by John Knoerle
Had Jimmy staged that silly rescue outside the Theatrical and squired Jeannie and me around town simply to win respect for his wit and guile? If so Jimmy had, in his mind, succeeded. Jimmy didn’t know I knew about the staged rescue. And he trumped me with the counterfeit money reveal. In Jimmy’s mind he had nothing left to prove to me. He had a lot left to prove to The Schooler.
This was good stuff but I needed something more. That the boss man knew about the funny money in advance didn’t figure to be enough.
I sipped brandy. I cogitated till my brain did back flips and my head grew so heavy that my elbows slid sideways and my chin came to a rest on the reading table. I was about to drift off when it snapped my eyes wide open.
A logical inconsistency in The Schooler’s plan to rob the Federal Reserve. A logical inconsistency that Jimmy would find interesting.
I checked my watch. It wasn’t there. I looked out the window. It was black as pitch. I knew that The Schooler and Lizabeth were lights out and that Jimmy was probably chain-smoking in front of the cavernous fireplace while feeding live baby chicks to Kingdog the wolf. I got up to go see.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Jimmy was sprawled on the couch in the parlor. Kingdog was curled up on a hook rug at his feet. A fire was burning in the fireplace. I should’ve called Norman Rockwell maybe. Kingdog opened one sinister yellow eye as I approached, Jimmy turned. I gestured with my snifter.
“Want some brandy?”
Jimmy shook his head. He looked groggy, drunk or half-asleep. I parked my carcass in an upholstered chair and nodded at Kingdog.
“He’s a wolf, right?” Jimmy didn’t dignify this icebreaker with a reply so I tried another. “You think this hare-brained scheme has a holy chance in hell?” Jimmy grunted. “It could work, I’m not saying it couldn’t. But I’m a natural born worrier.”
I wrung my hands for emphasis. Jimmy’s contempt was palpable. A gust of wind shoved smoke down the chimney.
“I didn’t know that money was counterfeit Jimmy, I swear. But I’m beginning to wonder if The Schooler knew it all along.”
Jimmy blinked his good eye awake at this. He muttered something I took for ‘how you figure?’
“I’m not sure. It’s just that The Schooler went to some trouble to find out where I stashed my cut from the armored car job. I can’t for the life of me think why he would do that. Can you?”
Jimmy sat up straight. He knew he’d been tossed a live grenade.
I made myself comfortable and waited for him to think it through. I pulled up my socks. I took a slug of brandy, trimmed my cuticles and recited the capitols of the forty-eight states.
“He wanted to find out if you knew the jack was no good.”
I nodded. “Yeah, makes sense. But you hadn’t told him about the counterfeit cash back then, had you?”
Jimmy’s clenched jaw answered that question.
“Seems to me like old Henry had a good laugh at our expense, sending us off to rob an armored car full of funny money.”
“Who gives a shit? The score he’s got lined up’ll make us all fat.”
“If it works. The bigger question is do we want to trust our payday to a guy who’s danced us around the stage like marionettes.”
I mimed a puppeteer pulling strings off Jimmy’s blank look. He thumbed his lighter.
“Henry’s always been square with me. ‘Sides, what’s he gonna do?” he said, lit cigarette flapping up and down in his mush. “He’s one guy.”
“One guy with a million bucks in newly-minted cash.”
“So what?”
“I’m just wondering why The Schooler wants traceable bills.”
I kept him guessing as I nipped at my brandy for a quick minute, then cleared my throat for the big announcement. “The Federal Reserve does more than just distribute new currency to commercial banks. They also collect deposits from those banks - truckloads of used bills, old bills, spendable bills.”
Jimmy skipped over surprise and fury and went right to grim resignation. “He’ll have some mob juice dealer lined up.”
“Could be. And the juice dealer will bring friends.”
Jimmy’s good eye narrowed, his glass eye did not. How did he keep it clean, I wondered. The eyelid never blinked.
“Could be,” said Jimmy with some sarcasm. “Now how ‘bout you cut the bullcrap and say your piece.”
“I’d be happy to.”
I explained my objection to The Schooler’s plan, how my ugly mug wouldn’t be enough to convince the Federal Reserve Police Commander to open the castle gates. If Frederick Seifert knew all about me as The Schooler claimed, then Frederick Seifert also knew the value the FBI placed on my services. As evidenced by my collection of bank bags full of confetti.
“But if I could walk up those steps on 6th Street with a valuable asset in hand, something that would get Frederick Seifert thinking that his time had come...Well then.”
“Spit it out already,” barked Jimmy. “You’re bad as the old man.”
I flagged my palms in a peaceable gesture and paused to make sure his outburst hadn’t stirred any activity. No upstairs floorboards creaked.
“I want a real gun Jimmy, with bullets and everything. I imagine The Schooler plans to give me a dummy.”
I paused. Kingdog yawned. I continued.
“I’ll use my real gun to get the drop on The Schooler and march him up the steps and tell Frederick Seifert that I have intercepted a Fulton Road Mob plan to rob the bank and that I have captured the mastermind of that plan, the elusive Mr. Big that his pals at the FBI have been hunting all these years. I believe this approach stands a greater chance of prying open the front door. Don’t you?”
Jimmy didn’t answer in the affirmative. But neither did he spit in my eye.
“I surrender Henry to the Federal Reserve Police and tell Commander Seifert the rest of the mob is due any second, that the plan was for me to talk my way in, put a gun to his back and force him to lower the drawbridge. I’ll suggest he play along, send his troops out those tunnels, allow me to put a gun to his back, open that front door and stand there in plain sight so that the Fulton Road boys will sweep up the front steps only to see the bulletproof doors slam shut and ten members of the Federal Reserve Police pour out of those big statues and round them up from behind, thereby securing Frederick Seifert a place in the pantheon of law enforcement alongside Elliot Ness and J. Edgar Hoover.”
Jimmy was listening hard now, trying to keep up. I took a slug of brandy and kept on.
“That’s the beauty part, I don’t have to get the drop on Seifert. I already have my gun in his back and his troops out the door when I let him in on the joke and march him down to the side delivery gate on Rockwell. He opens the gate, you and the boys storm in, we rob the bank.”
Jimmy folded thick arms across his chest. “And if it works we’ve got a million in hot cash and no way to move it.”
“You’re a smart guy, you’ll think of something. Me, I’m taking my dib overseas. The dollar’s king, someone’ll cash me out.”
I watched and waited. I had mentioned my dib. If Jimmy was on board he would ask about percentages. He took his time, muttered something I couldn’t make out. I asked him to repeat it. He turned to face me.
“And why would the G-man trust Jimmy Streets?”
I shrugged. “You saved my life.”
Jimmy gnawed this comment to the bone. Did he know I knew about the staged rescue? I kept my face straight and my yap shut.
“You’ll get your gun before we go,” he said after a time. “And we split three ways.”
“Who’s the third party?”
“The seven gunsels I’m bringing wit’ me.”
“That’s quite a generous offer to the little shavers. But I guess we both have an interest in keeping them happy.”
Jimmy bristled. “They’ll do as they’re told.”
“If you say so Jimmy.”
“I say so.”
I let my breat
h out nice and slow. I almost felt sorry for the poor dumb Italian Turkish octoroon. He was my puppy now.
“Done.”
Jimmy nodded and stumbled up the stairs to bed. Kingdog roused himself and trotted after him. I nibbled brandy and felt quite pleased with myself. Using false gratitude for Jimmy’s fake rescue was especially brilliant, if I do say so.
I waited half an hour for deep sleep to settle in upstairs. Then I got up and slipped out the front door. The glacial air slapped me full across the face. I walked down the gravel drive and turned to look. I thought I’d glimmed it when I first arrived but I wanted to make sure.
Yep. A single line drooped down from a telephone pole to the third floor of the brown brick monastery. The Schooler’s office. A telephone kept under lock and key. Could I chance it now? Sneak up the stairs and jimmy the lock?
Nah. The humans might sleep through it but Kingdog would be on me in a lick. I would have to bide my time, wait for the right moment. I had an important phone call to make.
Chapter Thirty
I slept late the next morning, best I could tell. I had searched the room for my wristwatch, couldn’t find it. What good’s a man without a wristwatch?
I kicked off the covers and stretched out my spine, half hoping Nurse Lizabeth would barge in with her tray of ointments. I felt fit as a fiddle but I wasn’t above mewling and moaning to garner some female solicitude. The door stayed shut. I heard muffled voices from downstairs.
What a group. Lizabeth was trolling for a new Sugar Daddy, Jimmy had agreed to sell out The Schooler and Mr. Big was in no position to squawk, having initiated the back-stabbing festivities his own damn self. Trust? Loyalty? That and a nickel will get you a cup of joe and two refills at Lulu’s Place. Three if you ask nice.
I got up and quick footed across the cold floor to the bathroom, took a shower, shaved and brushed my teeth. My face had healed up some. The cut from Schram was scabbed over and my assorted purple bruises had faded to an ugly yellow-orange. My hair had grown shaggy. I was one tough-looking s.o.b.
I grabbed my socks and boxers off the radiator and slipped them on, enjoying the steamy warmth. Soon, Schroeder, very soon you’ll roll out of bed and don a bathing suit and be dressed for the day. Wear one of those Hawaiian shirts to dinner maybe. Or not.
I pulled on pants and shoes and selected a flannel lumberjack shirt from the clothes closet. A Schooler hand-me-down, the sleeves stopped halfway down my forearms. I rolled them up to my elbows and clomped down the stairs, eager to see America’s most unlikely homemaker and chow down on a heaping plate of steak, eggs and country fried potatoes smothered in catsup. A wafting aroma quickened my step.
The breakfast room was empty. I poked my nose into the kitchen, I looked in the parlor. Nobody home.
I crossed the entryway and entered the dining room. Jimmy and The Schooler were bent to their plates. The Schooler at the head of the table, Jimmy at the foot. They were flanked by Ricky and Pencil Mustache and five other itchy young men.
“Any chow left?” I said
“Sorry Hal,” said The Schooler. “The early bird gets the grub.” The young men thought this just about the funniest joke ever.
“Guess I’ll go raid the fridge,” I said and ankled off. I found an ice pick in a drawer. I ran up the stairs and stopped on the second floor landing, listened for trailing footsteps, then took the third floor stairs two at a time. One of the steps groaned when I put my weight on it. I took the remaining steps gingerly.
The third floor smelled moldy, unused. I followed dusty footprints to a stout door secured with a deadbolt and padlock.
I gave it a go with my ice pick but I’m a deuce with padlocks. There was no way into this room save for a crowbar or a battering ram. Or a key. I took one more stab at the padlock.
It was then I noticed that someone had made a mistake. They’d put an interior deadbolt plate - with easily accessible screw heads - where they should have put an exterior deadbolt plate - with the screw heads covered or removed. All I needed to make my phone call was a screwdriver.
I descended the stairs, marched to the dining room and leaned in. One chair was empty.
“I got time to strop my gums?” I asked.
“Joe’s in the can,” said one of the punks. “You got all the time in the world.”
Laughs around the table. I turned tail and returned to the kitchen. I rifled every drawer and searched every cabinet. Some kitchen, all it had was cooking implements. I grabbed a butter knife, scraped the blunt tip around the inside of a greasy skillet and raced up the stairs. I paused half a breath on the second floor landing, listened, climbed some more, avoided the groaning step and made for the stout wooden door.
I swabbed Crisco below the screw heads and worked it in like a mason with a trowel. I wiped the grease off the knife and plied the tip of the blade. It spun out. I wiped the blade tip on my flannel shirt and tried again. The screw head didn’t budge.
I had endured privation, indignity, assault and betrayal in my quest for freedom. No %#;?&!% flathead screw was going to stop me now. I torqued the blade till my shoulder burned.
The flathead screw budged. The next three gave up without a fight.
I pocketed the screws, uncoupled the deadbolt plate from the door and entered The Schooler’s private office. It held a roll top desk, a fold-up cot and three file cabinets. The telephone was sitting on a small table next to the desk. I removed the slip of paper from my wallet and bent to dial numbers that weren’t there. No dial plate. I would have to tippy tap the cradle and hope dear old Edna the operator hadn’t wandered off to feed her cat.
I did. She hadn’t.
“Number please,” said the clipped female voice. I gave it to her. “One mo-ment.”
I kept the receiver pressed to my good ear and hoped to hell that Joe was taking his sweet time in the necessary room this morning. I heard raucous laughter from downstairs. A woman came on the line. She sounded just like Mrs. Brennan.
“Is Ambrose there?”
“And who wants to know?”
“Harold Schroeder, ma’am. It’s important.”
She set down the receiver with a thunk.
-----
I was two screws away from having the deadbolt plate back in place when I heard the warped step groan. Whoever was coming to investigate was only half a staircase away. It had to be poor dumb cunning Jimmy stumping up those stairs, wondering where the G-man had got to. I pocketed the screws and tried the door across the hall. Locked. There was another door at the end of the hall but no time to get there. Jimmy was steps away.
I strode down the corridor to greet him, my mind racing. ‘Hey Jimmy, I was just’…what? He would notice that unscrewed deadbolt plate and bust me flat. He’d know what I was after in that locked room and check with Edna the operator to find out who. I listened to his final steps on the stairs.
I was dead meat.
I squared my shoulders and approached the dark-haired figure who turned to face me. A dark-haired figure wearing a scoop-necked sweater and a flared skirt.
“Get down there, they’re looking for you,” hissed Lizabeth. She started back down, calling, “He’s not up here!”
Whew.
I replaced the screws in the deadbolt plate and crept down the stairs to the second floor landing. I heard voices in the breakfast room. I couldn’t descend that last flight, they would have searched the second floor. I ducked down the hall and into my room.
I grabbed my coat from the closet, crossed to the window, opened it and looked down. A snow-covered hedge twelve feet below. That would hurt. But three feet of snow had drifted against the hedge. It would have to do.
I scooted out onto the sill and closed the window behind me. I crouched down, set my feet on the narrow sill and broad jumped over the hedge and onto the snow bank.
I rotated my ankles, felt for brambles in my keester. A miracle had occurred. I was unscathed.
I shuffled through the drifting snow, keeping an eye ou
t for hungry wolves. I turned the corner to the back of the building. The coast was clear. Now all I had to do was think of some plausible explanation for wandering around in a foot of snow in my street shoes. I slogged to the back door, opened it and entered the breakfast room.
“Where the hell you been?” snapped Jimmy from the parlor. He and two of the young punks were piling into coats and hats. Jimmy had his sawed-off in hand.
“Outside,” I said, stamping snow off my shoes.
“Doin’ what?” demanded Jimmy, stepping my way.
I summoned my best dopey grin and shrugged. “Communing with nature.”
The punks chortled and elbowed each other’s ribs. Jimmy’s cheeks reddened but what could he say? Whatever I’d been up to I had gotten away with.
Chapter Thirty-one
We were huddled in the library after dinner, Jimmy and me. The potbellied stove was unlit. We could see our breath as we talked.
“You bring the boys up to speed on the new plan?” I said because I knew I should.
“I will when the time comes.”
“You got an escape route worked out?”
Jimmy nodded. He nodded and smoked and smoked and nodded. “Who’d you call on the telephone?”
I cleared my throat and tried to think. There was no point denying it, Jimmy had doped it out somehow, followed the one way tracks from above my room to the back door maybe. Shoddy tradecraft on my part. But he didn’t know who I’d called. Jimmy wasn’t a guy who asked a question unless he had to. I had one shot at this.
“I called Jeannie. You were right about me and her.”
Jimmy tilted his head to the right and examined me from an angle.
“I didn’t spill anything,” I said, looking away, looking down. “Just told her I was coming into some money and I, you know, wanted her to run away with me. I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance to call.”
I looked up to see how this was going over. Hard as a peeled egg Jimmy Streets held his cigarette two inches from his mouth, waiting on Jeannie’s answer to my heartfelt plea. Everybody’s a sucker for romance.
