The Procane Chronicle

by Ross Thomas

  I looked at him for several seconds and then I looked at Procane. After that I looked down at the Walther in my hand. It was smeared with blood, Procane’s blood. He would have repaired it, of course. He was like that. Malfunctions probably offended him. On our way back to Washington he would have fixed whatever had gone wrong with the gun. He might have been working on it while Wiedstein was playing chicken with the Oldsmobile.

  I remembered that there was a half-bath in the reception hall. I went in there and took a strip of toilet paper and started smearing the blood on the automatic. I flushed the paper down the toilet but kept a small piece wrapped around the trigger guard. I stuck my small finger through the trigger guard and carried the thing that way.

  On my way out of the bathroom I caught a glimpse of somebody in the mirror. There was something wrong with his eyes. They glowed a little wild. Something was wrong with his mouth, too. It was half-open and the lips looked loose and slack and almost gray. It looked like the face of someone who wanted to throw up. I clamped my lips together and narrowed my eyes, but it didn’t do any good. I still wanted to throw up.

  I went back into the living room and stood next to Procane, looking down at him, trying to remember whether he was right- or left-handed. I couldn’t remember so I took a chance and carefully placed the automatic near his right hand. Then I knelt, picked up the hand, and inserted it beneath his jacket. I moved it around a little and when I brought it back out it was bloody. I gently placed it on the carpet next to the blood-smeared automatic.

  If he were right-handed, they would find traces of nitrate on it—the result of his bad marksmanship at the drive-in. As for fingerprints, the gun was so smeared with blood that I didn’t think they’d worry about them too much. They’d find his prints on its magazine, if they bothered to look.

  I moved back to admire my handiwork. It wasn’t particularly original, but the newspapers would have a good time with the story. Shoot-outs in Georgetown aren’t all that common. The cops would love it, too.

  I looked at the three suitcases. I had got them mixed up and couldn’t decide which contained the heroin and which contained the money. I picked one at random and tried to open it. It was locked. I took out a nail clipper and started fiddling with the locks. They were cheap cases and the locks proved to be no problem. A sixteen-year-old dropout from Harlem had once spent an afternoon showing me how to pick simple locks. At one time I could open any General Motors car with nothing more than a fingernail file.

  I opened the lid of the case. There wasn’t any heroin. Just money. They were fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills, old ones. They were bundled into neat stacks that were bound with strips of brown paper. The figure ten thousand had been written on each strip with a ballpoint pen.

  The money fascinated me. I must have looked at it for a long time. I thought about how easy it would be to lift out four or five stacks and tuck them away. The inside breast pocket of my jacket would hold two easily. I could get another couple of packets into my hip pockets. They wouldn’t be uncomfortable. I heard something and it almost startled me. But it was nothing to worry about. It was only a sigh, a sad one tinged with regret, my own brand.

  I closed that suitcase and picked up one of the cases I hadn’t opened and took it back to the kitchen. Then I went back and got the remaining one that I hadn’t inspected.

  I opened them both on the kitchen floor next to the sink. Inside they were packed with carefully arranged double clear-plastic bags. Inside the bags was a white crystalline powder. I picked up one of the bags. It seemed to weigh a little more than a pound. I turned on the water in the sink and then ripped the bag open. I wet my finger and stuck it inside the plastic bag and then gave my finger a tentative tongue lick. It wasn’t milk sugar.

  I found the switch for the disposal and turned it on. It made a harsh, grinding roar. I dumped the white powder into the sink. The water caught it and swirled it down the drain. It took me nearly thirty minutes to open the hundred half-kilo plastic bags and flush a million dollars’ worth of heroin down the disposal and into the sewer system that led to the Potomac. I found myself wondering what it would do to the fish and decided that that was something else for the Izaak Walton League to worry about.

  I gathered up the empty plastic bags and put them into one of the suitcases. I found a sponge and carefully mopped up the drainboard, the sink, and the floor. I let the disposal and the water run for another five minutes. It they took the plumbing apart, they could probably find traces of heroin. If they were looking for it. I didn’t think that they would be.

  I carried the suitcases back into the living room. The one that contained the empty plastic bags I carried into the half-bath in the reception hall. I took the bags out five at a time and flushed them down the toilet. There were a hundred of them and I had to flush the toilet twenty times. I would have used the living room fireplace, but fire doesn’t do much to plastic except melt it into a smelly glob. I don’t know what fire does to heroin. Probably nothing.

  After I was finished in the bathroom, I picked up the two empty suitcases and started up the stairs. The fourth floor was an attic. I thought it would be. Old houses like that have attics. This one was full of junk. There was a bureau with peeling veneer. A couple of old-fashioned steamer trunks. Some heavy cardboard boxes with twine tied around them. Three rolled-up rugs. A forty-year-old RCA radio-phonograph, as big as a small pony, with cabinet work that was too good to throw away. Five four-foot stacks of the National Geographic. Three shadeless floor lamps, and a dusty couch covered with velveteen that had worn spots on its arms and back.

  The couch was against the wall so I pulled it out enough to put the two suitcases behind it. I piled some copies of the National Geographic on top of the cases. They might be found tomorrow or next year. I didn’t really care.

  I went back downstairs and looked around the living room. My watch said it was eleven-fifteen. I lit a cigarette and looked about for something else that I could tidy up. I didn’t see anything except the two dead bodies, but there was nothing else that I could do for them.

  I used the toilet to get rid of the cigarette. Then I went back and picked up the suitcase that held the million dollars. It weighed about thirty pounds. That’s what a million dollars should have weighed at 490 bills to the pound. Ten thousand fifty-dollar bills. Five thousand one-hundred-dollar bills. Thirty pounds of money. A million dollars.

  Carrying the suitcase, I went carefully down the back stairs into the garden. I followed the glittering white path to the alley where I stopped to rest. My arm ached. I picked up the suitcase again and made it to the end of the alley where I put it down again. Thirty pounds shouldn’t have been that heavy, but by the time that I got to Wisconsin Avenue I had put it down and picked it up ten times.

  There weren’t any cabs, of course. I stood at the curb, the suitcase at my feet, and waved at anything that went by. A young kid of about twenty with long hair and a Chester A. Arthur moustache watched me for a while. He was leaning against a wall, wrapped up in an old army officer’s overcoat that was three sizes too big for him. When he got tired of watching me he came over and said, “Excuse me, sir, have you got any spare change?”

  I found forty-two cents in my pants pocket and handed it to him. I always do. They’re the future of the country. “Have a good time,” I said.

  He looked at the coins. “Thank you, sir. Now I can buy a gallon of gas.”

  “Have you got a car?”

  “Well, it’s sort of a car.”

  “It’s worth ten bucks for me to get to National Airport.”

  At the mention of ten dollars his eyes lit up. As I said, they’re the future of our country. “You’re almost there,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He was right. It was sort of a car. Fifteen years ago or so it had been used to deliver milk. Now it was covered with various shades of glo-paint and a lot of bright sayings such as, “Free Sirhan Sirhan” and “Save our Piranhas.”

  The kid
helped me store the suitcase in the back where the milk used to be. Now it contained a mattress, a small gasoline stove, a frying pan, and a cardboard box of canned goods. “Home,” the kid said.

  “Looks lived in,” I said and went around to the front of the truck. At one time there had been a folding seat behind the wheel for the milkman to sit on. But it was gone and the kid had to drive standing up all the way to National Airport. I couldn’t feel sorry for him because there was nothing for me to sit on either.

  “You a salesman?” he asked when we were almost there.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It figures.”

  “Why?”

  “That suitcase. It was heavy.”

  “I know.”

  It was eleven forty-five by the time we got to Eastern’s entrance at the airport. I gave the kid his ten dollars and he thanked me and we went back and got the case out of the rear.

  “I’d help you with it but I can’t double park here.”

  “That’s okay.”

  He eyed the suitcase. He wanted something else so I waited to find out what it was. Finally he said, “Why dontcha let me have a free sample?”

  I shook my head. “You wouldn’t like it”

  “Why?”

  “It makes some people sick.”

  That interested him. Drugs would. “How sick?”

  “Some people die from it,” I said, picked up the case, and walked toward the terminal.

  I managed to buy a seat on a midnight flight to New York. After I checked the suitcase through I found a pay phone, dropped in a dime, and dialed 444-1111. When the man’s voice said, “Police Emergency, Officer Welch,” I said, “There’re two men dead.” Then I slowly recited the number on N Street.

  “Northeast?” he said.

  “No,” I said. “Northwest. In Georgetown.”

  25

  MILES WIEDSTEIN AND JANET Whistler listened in silence until I had finished telling them about Procane and Constable and what I had done with the heroin.

  They were seated in a couple of chairs in my apartment. I was at the poker table. The suitcase rested on top of it. It was closed.

  A silence began when I stopped talking. It continued for several moments. Finally, Wiedstein said, “I want to drink.”

  “That’s dumb,” Janet Whistler said.

  “I didn’t say I was going to have one; I said I wanted one.”

  “There’s some Scotch and gin over there,” I said, nodding toward the Pullman kitchen.

  “Don’t force it on him.”

  “It’s there if he wants it.”

  “I don’t want it enough,” Wiedstein said. “Not yet.”

  “The cops will know we were there,” Janet Whistler said. “Mrs. Williams will tell them we were there.”

  “We had dinner with Procane,” I said. “That’s all. Then we left. At eight-twenty.”

  “And drove around,” Wiedstein said. “Sightseeing.”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “What if the neighbors were snoopy?” Janet said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Wiedstein said. “If they were, they saw the four of us come back. Two men went in the house. It could have been Procane and Constable—not Procane and St. Ives.”

  “I wandered around on my own after dinner.” I said. “I caught a picture I’d missed in New York. Then I flew back here.”

  Janet Whistler looked at Wiedstein once more. “What was Constable doing with us?”

  “Visiting Procane,” he said. “We picked him up at the airport after we let St. Ives out downtown.”

  We sat there for several moments, thinking about our alibis and how rotten they were. But unless the police got lucky, we would never have to prove them. And if the police got really lucky, alibis wouldn’t matter in the least.

  Wiedstein rose, walked over to the kitchen, and took down a bottle of Scotch. He uncorked it and sniffed the aroma. He put the cork back and replaced the bottle. He turned and looked at Janet for a moment. Then he looked at me.

  “What do you think your cut should be, St. Ives?”

  “Of a million dollars?”

  “That’s right. Of a million dollars.”

  “Nothing.”

  He let himself look surprised. “Scruples?” he said. “It’s a little late for those, isn’t it?”

  “I’m all out of scruples,” I said.

  “What about a third?” he said. “You killed Constable. That should be worth about a third of a million.”

  “To you?” I said.

  He nodded. “Sure. To me. Why not?”

  I shook my head. “No thanks.”

  He turned to Janet Whistler. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “How do you want to split it?”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I’m not going to fight over it. If we start fighting over it, one of us will wind up dead. It’s not worth that. Not to me anyway. Do what you want to with it.”

  “You want me to tell you how much you get?”

  “Yes, she said, “that would be all right.”

  “A fourth,” Wiedstein said.

  “A fourth,” she said. “Fine. A quarter of a million. Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand. That’s fine.”

  “Count it out,” he said.

  She rose and moved toward the poker table. She walked slowly. When she was halfway there she turned toward me and made a small, somehow helpless gesture. “Have you got anything I could put it in?”

  “I’ll find something,” I said.

  She nodded and continued toward the poker table. When she reached it she turned and looked back at Wiedstein. “You’re taking the rest?”

  “Would you object?”

  She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t object.”

  I went to a closet and rummaged through it until I found a ziparound overnight bag. I carried it over to the poker table. “Here,” I said. “You can use this.”

  She zipped open the bag and then lifted the top of the suitcase. For nearly a minute she stood there and stared at the money. Wiedstein rose and moved over to the table and also stared at it. I stared, too.

  “Count it out,” Wiedstein told her.

  She nodded and started placing ten-thousand-dollar packets in the overnight bag. The ones made up of hundred-dollar bills were approximately half an inch high. The ones with fifty-dollar bills were twice that. After she put twenty-four of the packets in the overnight bag, she took a ten-thousand-dollar packet of fifty-dollar bills, stripped off its paper band, carelessly divided it, and placed about half of the bills in her purse, the rest in the overnight case.

  “That’s it,” she said, zipping up the case.

  “Not quite,” Wiedstein said.

  “What else?” she said.

  “Insurance.” He started counting ten-thousand-dollar packets onto the poker table. When he had counted fifty of them onto the table, he closed the suitcase and looked to me.

  “Now you’re in just as deep, St. Ives.”

  “A half-million dollars’ worth,” I said.

  “Procane’s share,” Wiedstein said and picked up the suitcase that now contained his own share—a quarter of a million. “Come on,” he said to Janet, “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said.

  “You’ve got it anyway.”

  They moved toward the door, each of them carrying a small fortune and leaving a larger one behind. Wiedstein opened the door. Janet Whistler gave me a small wave of her hand and then went through it. She didn’t say good-bye. She just waved.

  “What’ll I do with it?” I said.

  Wiedstein stopped at the open door and looked at me, a small smile on his face. “With half a million dollars?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  26

  MYRON GREENE HAD A big desk but a half-million dollars managed to make it look small.

  “Is it all there?” I said.

&nb
sp; Greene looked up. He was counting the money. For the third time. “It’s what you said it was. Five hundred thousand.”

  “Well?”

  He shook his head and frowned. “It’s stolen money.”

  “It doesn’t look stolen.”

  “I mean there’s no source for it. No legitimate one at any rate.”

  “Make it an anonymous contribution.”

  He shook his head again. “Did you ever hear of anyone who gave away half a million dollars anonymously?”

  “The most I every gave anonymously was five dollars,” I said. “After that I wanted credit.”

  “The IRS would—well, I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “We can split it”

  He looked up at me. “You’re kidding, of course?”

  “Not necessarily. If you can’t think of a method to give it away, we can keep it. You can invest my share for me.”

  “But it’s Procane’s money.”

  “Procane’s dead and it wasn’t his money. It belonged to the drug dealers. He stole it from them and I helped. They got it from the junkies. Procane wanted to give it to that drug clinic up in Harlem. He seemed to enjoy the irony of the idea. But you say it can’t be done.”

  Myron Green frowned again. “I didn’t say it couldn’t be done. I said it would be difficult.”

  I got up and moved toward the door. “Let me know how you work it out.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  He walked around his desk, picked up a packet of the money, and riffled through it. He looked at the money and then at me.

  “You could have kept it all, couldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there would have been no way to trace it?”

  “None. Almost none anyway.”

  “And you helped steal it?”

  I shrugged. “I suppose I helped. At least I didn’t get in the way.”

  “But you can’t keep it.”

  “No, I can’t keep it.”

  “I want to ask why.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “All right, why can’t you keep it?”