by Ed McBain
CARY: I had an arrangement in mind where you would leave here with me, and never come back. And where you wouldn’t have to do what Madam Hortense tells you to do all the time. Only what I tell you to do.
GRACE: I fail to see the difference.
CARY: The difference is I am Carmine Ganucci.
GRACE: Oh.
Carmine Ganucci was getting an erection. He rang for the stewardess, and when she arrived, he asked her if she had any Alka-Seltzer. The stewardess spoke with an English accent, which didn’t help at all. She asked him if he had a headache.
Benny Napkins was discovering that, unless a person is extremely sure-footed, a fire escape can be a difficult thing to negotiate even during the daytime; nighttime and darkness, not to mention intoxication, only compounded the difficulty. Nonaka did not help at all. Nonaka kept singing “Pretty Parasol and Fan” as they slowly staggered and stumbled their way up the narrow iron-runged ladders on the rear wall of the building. On the third floor, a lady poked her head out of a window, looked directly into Dominick the Guru’s face, and said, “Oh!” Dominick replied, “Softball team, lady,” grinned reassuringly, and continued up the ladder to the fourth floor. Behind him, Nonaka bowed to the lady, almost fell off the fire escape, regained his balance, and continued singing his little song. Benny kept wondering how many people in the city of New York fell off fire escapes as opposed to, say, bridges or tunnels.
Dominick was looking into yet another window.
“Recognize it?” Benny asked from below.
“Onward,” Dominick said. “Upward.”
“Who’s that?” a man in his undershirt asked.
“Gas company,” Dominick said.
“Is there a leak?”
“There’s a leak,” Dominick said.
“Good evening, sir,” Nonaka said to the man, bowing.
“Good evening,” the man answered, bewildered.
Nonaka went by singing.
“Where are your credentials?” the man asked Benny as he went past the window and started up the ladder to the next floor.
“In the car,” Benny said over his shoulder.
“Oh. Okay,” the man said, and pulled down his shade.
Snitch Delatore knew that fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money. Everybody knew that. Even Arthur Doppio knew that. Snitch further knew that maybe, just maybe, there might possibly be a slender chance that Arthur could actually talk Nanny into parting with that kind of money tonight. But Snitch also knew, by heart, a proverb his sainted grandmother had taught him at her knee, “Prendi i soldi e corri”—which loosely translated into English as “Take the money and run.” And whereas fifty thousand dollars was most assuredly the stuff on which dreams are made, there was a basic reality to twenty-five bucks in cold hard cash.
Everybody was in the money business, Snitch figured; it was merely a matter of how much a person was willing to settle for. His sainted grandmother would have settled for five dollars and a carton of name’s day pastry. Given the intervening years and the rising spiral of inflation, Snitch felt that twenty-five dollars was only fair and reasonable recompense for a secret already shared by everybody and his brother, including Benny Napkins. Which is why he went to see Lieutenant Bozzaris, who had promised him just that sum for fresh and original information.
“Help you?” one of Bozzaris’ fellows asked as Snitch stepped up to the gate in the slatted wood railing.
“I’d like to see the lieutenant,” Snitch said.
“What about?”
“I have some information for him,” Snitch said.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” the detective said. “You’re the stoolie.”
Snitch made no reply. Sticks and stones could break his bones, but twenty-five bucks was twenty-five bucks. In silent dignity, he waited for the detective to check with Bozzaris. The door to the corner office opened at once, and Bozzaris himself stepped into the squadroom to greet him, hand extended.
“Well, well,” Bozzaris said, “what a nice surprise!” he turned to the detective and yelled, “Sam! Two cups of coffee on the double!”
“We are out of coffee, Skipper!” Sam yelled back.
“See what I mean?” Bozzaris said. “There’s never any coffee around here. What’s the information you have for me, Snitch?”
“It’s information about a major felony,” Snitch said, and the telephone in Bozzaris’ office began ringing.
On the tenth-floor fire escape, Dominick looked into yet another window, and said, “This is it.”
“Are you sure?” Benny Napkins asked.
“Positive.”
The three men crouched outside the window, peering into the bedroom. The sounds of the building seemed suddenly augmented, television sets blaring to the open-windowed night, toilets flushing, a woman laughing, someone practicing the piano, while far off on the street below, honking horns and grinding buses provided a staccato counterpoint. Nonaka listened nostalgically to the night music of the city and hummed again the song he’d learned at P.S. 80 on 120th Street, back when he’d been the only true American in a class of forty Wops.
They entered the apartment stealthily.
Dominick was the first to go in. He fell over the sill and knocked over a floor lamp.
“Shhh,” Nonaka said behind him.
“Shhh,” Benny said.
They picked Dominick up, righted the floor lamp, and waited silently while their eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“This is the room, all right,” Dominick whispered. “There’s the bed over there, and here’s the dresser where I grabbed the watch.”
“So where’s the kid?” Benny whispered.
“I don’t know,” Dominick whispered.
Listening, they stood in the darkness.
“There’s nobody here,” Dominick said at last.
“How can you tell?”
“I’m an experienced burglar, I can tell. There’s nobody here, the place is empty. Come on,” Dominick said, and flicked on the lights.
Benny and Nonaka followed him into the corridor. The light from the open bedroom door illuminated a row of framed abstract prints, half a dozen in all, each in varying shades of blue and green that seemed to modulate into an oil painting hanging beside and beyond the last print, a huge gilt-framed canvas of an old lady drawing water from a well. Dominick, preceding them, threw another switch. An overhead light, covered with an imitation Tiffany shade, bathed the corridor in emerald-amber, tinting the old lady’s face a deeper green and giving her a somewhat bilious look.
On the wall opposite the painting, there hung four framed photographs of men Benny had never seen or heard of, each gentleman identified by a small brass plaque set into the frame’s molding, their respective and undoubtedly respected names engraved in discreet scroll: Gilbert Millstein, Lester Goran, Richard P. Brickner, and Nat Freedland. Over the entrance door to the next room, there was a pair of crossed Saracen swords that appeared to be razor-sharp. Dominick, like the village lamplighter, kept throwing switches, illuminating the way before them.
The room beyond the Saracen swords was a living room, or a library, it was difficult to tell which. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined one entire wall, running the length of the room to the windows at the far end. A desk stood before the windows, catching only a faint glow of light from West End Avenue, far below. Dominick turned on the desk lamp, throwing into bright illumination a pair of scissors, a paste-pot, a ream of white bond, a typewriter, and countless scraps and snippets of paper.
“This has got to be it,” Benny said, sitting in the wing chair. “He probably made the notes right at that desk there.”
“The scene of the crime,” Dominick said, nodding, and sat in the chair behind the desk.
Nonaka stood by the fireplace, scowling. He was beginning to realize there’d be no damn doors to smash tonig
ht; the knowledge was depressing and irritating.
“This is the first place I ever burglarized where I also sat down,” Dominick said. “Usually, it’s in, out, bingo.”
“Only one thing to do now,” Benny said thoughtfully.
“What’s that?” Dominick asked.
“Go to Naples,” Benny said.
“Right,” Dominick said.
Benny nodded and reached into his jacket pocket. “Dominick,” he said, “I am going to trust you to take this envelope to Ganooch’s house in Larchmont, and give it to Nanny.” He pulled one of the thick white envelopes from his pocket, fully realizing that he was handing fifty thousand dollars to someone who, by his own admission, was an experienced burglar, but figuring what the hell. “Tell Nanny may God help her in getting back that poor little kid from the maniacs that have got him,” Benny said.
“Amen,” Dominick said.
They walked to the front door. Nonaka suddenly crouched, shouted, “Hrrrrraaaaaaaaaaagh!” and gave the door a devastating shot with his right hand, splintering the wood near the lock. In the hallway outside, a woman in curlers opened her own door as they went past.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Vice Squad,” Dominick said.
In the driveway of Many Maples, Luther and the boy paused before one of the rear windows, some three feet above the ground.
“That’s it,” Lewis said. “That’s my bedroom.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” he said.
“All right, I’m going to boost you up there,” Luther said, “but first I wish to reiterate the terms of our agreement. You are not to tell anyone where you’ve been . . .”
“Okay,” Lewis said.
“And you are not to reveal to anyone the identity of the people with whom you were staying.”
“I wouldn’t do that, anyway,” Lewis said. “Ida’s my friend.”
“What about me?” Luther asked, offended.
“You?” Lewis said, and stepped into Luther’s hands, and climbed over the sill into his room.
Bozzaris kept saying, “Uh-huh” into the telephone. He had been on the telephone from almost the moment he’d led Snitch into his office. Snitch assumed he was talking to someone at the lab, because whenever Bozzaris did not say “Uh-huh,” he said, “But what about semen stains?” At last, he said, “Well, you work it out, I’ll get back to you in the morning,” and replaced the phone on its cradle. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Snitch,” he said, “but first things first. In this corrupt and rotten city, we must deal with crime as it occurs, without favor or prejudice.” He smiled broadly, put both elbows on the desk, laced his fingers together, and rested his chin on his hands. “Now then,” he said, “what’s this major felony you’ve got?”
“Does the twenty-five-dollar offer still hold?” Snitch asked.
“Of course.”
“The major felony is a kidnaping.”
Bozzaris opened his eyes wide and whistled softly. “Who’s been kidnaped?”
“Carmine Ganucci’s son.”
Bozzaris whistled again. For the second time in as many days, the overpowering stench of money flooded into his nostrils and caught in his throat, almost causing him to gag. In all his years of experience, he had never heard of a kidnaping that did not involve a ransom demand. Nor was the kidnaping of Ganooch’s son any small-time endeavor; the ransom demand here would undoubtedly be astronomical. Be that as it may, he thought, kidnaping and ransom demands alike are evil. It is my job to combat evil in all its slimy forms, and furthermore, to intercept any and all funds gained through evil means, which everyone knows are only earmarked for future evil undertakings. The roots, he thought. Strike at the roots, hack them away, and the mighty tree of corruption will fall, while simultaneously the squad’s healthy and vigorous pension and retirement fund will spread its branches toward the beneficial rains of summer and grow to fruition perhaps sooner than expected.
“The information is worth twenty-five dollars,” Bozzaris said.
“Thank you,” Snitch said.
“You are a good man and a trusted adviser,” Bozzaris said, opening the top drawer of his desk.
“Thank you,” Snitch said.
“I hope you don’t mind being paid in singles.”
“No, that would be fine, thank you,” Snitch said.
“We have been picking these up here and there around town during the past month,” Bozzaris said, and handed a sheaf of bills across the desk.
“Thank you,” Snitch said. He began counting the dollar bills, and then took a closer look at the top one, and squinted, and looked at it again, his telephoto gaze zooming in on the picture of General George Washington:
“Thank you,” Snitch said glumly, thinking Crime does not pay.
In the living room at Many Maples, Nanny stared at the man with the stocking over his head and wondered how much longer she could stall him. She had already excused herself a total of four times, going into the kitchen and using the wall phone there to ring up Benny Napkins. Each time she had got only Jeanette Kay, who became increasingly more irritated because she was watching Friday Night at the Movies, and Nanny always called during a good part.
Arthur Doppio was very uncomfortable inside his stocking, but he supposed fifty thousand dollars was worth a little discomfort. He kept wondering when the Ganucci governess would come across with the money. All she kept doing, though, was asking him where the boy was, and then excusing herself all the time.
“Excuse me,” Nanny said again, and rose, and walked swiftly out of the room.
Arthur figured she had a weak bladder.
“Can you please step on it?” Benny said to the cabdriver. “I have to catch a ten-o’clock plane.”
“Plenty of time,” the driver said.
“I’m supposed to be there an hour before departure.”
“That’s what they tell you,” the driver said. “What they tell you is a lot of shit. You don’t have to get there an hour before departure.”
“I thought you did,” Benny said.
“Hello?” Nanny whispered into the telephone.
“He’s still not here,” Jeanette Kay answered, and hung up.
Nanny sighed, carefully replaced the receiver on its cradle, and walked out of the kitchen. As she passed little Lewis’s room, she glanced in and thought for a moment she saw the boy sitting up in bed, reading a comic book.
“Hello, Nanny,” Lewis said.
Dominick drove very slowly because he was unfamiliar with Benny Napkins’ little Volkswagen. Also, he did not have a driver’s license, and he did not wish to get busted on some bullshit traffic violation. When he heard the police siren behind him, he thought for a moment that Benny had saddled him with a stolen vehicle. But the radio motor patrol car went speeding by on his left, its red dome light flashing, siren shrieking, streaking off into the night.
Dominick wondered what a New York City police car was doing up here in Westchester County.
He decided to drive even more slowly.
“You understand,” the customs inspector said, searching, “that this is merely routine procedure, Mr. Ganucci.”
“I understand,” Ganucci said.
“We will very often make spot checks of citizens returning to this country.”
“I understand.”
“Taking them into this little room here, and stripping them down naked, as we have done to you.”
“Yes, I understand,” Ganucci said.
“Especially if we think they may be smuggling in heroin or diamonds or the like,” the inspector said, probing.
Ganucci coughed.
“Out!” Nanny said. “He’s back!”
“Who’s back?” Arthur asked in terror. “Ganooch?”
“The boy!”
“Thank
God!” Arthur said.
“Out!” Nanny said.
Coming up the driveway to Many Maples, Bozzaris passed a blue Plymouth sedan heading in the opposite direction. He turned quickly in his seat and caught a fleeting glimpse of the man behind the wheel.
“Is that a violation?” he asked his driver, a rookie who considered it a distinct honor to be chauffeuring the lieutenant.
“Is what a violation, sir?” the rookie asked.
“Driving a vehicle with a nylon stocking on your head?”
“Is that a trick question, sir?” the rookie asked.
“I don’t know what this goddamn city is coming to,” Bozzaris said, “pardon the French.” He shook his head in deep despair. “People running around all over the place with stockings on their heads. I’m sure that must be a violation.”
“Where did you wish me to park, sir?” the rookie asked.
“At the front door,” Bozzaris said, “of course.”
He got out of the car, walked up the path, and rang the bell under the Ganucci escutcheon, thinking all the while how unfair it was that an evil criminal like Carmine Ganucci could live in a beautiful mansion like this while he, Detective Lieutenant Alexander Bozzaris, lived in a two-family clapboard house in the Bronx across the street from a goddam junior high school.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Police officer,” Bozzaris said. “Would you open the door, please, ma’am?”
The door opened. A woman in a black dress with a little white collar peered out at him and said, “Yes?”
“Detective Lieutenant Alexander Bozzaris,” he said, and flashed the tin, which he knew in police jargon meant he was showing her his shield. “Upon information and belief,” he said, “a major felony has been committed on these premises, which I am here to investigate.”
“What major felony?” the woman asked.
“A kidnaping,” Bozzaris said.
“Nonsense,” the woman said.
“Upon information and belief,” Bozzaris said, “the son of Carmine Ganucci was kidnaped Tuesday night. May I come in, please?”
“I am the child’s governess,” the woman said, “and he is in his bed reading a comic book.”