It sounds simple, but it took a long time, Jack working slowly and carefully. Most of the stones were held by claws, each of which had to be gently bent away, and the stone pried out. Small decorative diamond chips he left in their settings, but cut into sections. When he finished, we had a dozen gemstones of various sizes, pieces of chips and pavé and hunks of gold chain.
“Not worth as much as the original piece,” Jack acknowledged, “but a hell of a lot safer to sell. Nothing can be identified. When you peddle loose rocks, the scam is that you’ve been buying cut diamonds for investment and want to sell a few for ready cash. No questions asked—believe me.
The only downer during those two restful days was when Donohue picked up a Savannah paper and brought it to the room to show us. There was a small item datelined New York and the discovery of a corpse in the closet of an East Side Manhattan apartment. Dick Fleming’s apartment. But the newspaper story didn’t mention Dick’s name. It said only that police were attempting to locate the tenant.
“Now they have your name, description and probably your photograph,” Jack said, looking at Fleming.
“So?” Dick said.
By late afternoon of the second day, fed, rested, rejuvenated, we all knew it was time to move on. I had discovered what Black Jack had been up to when he disappeared after we checked in. He had scouted all the entrances and exits from the motor lodge, and the best getaway routes. He had also decided that as a precautionary measure it would be smart not to park the Buick right outside the motel, but to leave it in the big, general parking lot of the adjacent shopping center.
“The car’s safe,” he told us. “I’ll bet on that. But why go looking for trouble? So we park it in that big lot. Plenty of cars there. And if they do tag us, they don’t know where we are—in the motel, shopping, watching a movie, whatever. Am I right?”
We told him he was right. I think that at that time he needed reassurance. Or, as Dick and I had decided, he needed to be trusted.
Anyway, we all had a good dinner at the nearby restaurant, then returned to our rooms, started packing. No hurry. We tried to consolidate the gems, and were able to get them into two suitcases and canvas carryall. Our clothing and toilet articles went into three more suitcases and two shoulder bags.
It was then about 9:00 P.M.
“Okay,” Donohue said cheerily. “Time to hit the road. I’ll go down first and check out. Then I’ll bring the car around to the front. Give me about ten minutes. Then you start bringing the stuff down. We’ll load up and be on our way.”
It sounded good.
But he was back in two minutes.
“Trouble,” he said tersely. “Son of a bitch!”
“Jack, what is it?” I asked him.
“I saw your lover,” he said, showing his teeth. “Him and his heavies. Talking to the guy at the desk.”
“How did he find us here?” I wailed.
“Who knows?” he said. And for the first time his face showed despair. “That bastard won’t give up until we’re all dead.”
We all caught his mood and looked at one another with angry frustration.
“They coming up, Jack?” Hymie Gore asked.
“I don’t think they’ll do that, Hyme. They don’t want a shootout inside the motel any more than we do. They’ll probably stake out the place, cover all the doors, and pot us as we come out. But there’s an easy way to check …”
He picked up the phone and called the desk.
“This is Sam Morrison in Room 410,” he said briskly. “Have any friends been by asking for me? Uh-huh. That’s fine. And are they waiting in the lobby? Oh … good. Well, I’ll be down soon. Thank you very much.”
“Like I figured,” he reported. “The cocksuckers said they’d wait outside.”
“Just the three of them, Jack?” Gore asked.
“That’s all I saw, Hyme, but Rossi’s probably got more. And if he hasn’t, you can bet he’s calling up an army right now. They’ll sew this place up tight.”
“Can we call the cops and fire department again?” I said.
“Won’t work twice,” Donohue said, shaking his head. “They’ll be ready for it and just lay back and pick us off as we come out. Besides, this place is just too big for a juggle like that to work.”
He paced up and down, biting at the hard skin around a thumbnail. We all watched him. I wasn’t conscious of being frightened as much as feeling an utter lack of hope. I think the others felt the same way: that we had come to the end of our rope, and all our daring and resolve had gone for nothing. I understood then the irrational fury that Donohue had expressed earlier: Having accomplished so much, why couldn’t we be left alone to profit from our boldness?
“Uh, Jack,” Hymie Gore said, “maybe we should go out blasting? I mean, we got the irons. Maybe one or two of us could make it.”
“Suicide,” Donohue said bluntly. “I cased all the exits when we checked in. At night, all those doors are brightly lighted. They’ll be back in the darkness, take their time, and pop us off, bang, bang, bang, bang—like that. Can’t miss.”
Silence again.
Finally Black Jack stopped his pacing. He stood in front of Dick Fleming’s armchair, looked down at him.
“Well, college boy?” he said. “You got a good nut on you, I know that. Any ideas how we can get out of this mess?”
“Back doors?” Dick said slowly.
“They’ll all be covered.”
“Basement?”
“The steps come up to the back doors.”
“Disguises? We put on some of Jannie’s clothes and—ah, that would never work.”
“It sure wouldn’t,” Donohue said, sighing. “Maybe I should make a run for it. I might be able to decoy them away while you three slide out the other way.”
“They’re too smart for that,” Fleming said. “Aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Jack said sourly, “they are.”
“We could call the cops,” I said. “Or the FBI. For real, I mean. No gimmicks. Give ourselves up. Tell them to come get us.”
“And face a felony murder rap?” Donohue said. “You really want to do that?”
“No,” I said.
“Wait a minute,” Dick said.
We all looked at him. He was rubbing his blond eyebrows side to side.
“Look,” he said, “it’s just a matter of logic. We obviously can’t go down, so why don’t we try going up? The roof.”
Jack Donohue took one swift step to Fleming’s side, bent over, kissed his cheek.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “I knew you had a brain from the start. Sure, the roof. It’s a chance. Dick, you come with me and we’ll take a look. Hyme, you stay here with Jannie. Lock the door and don’t open for anyone, and I mean anyone. Not even for me unless I give you the right knock: three short raps, pause, two more. Got it? Let’s go, Dick.”
They were gone almost fifteen minutes. Hymie Gore and I waited in silence, chain-smoking. We were still wearing our coats, the suitcases packed, locked, and stacked near the door. Gore opened one of the shoulder bags to extract another revolver and slip it into his side pocket. I wondered if I should also take another, but I didn’t. I kept thinking of “Two-Gun Jannie Shean,” and the idea was just too ridiculous.
Finally we heard Donohue’s code-knock: three raps, pause, two more. Gore opened the door cautiously, peered out, let the two men into the room.
I looked at their faces but could read nothing in their expressions.
“It’s a chance,” Donohue said.
“A good chance,” Fleming said.
“A chance,” Jack repeated. “Just a chance. Here’s the situation: We get to the roof up an iron staircase through a fire door. That part’s easy. The building next door is a department store, about the same height. Maybe a few inches higher. But it’s about five feet away. Dick, would you say five feet?”
“About.”
“There’s just space between the two buildings. Nothing there. Like an open
alley. But we jumped it. No problem. All right, now we’re on the roof of the department store, hoping no one heard us jump. The building on the other side of the department store is the movie theater. A problem there. It’s about five feet away from the department store, but it’s also lower. I mean, maybe five, six feet lower. So we not only have to jump across that open space, but we have to jump down. Get it? Once we do that, there’s no getting back. Naturally we didn’t try that jump.”
“But we saw a door up there,” Dick Fleming said excitedly. “If we can make it to the roof of the movie house, and if we can get through that door, maybe we can make it down through the theater.”
“Carrying our luggage,” Donohue said, and flashed us one of his sparkling grins.
I looked at him in astonishment. I gestured toward the stack of suitcases.
“You’re not telling me we’re taking all this stuff, are you?” I demanded.
“You’re not telling me we’re leaving it all behind, are you?” he replied.
So up we went to the roof of the motor lodge, carrying all our luggage. We took the stairs at the end of the corridor because Donohue didn’t want to chance meeting anyone in the elevator. Jack led the way, then me, then Dick. Hymie Gore came last. The big man was carrying two suitcases, but I noticed that one was under an arm, and he was gripping a revolver in his free hand.
When we got to the roof door, Jack turned to me.
“It opens outward,” he whispered. “It’s locked from the outside so crooks can’t get in from the roof. Very smart. When Dick and I went out to look around, we left it jammed open with two packs of cigarettes. We’ll do the same thing now, just in case this scam doesn’t work and we have to get back in.”
Then we were on the roof. It was cool up there, a stiff breeze blowing from the north. The sky was clear, the stars diamond-bright. But there was no moon; we moved carefully in the gloom, avoiding protruding pipes and ventilation ducts.
Donohue led the way to the far side. The tarred roof of the department store was across a black open space.
“That looks like more than five feet to me,” I said nervously.
“Nah,” Jack said, “it’s an easy jump. Dick, show her how easy it is.”
Fleming put down the suitcases he was carrying. He backed up a few steps, opened his raincoat. Then he rushed forward and leaped. He went sailing, the tail of his coat billowing out behind him. He cleared the chasm easily, by a foot or two. He didn’t even fall; just went running forward a few steps, then stopped, turned, came back to the edge. He smiled across at me.
“See?” Donohue said. “Nothing to it. You next, Jannie.”
I stood a few steps back from that deep, deep valley between the two buildings.
“Don’t look down,” Jack said. “Just get a running start and jump.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Sure, you can do it! It’s an easy jump. I read in your book how strong you are. Jogging and exercise and all that bullshit. You can do it.”
“I can’t.”
“Come on,” he said, beginning to get angry. “If it was a puddle, you’d step across it.”
“A puddle isn’t six stories up.”
“Goddamn it,” he snarled furiously, “are you going to jump or am I going to have Hymie throw you across?”
I began to cry.
“I can’t,” I wept, “I really can’t, Jack. Something that wasn’t in my book: I’m afraid of heights. Scared out of my wits. I don’t have to look down there. I know what’s there. Nothing. I just can’t do it. Leave me here. The rest of you go ahead. That’s all right; I’ll take my chances.”
“Son of a bitch,” Donohue said bitterly. He put his hands on his hips, tilted his head back to stare at the sky, took a deep breath.
We stood there a moment, not talking. So help me, I had the shakes.
“Hey,” Dick called softly from the other side. “What’s going on? Let’s get moving!”
“Hyme,” Jack said, “throw all the luggage across to Fleming.”
I stood well back from the edge, trembling still, watching Gore tossing the suitcases and carryalls over to Dick. Then everything was stacked on the roof of the department store. And Dick was there. But the three of us were still on the motel roof.
“Go ahead,” I told them. “It’s all right.”
I really thought they were going to leave me.
“Oh, shut your stupid yap,” Donohue snapped. “Hyme, let’s take a look at that fire door.”
They made their way back to the rooftop door. I followed forlornly.
The two men examined the door. It was steel-covered, about two inches thick. Donohue rapped it with his knuckles.
“Think you can pull it off the hinges, Hyme?”
Gore swung the door open wide, examined the hinges.
“Bolted,” he said. “But I’ll try, Jack.”
He reached up, put locked hands over the outer edge of the open door. He let his weight sag, pulling down and outward, trying to snap the top hinge. There was a screak of metal but nothing yielded.
“Let me get inside your arms,” Black Jack said. “We’ll both put our weight on it.”
The two of them put their combined weight and strength on the open door. Even in the dimness I could see their strained faces, cords popping in their necks and clenched jaws.
There was a raw screech of metal that I was certain would be heard for miles. The top hinge pulled loose from the door frame. The two men almost fell. They stepped back. The door hung loosely, held only by the bottom hinge. Hymie Gore gripped it, began to pull it away with ferocious yanks.
“Heavy mother,” he panted.
With another wail of twisted metal, the whole door came away in Gore’s hands. He carried it back to the chasm between the two buildings, Donohue and I following.
“Work fast, Hyme,” Jack said nervously. “That was loud enough for the desk clerk to hear.”
Gore set the door on edge on the cornice of the motel roof. He slid it slowly across the five-foot space, leaning his weight on his end to keep it from toppling into the alley. Dick Fleming, kneeling on the department store roof, reached out fearlessly. He grabbed the wavering leading edge, helped drag it across. The two men lowered the door into a flat position. It was about seven feet long and spanned the open gap neatly, with about a foot protruding on each end. It was a steel bridge.
“Shut your eyes and hold my hand,” Donohue said. “If you don’t do this, I’ll shove you off the edge myself.”
I did what he said. I shut my eyes. I stepped up when he told me. I took short shuffles. His hand was tight and hard on mine.
“Okay,” he said, about a hundred years later. “You made it.”
I opened my eyes. I was on the roof of the department store. Dick Fleming slid an arm across my shoulders, smiling at me.
Gore came strolling casually across the door bridge. We worked swiftly. Carried all the luggage to the other side. Then Hymie went back for the door. Dick Fleming helped him. They got a good grip on it, inched it free of the motor lodge cornice, let it swing downward, bang against the wall. Then they hauled it up. Gore carried it across to the other side balanced on his head.
We repeated the process. Fleming made the first leap to the roof of the movie theater. This time, jumping out and down, he fell, rolled, and got up limping and rubbing his ankle. Hyme tossed the luggage across the space between the two buildings. Then the three men wrestled the door into position again. This time it barely spanned the gap, by no more than an inch or so on each side. And because the movie theater roof was lower, the ramp led downward.
Once again I closed my eyes and Jack Donohue led me across. This time his arm was about my waist, and we moved slowly in little, dragging steps. We made it, and Hymie Gore came dancing across, pausing to spit over the edge.
“Leave the door here, Jack?” he asked. “Dump it—or what?”
Donohue looked at the steel door.
“Leave it right there,” h
e said. “Dump it and the noise will tip everyone. It’s no use to us anymore. The next building is so much lower, there’s no chance to make it.”
We went over to the fire door on the roof of the movie theater. It was also steel covered and worked just like the rooftop door of the motor lodge: It was locked on the outside. Donohue struck a match, held it close to the lock. He sighed.
“I could get in,” he said. “Maybe half an hour, an hour. We haven’t got the time, after that racket we made. Also, I don’t like the idea of the four of us carting all this shit down through a movie theater. This is a public place; there’s got to be a fire escape. Everyone spread out and look around.”
I stayed right where I was, close to the middle of the roof. I wasn’t about to go peering over the edge of a high building.
It was Hymie Gore who found it in the darkness: iron railings that came curving over the roof cornice. Donohue leaned far out, peered down. I didn’t know how he could do it.
“Looks okay,” he said. “A zigzag stairway. The last floor is probably on a slide or gravity pull; that’s the way these things are usually set up. Let’s try it. Hyme, you go first. Then Jannie, then me, then Dick. Everyone carries.”
And that’s the way we did it, me lugging only one suitcase and a shoulder bag, my free hand hanging on to that rusted iron banister with a grip that never relaxed, my knees trembling as we went down slowly, step after step.
The last floor had a counterweighted swing staircase. As Gore stepped onto it, it swiveled creakily. He went down cautiously until the free end touched the ground. He stepped off and leaned on the handrail, holding the steps steady as we came scampering down that final flight. Then he relaxed his grip; the fire escape swung upward out of reach.
We were in a narrow alley between the movie house and the department store. Maybe five feet wide. Easy for two people to walk abreast, too narrow for a car. It was lighted at both ends with bright bulbs under pyramid-shaped green shades, on the ends of pipes protruding from the walls.
Jack Donohue looked around a moment, getting his bearings.
“That way,” he said softly, jerking his chin. “That’s the parking lot. We’re not too far from the car.”
Caper Page 25
