It would be an easy job to knock over, he thought, one man could do it alone. But Salsa had always worked on lays that somebody else had set up and planned, and he really didn’t see himself as the kind of guy who ran a job from beginning to end. Besides, it was kind of an unwritten rule to leave syndicate operations alone. If he was ever really strapped for cash, he’d break that rule now that he knew about this setup, but until then he would forget it.
Salsa had forgotten till the letter came from Parker. Then he remembered and smiled in anticipation. It would be a pleasure to knock that place over. His first solo job ought to be something easy, anyway.
He had driven down the same day and scouted the territory. There was an additional piece of luck he hadn’t counted on, which came in handy. Next door to the gas station was a roadhouse which had burned down. The insides were gutted but the outer walls still stood. A lot of cheap skates who didn’t want to pay at the race track parking lot left their cars in the parking lot beside the roadhouse, so Salsa simply parked his car among them. He could look straight across at the gas-station office and through the plate glass to the desk where the stocky man sat every afternoon. Salsa had the Thunderbird, decked out in false plates, and he’d worked out his getaway route. All he needed was for the stocky man to get a phone call.
That, he’d decided, was the only way to do it, to wait until a phone call came so the safe would already be open when he went in. In daylight, it would be too chancy to make somebody open the safe during working hours. Better let them open it first and thengo in.
But over a week had gone by, and nothing. Either he was wrong, which was unlikely, or the commission houses were having a long spell of clear weather. So he’d wait till the end of this week, and then the hell with it.
He was just repeating that to himself when he saw Willy go into the office and answer the telephone. It was a wall phone, near the door, and Salsa could see him standing there through the glass of the door. He saw Willy turn away and say something to the other man, saw the stocky man suddenly jump to his feet, and dash to take the phone. Before Willy had even turned towards the safe, Salsa had dropped the binoculars on to the seat and started the engine.
He didn’t even have to go out on to the highway. A line of low scrub separated the blacktop of the roadhouse parking lot from the blacktop of the gas station. Salsa shot through the scrub driving one-handed while he slipped the mask on over his head with his other hand. It was a green Frankenstein mask he’d picked up in a five-and-ten. He clapped a hat on over the mask, and pulled the Thunderbird to a stop in front of the office. He jumped out of the car and strode in, pulling a gun from inside his jacket.
Maury was already off the phone. “Five on Flossie Billy. Five on Flossie Billy.” Willy was counting five thousand out of the green metal box in the safe, hundred-dollar bills in stacks of ten bound with strips of paper.
“Move away from the safe. Shut it, and you’re a dead man,” Salsa said.
Maury spun around, and saw Frankenstein, with a hat and a gun. Willy was skittering back away from the safe, ashen-faced, and Maury screamed, “Shut it, Willy! Shut it!”
Then Frankenstein took a step towards him and swung the gun. It hit Maury’s cheek and he fell backwards over the desk, landing in a heap on the floor. He saw things dizzily, through a red veil. He saw the masked man clout Willy with the gun. Then he saw him reach into the safe, stuff the hundreds back into the green metal box, shut it, and stand up with it tucked under his arm.
“Stay down,” Frankenstein warned. “The first head that comes up, I’ll shoot at through the window.”
Then he backed out of the office and Maury heard a car engine start and the squeal of tyres.
Willy was the first one up. he ran out of the station, leaving Maury there alone. Maury climbed up the desk and finally got his feet under him. He came staggering out, still feeling dizzy and terrified, and bumped into Willy who was coming back in.
“I couldn’t get a look at the damn plates,” Willy said. “It was a cream Thunderbird, but I couldn’t see the plates.” He pushed past Maury, “Lemme get to the phone, will you?”
“Phone? Phone?”
“I got to call the police, dumbhead!”
“Police!” A new terror grabbed Maury. “Jesus Christ, Willy! You can’t call the police!”
Willy stopped his hand halfway to the phone. “Oh!” he said. He looked at Maury. “The son of a bitch gets away clean.”
“I got to call my brother-in-law, Willy. Listen, you tell him. You tell him there wasn’t nothing I could do. Right, Willy? You were right here, right? There wasn’t nothing I could do.”
“Yeah, yeah!” said Willy distractedly. There was a look of awe on his face. “He’s away clean,” he said. “The son of a bitch is away clean.”
Maury dropped a dime into the phone, and dialled his brother-in-law’s number. While the number was ringing, he had another thought, and turned a pale face to Willy. “Sweet Jesus!” he whispered. “What if Flossie Billy wins?”
7
BRONSON STOOD AT one of the windows in his office, looking out at the night. Light spilled from other windows here and there along the façade of the house and illuminated the dark green lawn and the hedge separating lawn from sidewalk. The near curb was empty but, directly across the street, a blue Oldsmobile was parked. There was no traffic.
Twelve. Twelve robberies in five days. Over a million dollars gone, as though it had never been. Operations disrupted, customers upset, three Outfit employees dead. They couldn’t take that kind of beating. For God’s sake, a million dollars. Nobodycould take a beating like that.
And now Karns, the bastard from the West Coast, wanting a meeting of the national committee, wanting to know how the hell Bronson had managed to get them all into this mess in the first place. Karns wanted Bronson’s chair, and the only way a man ever moved up to another man’s chair was if the other man either moved up or got shoved off on his ass. But in Bronson’s case there was no up to move to he was at the top. There was no choice for him at all. He had to hold on to where he was or get shoved out, and Karns was all set to start shoving.
A million dollars. That was a hell of an argument, a million dollars, and Karns would use it. He’d argue that million dollars till Bronson was out and Karns was in, and Bronson was standing at the window now asking himself just what the hell he planned to do about it.
If it was only Parker, it wouldn’t be too bad. Go to the meeting with Parker’s head on a tray that would shut Karns’ face. But it wasn’t only Parker. Four robberies in one day, scattered all over the country. It wasn’t only Parker, it was Parker and all his damn friends. It was people Bronson had never heard of, people who were leaving banks and payrolls and armoured cars and postal trucks alone all of a sudden, and hitting the Outfit instead. Hitting race tracks and casinos and lay-off bookies and numbers collectors. Waltzing away with a million dollars in five days and giving that bastard Karns the opportunity he’d been waiting for since ‘56.
Bronson brooded. Hang it on Fairfax? Maybe that would do it. The whole mess with Parker had started in New York, in Fairfax’s territory. Fairfax had met Parker, had talked to him, had set up the trap which Parker had breezed through when he’d been paid his lousy $45,000. So even though Fairfax had set up the trap at Bronson’s order and Stern had been sent South at Bronson’s order, those arrangements could be sloughed over.
All right. Call the meeting Karns wanted. Throw Fairfax in Karns’ lap. Then see what could be done about Parker. Square the beef with him or kill him, whichever seemed best. Kill him, if possible, otherwise, square things. Let Karns chew on Fairfax and the hell with them both. Bronson had never liked Fairfax much anyway.
And when things quieted down, move a few reliable people into the West Coast operation and gradually nudge Karns out.
So the whole thing was good in a way. It had brought Karns into the open, had let Bronson see which of the regional men he had to worry about as far as trying to
take over was concerned. It was Karns now he knew it. And he had also learned that none of the others was dangerous, because only Karns was trying to blame Bronson. So now he knew more than he’d known before. Besides that he could get rid of Fairfax, so maybe Parker was doing him a favour.
All over the house, rococo clocks struck eleven. Bronson grimaced at the muffled sounds. A cab stopped out front. Quill. Bronson had been up here waiting for him, but, now that Quill was actually coming up the walk, it didn’t matter any more. There were twelve robberies already, so how much did the first one matter? Furthermore, he’d just planned how to get everything straightened away.
Bronson watched Quill coming up the walk, and, beyond him, he noticed the blue Oldsmobile still parked across the street. It irritated him. This wasn’t a street for blue Oldsmobiles. This was a street for Cadillacs, for Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, for Imperials and Continentals, and an occasional ancient grey Packard.
But the character of the street was changing, no denying it. He wondered if Willa would be wanting to sell the house soon, and who would buy it. A convent, maybe, or a school for retarded children. Half the houses along the street had already been turned into institutions. Bronson’s neighbour to the left was now a school for the blind, his neighbour to the right a fraternal organization’s headquarters with a small blue neon sign over the door. Neon! On a street like this! But streets like this were anachronisms. Today’s rich were all Arthur Bronsons; they preferred red leather and chrome. The old mansions were too forbidding, and too heavily taxed; the foundation of society was being displaced by foundations.
The blue Olds a sign of it. Someone working late at one of the institutions, no doubt. Bronson shrugged it out of his mind and went out to the hall to meet Quill, who had been let in by one of the bodyguards. Willa was already in bed. They had played Russian bank together that afternoon, but it had only upset both of them. Bronson didn’t really like Russian bank. He played it because he had to do something to relieve his boredom. He felt guilty about wanting to avoid Willa in her own home, and Russian bank was the game Willa liked to play. They didn’t play for money or anything, just to see who would get high score and win, so it didn’t do much to liven things up.
Bronson didn’t know it, but Willa didn’t care for card games at all, not Russian bank, or any other card game. She played because she knew her husband liked cards and because she wanted to keep him from getting too bored. Usually, when they played, she kept up a steady chatter of small talk, not because she wanted to, but because she thought the chitchat also would help to ease her husband’s boredom. But, when he was worried about business, she knew he preferred silence, so that afternoon she had been silent.
Bronson had been glad Willa was quiet for once. On each of his rare visits home, they played Russian bank, and usually she talked her head off and nearly drove him crazy, but he didn’t say anything about it because he didn’t want to spoil her enjoyment. He was so seldom home anyway. That afternoon she had been silent, which was a relief, particularly since he kept losing.
Willa had tried not to win, because she knew it made her husband feel better if he won, but he hadn’t been concentrating on the game at all so she kept winning despite herself. She wore an apologetic frown throughout the game because she couldn’t keep from winning. She was keeping score, and she kept adding her score up wrong, to give herself less than she really had, but it didn’t do any good. She just kept on winning until finally they quit by mutual consent. Bronson hadn’t seen her since, except for a glimpse of her going by the office door on her way to bed, an hour ago.
He had to get out of this mausoleum soon. Willa was driving him crazy. When he was away from her, it was all right, but when he was in the same house with her, he felt as though he ought to make some effort to be friendly to her, and the strain left his nerves ragged.
Well, at least he wouldn’t have to introduce her to Quill. Some sense of his being an interloper himself forced him to introduce everybody who came in the house to see him to Willa, including the bodyguards. At the same time, he knew it was ridiculous to introduce your bodyguards to your wife as though they’d come for a meeting of the gentlemen’s auxiliary of the DAR. But she was in bed, as she’d been the first time Quill had come, so, fortunately, he wouldn’t have to present him this time either.
Bronson stood at the head of the stairs and watched Quill come up. Quill was the new breed. He wore grey suits and horn-rimmed glasses, he carried a briefcase, he looked like an insurance adjustor, and if he ever did tote a gun, which was unlikely, it would be a Berretta Minx.
“Hello, Mr Bronson,” Quill said, from the landing. He started up the rest of the way. “A real mess, that Cockatoo situation.” He could have beenan insurance adjustor, the way he talked.
If he switches the briefcase to his left hand and tries to shake hands with me, Bronson thought savagely, I’ll kick him downstairs.
But Quill shook hands only with clients or other adjustors, not with employers. He reached the head of the stairs and said, “Very nice house, Mr Bronson. Really very fine.”
“You said that last time.”
Quill smiled easily. “I must mean it, then.”
“Yeah. Well, Quill, come on into the office.”
Bronson led the way. Of course, this was necessary. What he’d been thinking a minute ago that the talk with Quill was superfluous now was wrong. The Club Cockatoo had been robbed, which should have been impossible. It was Quill’s job to find out why it hadbeen possible, so it would never be possible again. And after analysing the Cockatoo problem, Quill would have to investigate the other eleven robberies as well. Something was wrong with the whole organization if they could be hit so easily. No matter what was done with Parker, with Karns, with Fairfax, these other problems were real and had to be solved.
They went into the office. Bronson sat at his desk while Quill opened his briefcase and started producing masses of paper.
“I made a thorough investigation, Mr Bronson,” he said, “and I believe I have come to some conclusions which may startle you.”
“Is that right?”
“Now” Quill started to open one folded sheet of paper which he kept unfolding endlessly. It eventually turned out to be a large blueprint of the Club Cockatoo. “Now, in order for you to get the picture, to see whythis happened, you’ll have to see howit happened. May I?”
He wanted to spread the plan on the desk. Bronson grudgingly cleared space for it. Then Quill stood at his elbow, planted a finger on the blueprint and started talking. He had reconstructed the movements of the robbers from beginning to end, and he now described the robbery in detail, his finger tracing the path of the robbers in through the front door, through the maze of the plan and out again by the side door. Despite himself, Bronson got interested in the recital, and followed the operation, his eyes on the moving finger.
After his reconstruction of the robbery, Quill straightened up and went to the other side of the desk for his briefcase and the mass of papers.
“I have here,” he said, “statements from virtually every Club Cockatoo employee. You can go through them later, I’ll just give you the high spots now.”
He put the mass of papers on the corner of the desk and ticked off the main facts on his fingers. “Number one: No one at the Club Cockatoo, from the manager on down, had ever considered the possibility of an armed robbery by experienced professionals. They were prepared for amateurs, who might come in waving guns and shouting ‘Stick ‘em up,’ or pass notes to the cashiers to put all the money in a canvas bag, that sort of thing, but they were not on guard against intelligent professionals.
“Number two: No one at the Club Cockatoo, from the manager on down, had any idea what to do in case a successful robbery actually did take place. There was no organized plan, no procedure for this eventuality. As a result, the search for the robbers was undertaken exclusively by a limited number of Club Cockatoo employees, with no experience or instruction of this kind of activity. It
wasn’t until five hours after the robbery that the manager finally thought to call the local organization head for more capable assistance. By then, of course, it was too late. If the call had been made at once, there would have been fifty expert armed men on the robbers’ trail within half an hour.
“Number three: No one at the Club Cockatoo, from the manager on down, was prepared to offer any real resistance to an armed robber. The attitude seems to be that the Outfit makes enough money to absorb a robbery or two, so there’s no sense risking one’s life.
“Number four: The employees of the Club Cockatoo all behaved as though they were employees of any ordinary lawful corporation, without the self-awareness of divorcement from society which should reasonably be a part of their make-up.”
Bronson was lost by now, but he nodded anyway.
Quill held up four fingers. “So there are four things which set the club up,” he said. “They didn’t think they’d be robbed, they hadn’t thought about what to do if they wererobbed, none of them would risk being shot to protect the organization’s money, and they didn’t think of themselves as crooks. In a nutshell.”
“Hold on,” Bronson held up his own hand, ringers splayed like a traffic cop’s. “What do you mean, they don’t think they’re crooks?”
“They workfor a living. They have an employer; they pay income tax; they come under Social Security; they own their own homes and cars; they work in local industry. They know the corporation they work for engages in illegal activities, but they think what-the-hell, everycorporation these days does, from tax-dodging through price-fixing to government bribing.”
“What’s that got to do with anything, Quill?” There was an undertone of warning in Bronson’s voice. He thought of himself exactly as Quill had described it. He wasn’t a crook. Bastards like Parker were crooks. Bronson thought of himself as a businessman. All right, he was a criminal, but everybody was more or less dishonest, particularly in business.
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