by Patrick Mann
“Oh, man, I gonna remember you.”
“I hope somebody does.”
Baker had moved in closer with a younger man beside him, who was wearing the same shade of gray suit. “This is Murphy,” Baker said. “He drives you to JFK.” He jerked his thumb at the driver. “Take off, buddy.”
Two cops hustled the black driver away. Joe eyed his replacement. Murphy, like his boss, had the knack of seeming not to be there. He didn’t actually look at Joe, but at a point to one side of him. Although his hair was not gray, like Baker’s, it probably would be some day. He had already mastered the trick of not sweating. It probably came from knowing that he had a license to do anything he wanted in this world and call it justified.
Joe pictured him killing. He looked even better at it than Sam. “No way. Not this one. I want him.” Joe indicated the original driver.
“I can’t allow that,” Baker said.
“You can’t allow! I’m running this show. Get this bastard out of here and get the dude’s black ass back over here. Now!”
The cops were hustling the black driver back. “Hey,” he was protesting. “No way, man. Not me.”
“You,” Joe said, sealing his fate.
He turned to the gay demonstrators, who had raised the big banner again, waved, and blew them a kiss. A roar went up from the homosexual contingent. One of the TV crews, standing on top of a van, had missed the whole thing.
“Hey, Joe,” the cameraman shouted. “One more time.”
Joe nodded, smiled, waited until the telephoto lens was trained on him, then gave him the old Sicilian up-yours sign, ramming his right arm forward and chopping his left against it. Both sections of the crowd, gay and straight, burst into helpless laughter. He turned back in time to find Baker and Murphy with identical looks of disapproval on their bland faces.
“Just drive us to JFK,” Joe told the black driver.
“Do I got a choice?”
“No.”
The driver eyed Baker, who, reluctantly, nodded. Littlejoe then patted down the driver in a rather professional way, checking his pockets and lingering long enough on the inside of his groin to start another chorus of sucking noises from the original bystander group. In a pocket, Joe came across a small decorated bottle with silver miniature spoon attached by a chain, a coke-sniffer’s kit. He glanced at it and then at the driver, whose eyes had widened apprehensively.
“Not on duty, man, right?” Joe asked.
“Right.”
Joe shoved the bottle out of sight and slapped the driver’s rump. “You’re gonna do fine, baby.” He turned to Baker. “I’m ready.”
“Remember,” Baker said grimly, “they come out lockstep and Sam is last. Don’t forget that.”
The driver rolled his eyes. “You mens shoot, you aim for white meat, dig?”
Joe smiled at him. There was still a remnant of the smile as he turned to Baker and Murphy. “Tell him how to get there.”
“Just follow me. That gray Ford.” Baker frowned at Joe. “What about the third perpetrator? There was a third man inside there with you.”
“Eddie? He’s sleeping it off in the vault. He’s out of it, Baker.”
Littlejoe walked back into the bank. Everyone looked up. “This is it,” Joe said. He watched Sam straighten the knot in his tie. “That’s right, baby. Show them you cared enough to wear the very best. Marge, tuck in those luscious titties.” He watched her quickly button up the front of her blouse, which had been open because of the heat.
“Boyle, you’re a mess.”
The manager got to his feet and tucked his shirt more firmly into his belt. “Can’t let down the old Chase image.”
Joe shook his head pityingly. “Still Chasing rainbows, huh?”
“What else is there?”
“I don’t know, Boyle. My life could end in the next five minutes. Nobody gives a shit if I live or die. I bust my gut and nothing do I get back in this life. Even tonight, I mean, who knows what’ll happen?”
Boyle rubbed his chin. As he talked, he raked his fingers nervously through his sparse hair, in lieu of a comb. “What makes you so special, Joe? We’re all pissed off at life. Kids get sick and die. The roof leaks. I cheat on my wife. The dog gets run over. Joe, it’s one long tale of disaster, not only here, all over. Bombings, famine, earthquakes, napalm. The name of the whole thing is life, Joe. So stop your bitching.”
In the silence that followed, Marge cleared her throat. “Another cigarette, please, somebody.”
“No more,” Sam said.
“Okay,” Joe shouted, “let’s snap into it. We form a line and we close it up very tight. Everybody takes a left step at the same time. Then a right. We move into the back of the car. There’s plenty of room.”
“In what order?” Boyle asked.
Outside the crowd was yelling for action. The gay demonstrators were chanting, “Say it clear. Say it loud. I’m gay and I’m proud.”
“Well?” Boyle persisted.
Littlejoe knew he was biting his lower lip. He tried to stop it. Didn’t look right at this point for him to seem that nervous. “Boyle, you’re so eager, you lead off the line.”
Boyle nodded and went to the open door of the bank. The limo stood about three yards from the door, nine or ten feet in which a sniper could chew Sam to chunks.
“Okay, a few more people and Sam. Then a few more and me. I come at the tail end.”
Sam was shaking his head. His big, dark eyes looked very solemn; his cupid’s-bow mouth was tight with tension. “Boyle first, then Ellen, then me,” he said. “That makes sense. But then, like, Maria and then you, Joe, and Marge at the end.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“Marge at the end,” Sam insisted, “or we don’t go.”
“Why Marge?”
“Okay, anybody but you or me. Make it Boyle.”
“I’ll bring up the rear,” Marge volunteered.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Littlejoe began. “It’s a—”
“I’m bringing up the rear,” she announced firmly. “That puts the two senior bank people at the front and back of the line.”
“Hey, man,” the driver called through the open door. “I am sweating a whole lot out here.”
“We’re coming,” Joe promised him. “Sam?”
“Let’s go.” He moved behind Ellen and shoved her up against Boyle. Then, very ostentatiously, Sam brought the .45 automatic up to her ear. “Let’s go, man,” he repeated shakily. A rim of white showed all the way around his irises. “Let’s for shit’s sake go.”
24
The heavy plate-glass door of the bank was propped open. Littlejoe saw snipers on rooftops begin to nestle in for a steady shot, the muzzles of their high-powered rifles cradled on bits of coping. With the caliber and charge of the slugs they were using in the interests of accuracy, a bullet could easily tear through two people front to back.
The sandwich took one step forward, unsteadily. Joe realized he’d have to count cadence if he was ever to get all of them in step. His life and Sam’s—all their lives, in fact—depended on being squeezed tightly together. He saw that Sam had rammed himself up against Ellen’s tight little behind as closely as if she were a boy.
“Halt!” he called. “When I say ‘left,’ everybody moves their left foot one step forward.” He remembered a wisecrack from Nam. “You all know which one is your left foot?”
“Come on, Littlejoe.” Sam’s voice sounded agonized. Maybe he knew what the problem was, Joe thought, maybe he didn’t. Either way, he was tense, and it wasn’t good when Sam got tense.
“Okay, left. Right. Left. Right. Halt.”
They paused for a moment just outside the bank. Boyle was within a yard of the open limo door. Marge, in the rear, was a yard from the bank door. Joe had draped Sam’s jacket over the middle of the line, from his head forward over Maria’s, Sam’s, and Ellen’s. He hoped it would confuse matters, but he doubted it. He took a deep breath. The smell of fre
sh bread had begun to nauseate him.
“Joe, for shit’s sake, Joe,” Sam muttered in a tight undertone. “Let’s move it, Joe. Move it.”
The sound of panic turned Sam’s voice into a staccato burst, like a machine gun being fired in short bursts. “Left,” Joe called, “right, left, halt.” Boyle inside. “Okay. Left. Sam, this is it.”
“Quick, man, f-f-Chrissake, quick.”
“Ellen and Sam. In! Move! Go!”
There was a moment of silence. The sandwich that remained consisted of Maria, Joe, and Marge. “Nowicki!” Baker’s voice thundered over a bullhorn. As he had from the very beginning, the FBI man pronounced Joe’s name correctly. Not like a Polack, Joe told himself now, but close enough.
Littlejoe had retained Sam’s vanilla-colored jacket. It was draped over Maria and himself now. He held the carbine cradled in his left arm, his left hand raised to hold the jacket in place.
“Nowicki!”
He knew what was bugging Baker. The Feebie hated to be doublecrossed. He thought he’d made a deal for Joe to sell out Sam. Slowly, letting go of the hem of Sam’s jacket for a moment, Littlejoe extended his arm in the air and proffered his second finger to Baker in a last salute. The crowd loved it.
“Okay,” he muttered in Maria’s ear, “this is our turn, querida. Ready, Marge?”
“Any readier and I’d pee in my pants.”
“Snuggle up. Here goes. Left, right, left, right, in!” The three of them tumbled into the rear of the limo and slammed the door shut.
Joe dropped the carbine on the floor and produced Leroy’s .38, which he held to Marge’s head. “Roll down the window.”
When she had he turned to Sam. The muzzle of the Colt .45 automatic had never left Ellen’s temple. In his near panic Sam had pressed the blued metal so tightly to her skin that an angry red showed just beyond the outer corner of her eye. “Home free, Sam,” Littlejoe told him.
“Let’s move this thing, man. We ain’t home free yet.”
The wideness of Sam’s eyes bothered Littlejoe. Cautiously he leaned forward to the open window. “Move it out, Baker!” he shouted. “Otherwise they die right here in the limo!”
“Aw, naw!” the driver said. “No shooting, man. Give me a break.”
“Tell Baker,” Joe suggested.
“Can we start moving?” the driver called out from his window.
“Otherwise, he’s got a hell of a laundry bill,” Joe added in a carrying voice. The crowd broke up with laughter. But the gray Ford refused to budge.
“Please?” the driver called. “I ain’t too proud to beg.”
The Ford’s right-hand door opened and Moretti got out into the glare of the searchlights. As he had when Joe first saw him, hours ago, he gave his cocoa-straw hat a tidy little tug. He moved slowly toward the black Cadillac limo and came to a halt by the open window.
“Joe,” he said then. “You got Baker so pissed off, he’s going to welsh on the deal.”
“What deal?” Sam snapped.
“You see?” Joe told the detective. “Why did you let that fucking Feebie in on the act?”
“I had no choice, Joe.” Moretti’s eyes searched for his for some sign that they were talking the same language. The brilliant lights picked out hot stars amid the beads of sweat on his forehead. “This is a national bank. Heisting it’s a federal rap. They let the local cops try their hand, but once they decide to take charge, that’s it. I warned you. I said if you didn’t cooperate with me, you’d be up against the Feds. How does it feel?”
Littlejoe moistened his lips. It was even hotter inside the limo than it had been on the street. “Driver,” he called, “are we air-conditioned? Turn it on, man.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” The motor turned over, and a moment later cool air began to filter back into the rear of the limo.
“Listen, Moretti,” Joe said then. “There is no way Baker would ever get a real man to do what he wanted. There is no human being that low. You know it. I know it. Only Baker don’t know it.”
The detective paused a moment before speaking. “That’s all water over the dam. We’re past that now. We’re into a new phase.”
“Which means?”
Moretti produced a deep Calabrese shrug, lifted up from his very toes. “Only Baker can tell you that.”
“Cut the shit, man,” Sam said. His teeth had started to chatter faintly. “Cut the talk. Let’s move. Otherwise this kid dies.”
“They all die,” Joe told Moretti. “Tell that one to Baker.”
The detective’s glance went past Joe to Sam’s face. He stared for a long moment. Then he turned and went back to the gray Ford. He got in and slammed the door. Joe rolled up the Caddy window.
“This is the coolest I’ve been for hours,” Marge commented. “Harry,” she said, “are we going to last the night?”
The manager sat huddled in a corner of the first rear seat. Sam sat in the middle and Ellen sat on the far end, slumped back against the seat as if she’d been thrown there. “Ask Joe,” Boyle suggested.
“Ask Baker,” Joe corrected him.
“Let’s move, Littlejoe,” Sam chattered. “Let’s moo-ove.”
“Amen, brother,” the driver added.
The four people from the bank, Joe, Sam, and the driver now turned forward to watch the gray Ford. Joe could only guess what was going on inside between Moretti and Baker. Minutes passed.
“Hey, getcha cold beer here!” a vendor chanted.
“We love you, Littlejoe!” a woman’s voice yelled.
“Kiss, kiss!”
“Kiss, kiss!”
“Kiss, kiss!”
At last, slowly, as if reluctant to move, the gray Ford began to inch forward toward the far end of the street. Uniformed police cleared a path through the crowd.
“Hot shit,” the driver said. “Here we go.”
He let the heavy car inch forward. At the other end of the street the police relaxed their guard, and bystanders began to swarm into what had once been the combat zone. The Caddy moved slowly through a thickening crowd of people, like a whale through sprats. Joe glanced left and right, alert to a possible trick. But what could they do now? The moment to have picked them off was past.
Standing between two uniformed cops, Lana leaned forward and made a kissing face, her over-rouged lips opening and closing. Joe failed to respond. The limo was moving slowly, a few feet at a time. Flo’s face loomed on the opposite side of the car. She too pantomimed “kiss, kiss.” Joe faced forward. “How about some speed, man?” he called to the driver.
“Any second now.”
A young gay demonstrator began running beside the limo as it picked up speed. He was carrying a hand-lettered sign:
WE LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOU, JOE!
Littlejoe stared straight ahead at the tail lights of the gray Ford. A moment later they had turned out of the block and onto a side street that led to Queens Boulevard. A revolving red beacon on top of the gray Ford began to turn slowly, twiddling long beams of red light. There was a low growl of nearby sirens. Two cops on motorcycles began to keep pace with the limo, one on each side.
Now they were moving along Queens Boulevard as if in a dream, no traffic, not even bystanders. Apparently the entire route had been cleared by traffic cops. Joe saw some of them standing on overpasses, glowering at the small cavalcade of cars and motorcycles.
They were in Rego Park now, his home. Up ahead a TV van was parked on the parallel service road. A camera with a long lens followed the Ford and the Cadillac as they swept past. Tina would be watching, of course, Joe thought, but she didn’t even have to haul her droopy ass to the window. She could see it all on the tube.
They were speeding through Forest Hills, past delicatessens, Chinese restaurants, bagel bakeries, a movie theater. Now they were in Kew Gardens. Never in his life had Littlejoe moved so quickly through the borough of his birth. It was as if, in saying good-bye, the whole place was flashing before his eyes.
“Man,
this is slick,” the driver was saying. “I’m doing sixty-five.”
Sam produced a peculiar noise from somewhere in his throat. Joe realized it was Sam’s chuckle. “I feel better.” Sam said then. “Don’t you feel better, Littlejoe?”
“We all feel better,” Boyle cut in.
“Baker don’t feel better,” Joe amended.
The gray Ford swerved right onto the approaches to the Van Wyck Expressway. The cavalcade edged over, road by road, and sped toward the airport. Green-and-white signs heralded its approach. They were only a few miles away, speeding through the hot night from Kew Gardens into Jamaica.
Up ahead, the sign for the airport loomed big. The gray Ford turned into a cloverleaf that led to the Belt Parkway, but before it could feed into the arterial the car swerved into a service road that ran alongside a high cyclone fence. A moment later it slowed at an open gate, manned by four armed airport guards. It turned in, and the limo followed closely behind. The motorcycles fell back. The sirens were silent.
Littlejoe peered into the darkness ahead. They seemed to be on some sort of deserted runway. He could see a plane standing there in the distance, but he couldn’t tell what kind it was. Suddenly the gray Ford stopped.
“What now?” Joe asked nobody in particular.
“I’m stopping, man,” the driver told him.
After the long burst of turnpike speed, the sudden stop felt strange to Joe. He had been lulled by the speed. Now all the old anxieties swarmed over him again. “What’re they doing?”
“They’re out of the car,” Boyle said. “They’re, uh, talking on those little radios.”
“Can I leave you gentlemen and ladies now?” the driver asked.
“Shit you can, man.”
“I got a nice life,” the driver went on, more to himself than to anyone in the car. “I got a nice young chick for an old lady. Everybody meets me likes me. I feel real good with my life, you know? I just want it to go on, man.”
“Nobody’s interested,” Joe told him.
“Look!” Sam yelped.
The landing lights of the plane had been turned on. Now the immense craft was taxiing toward them. It looked huge, with its four engines, a 707 or DC-8, Joe decided, more than enough range for an ocean hop.