of the steps they could make out a small window on an unmarked steel door that seemed oddly substantial and secure for an abandoned building.
“Go take a peek in that window while I see if there’s another way into this place,” said William.
Maxine and Nura glanced around warily and descended the stairs, tiptoeing past the steel door as if it were a sleeping crocodile. They tried to look in the window but found it plastered over with old newspapers.
“I can’t see a thing,” said Maxine, turning to leave. “Let’s go and find Will.”
No sooner had she uttered the words than she heard a faint scrape behind her. In a blink, the White Rat pounced from beneath the stairs and caught the girls by their collars. They screamed and tried to wrench free, but he dragged them toward the door.
“Look what we got here,” he snarled. “Two of the three blind mice. Let’s see if we can’t find ourselves a carving knife.”
“Let us go!” demanded Nura.
“Please,” Maxine begged. “You’ll never see us again, I promise.”
The White Rat laughed and kicked the steel door twice with a ringing echo.
A hefty doorman in a striped suit opened the door, and the White Rat shoved the girls inside, where they fell in a heap.
Rough hands pulled them to their feet and herded them across the floor. A man with liverish lips and a double chin bound their wrists behind them with baling wire and trussed them up back-to-back against a steel column in the middle of a lofted enclosure.
Maxine cast her eyes about their bleak confinement, fighting off tears. The space where they were tied was dank and sparse. A line of cots stood in the far corner, and a handful of ladder-back chairs were arranged around a dingy green carpet. Long rows of wooden barrels flanked a garage door at the far end of the room, and a blue haze of cigar smoke hung heavy in the air.
A dozen or so men occupied the warehouse, a jury of dark suits and stubbled faces that regarded their guests with calculated apathy. Some stood in the shadows, some lounged around card tables or sat atop barrels, but every eye was on the two girls.
Then the ranks parted to make way for a new face, a thick-necked man wearing a holstered pistol over his starched shirt. His broad shoulders blotted out the weak light behind him.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
“Brats just showed up on our doorstep,” said the White Rat with a shrug. “Guess maybe they’re selling cookies for the Girl Scouts.”
“No kidding. Just showed up, huh?” said the man. He gave them a long once-over and scratched his head in irritation. “You two lost or something?” he asked.
The girls were silent.
“I axed you a question,” he growled. “What are you doing in my warehouse?”
Maxine stammered, trying to buy time for her panicked brain to invent a plausible answer, but Nura spoke up first.
“You have something that belongs to us,” she said, her voice low and defiant. “A leather satchel.”
Maxine cringed, but the man raised an amused eyebrow. “You don’t know who you’re talking to, do you, kid?” he said. He bent his neck until it cracked, and then he tapped his chest. “Name’s Binny. Binny Benedetti. Around here I’m the top dog, the final authority, the big stick, and the last word. And these are my boys. Papers call us…well, they call us a lotta things, but around town it’s just the Benedetti outfit.”
He stroked his chin. “We don’t get many visitors,” he said. “ ’Specially not ones who come barging in with accusations about stolen satchels.”
“It was him,” snapped Nura, inducing a moan from Maxine. “The White Rat. He stole it from me at the harbor.”
“The White Rat,” said Binny. A wide grin spread on his cash-drawer underbite. “That’s a good one, eh, fellas? That’s ST, kid. He’s got a weakness for grabbing handbags and rolling drunks, so we call ’im Small Time—ST for short. But maybe he’s ready for a new moniker.”
He eyed the thief reproachfully. “You know anything about a stolen bag, ST?”
The White Rat stared at the two girls and sucked his gums behind lips that seemed not quite substantial enough to cover his teeth.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” barked Binny. “Go get ’em their toy.”
ST stalked off toward a side room and disappeared through a shabby black door. A moment later he returned, carrying a worn leather satchel. He dangled it in front of Nura sadistically, then tossed it to Binny.
The gangster opened the satchel and produced a battered cigar box tied with a string. He held the box close to his ear and gave the contents a shake. “What do you know ’bout this thing?” he asked, untying the string and opening the lid slightly to peer inside. “It’s shiny, sure enough, but it ain’t gold.”
“It’s mine!” Nura growled.
“Not anymore, kid,” said Binny, taking a step closer. “I have a feeling you might be able to tell me all about it, though.” He tapped her on the forehead. “Or am I wrong?”
Nura seethed, staring daggers at the gangster.
“You’re as mad as a meat axe, aren’t you?” he said to her, chuckling. “I like that. Passion. Fire. That’s something I understand. But you shouldn’t oughta get so worked up about it. This’s all just for grins an’ giggles, see? You gotta think of it like a game.
“The thing is, in this game, I hold all the cards an’ you got just one—that being whatever you can tell me about the contents of this bag. Play your card wisely an’ you might save your necks. You don’t spill your guts, though, then maybe I spill ’em for you. Know what I mean?”
The girls made no response.
“I’d do it slow,” he said, his eyes glittering convincingly enough, “and then I’d throw you in some old shack and put a match to it. Let ’er burn till the only thing left of the pair of you is a puddle of grease.”
He paused for effect, and the room was silent.
“So you two canaries got one chance to save your tail feathers, and that’s for you to start singing.”
ST smirked at a slick-haired thug beside him and whispered something in his ear.
“Something funny, ST?” asked Binny. “Maybe you’d like to share it with the whole group.”
“Naw, just seems like maybe we’re wasting time, Binny. Why not let me an’ Clem here take care of these kids for you? This trinket, too, for that matter?”
Binny’s eyes narrowed, and he glared at ST suspiciously. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Next time some bright idea crosses your conk, keep it to yourself.”
ST spit on the floor, and Binny’s attention returned to Nura. “Now, where were we?” he asked,
scratching his head. “Oh yeah.” He snapped his fingers and nodded at the satchel.
“It is of no value to you or anyone else in this place,” said Nura. For a moment she seemed more desperate than defiant. “It is a worthless, evil thing.”
There was a knock at the front door of the warehouse, but Binny’s eyes were fixed on Nura.
“Not worthless, kid,” he said at last. “Not worthless to you, not worthless to ST, apparently. And maybe not worthless to a couple other people around this town.”
The doorman ducked away to answer the door and disappeared briefly outside the warehouse. When he returned, he held his hands wide and shrugged.
“It’s that crazy ol’ gink, the Pigeon,” he said.
Binny chewed his lip, still staring at the girls. “Looks like you got yourselves a few minutes to think things over,” he said. “I have some business to conduct. We’ll finish our little conversation later.”
A rangy, stooped individual stamped into the warehouse, dripping wet. He wore a high-collared oilskin coat spangled with silver clasps, and his lank hair was swept back from his balding forehead and tucked behind his ears. A prominent, arched nose protruded from under a pair of rain-spattered motorcycle goggles.
He cocked his head in the girls’ direction, and the goggles caught the light like burnished coins.
“Silver bells and cockle shells,” he said with a cackle, “and pretty maids all in a row. You working over little girls now, Binny-B?”
“Just business,” said Binny with annoyance. “Things that gotta be taken care of.” He waved his hand dismissively. “What do you got for me?”
“Right and tight, business it is, then,” said the Pigeon, unfastening the clasps on the front of his shining-wet coat and removing a fat envelope from an inside pocket. “Special delivery from Tommy Switches and the Saint. They want to know if you can have ten barrels down at the Indigo Room tonight.”
He handed the envelope over and made a notation in a small black book.
Binny counted a thick stack of bills and nodded. “Yeah, we can do that,” he said. “Do me a favor and stick around till we get it loaded. I want you to tell Tommy everything was all square when you saw it leave our place.”
“You’re the boss, Boss,” replied the Pigeon, saluting with a knuckle.
Binny returned the cigar box to the satchel and handed it back to ST. “Put this in the john, and then take a walk up the street an’ grab the truck,” he said.
ST nodded and disappeared, and Binny turned to his doorman. “Have the Lip get on the blower with our friends down at Sixes,” he said. “I don’t want no excitement this time. If Jimmy Doherty’s boys get wind of this, we just keep on driving—got it?
“The rest of you bring the barrels down to the garage door. Not the coffin varnish—the good stuff.”
Binny glared at Maxine and Nura, conveying a telepathic threat, then turned to concern himself with the details of the delivery.
For the first time since their arrival, the two girls found themselves alone in the middle of the warehouse. Seizing the opportunity, they began working desperately to free themselves from their bonds. They writhed and strained, but the baling wire only bit deeper into their wrists, and finally they slumped against the steel column in resignation.
Maxine closed her eyes and sighed. “Nura,” she said, “I’m sorry about how I treated you when we met. I’m afraid I wasn’t very kind. I wish we could start over.” She twisted her head, trying to see Nura’s face behind her. “I just—I just really wanted to do something right. I had a crazy idea that maybe I could bring Grandpa the package myself. Make him proud. I guess I wanted him to think…”
“To think what?”
“I don’t know, to think that I was smart. Special. Useful.”
“I’m sure you are all those things,” said Nura. “You are here with me now when you might have left, and that makes you very useful to me.”
Maxine flushed gratefully, but her smile died on her lips. “Yeah, well, that’s more than I can say for Will,” she muttered. “I can’t believe he just left us stranded here.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Maybe not,” said Nura suddenly.
Maxine craned her neck and lifted her eyes to a catwalk below the warehouse ceiling. There in a dark corner just beneath the rafters, she made out a small door along the outer wall. It was opening slowly, and William’s head appeared, looking left, then right, checking the room cautiously.
Maxine caught her breath, and her eyes darted anxiously to Binny and his men at the far side of the warehouse.
William edged to the railing and surveyed the floor below. Spotting the girls, he put his finger to his lips and crept toward a rickety staircase at the end of the loft. The wooden stairs groaned beneath him, and the girls flinched, certain that he would be heard, but the gangsters continued their work without pause.
William disappeared from view, and then a minute later they could feel damp fingers fumbling with the wire on their wrists.
“How’d you get in here?” asked Maxine in a low voice.
“I climbed a fire escape out back. Why’d you have to go and get yourselves caught?”
“Shhh! Just get us out of this place, will you?”
“All right, all right. These guys are real trouble, huh? I’m pretty sure those aren’t squirt pistols they’re wearing under their—”
He stopped midsentence, and all three raised their heads. At that moment, at the end of the warehouse, the garage door opened to the night with a metallic screech. A pair of headlamps blazed outside, igniting a thousand falling raindrops. An engine revved ominously.
Binny stood with his hands on his hips, bathed in the brilliance of the two beams. A dark green delivery truck rolled through the garage door and stopped just inside the warehouse. ST climbed down from the driver’s seat.
“What took you so long?” asked Binny. “You oughta been back a while ago.”
“We made a little detour,” said ST. He walked back and pounded on the side of the truck. “I decided to pick up a few friends.”
The cargo door opened with a rattle, and a dozen men descended from the back of the truck with Tommy guns and sawed-down twelve-gauges, spreading out on either side of ST.
“Hey, those are Jimmy Doherty’s boys!” snarled the doorman, reaching for his pistol.
Binny nodded. “Looks like I got a rotten apple in the bunch,” he said grimly. “Caesar had Brutus, and I got the White Rat.”
“You’re old and fat, Binny,” called ST. “A flat tire. Somebody shoulda put you out to pasture a long time ago.”
But Binny was the picture of tranquility. His heavy lids were half closed, as if he were on the verge of sleep. “That day may be coming,” he replied with a nod. “I don’t figure you’ll be around to see it, though.”
“Get in the truck, Binny,” said ST. “We’re going for a little ride.”
The gangster raised his head abruptly, and he was changed—his brass and swagger and broad New York diction were cast off, exposing a creature of cunning and violence.
“Do I look like a chump to you?” Binny said, his eyes igniting like an acetylene torch. “Do I look like a rube? Do you think I’ve survived all these years, outlasted all the two-bit upstarts in this town, only to be chased outta my own house with a rolled-up newspaper by a punk like you?”
He drew his revolver and leveled it at the traitor. “You’re full of big ideas, kid, but it’ll be a while before a piddling whelp can knock me off the hill. If you think you’re ready, though, why then, go ahead and give it a shot.”
A whisper of uncertainty crossed the White Rat’s face, but he mustered a sneer, and the shadow passed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and raised his own pistol in answer.
Twenty paces separated the two men, nothing more. Neither of them looked for cover. They eyed each other steadily across the warehouse floor, their faces lit with a murderous fire.
Nura and Maxine had been w
atching the drama unfold from a distance, holding their breath along with everyone else in the warehouse, but suddenly they felt the baling wire drop from their numb wrists.
“Come on!” whispered William, tugging desperately at their sleeves. “Nobody’s watching the front door. Now’s our chance!”
The cousins turned and started for the door, but, looking back, they saw that Nura was not with them.
“Nura!” called Maxine in a low, urgent voice. “The exit’s this way!”
“Yes, but the package is not,” said Nura. She shook her head and dashed off in the other direction.
William and Maxine hesitated for just an instant, then shrugged at each other and turned to follow.
The peeling black door where ST had disappeared earlier with the leather satchel was situated beneath the catwalk, at the end of a long row of canvas-draped crates. Nura crouched, hugging the wall, and William and Maxine followed close behind, keeping a wary eye on the situation brewing around the truck.
They reached their goal and tried the handle, but the black door was stuck. Nura put her shoulder into it—gently, so as not to make a sound—and the three children tumbled inside a dingy bathroom onto a grimy tile floor. A handful of white moths made drunken circles around a lightbulb on the ceiling above, and the stall door in front of them hung limply on buckled hinges. A filthy ashtray, overflowing with cigar butts, sat balanced on the corner of the sink.
Nura leapt to her feet and began rummaging about the room. She went through a dented waste bin and checked beneath the sink, but the leather bag was nowhere to be found. Her face lit up, though, as she glanced in the mirror above the dripping faucet. There in the streaked glass she saw the satchel hanging from a coat hook on the door behind them.
Whirling around, she sprang to the bag, opening it in a heartbeat and straining to make out the contents in the dim light.
“Is it in there?” asked Maxine, crowding close behind her.
Nura removed the old cigar box and breathed a great sigh of relief. “Yes,” she said. “It is safe.”
The Eye of Midnight Page 8