Caper

by Lawrence Sanders

  Finally, just before we left, he climbed into the van one last time and came out with the sodden pillowcase that had been used to jam Clement’s fatal wound. Donohue dropped the mess onto the cement floor of the garage and set fire to it. We waited until the soaked pillowcase was entirely consumed by flickering blue flames.

  We stood around, watching that sad little fire. It was like a Viking’s funeral for poor Clement. (I never did learn if that was his first or last name.) When the fire had burned down, flared up, went out, I thought that was the end of a man who hoped to be something he could never be. Now there was only a small heap of grayish ash on the greasy floor of an abandoned garage.

  “Let’s go,” Jack Donohue said, but not before he transferred my manuscript, Project X, from the back seat of the Ford to the VW. That guy didn’t miss a trick.

  Fleming’s brownstone was empty, just as Donohue knew it would be. Dick handed over his keys without demur, seemingly still stunned by the death of Clement in his arms. We went up to his apartment, a few at a time, lugging the bulging pillowcases. Angela never strayed far from my side, and there was always an armed man close to Dick.

  Inside, door locked and chained, everyone collapsed on chairs and sofa, physically and emotionally drained. Donohue asked politely for whiskey, and Dick brought out a bottle of vodka and a half-filled jug of burgundy. Everyone had a healthy belt. It was like drinking hope.

  “All right,” Donohue said, “now comes the birthday party. Let’s see what we’ve got …”

  He cleared Dick’s desk, piling books, manuscripts, magazines on the floor. He hoisted up the first of the fourteen pillowcases and ripped off the tape. He began to lay out the contents neatly on the desktop. We all clustered about.

  I don’t care how expertly you describe gems, nothing can match the awe-inspiring sight of the real things in profusion. I admit we all (me included) ooh’ed and ah’ed as the items came out of the pillowcase and were arranged in close rows on the dark walnut top of Dick’s desk.

  Donohue raised the shade, and winter sunlight streamed through to strike sparks from those precious stones. Chokers and rings, pendants and earrings: All flashed, glittered, caught fire and burned. They took the light, ignited, glowed from within. What a display that was! I forgot for the moment that all this was stolen property, taken at the cost of two lives. All I could see were hard white, green, and red flames, twinkling and gleaming.

  Donohue picked out a gorgeous bracelet of small cabochon rubies and diamonds set in flowerlike clusters on a white gold band. He handed it to Angela with a courtly bow.

  “With our thanks and compliments, senorita,” he said solemnly.

  “Gracias,” she murmured, taking the bracelet and looking down at it unbelievingly. As well she should; it was probably worth more than she had earned in her entire life.

  I was about to cry “What about me?” in an aggrieved tone, and caught myself just in time.

  “Smiley,” Donohue said, gesturing toward the desktop, “how much would you guess?”

  “Quarter of a mil,” Smiley said promptly. “At least.”

  “At least,” Donohue agreed. “Maybe more. But that’s retail value. Still, twenty percent from a fence ain’t bad. All right, let’s keep score. That’s a quarter of a mil.”

  He swept the jewelry back into the opened pillowcase and set it aside. He pulled up another case and stripped off the tape. This one contained boxes and packets that had been taken from the safe in the vault room of Brandenberg & Sons.

  Donohue pulled out a flat, black leather box and set it on the desktop.

  “Here we go,” he said, and raised the lid.

  We all craned forward. Children opening their Christmas gifts.

  Inside the case, nestled on puffed velvet, was a gorgeous three-strand necklace of alternating diamonds and emeralds on ornate gold chains. The three strands were joined in front to support an enormous marquise diamond that seemed to have a million facets. They caught the light and gave it back, so that all the faces thrust forward were illuminated. That gem burned.

  There were gasps, cries, a few spoken words. Then all sounds died away. We stood in silence. Everyone was staring at a small, chaste metal label fixed to the inside of the case lid.

  It read: “Devolte Bros. San Francisco.”

  “What the fuck?” the Holy Ghost said in a deep, wondering voice.

  “Now wait a minute,” Donohue said. “Wait just one cotton-picking minute. It could have been a loan. It could have been sent to Brandenberg on consignment. Let’s take a look.”

  The next fifteen minutes were madness. All of us, Dick and I included, tore those pillowcases open, ripped them apart. The sparkling contents were dumped onto the desktop. Cases were jerked open, locked boxes smashed, stock tags stripped away. The pile of gems on the desk heaped higher, slipped, slid, fell to the floor. No one paid any attention; diamonds and sapphires were trod underfoot, wealth scattered, all that fortune treated like so many bargain items in a supermarket: “Damaged merchandise—prices as marked.”

  Finally, all the pillowcases emptied, the loot piled in a ragged heap, we stopped, breathing hard, and looked at one another.

  All the plunder from the Devolte Bros, heist in San Francisco was there, and jewelry bearing the tags of stores in St. Louis, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, and even some from London, Rome, and Rio. Jewelry from all over the world.

  I looked at Jack Donohue. He was biting his lower lip and blinking so rapidly I could catch no expression in his eyes. It was Smiley who spoke first.

  “A Corporation front,” he said dazedly, staring at that mountain of glitter. “A fencing and cutting operation. Working out of a legit East Side jewelry shop.”

  Dick Fleming turned to me in amazement.

  “Those weren’t salesmen, Jannie,” he said. “The guys with attaché cases handcuffed to their wrists. They were couriers, bringing in stolen stuff from all over.”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding. “They’d pry out the stones and melt down the settings in that back room. Reset the rocks on simple, elegant chains or whatever. And the runners would take it away for redistribution. A big operation. All those jewel robberies in the last three years …”

  “The Corporation,” Smiley repeated. Finally, finally, he had stopped smiling. “It has to be the Corporation. Who else could bankroll something that big?”

  Donohue said: “No wonder he said we were making a mistake.”

  “Who?” I demanded sharply. “Who said that?”

  “The manager. Noel Jarvis.”

  “Antonio Rossi?”

  “Who?” Smiley asked.

  “The manager,” I told him. “His real name is Antonio Rossi.”

  Smiley whirled on Donohue.

  “You knew that?” he yelled.

  “Well … yeah … sure,” Jack said, shrugging. “It was in her book.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t think it meant anything.”

  “You stupid fuck!” Smiley screamed at him. “Rossi is a heavy. A heavy! Oh my God, we’ve ripped off the Corporation. We’re in the stew. Every one of us is dead!”

  “Now wait a second,” Donohue said. “Don’t panic. We can still unload this stuff. I got a fence all lined up. Asa Coe. Top man in the business.”

  He used Dick’s phone, dialed the number rapidly.

  “Hello there!” he said heartily. “This is Sam Morrison. I met with Mr. Coe a few weeks ago, and he said—What? What? Now just wait a—”

  He hung up the phone softly. He turned to us with a sick smile.

  “He doesn’t know me and doesn’t want to know me. The word’s out. Already.”

  “That does it,” Smiley said. He tugged his black leather cap farther down over one eye. He gestured toward the glittering heap of stolen gems. “It’s all yours. I want no part of it. I’m walking.”

  “The hell you say,” Jack Donohue said.

  “The hell I say,” Smiley agreed, smiling once again. “
I’m including myself out. I want to walk around with something between my legs for a few more years.”

  We were listening to him, watching the soft, pleasant smile on his face. So when he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket, no one reacted. We were all frozen.

  “Nice and easy,” Smiley said. “No rough stuff. I’m just taking a walk, that’s all.”

  “No way,” Jack Donohue said. “So you can tip the Corporation? Save your own skin and fuck us? No way.”

  He slid slowly, cautiously toward Smiley. All of the squat man’s attention was on him. Maybe that’s the way Donohue planned it. Because while Smiley tensed, drew his lips back in an expression more grimace than grin, it was Hymie Gore who moved. Jack hadn’t exaggerated when he had told me the big man was fast.

  Fast? He was a blur. One big mitt came down on Smiley’s wrist and hand, turning the gun inward. Then the two heavy men were pressed close in a straining embrace. It all happened so quickly that none of us had a chance to intervene. Jack Donohue was just starting forward when the gun was fired three times, rapidly.

  Simon Lefferts, my editor, had been right: A gun doesn’t go Ka-chow! But it doesn’t go bang, blam, or pop either. In this case, muffled between two thick men, it made a dull, thudding sound, like a side of beef dropping to the floor.

  And that’s exactly what happened. Hymie Gore released his grip and stepped away. Smiley stood an instant, tottering, his eyes glazing. Then he went down with a thump that shook the room. He straightened. His heels beat a tattoo on the floor. Then his legs stiffened. Then he was still. The black leather cap had fallen off. He was completely bald, freckles on his naked scalp.

  Jack Donohue kicked the corpse viciously in the ribs.

  “The miserable fuck!” he said furiously. “He’d have sold our asses.”

  Perhaps I should have fainted or become ill at witnessing this ugly violence. But it was the third dead man I had seen in the past hour, and something had happened to me: I had lost the capacity to feel. I think it was an unconscious reaction. I think it was a self-protective mechanism. The psyche, to protect the organism, shuts off feelings of horror, disgust, despair. You no longer understand what has happened, is happening. You see, you observe, but gunshots become merely loud sounds, blood becomes merely a red liquid, a corpse becomes merely a motionless heap. How else could you survive?

  “Nice going, Hyme,” Donohue said to Gore. “You did real good.”

  “Gee, thanks, Jack,” Hymie Gore said happily. “I never did like that creep. He called me a stupe onct.”

  DECISIONS, DECISIONS

  DONOHUE AND THE HOLY Ghost dragged Smiley’s body across the floor by the ankles, stuffed it into a closet, closed the door. The passage left a wide, bloody smear that rapidly soaked into Dick’s carpet. I saw him staring at that stained path with widened eyes and wondered how long it would be before he came apart.

  Donohue poured us all shots of warm vodka. We slumped back onto chairs and sofa. What bemused me was that not one of us, not once, glanced at that mountain of jewelry piled higgledy-piggledy on Dick’s desk. It didn’t seem so much to us now. Just stones.

  “Listen,” Jack Donohue said, head tilted back, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t have to tell you we’re in a bind. The cops are looking for us. By this time the Feds are in on it, figuring we’re going across the state line. But the worst is the Corporation. They’ll be combing the city. And when they’re on your ass, believe me they make the cops look like Boy Scouts. I mean they’re everywhere. I figure it’ll take them about a day or two to come up with the Hotel Harding, Fangio’s, the whole shmear.”

  “How will they do that?” I asked curiously.

  Donohue shrugged. “That watchman will find Clement in the 47th Street garage. The cops will check out his contacts, which will lead them to me. And what the cops know, the Corporation will know. They’ll put out the word. They’ll pay off or promise favors. The desk clerk at the Harding will talk. And Blanche. The bartender and waitress at Fangio’s. Everyone will talk. There’s no way the six of us can travel together. Ghost, what do you want to do?”

  The Holy Ghost, feet and fingers tapping uncontrollably, turned to Angela. They had a brief conversation in Spanish, rapid, harsh, the words spit out at machine-gun speed. Much gesturing, many expressions: fear, anger, dismay. Finally:

  “We’ll split,” the Holy Ghost said to Donohue. “Fade into Spanish Harlem. We’ll make it there.”

  “Sure you will,” Jack said, flashing one of his brilliant grins. I hadn’t seen that grin for a long time. I don’t know why, but it made me feel better. “You and Angela just go to ground. You got a good chance, a real good chance.” He gestured toward the desk. “Take whatever you want from that stack of shit. Forget about percentages. Just take. But if you’re smart, you’ll stick to the small stuff. Rings, unset stones, maybe a bracelet or two. Things you can sell or hock without anyone asking questions. Help yourself.”

  We watched Angela and the Holy Ghost paw over the heap of sparkling jewelry. They followed Donohue’s advice and selected only single stones, rings, earrings, gold chains, cufflinks. Angela filled her purse; the Ghost jammed his pockets.

  “Well,” the Holy Ghost said awkwardly, “it was a good one, Jack. Just like you said.”

  “You bet,” Donohue said, winking at him. “A nice Christmas for you—right?”

  “You better believe it,” the Holy Ghost said. “Presents for everyone. We’ll be careful with this stuff, Jack. I mean, we won’t put on any flash.”

  “I know you won’t,” Donohue said. “I know you’ll play it smart. You want to take one of the cars?”

  “No,” the Ghost said. “We’ll manage without.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “I understand. Be lucky.”

  “Yeah,” the Holy Ghost said. “You, too.” He went over to Hymie Gore, patted the big man’s cheek. “Take care of yourself, Hyme.”

  “What?” Gore said. “Oh … yeah. See you around, pal.”

  The Holy Ghost turned to Dick Fleming and me.

  “Very pleased to have made your acquaintance,” he said.

  “Likewise,” Angela said.

  Then they were gone. Donohue locked the door behind them, put on the chain.

  “They may make it,” he mused. “They may just. The Ghost is smart enough to move the stuff slowly, all over the place. He’ll unload it here, there, everywhere. He’s no dummy. Hyme, how about you? Want to split?”

  Hymie Gore looked up from his tumbler of vodka.

  “I’ll stick with you, Jack,” he said. “If that’s okay with you?”

  “Sure,” Donohue said. “If that’s what you want.”

  He sat down in the armchair. But he didn’t sit; he collapsed. I realized what this day had taken out of him. He was drained, shrunken. He seemed to be running on pure nerve; he had no physical strength left. I wondered how long he could go on without rest, without sleep. Until he was safe, I supposed, and wondered if that time would ever come.

  He sipped his vodka and regarded Dick and me thoughtfully over the rim of his glass.

  “That leaves you two,” he said. “You got a couple of choices. I’m going to run, probably south to Miami. I got to get out of the city. They’ll burn me here. Me and Hyme. If you want to come along, that’s okay. As long as you know that I call the plays. Your other choice is to stay and take your chances with the law. Sorry about the clunk in your closet, Fleming, but it had to be. Then there’s the robbery, and those two stiffs in the garage on 47th. You’ll have to weasel out of all that. Plus the bomb scares, the stolen Chevy, and so forth. But it’s your decision. If you want to stay, we’ll tie you up—just tight enough to give us a chance to split. Then you can call the cops and sing your hearts out.”

  “But you’ll take my book?” I asked him.

  He grinned at me.

  “You bet your sweet juicy little ass. An insurance policy, like. You two want to talk it over, go right ahead. Go over to the corner where Hyme and I
can’t hear you. Just keep in sight, that’s all.”

  I motioned with my head, and Dick and I moved over to the window. Donohue and Hymie Gore stayed where they were. Both were stretched out, drinks propped on their chests. Their heads were back, eyes half-closed. But I had seen how quickly they could move. I wasn’t about to try a mad dash for the phone or the locked and chained door.

  “Dick,” I said, holding his arms, “what do you think? What should we do?”

  “I don’t know, Jannie,” he said bewilderedly. “Where do we stand on this whole thing? Legally, I mean?”

  “It’s a mess,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m no lawyer, but here’s how I see it: We can claim that we acted under duress, that we were forced to take part in the robbery and witness the killing of Smiley against our will.”

  “It’s the truth,” Dick said hotly.

  “Sure it is. I was threatened by a knife, you by a gun. But the cops are going to ask, ‘You claim you were under duress for twelve hours? And never once during that time, not for one instant, could you have yelled, screamed, fallen down in fake faint, or do anything else to bring this whole thing to a screeching halt?’”

  Dick was silent.

  “We’ll have the devil’s own time proving duress,” I went on. “But that’s not the worst of it. The worst is that goddamned manuscript of mine, that lousy Project X. Donohue is never going to let that out of his hands, because it proves we were the kingpins in the robbery, the leaders. We planned the whole caper. We picked the target, cased the place. I made nice-nice with the manager, and you checked out the police surveillance of the store. With that manuscript in his hands, if he’s ever picked up by the cops, Donohue can claim we set the whole thing up and he was just a hired hand. That’s what he meant by calling it an insurance policy.”

  “But you were just doing research for a book.”

  “Dick, that’s the oldest gag going. It’s got whiskers. The cops hear that excuse every day in the week. Every John caught with a hooker claims he was just doing research for a book. Burglars, muggers, second-story men, swindlers, kidnappers—when they’re caught, all of them claim to be writers, doing research. If I tell the cops the truth—I was doing research—they’ll fall down laughing. They’ll read that manuscript and all they’ll see is a day-by-day account of the planning of a spectacularly successful jewelry store heist that left three men dead—so far.”