by Ross Thomas
By six o’clock the phone hadn’t rung so I waited until six-fifteen and then dialed a number. A man’s voice said, “A to Z Garage.”
“Parisi there?”
“Who?”
“Parisi,” I said slowly, pronouncing each syllable with care. “Johnny Parisi.”
“Nobody here by that name.”
“Just tell him it’s Philip St. Ives.”
“St. what?”
“Ives,” I said. “You want me to spell it?”
“Lemme see.”
I waited a while and then Parisi came on the phone with, “Hello, Lucky.”
“I like your new secretary.”
“You mean Joey. He’s something, isn’t he?”
“Something’s as good a description as any.”
“By the way, when I got home last Saturday from your place, I found out I really took a bath. I dropped nearly nine hundred bucks and most of it to Ogden.”
“He needs it. His daughter’s starting to college next month.”
“Like shit he needs it. With what he knocks down he could send a dozen of them to college and never miss it.”
“Nobody’s that rich.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Parisi said. “It ain’t like when you and me were going to college. I don’t understand these kids today, always raising hell and trying to take over the schools.”
“They’re different,” I said.
“Maybe they ought to have to work their way through like we did,” Parisi said, apparently convinced that missing six set shots in a row qualified as work.
“You free for dinner tonight?” I said.
“I’ve got to see a guy downtown about ten.”
“Come over around eight and I’ll buy you a steak.”
“Dominic’s?” he said.
I sighed. Dominic’s meant a forty-dollar tab at least. “Dominic’s.”
“Okay,” Parisi said. “At eight.” I started to say good-by, but he said, “You’re working again, aren’t you?”
“I’m working.”
“I figured as much,” he said, and hung up.
Dominic’s was a medium-sized restaurant on West 54th Street that had leaped into popularity and a measure of notoriety after a Hollywood motion-picture star began to use it as his New York headquarters because it was quiet, the food was good, and a friend of his who was fairly prominent in the criminal hierarchy owned thirty percent of it. The actor once held court in a small alcove just off the main dining room until the word got around and the out-of-town tourists started to flock there and order things like spaghetti and meatballs and even pizza, which made the chef angry enough to threaten to quit. The movie star stopped coming, the owners raised the prices, and the out-of-towners flocked to other places where they could goggle at some celebrity who was worth talking about when they got back home to Joplin or Cedar Falls. Or to Chicago and Dallas for that matter. The citizens of Joplin and Cedar Falls are not the nation’s only celebrity gogglers.
Now Dominic’s was once more quiet, the food was excellent, the prices remained astronomic, the chef was happy, and the restaurant fulfilled its original purpose of losing money for its owners, whose accountants employed the deficit to offset the profits from other businesses which were not quite so respectable.
Parisi was already there, chewing on a piece of celery, when I arrived a few minutes after eight. He waved the stalk around as he chomped on the vegetable. “I’m trying to quit smoking,” he said. “They say that celery helps.”
“Good luck,” I said, and lighted a cigarette.
“Oh, hell,” Parisi said, and fished out his amber cigarette holder. “Let me borrow one from you; I’ll quit tomorrow.”
We ordered drinks, a martini each, and then began to study the menu.
“You hungry?” Parisi asked.
“Fairly so.”
“Me, too. I didn’t have any lunch. You want to go a Chateaubriand?” A chateaubriand was $27.50.
“Fine.”
Parisi grinned at me around his cigarette holder. “Like I said, I’m hungry.”
Parisi got into a long conversation in Italian with the waiter about how the steak should be cooked, the salad prepared, and what wine to order. I looked around the restaurant, which was only half full. The alcove where the actor formerly held court was dark and empty and I felt that perhaps it should be turned into a national shrine. While waiting for the steak, Parisi and I talked about poker and drank to absent friends.
“That guy Wisdom took a bath last Saturday, too,” Parisi said as he lit another borrowed cigarette.
“He can afford it.”
“How much did his grandma leave him, five million?”
“Seven, but it’s in a trust fund and he has to live off the income.”
“How much do you think that is?”
“At five percent it would be $350,000 a year, but he’s probably doing better than that.”
“Christ, with that much money he could sure dress a little better than he does.” Parisi liked people to be neat.
“With all that money he can afford to be a slob,” I said.
Parisi nodded, not so much in agreement, but as if expressing the universal conviction that if he had that much money, he could spend it far more efficiently than could Park Tyler Wisdom III who went around in sneakers and a sweat shirt, for God’s sake.
“What does he do?” Parisi said. “I mean he just doesn’t play poker all day long.”
“Jokes,” I said.
“Jokes? Like in the Reader’s Digest?”
“No, not like that. Wisdom likes to play elaborate jokes on fairly prominent people who don’t have a very good sense of humor.”
“Then they don’t get the joke.”
“That’s what makes it funny to Wisdom.”
Parisi was interested. “What kind of jokes? I mean do you remember any of them?”
“Well, there’s the Bonford Gentry Park story.”
“What’s that?”
“Wisdom has this farm or estate, I suppose you would call it, in Connecticut. He also had an old Airedale that was half blind who stayed on the estate with the caretaker. The dog must have been thirteen or fourteen years old and it drooled a lot. One time the caretaker took the dog into this small town which is near the estate and it got out of the car and wandered away. It was in the summer and the dog’s tongue was hanging out and it was slobbering like old dogs do, especially Airedales. Well, the mayor of the town happened to see it, called the local cops, and they shot it.”
“They thought it was a mad dog, huh?” Parisi said.
“That’s what they said.”
“So what happened?”
“The caretaker got the dog’s body and took it back to the estate and buried it. Then he called Wisdom and told him what had happened. Wisdom didn’t do anything for a couple of weeks and then he drove up to Connecticut and called on the mayor. There was some property that the city owned which it wanted to turn into a park. Wisdom offered to donate the money for the park improvements provided that they would call it Bonford Gentry Park after an old friend of his. He also offered to put up a fountain. The mayor agreed to all this, even to calling it Bonford Gentry Park. The mayor seemed to think that Wisdom was harmless enough for a millionaire. The park was developed and Wisdom paid for everything—the trees, the swings, the seesaws, the shrubs and what have you. The plumbing for the fountain was installed and the day before the park was to open Wisdom had the fountain trucked in at night, erected behind canvas, and connected to the plumbing.
“The next day was Saturday and the unveiling of the new fountain. After a speech that thanked Wisdom for his contribution to the town, the mayor pulled the cord that unveiled the fountain. The water was turned on at the same time. Around the base of the fountain was the inscription: To Bonford Gentry, Dear Friend and Close Companion, 1954-1968. The fountain was an eight-foot statue of Bonford Gentry, who, of course, was the Airedale that the mayor had ordered shot. His left leg
was cocked up in the air and he was peeing the water. Wisdom said it made a pleasant splash.”
“Huh,” Parisi said. “What did the mayor do?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t he remember the dog and having it shot?”
“No.”
“Then he didn’t get the point.”
“No,” I said, “that’s what made it so funny to Wisdom.”
“Well, it’s sure not like those funny stories you read in Reader’s Digest,” Parisi said.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s nothing like those.”
When we were through with the chateaubriand, we ordered some $2.00-a-glass brandy and some 75-cent-a-cup coffee. Parisi borrowed another cigarette from me, inserted it into his amber holder, and lit it with one of his own matches.
“Okay,” he said around or through the holder, “you didn’t buy me a steak just so you could tell me some dog stories.”
“You’re right.”
“What’s your problem, one of those go-between deals?”
“Yes,”
“Where?”
“Washington,” I said. “Do you guys have anything in Washington?”
“Huh uh,” Parisi said. “Not a thing. The colored boys have got it all sewed up down there and we just leave them alone. The closest we are to Washington is Baltimore. There’s pretty good action in Baltimore.”
“I’m supposed to buy something back for $250,000 from whoever stole it. They seemed like pros. They’ve also killed one guy so I’d like to make sure that they don’t have any similar plans for me.”
Parisi brushed some imaginary ashes from his double-breasted vest with its flapped pockets. “We got a call about a month and a half ago about you,” he said.
“From whom?”
“From a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who wanted to know something.”
“About me?”
“You know, if you were all right and all. I didn’t think anything about it. I just told them that we’d never had any business dealings with you, but we knew some people who had and they didn’t have any complaints.”
“This was how long ago?”
Parisi looked up at the ceiling and started counting on his right hand. “Six weeks at least; maybe seven.”
“That could be about right.”
“You want to talk to the guy that I talked to?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think so.”
“He’s way down the list, you understand. He may not know a goddamned thing except the name of the guy who asked him to call us.”
“I understand.”
“You can tell him I told you to call if you want to.”
“Thanks.”
“You want to write it down?”
I found a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen. “Okay.”
“His name is Al Shippo. Albert M. Shippo in the phone book.”
“What’s he do?” I said.
Parisi shrugged. “He hangs around.”
“I’ll call him.”
“Mention my name.”
“All right,” I said, signaling to the waiter for the check. While I paid it, Parisi drummed on the table with the fingers of his left hand.
“You know something?”
“What?”
“The statue of that dog pissing.”
“What about it?”
“I was just thinking,” he said. “That might be worth driving over to Connecticut this Sunday just to see.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THE next morning I was standing in a musty phone booth in the lobby of the Eubanks Hotel, a seedy, almost furtive establishment that catered in an embarrassed kind of way to the old who, thirty years or so before, had believed those insurance-company advertisements which had lied about how they could retire comfortably on $150 a month.
Except for a middle-aged room clerk behind the desk who seemed to be suffering from a vile hangover, the only occupant of the lobby was a thin, bald oldster with milky blue eyes who looked to be in his seventies. He struggled out of the depths of a battered couch that probably was called a davenport when it was new and hobbled carefully over to the booth.
“You going to be in there long, son?” he asked. “I gotta make a call and the other phone’s not working. I gotta call my doctor about some medicine for my sciatica. It hit last night right about—”
The phone rang and I picked it up and said hello, closing the door of the booth as I nodded pleasantly at the old man who was having trouble with his sciatica, or who just wanted somebody to talk to.
“Mr. St. Ives?” It was a man’s voice this time, but it seemed fuzzy and blurred, as if he were speaking through a mouthful of wet cotton.
“Yes.”
“The old man who just spoke to you has been paid five dollars to hand you an envelope. In the envelope are instructions. If you follow them exactly, you’ll get the shield back.” There was a click and the phone went dead.
I turned in the booth and looked at the old man, who was grinning at me and nodding happily. It could have been the most fun he had had since the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. I put the phone on its hook, opened the door, and stepped out of the booth.
“You the fella?” the old man said.
“If you’ve got an envelope, I am.”
“They gave me five bucks just to hold it till you got here.”
“Who gave you five bucks?”
“Kids,” he said. “A couple of hippies with long hair and beads. I was sitting here last night watching Lucy when they came in and I figured to myself that they were a little far uptown. But they just looked around and saw me, wasn’t nobody else, so they come over and say they’re going to lay five bucks on me to give an envelope to a gent who’ll be in the phone booth at eleven o’clock this morning. So I says, ‘Let’s see the five bucks,’ and they say okay and give me the five and the envelope. I ain’t opened it neither. You with the FBI?”
“No.”
“CIA maybe?”
I didn’t want to disappoint him. “Treasury,” I said.
“T-man, huh?” he said, and looked around the lobby to make sure that nobody was listening. The only one who could have been was the room clerk, who sat behind the desk with his head in his hands, wishing that the world would end.
“You got the envelope?” I said.
“What’s it worth to you?”
“Another five. I’d make it more, but they’re cracking down in Washington.”
“New administration, huh?”
“Right.”
He reached into the inside pocket of a shapeless gray coat and brought out an envelope. I reached for it, but he moved his hand away. “You said something about five bucks.”
“You’re right again.” I took out my wallet, found a five, and handed it to him. He handed me the envelope.
“I never opened it,” he said. “Can’t say I didn’t think about it, but I never opened it.”
“I’ll mention that to the chief,” I said.
“Aw, shit,” the old man said, turned, and hobbled back to his place on the sofa which was two feet from a television set that crackled happily away with lots of squeals and laughter.
I didn’t open the envelope until I was back in my room at the Adelphi. The contents had been typed on drugstore bond with a manual machine, if that was either a comfort or a clue to Lieutenant Demeter and Sergeant Fastnaught. I felt that it wasn’t. There were numerous x-outs and the style was strictly Monopoly imperative:
Get $250,000 in used tens and twenties Thursday. Drive to third Howard Johnson motel on Jersey Turnpike. Check in by six. Do not contact police. Wait in motel for instructions.
I decided that they were indeed professionals. Motels were proving popular in the go-between trade. They were useful for either completing the transaction or for observing how well the intermediary obeyed instructions. A familiar pattern, one which I had followed twice before, was to check into the motel with the money, parking my unlocke
d car at least six or seven doors away from my room. I waited in my room for a predesignated amount of time and then left, leaving the money in the closet, and the door to the room unlocked. I then went to my car, now locked by the thieves, opened it and looked under the seat for whatever it was that I was supposed to buy back. In both recent cases it had been jewelry. I had been instructed to wait in my car for five minutes until the thieves had the opportunity to make sure that the money was really in the suitcase or the satchel or the airline carryall bag in the closet of the motel room. Then I was free to drive off, bearing the jewels back to their rightful owner, and the thieves could head south to spend the money in Miami or San Juan or Biloxi.
The anonymity that surrounds motels, especially the smaller, cheesier ones that do a brisk hot-bed business, makes them eminently suitable for such transactions. A thief can check in two days before he gives the go-between the instructions to make sure that the police aren’t occupying the rest of the rooms. The go-between’s advantage lies in his ability to get to a phone quickly if he finds that there’s nothing under the front seat of his car. And finally, neither the thieves nor the go-between ever confronts each other, which is primarily to the thieves’ advantage unless the go-between is as cautious as I am.
I read the typed message three times and then picked up the phone and placed a person-to-person call to Frances Wingo in Washington. It went through quickly enough when I identified myself to her secretary.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” I said. “I have some news.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve just received a message from whoever has the shield. They want the money Thursday. That’s tomorrow.”
“All right,” she said. “Where shall I bring it?”
“You?”
“I believe it to be my responsibility.”
“I won’t dispute that. I just thought it might be a little heavy for you. They want it in used tens and twenties and that much money weighs around fifty pounds.”
“I’m sure I can manage,” she said. “Where shall I bring it?”
“To my hotel, the Adelphi.” I gave her the address.