Caper

by Lawrence Sanders

  Donohue and I strolled. It was getting on to twelve, but that raunchy neighborhood was alive. The night people were out: the pimps and prosties, the pushers and hooked, the drunks and the loonies. The streets were thronged with the pushing, noisy, brawling mob.

  “You trust him?” Donohue asked.

  “As much as I trust you,” I said.

  He gave me another of his scintillating grins.

  “Fair enough. I’m just wondering if he’ll be there if push comes to shove.”

  “Sure he will,” I told him. “He’s not a paper doll. He won’t fold.”

  “If you say so.”

  Upstairs at the Harding, we went to his room. He fixed us drinks. We kicked off our shoes.

  “Where you from, Jack?” I asked him.

  “Originally?” he said. “You wouldn’t believe.”

  “Sure I would.”

  “How about a good Irish-American family in Boston? Sister a nun and both brothers priests. Father and uncles in city politics. Plenty of cops in the family, too. How does that grab you?”

  “You’re the black sheep?”

  “Blacker than black.”

  “Ever go back?”

  “To the family? Now and then. The prodigal son returns. They kill the fatted calf. Always glad to see me. No questions asked. We have a ball.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “They think I’m going to hit it big one of these days.”

  “Sure you are,” I said. “On Friday night.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  He seemed vulnerable, sapped by the memories. Failure dogged him. Suddenly I felt guilty.

  “Let’s go to bed,” I said.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON HERE

  I HAD A LARGE-SCALE map of Manhattan and a hand-drawn map of East 55th Street between Fifth and Madison avenues. The homemade one showed every store and hotel front on the block. I included taxi stops, a construction site, and the location of traffic lights, no-parking zones, etc.

  Then I began drawing up a schedule: What time the car should start from the Hotel Harding. How long it would take to drive south to East 55th Street. Where the car should be parked. How long the robbery itself would take. The getaway.

  I knew that Brandenberg & Sons should be invaded the moment the front door was opened for business at 10:00 A.M. With that as my start, I scheduled time for parking the car, time for getting downtown from West 94th Street, time for the mob to assemble at a predetermined point. I allowed for plenty of slippage in case of late arrivals or unexpected traffic jams.

  Gradually, over those two days, I evolved what I thought was a reasonable and efficient plan of action: preparation, advance on the target, assault, and withdrawal. I plotted the most efficient routes.

  I also planned personnel deployment. I would drive the getaway car. I would stay outside, double-parked, motor running, while Fleming, Donohue, and the other two thugs we recruited would pull the actual job. Mask or no mask, I thought I might be recognized by Noel Jarvis. And he had my real name and address. The others would be strangers to him. He had seen Dick Fleming once, briefly, but I doubted if he’d recognize him in a mask.

  I went over my marvelously detailed scheme again and again, eliminating, adding, refining. I thought it took every possible eventuality into account, and, as written, was ready for word-for-word transferral to the next Big Caper novel I’d write.

  Most of this literary work was done in my East 71st Street apartment. When the details of the Brandenberg & Sons ripoff were complete, I transcribed the entire thing into my journal, the Project X that was fattening into a full-length manuscript.

  Then, on Thursday night, I prepared for my dinner date with Noel Jarvis. He had called, and I had accepted. The femme fatal of East 71st Street—and points west!

  That dinner turned out to be something special. We went to an Italian restaurant way over between Ninth and Tenth avenues. The walls were white tile and there were paper flowers in plastic vases on the tables. But the food was scrumptious.

  Noel Jarvis was treated like he owned the joint. I mean, the staff hovered. The spiffy headwaiter spent at least ten minutes suggesting this and that. What I finally ended up with was a huge, succulent double veal chop, charred on the outside, pink on the inside, doused with a pizzaiola sauce. I could have married that veal chop.

  Two hours and two bottles of wine later, I sat back groaning, staring at the remnants of my warm zabaglione with glazed eyes.

  “You eat like this every night?” I asked Jarvis. “Don’t answer that. If you said yes, I might move in with you.”

  “Yes,” he said promptly, beaming. He had demolished most of the wine, but seemed reasonably lucid and steady. As a matter of fact, I was sipping delicately at a small Strega while he was working on his second brandy stinger.

  He wasn’t paying for all this; other diners had sent over the wine and after-dinner drinks. And when Jarvis asked for our bill, the headwaiter assured us it had been taken care of.

  “Courtesy of Mr. Smith,” he said.

  “God bless Mr. Smith,” I said. “Long may he wave. Friend of yours, Noel?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said. “A good customer. It was very kind of him. I must reciprocate. Well, my dear, it’s time for us to move on. What would you like? A disco? A piano bar? A nightcap somewhere?”

  “You’re the working man,” I said, “who has to get up early in the morning. Let’s save the disco and piano bar for a weekend. A nightcap in some quiet place would suit me fine. Anyplace I can kick off my shoes.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “I knew you were a woman of discernment the moment I saw you. If I make a suggestion, I hope you won’t be offended.”

  “Your apartment?”

  His ruddy face positively glowed.

  So we rose to depart. Noel Jarvis passed out the green stuff to maître d’, headwaiter, waiters, busboy, and then excused himself to dart into the kitchen where, I presumed, he rewarded the chef. His largesse no longer surprised me.

  He lived on East 21st Street, near Gramercy Park. His apartment turned out to be a somewhat seedy palace. Two bedrooms, two baths, and a living room that looked like the lounge on the QE2. The furnishings were heavily baroque: lots of crystal, porcelain, velvet sofas and armchairs, gilt-framed paintings, marble cupids. It didn’t look exactly like an auction gallery, but almost.

  The place threw me. I had figured him for a man of some taste. This overstuffed apartment was out of character. It came awfully close to what a longshoreman might buy after winning the New York State lottery. Everything was expensive and everything was awful: The colors were a bedlam, the paintings atrocious. There was a floor lamp in the shape of a giant striking cobra.

  I murmured the expected compliments, and Jarvis seemed pleased. He showed me through the entire museum. The bedrooms were visions in glimmered pink and purple satin. The bathrooms had little guest towels that had never been touched. The kitchen was the best, all business with stainless steel copper pots and pans.

  “You like to cook?” I asked him.

  “Love it,” he said, coming alive. “I hope you’ll come for dinner some night. I’d like to show you what I can do.”

  I said I’d like that.

  We went back into the living room and I kicked off my shoes. It was pleasant scrubbing my toes into those buttery Oriental rags. He had told the chauffeur to wait for me, I wouldn’t be long, and to drive me to my door and make certain I was safely inside. So I really had no fears of a heavy come-on. He was a perfect host, and a fascinating conversationalist—until he passed out.

  It happened so quickly that at first I wasn’t aware of what was going on. I was nursing a brandy. He had slugged down two, and was chattering away like a magpie, working on his third, when he suddenly stood up and excused himself. Minutes passed, and I wondered how long it took him to pee. Then more minutes, and I heard no sounds at all. I began to get concerned.
Fainting spell? Heart attack?

  “Noel,” I called softly. Then, louder: “Noel! I really do have to get going. And I’m sure you have to get up early.”

  No answer.

  I sat there a moment. Then I finished my brandy, rose, wandered toward the bedroom, having first put on my shoes. If I found him naked, waiting with a leer, I was prepared to make a fast withdrawal.

  I found him fully dressed and prone on the satin coverlet of the king-sized bed in the master bedroom. His head was on the pillow, face turned to one side. He was snoring gently.

  He hadn’t managed to get his feet off the floor when he collapsed onto the bed, so I lifted them up and took off his shoes. I also loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, unbuckled his belt. During these ministrations, he didn’t stir. He was out cold, a not unpleasant reek of wine, garlic, and brandy rising from his burbling lips.

  I thought I went about it very cleverly. I went back into the foyer, double-locked the door and put on the chain. Drew all the curtains and shades. When I went back into the master bedroom, Noel Jarvis hadn’t changed position. He was still snoring gently.

  I went into the main bathroom and took a look in the medicine cabinet. Jarvis had an eye-widening selection of vitamins and minerals in there, plus Librium and Valium and several other pill and capsule containers without labels. Just clear plastic containers of pills and capsules. All colors and shapes.

  I came back into the bedroom. Still no movement from Jarvis. I went through the big walk-in closet first. Nothing in there but an enormous and costly wardrobe of suits, jackets, coats, hats, shoes, ties. Good labels, too. Italian and English designers. In the first of the twin dressers, in cream-colored French provincial, were enough shirts, drawers, socks, and scarves for a regiment. Plenty of pure silk, and lots of pure cotton, which these days is almost as expensive as silk. Linen handkerchiefs. Foulard squares. Ascots. Monogrammed undershirts.

  The top drawer of the second dresser was filled with jewelry: cufflinks, and studs and rings, bracelets and neck chains. At least a half-dozen wristwatches. Stickpins.

  The bottom drawers held his winter and sports stuff: heavy flannel shirts, sweaters, waistcoats—things like that. Plenty of suede and good glove leather.

  I had taken care, with all the drawers I opened and inspected, to leave things just the way I found them. I turned nothing over. I rearranged no stacks. I just thrust my fingers down between the piles of fabric and groped around on the bottom of each drawer. Nothing.

  Until I came to the last drawer of the second dresser. Heavy knitted sweaters in there, each in its own plastic bag. I should be so neat! I was prying down at the bottom when I felt it. Something.

  I glanced toward Noel Jarvis, still sleeping, his face turned away from me. I gripped what I had discovered and slowly, carefully, drew out a passport.

  I took it to the bedside lamp and flipped through it quickly. It was undoubtedly a photograph of Noel Jarvis: the heavy jowls, meaty nose, flinty eyes, smiling mouth. The passport showed three overseas trips in the past two years: to Holland, Italy, Israel. Everything seemed in order.

  Except for one thing.

  The name in the passport was Antonio Rossi. I stood staring at the signature, a little ashamed at myself for prying. If an Italian wished to use an English name, it was really none of my business. I could understand it; he was the manager of a shop with a clientele that might be impressed that way.

  That left only a small bedside table, a taboret covered with antiqued gold leaf, stamped with a colored, vaguely Persian design. Jarvis’ head, on the pillow, was awfully close to that table, and I debated a moment as to whether I really wanted to risk opening the top drawer. Finally, watching the face of the sleeping man constantly, I softly pulled the drawer out, just far enough to take a quick look inside.

  It wasn’t finding a revolver that surprised me so much. The manager of a jewelry store would have little trouble getting a gun permit. But this gun was shockingly big. I don’t know make or caliber, but it looked like a cannon without wheels. The black leather half-holster seemed old and worn.

  Then I turned off all the lights and got out of there, making certain the front door locked on the spring latch. I rode home grandly in the limousine, and the uniformed chauffeur insisted on seeing me to my door.

  “Mr. Jarvis ordered it, miss,” he said firmly, so I let him do his job.

  Later, safely locked within my own apartment, I undressed swiftly, got into bed, and tried to ponder the contradictions in the character of Mr. Jarvis-Rossi.

  But I fell asleep thinking of a broiled veal chop and warm zabaglione, and smiling happily.

  A MEETING OF MINDS

  AT 9:00 THAT FRIDAY night we were seated in Donohue’s room at the Hotel Harding. I was Bea Flanders in blond wig and tight turtleneck. Jack looked like Hialeah; knife-creased silk slacks, nubby gold sports jacket, white moccasins decorated with brass trim. Dick Fleming, by contrast, looked pretty drab.

  Donohue was polite, unsmiling, and very, very cool. He got us comfortable, locked the door, and supplied us with vodkas on ice. The glasses were clean.

  “Well?” I demanded in my gunmoll voice, having decided to come on strong. “Are you in or out?”

  “I took a look at the place,” Donohue said, staring at me. “I’ve practically lived on that block for the last two days. I was into the store twice, and I checked out the daily routine. Before I tell you what I think, spell it out for me in more detail. Just how do you plan to hit it?”

  I had brought along my schedules and maps. I went over it once more:

  The precise time the three of us plus the two added recruits would meet.

  The route the five of us would take south, me at the wheel.

  I would stay with the car, double-parked near the construction site at the corner of East 55th Street and Madison Avenue.

  The four men, masked, would go into Brandenberg & Sons at 10:00 A.M., the moment the door was unlocked for business.

  Two men would race to the rear, to the vault room, before the repairmen had a chance to slam the door or lock the safe.

  The other two would cover the manager and clerks in the front room, force them to lie down, gag and tape them. The two repairmen would be treated similarly, and the aged porter if he was present.

  Then the safe and showcases would be rifled as rapidly as possible. Obvious pressure alarms would be avoided; the glass cases would be smashed from the top rather than the sliding doors forced.

  “Then everyone piles out,” I finished, “and gets in the car. By this time I’ll have pulled up in front of the store. The best route for a getaway, I figure, is to—”

  “Bullshit,” Jack Donohue interrupted harshly. “Pure, unadulterated bullshit! It sucks. Do it your way and we’ll all be in the slammer within an hour. If we’re not in the morgue with tags on our big toes.”

  I looked at Fleming. He looked at me.

  “All right,” Dick said. “Let’s go.”

  “Right,” I said, preparing to rise and depart. “You say you don’t want in. That’s okay if—”

  “Shut up and sit down!” Donohue snapped. “You too, Fleming. I didn’t say I didn’t want in. I just said you got a lousy plan. I thought you told me your old man was a whiz at jewelry jobs? If this is an example of how he did it, no wonder he got squashed.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with my plan?” I said hotly. “I worked weeks on this. It’s got—”

  “Shh, shh,” Donohue said, relaxing and giving me one of his brilliant grins. “Just keep your voice down, Bea. Take it easy and I’ll tell you what’s wrong.”

  “First of all,” he started, “I like the place. For a target, I mean. Big enough but not too big. Not too many clerks. And lots of lovely, lovely rocks—”

  “Bea told you,” Fleming broke in. “At least a million.”

  Donohue turned to him, flashed one of his high-powered grins.

  “I agree,” he said. “A minimum of a mil. Probably more. And I�
��m just talking about the stuff up front, in the cases. What’s in that safe in the back room—well, who the hell knows? But it must be beautiful. Okay, that’s agreed. The place is worth the risk. And it’s ripe for plucking. No armed guard. No TV cameras that I could spot.”

  “So you want in?” I asked him.

  “I want in,” he said, nodding, “but not if I have to follow your script. First of all, with a gang of five you want two cars, not one. On the getaway, they split up. That confuses witnesses and the cops, and doubles your chances of at least one car making it with half the take.”

  “Well … all right,” I said grudgingly, “I’ll buy that. But that means more people. At least another wheelman.”

  “Correct,” Black Jack said. “But more than just another driver. Bea, we just can’t go busting in there when the store opens at 10:00. What if a street cop or a squad car comes wandering by?”

  “Chances are slim,” Fleming said. “They work on a—”

  “I know how they work,” Donohue said sharply. “No regular schedule. I’m just saying what if? A cop comes rumbling by while we’re inside, and you’ve got the Shootout at the O.K. Corral. Or a couple of early-morning customers stroll in. Then what? That place could begin to look like Grand Central Station. With only four of us to truss them all up and cover them and empty out the place at the same time? No way! Bea, it just won’t work. We need more people and we need a better scam.”

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Like this,” he said. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I checked out that place for two days running. The key to the whole thing is that cleaning truck that comes an hour before the store opens. You spotted that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Every morning. At 9:00. They spend about thirty to forty-five minutes in there. The manager unlocks the door to let them in, then locks it again after hey leave.”

  “Every morning?” Donohue asked.

  “Every morning,” I told him again. “Like clockwork. I watched.”

  “Good,” he said with a satisfied grin. “That’s what I figured. The key is this: That truck is from the Bonomo Cleaning Service. It double-parks right outside the store. On both mornings I watched, the manager was waiting inside the door. When he saw the truck pull up, he unlocked the door. Get it? All he’s looking for is the truck, he doesn’t even wait to see if the guys getting out are his regular cleaning crew or a gang of pirates. He sees the truck; he unlocks the door.”