Inside Job

by Levinson, Len

  Ricci sat on his cot. He didn’t want to go to one of those jails where the apes screwed him up the ass. He’d probably fight back and they’d probably kill him. So he’d be dead while Brody, Hardesty, and Laganello went free. And it was Brody’s idea in the first place. Why should he take the rap for all those guys? Somehow it didn’t seem fair.

  Pelletier and Shannon returned to the Taj Mahal Hotel to get some of Ricci’s clothes. They returned with the stuff to the police station, and went to Ricci’s cell.

  Ricci stood up as the door was unlocked.

  “I’m ready to talk,” Ricci said.

  Pelletier and Shannon took Ricci back to New York the next morning. They booked him for attempted robbery and didn’t make the charge more specific because they didn’t want to tip off the press.

  They got the files of Dennis Laganello and Robert Hardesty.

  No new information had been received concerning the whereabouts of Michael Brody.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was two o’clock in the morning in Greenwich Village. Hardesty, wearing a new black cashmere topcoat and a gray fedora was walking east on Bethune Street toward his apartment building. He had had a few drinks in a jazz club on Bleecker Street and listened to some good music.

  The street was lined with trees and quaint browns tones. Many people thought Bethune Street was one of the most picturesque streets in the village. Cars were parked bumper to bumper in the narrow street, and Hardesty walked along with his hands in his topcoat pockets, thinking that maybe he’d go home for a few snorts of coke and then take a cab to Harlem.

  A car door opened about twenty feet in front of him, and two men got out. Hardesty froze—they looked like cops. He heard a car door open behind him, and turned to see two more guys get out.

  It was a classic bust situation. They’d sprung a trap on him and he’d been too stupid to see it coming. Cursing, he veered toward a space between two cars.

  The cops took out their guns. “Hold it right there, Hardesty!”

  Hardesty ran across the street, his heart chugging in his chest. A shot rang out, slamming into a car parked at the curb. He got behind the cars on the other side of the street, took out his gun, and fired a shot at one of the cops. The cop went down.

  “He’s got a gun!”

  Hardesty fired another shot, but all the cops were hidden behind cars now. Crouching, he ran toward Washington Street, but stopped when he saw four uniformed cops round the corner, guns in hands.

  “Drop that gun, Hardesty!”

  Hardesty looked around excitedly. There was a shot, and pavement exploded near his feet. There was an alley between two buildings, and he knew it was his last chance in this world. He ran into it and hoped there was an exit at the other end, but as he moved along he saw there wasn’t. The two buildings had no doors on their sides, and in back there was a twelve-foot fence. Hardesty took a deep breath and leapt high in the air, and ripped his hand open on the barbed wire at the top of the fence. Stifling the cry in his throat, he fell to his knees in the dark alley.

  A bunch of detectives and uniformed patrolmen appeared at the entrance to the alley.

  “Come out with your hands up, Hardesty. You haven’t got a chance!”

  They had their guns pointed at him, and he knew they were right. He didn’t have a chance. He had come to the end of the line.

  “Drop that gun, Hardesty!”

  He didn’t want to go to court and he didn’t want to go to jail. He didn’t want his picture on the front page of the Daily News and he didn’t want to be a disgrace to his family, but it was too late now.

  All he could do, in one final act of desperation, was put the barrel of the gun against his temple, close his eyes, and pull the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Pelletier and Shannon went to Langanello’s apartment on West 88th Street the next day and found that he and his family had left for parts unknown. They still hadn’t got a lead on Brody.

  Then they received a report from the Motor Vehicle Registration Bureau in Albany. It seemed that Laganello had bought a van and had it registered in New York, then a few weeks later exchanged his New York plates for California ones in Los Angeles County.

  That night Pelletier and Shannon departed New York via a TWA jetliner for Los Angeles.

  Langanello had moved to Santa Monica, a beautiful community of tall apartment buildings and private homes nestled against the Pacific Ocean. He had bought a house on a peaceful palm tree-lined street a couple of blocks from the beach, and was in the process of having his stolen money laundered through a bank in Orange County. He would have to give almost half of it to crooked bank officials, but that would leave a lot for himself. The money would be safe and he could do anything with it that he liked. Like go into the real estate business.

  So Laganello slept peacefully on that particular night in February. His wife Millie slept beside him, her hand touching his. His infant son slept in his luxurious bedroom down the hall. There were two color television sets in the house, and two cars in the garage. The Langanellos were living pretty well.

  Suddenly the light went on in the master bedroom. Laganello opened his eyes, felt hands on his wrists, then metal. The room came into focus as consciousness dawned on him. He saw men in topcoats and uniformed policemen. He was handcuffed. His wife was screaming. Two cops dragged him out of bed. The delicate crystal of his life had been shattered.

  “You’re under arrest for murder and armed robbery,” said a man in a topcoat.

  The man had the pasty complexion of New York City, and his voice had the harsh inflexions of the metropolis that Laganello had left so far behind.

  Or so he’d thought.

  The next afternoon, at a shopping center in northern Maine, two state troopers pulled their patrol car into a parking spot behind a blue Dodge pickup truck.

  “I’ll get the coffee this time,” said Dawson, a rookie with the State Patrol.

  “No, I’ll get it,” said Sandusky, a three-year veteran. “I want to see that little waitress again.”

  Sandusky got out from behind the wheel and swaggered toward the restaurant. Dawson sat in the passenger seat, and for lack of anything better to do, looked at the blue Dodge pickup truck. Suddenly it occurred to him that they had received an A.P.B. from New York on such a pickup truck. Naw, it couldn’t be the same one. He reached for his clipboard and looked for the bulletin. Yes, the description was for a blue Dodge pickup with New York plates.

  That was a blue Dodge pickup with New York plates.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brody heard the sound of automobiles coming down the road, and opened his eyes. He was lying in bed under a down quilt, and had only his shorts on. Taking his revolver from underneath the pillow, he got out of bed and crept to the window.

  There were four cars, and they stopped about fifty yards away. Men poured out of them and started fanning out around the cabin. Brody reached for his pants and put them on. He sat in the chair and pulled on his socks, then stuffed his feet into boots. Suddenly the cabin was bathed in bright light. Looking out the window, he saw bright searchlights but couldn’t count how many there were.

  “This is Shannon,” said a voice over a loudspeaker, “and we know you’re in there, Brody! Come out with your hands up!”

  Brody took aim at one of the lights, and fired his revolver. The lights didn’t diminish in intensity. He’d missed.

  The air erupted with the sound of gunshots. Brody dropped to the floor just in time. The windows shattered and bullets whizzed overhead. He heard a series of louder explosions, and heard tear gas canisters slam against the walls. The cabin filled with acrid smoke.

  Brody took out his handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose. Liquid began pouring from his burning eyes.

  “Come out with your hands up, Brody! You haven’t got a chance!”

  Brody coughed convulsively; the handkerchief couldn’t keep the gas out of his lungs. He wondered how they had found him
. He knew if he stayed in the cabin much longer the gas would make him useless.

  Crouching, he ran toward the door. He pulled it open and ran out into the snow.

  “Hold it right there, Brody!”

  But Brody had no intention of holding it right there. He fired a shot at the lights and stumbled through the snow toward the woods. In his feverish brain he knew that he would never make it, that he didn’t have a chance, but it was the only chance he had.

  They opened fire at him with rifles and machine guns. Bullets ripped through his body and he screamed in pain. He fell to his knees, and vomited blood. He tried to aim his revolver but it wobbled in his hand and the lights seemed to be going out. A machine gun burst caught him across the chest and threw him backwards onto the ground.

  The shooting stopped. The cops looked at the lifeless figure on the ground. It twitched a few times, then was still.

  Pelletier raised his hand and moved it forward. With their weapons at the ready, the police advanced.

  “If he makes a move, shoot him again!” Pelletier ordered.

  The police drew closer, but Brody didn’t move. He would never move again. The police stood around him and looked down. His torso was soaked with blood.

  “Bring in the meat wagon,” Pelletier said.

  Shannon bit his lip to hold back the tears. He knelt down and touched Brody’s forehead.

  “He used to be my partner,” Shannon said, and then he let himself cry. “He saved my life once in the East Bronx,” he blubbered. “He was a good cop.”

  Pelletier looked at Shannon and Brody, then turned away. He couldn’t help thinking that if circumstances had been a little different, he might be the one lying dead in the snow.

  The ambulance came closer and stopped. They got out the stretcher.

  Poor stupid son-of-a-bitch, Pelletier thought, reaching for his pack of cigarettes.

  In the moonlight, they loaded Brody’s body onto the stretcher.

  Painting by Ari Roussimoff

  My So-Called Literary Career

  by Len Levinson

  As I look back at my so-called literary career, which consisted of 83 paperback novels by 22 pseudonyms, I’ve concluded that it all began in 1946 when I was 11, Fifth Grade, John Hannigan Grammar School, New Bedford, Massachusetts.

  A teacher named Miss Ribeiro asked students to write essays of our choosing. Some kids wrote about baking cookies with mommy, fishing excursions to Cuttyhunk with dad, or bus to Boston to watch the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway Park, etc.

  But my mommy died when I was four, and dear old Dad never took me anywhere. So Little Lenny Levinson penned a science fiction epic about an imaginary trip to the planet Pluto, probably influenced by Buck Rogers, perhaps expressing subliminal desires to escape my somewhat Dickensian childhood.

  As I wrote, the classroom seemed to vanish. I sat at the control panel of a sleek, silver space ship hurtling past suns, moons, asteroids and blazing constellations. While writing, I experienced something I can only describe today as an out-of-body, ecstatic hallucination, evidently the pure joy of self-expression.

  I returned to earth, handed in the essay, and expected the usual decent grade. A few days later Miss Ribeiro praised me in front of the class and read the essay aloud, first time I’d been singled out for excellence. Maybe I’ll be a writer when I grow up, I thought.

  As time passed, it seemed an impractical choice. Everyone said I’d starve to death. I decided to prepare for a realistic career, but couldn’t determine exactly what it was.

  In 1954, age 19, I joined the Army for the GI Bill, assuming a Bachelor’s degree somehow would elevate me to the Middle Class. After mustering out in 1957, I enrolled at Michigan State University, East Lansing, majored in Social Science, graduated in 1961, and travelled to New York City to seek my fortune.

  Drifting with the tides, in 1970 I was employed as a press agent at Solters and Sabinson, a show biz publicity agency near Times Square. Our clients included Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Bob Hope, the Beatles, Flip Wilson, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Holiday on Ice, Playboy, Caesar’s Palace, numerous Broadway shows, and countless movies, among others. It was at Solters and Sabinson that certain life-transforming events occurred, ultimately convincing me to become a full-time novelist.

  The wheels of the cataclysm were set in motion innocuously enough by press agent Jerry Augburn, whose desk jammed beside mine in a large, open office packed with approximately 20 hustling press agents and secretaries.

  Unusual in that raucous atmosphere, Jerry was a well-mannered WASP from Muncie, Indiana with B.A. in English from Ball State U and Ph.D. from Columbia. Through some trick of fate, instead of becoming a professor, he landed in entertainment publicity. Together we represented the New York Playboy Club, and individually worked for other clients.

  One day Jerry complained he wasn’t feeling well. Soon afterwards he was diagnosed with leukaemia, stopped coming to the office, and left word he didn’t want calls. A few months later he died around age 35. Intelligent, capable, good guy, husband and father—suddenly gone. Wow.

  I never thought much about death until Jerry’s passing. According to Hinduism which I studied at the time, death is a normal stage through which all sentient beings pass on journeys to next incarnations. Perhaps I’d return as a chimpanzee, fish or possibly a cockroach someone would stomp.

  Weeks passed; the office seemed to forget Jerry, like he never existed. Jerry’s desk was taken over by Jay Russell, press agent in his 50s, who spent his days writing column items.

  One night approximately three months after Jerry’s demise, Jay and I worked late. I went home around 9pm, leaving him behind. Next morning, I learned that he died of a heart attack that night sitting on his home toilet, writing column items. I’m not making this up. That’s the story I was told. Perhaps he wrote one so funny, his heart burst with glee.

  After Jay’s funeral, I reflected upon Death striking twice at the chair beside mine. Was I next on the hit parade? Meanwhile, the office returned to its usual pressure cooker atmosphere. After a few weeks Jay was forgotten like Jerry.

  I was 35, looking down the road at 40. If I died at my desk or on the toilet, unquestionably I too would soon be forgotten by co-workers and clients. What was the point of busting my chops if it meant nothing in the end?

  I’m not exaggerating about busting my chops. Competition for clients was ferocious. A press agent was only as good as his last media break. If it didn’t break—it never happened. If you didn’t produce steady breaks—you were on the street.

  In pursuit of my paycheck, I spent substantial time on the phone asking editors and reporters to run my press releases, interview clients, and cover events. All too often they rejected my pleading, because they only had so much space, and their phones never stopped ringing from press agents’ calls, their mailboxes stuffed daily with press releases.

  Gradually it dawned upon me that I was in the wrong job for my personality type. But what on earth was the right job for my personality type?

  Since the fifth grade my grandest ambition remained: novelist. In light of Jerry’s and Jay’s passing, I slowly came to the life-altering realization that I didn’t want to kick the bucket without at least attempting to fulfil my highest career aspiration.

  I’d already tried writing at home evenings, after working in the office, but my mind was too tired. If I wanted to be a novelist, I needed to approach it like a job, first thing in the morning, four hours on the typewriter, no distractions. That meant I’d need to quit my regular job. My savings would support me for around a year. Surely I’d appear on the bestseller list by them.

  But I wasn’t totally delusional. I knew that substantial risk including possible homelessness accompanied the novelist’s life. I had no family to provide financial assistance if I hit the skids.

  On the other hand, if I played it safe and remained in PR, suppressing unhappiness, I’d probably evolve into a well-pensioned, gray beard
ed, ex-PR semi-alcoholic residing comfortably in a West Side co-op, or gated community in Boca Raton, happily married to a former Playboy Bunny.

  BUT the day inevitably would arrive when I’d be flat on my back in a hospital bed, tubes up my nose and jabbing into my arms, on the cusp of Death Itself. And knowing how my mind tends to function, I’d reproach myself viciously for not at least attempting to live my dream, since I was going to die regardless. Why not go for the gold ring of the novelist’s life, instead of getting put down daily by journalists?

  After much meditation on death, heaven, hell, destiny, mendacity and art, I resigned my press agent career and threw my heart and brain cells completely into writing novels. It was the bravest, most consequential and possibly most foolish decision of my life.

  You can call me shallow, immature, irresponsible and/or insane. But I never betrayed my ideal. Against the odds, I went on to write those 83 paperback novels, mostly in the high adventure category, about cops, cowboys, soldiers, spies, cab drivers, race car drivers, ordinary individuals seeking justice in an unjust world, and other lunatics, but never rose above bottom rungs of the literary ladder, and probably was considered a hack. Sometimes even I suspected myself of hackery.

  One of my novels, The Bar Studs by Leonard Jordan (Fawcett) sold 95,000 copies, and I was on my way to the big time, or so I’d thought at the time. Publishers Weekly judged it: “Tough as they come, but surprisingly well done.” My next sold around 20,000.

  My favorite, The Last Buffoon by Leonard Jordan (Belmont-Tower), was possibly most vulgar and disgusting novel in the history of the world. A photo of me adorned the cover, standing in a trash can in Greenwich Village, true metaphor for my so-called literary career. Amazingly, The Last Buffoon got optioned for the movies, but like most such deals, no movie was made.