by Ed McBain
There seemed to be fifty thousand dollars in the envelope, in bills of various denominations.
There also seemed to be a round-trip ticket to Naples in the envelope.
And also a letter:
Benny read the letter again. He counted the money again. He looked at the ticket again.
He could only figure that somehow the computer had broke down.
14: The Silver Fox
Spectacles reflecting glints of silver plate and sterling, The Silver Fox sat behind a table stacked with stolen goods, and listened to Benny’s lament. It was now almost 1:30 P.M., and the plane for Rome was scheduled to leave at ten.
“What am I supposed to do?” Benny asked.
He had come to see The Silver Fox because he considered him his oldest friend and most trusted adviser, even though he continued searching for hallmarks all the while they talked.
“We first have to eliminate what you can’t do,” The Silver Fox said. “That’s the first thing we have to do.”
“Okay, what is it I can’t do?” Benny asked.
“You can’t send the duplication back to Azzecca.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody likes to be reminded that he made a mistake,” The Silver Fox said.
“But this is a very big mistake,” Benny said. “This is fifty thousand dollars involved here.”
“The bigger the mistake, the more nobody wants to be reminded of it.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Benny said.
“I remember one time,” The Silver Fox said, “when my brother Salvatore, which means Our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior in Italian, made the terrible mistake of laying Paulie Secondo’s arrangement who was living with him at that time on Greenwich Avenue, and the girl told Paulie about it even though she had been Irish and willing, and Paulie managed to hint to a police lieutenant he knows by the name of Alexander Bozzaris that my brother Salvatore had entertained a rape which was statutory, the girl having been only sixteen, and whereas they afterwards arrested him and he spent ten years in Sing Sing, and then when he got out somebody named Alonzo from Eighty-sixth Street made the terrible mistake of reminding my brother Salvatore that he had taken a fall for boffing that little girl, and whereas my brother cut him with a knife four times and was sent back to Sing Sing again. Nobody likes to be reminded of their mistakes, Benny.”
“So what should I do?” Benny said.
“I have the feeling you’re not telling me the whole story,” The Silver Fox said wisely. “Otherwise, there is no question about what you should do. You should take one of those fifty-thousand-dollar bundles to Naples, and you should spend the other one. Mario Azzecca is never going to admit to anybody in the entire world that he made such a mistake, believe me.”
“Suppose he does, Silvio? Suppose he comes to me and says he wants the money back?”
“So? Are you tongue-tied? Do you stutter? You tell him, What money? I got only one fifty-thousand-dollar bundle, which I took it to Naples like you told me, and I gave it to the guy I met at the airport, and I came back here, and here I am, so what money are you talking about? The money you are talking about has already been signed, sealed, and delivered. That’s what you tell him. If he comes to see you. Whereas he won’t anyway.”
“Well, maybe,” Benny said.
“No maybes.” The Silver Fox raised his eyeglasses onto his forehead and peered across the table at Benny. “What is it you’re withholding from me, Benny? I’m your friend, you can tell me.”
“I don’t want to get you involved, Silvio.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are my friend, and this could mean trouble for the people involved.”
“What are friends for,” The Silver Fox asked, “if not to share each other’s troubles?”
“No, please, I don’t want to burden you.”
“I’m your friend,” The Silver Fox said. “Whatever it is, I’ll try to help you.”
“No,” Benny said, shaking his head, “no, really.”
“Tell me,” The Silver Fox said. “You can trust me.”
“Well . . .”
“Tell me.”
“Well,” Benny said, “Carmine Ganucci’s son has been kidnaped.”
“Why’d you tell me that?” The Silver Fox said, leaping to his feet. “You want to get me in trouble? What kind of friend are you?”
“They want fifty G’s for his safe return,” Benny said.
“Don’t tell me, don’t tell me,” The Silver Fox said, covering his ears.
“I tried to buy some phony bills, but . . .”
“Don’t tell me!”
A knock sounded on the door.
“Thank God,” The Silver Fox said, and hurried to answer it. Benny sat morosely at the long table covered with stolen silver, listening to the voices in the entrance foyer. He did not think it would be safe to keep the second fifty thousand dollars, as his friend Silvio had advised. Maybe nobody likes to be reminded of his mistakes, but when somebody’s involved who’s already made a mistake, the person making the second mistake might think he had an edge in asking the person who made the first mistake to correct the second mistake, or so Benny reasoned. Besides, keeping the fifty thousand had never crossed his mind. Well, it had crossed it. But only fleetingly. Those that much covet are with gain so fond, for what they have not, that which they possess they scatter and unloose it from their bond, and so, by hoping more, they have but less, Benny quoted silently, and sighed. The only thing that had actually lingered in his mind was the idea of using the second fifty thousand to ransom Ganooch’s son. Then, if Mario Azzecca did come to him and say, “Hey, Benny Napkins, where’s that second fifty thousand dollars?” Benny could answer, “I used it to ransom Ganooch’s son,” which was a worthy cause.
“Do you know Dominick the Guru?” The Silver Fox asked.
Benny turned and looked at the young man standing in the doorway to the living room. “Yes, I believe we’ve met,” he said, “but that was before you had the beard and the long hair.”
“How do you like it this way?” Dominick said, walking over and shaking hands.
“It’s becoming,” Benny said.
“It’s becoming too long,” The Silver Fox said, wagging his head. “Nice Italian boy.”
“Bloomingdales doesn’t like it neither,” Dominick said. “By the way,” he added, turning to The Silver Fox, “he said to tell you he hopes you get hit by a subway.”
“Why?” The Silver Fox asked. “Because his sister’s a no-good whore? Whereas everybody knows that anyway?”
“I’m merely conveying his regards,” Dominick said. Boy, what bullshit, he thought.
“What have you brought me?” The Silver Fox asked. He noticed Dominick’s sidelong glance and quickly said, “You can trust Benny. He’s an old friend.”
Dominick studied him for a moment, and then went out into the foyer again.
“What shall I do?” Benny whispered to The Silver Fox.
“About what?”
“About Ganooch’s son?”
“I never heard nothing about Ganooch’s son.”
“I just told you . . .”
“I don’t even know if he has a son or not. Has he got a son? Never mind, don’t tell me.”
Dominick came back into the room, carrying a suitcase which he hoisted onto the long wooden table. “Lots of nice stuff here,” he said, and opened the bag. The Silver Fox picked up a magnifying glass, and began examining the pieces.
“Did you see this?” Dominick asked Benny.
“What is it?” Benny asked.
“A wrist watch,” Dominick said, and handed it to him.
“Very nice,” Benny said, and looked at it distractedly.
“Who’s that whose picture’s on the watch?” The Silver Fox asked.
�
�That’s the Vice-President,” Dominick said.
“Herbert Humphrey? It don’t even look like him,” The Silver Fox said.
Benny was about to return the watch to Dominick when, for no reason whatever, for no good reason that he could think of, he turned it over and looked at the back. There was an inscription on the case. The inscription read:
“Where did you get this watch!” Benny shouted.
In a blue Plymouth sedan borrowed from his old friend Arthur Doppio, Snitch drove up to Larchmont that afternoon to pay a visit to the Ganucci governess. He had been promised twenty-five dollars if he could come up with information Bozzaris did not already possess, and Snitch was not a man to let twenty-five dollars slip away quite that easily. He drove up the long tree-lined driveway to Many Maples, parked the car in the oval before the sumptuous front entrance, walked onto the flagstone portico, admired the brass escutcheon with the single word Ganucci inscribed upon it, and then rang the bell and waited.
Nanny opened the door immediately, almost as if she had been standing behind it and waiting for expected company. When she saw Snitch, her face fell.
“Yes?” she said.
“Nanny,” Snitch said, “I think I have some further information about that felony you say was committed Tuesday night.”
“Yes?” she said.
“Yes. Would it be all right if I came in? You never know who’s hiding in the bushes these days.”
“Come in,” she said, and because it was exactly two P.M., the clocks in the living room all tolled the hour, Bong, Bong, and were finished almost before they began. Snitch looked at his wrist watch.
“Three minutes slow,” he said, and followed Nanny into the study. “Very nice place Ganooch has here,” he remarked.
“Yes,” Nanny said. “What information have you got for me?”
“I know there’s fifty thousand dollars involved,” Snitch said, referring to the cable he had seen on Mario Azzecca’s desk. Judging from the way Nanny went suddenly pale, he suspected he had struck pay dirt.
Her hand went to her throat. In a tiny, quiet voice, she said, “Yes, that’s right.”
“‘Essential and urgent raise fifty delivery Saturday,’” Snitch said, narrowing his eyes as he quoted exactly from the cable now, figuring what the hell.
“Is that what the last note meant?” Nanny asked.
“Precisely,” Snitch said. He recognized that he had seen only one note (which, in fact, had been a cable rather than a note), and that he hadn’t the faintest notion whether it had been the first note, the last note, or the one in between. But he felt he had gained Nanny’s confidence, and if he could continue to sustain her belief in knowledge he did not truly possess, he might eventually get the information Bozzaris wanted. Besides, intrigue was the most exciting profession in the world.
“Saturday when?” Nanny asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the last note. Benny couldn’t either. I read it to him on the phone.”
“Benny?”
“Napkins.”
“Oh yes. He knows about this, huh?”
“Yes. I rang him up the moment I knew he was gone.”
“I see,” Snitch said, not knowing what she was talking about.
“Where did you see the note?” Nanny asked.
“On Mario Azzecca’s desk.”
“Mario . . . oh my!” she said, and put her hand to her throat again. “Does he know about it too?”
“Sure he does. It was addressed to him,” Snitch said.
“Addressed to Mario Azzecca? But why?”
“I guess because when Ganooch wants fifty thousand dollars, he drops a little note to his lawyer and tells him to get it for him. That’s why.”
“Ganooch?”
“Sure.”
“Mr. Ganucci asked Mario Azzecca for fifty thousand dollars?”
“Sure,” Snitch said, and shrugged.
Nanny looked as if she were about to faint. She leaned back against the bookcases and almost dislodged The Rubáiyát from its shelf. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “He knows,” she said, her eyes wide.
“Knows what?” Snitch said.
“All about it,” Nanny said. “Oh my God, he knows all about it.” She put her hand on Snitch’s arm. “He’ll kill us. Both of us. Me, and Benny as well.” Her hand tightened. “Do you know who has him?” she asked.
“Benny? Jeanette Kay, ain’t it? He’s got an arrangement with Jeanette Kay, ain’t he?”
“No, the boy.”
“Benny’s living with a boy?”
“I mean, do you know who the kidnapers are?” she said impatiently.
“What?” Snitch said.
“The kidnapers.”
“What?” he said again.
She was standing directly in front of him now, peering up into his eyes. “Snitch, do you know who kidnaped Mr. Ganucci’s son?” she asked, and Snitch thought, So that’s it, huh? That’s some felony, all right, that’s as big as they come. He needed time to think. There was money to be made out of this situation, if only he could figure out how. A little time was all he needed, but a little time was the one thing Nanny seemed unwilling to grant. Her hand clutched tightly onto his arm, her eyes blazing up into his, she insistently demanded once again, “Do-you-know-who-kidnaped-Lewis-Ganucci?”
“Yes,” Snitch said, figuring what the hell.
“Seven words,” Garbugli said. “A goddamn masterpiece.”
“Yes, but what do we do now?” Azzecca wanted to know.
“We call Benny Napkins and get the money back.”
“Right,” Azzecca said, and went immediately to the telephone. He dialed Benny’s number, waited, and then heard a sleepy voice say, “Hello?”
“Hello, who’s this?” Azzecca asked.
“Jeanette Kay. Who’s this?”
“Mario Azzecca.”
“Hello, Mr. Azzecca, how are you?” Jeanette Kay said.
“Fine. Is Benny there?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I was sleeping when he left.”
“He didn’t go to the airport, did he?”
“I don’t think so. Why would he go to the airport?”
“Tell him to call me the minute he gets in. And tell him not to go to Naples.”
“Why would he go to Naples?” Jeanette Kay asked.
“Just tell him,” Azzecca said, and hung up. “He’s not home,” he said to Garbugli. “You don’t think he left for the airport already, do you?”
“At three o’clock?” Garbugli said. “His plane doesn’t leave till ten tonight.”
“Lots of people like to get to the airport early,” Azzecca said. “It relieves anxiety symptoms.”
“Let’s call Nonaka and put him on the prowl.”
“Nonaka? Why him?”
“In case Benny has any thoughts about maybe not returning that money.”
“Even so. Nonaka.”
“Best man for the job, Counselor.”
“Nonaka gives me the shivers,” Azzecca said.
“Call him,” Garbugli said.
Azzecca shrugged and went to the telephone. He opened the address pad on his desk, searched through the Ns, and dialed Nonaka’s number.
“Hello?” a voice on the other end whispered.
“Let me speak to Nonaka,” Azzecca said.
“He’s not here,” the voice whispered.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t you talk a little louder?” Azzecca said, annoyed.
“Yes, but thank God, I don’t have to,” the voice whispered, and hung up.
“He’s not home,” A
zzecca said.
“Who’s that?” Luther Patterson asked his wife. He was standing at the window in the master bedroom, staring down at the backyard ten stories below. Ida came up beside him and looked.
“Where?” she said.
“There,” he said. “Those three men. Who are those three men?”
“I don’t see anybody,” she said.
“Near the telephone pole there. Those three men. The seedy-looking one, and the one with the beard, and the Chinaman.”
“Maybe they’re telephone repairmen,” Ida said.
“Have you ever seen a Chinese telephone repairman?” Luther asked.
“How can you tell he’s Chinese?”
“I can see him, can’t I?”
“From way up here?”
“My eyes are very good when I have my glasses on,” Luther said. “He’s Chinese.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “What did Simon say?” he asked. “Something. Something about the Chinese, or China. Something.” He rushed into the living room and pulled the Collected Works from his bookshelf. Rapidly turning pages, he came upon the review he’d been searching for. Aloud, he read:
His style is sheer chinoiserie, piling lacquered screens of paradox upon pagodas of hyperbole—sometimes a trifle schematically, but with unquenchable verve, bravado, and iconoclastic bravura.
Luther bowed his head in admiration.
“Stunning,” he whispered in awe. “Positively stunning. Look to your laurels, Mr. Updike, there’s another formidable John upon the scene.”
Ida came into the room. Hands on hips, she said, “What does Simon say? Is he Chinese?”
“He doesn’t comment,” Luther answered. “But I know a Chinaman when I see one.”
15: Nonaka
Tamaichi Nonaka Japanese.
He stood in the backyard with Benny Napkins on his left and Dominick the Guru on his right, and together they stared up at the sun-blinded windows on the rear of the building.