West 47th

by Gerald A. Browne

  “You know me and having to wait.” Mitch shrugged nonchalantly, trying to lighten the moment.

  “I practically perjured myself down in Baltimore in order to make it back here today. You should have waited.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “None,” Hurley replied too quickly.

  Mitch was disappointed by Hurley’s reaction, but then Hurley made it right, grinned as though he’d been kidding. “You did good,” he said exuberantly.

  “I got lucky,” Mitch said modestly. He related some of his previous night’s adventure. The high points and a little of the in-between. He’d gradually dole out the details. “You’ll probably want to let the New Rochelle police know about the bodies in the pool.”

  “Maybe,” Hurley said, “or maybe somebody should just find them sooner or later.”

  Mitch didn’t understand that but let it go. He was about half done with correlating the pieces of jewelry and the photographs. Hurley showed mild interest as Mitch returned to that task. “What’s with this piece?” Hurley asked, indicating a yet vacant photo of a diamond-encrusted bangle bracelet.

  “That one? It’s here. I saw it. I just haven’t gotten to it.”

  Hurley continued perusing the rows of photographs. “And these?” he asked offhand. “Did you happen to notice these?” The two enscribed emeralds.

  Mitch was distracted, barely glanced to see which photo Hurley was referring to. “Probably,” he replied.

  A grunt from Hurley, a sort of deep subversive sound that seemed to emanate from a Hurley within Hurley. He walked to the window and looked down at 47th. “You’ll be turning over everything to Ruder.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He know you’ve made the recovery?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I guess you can’t wait to tell him.”

  “Six hundred thousand.”

  “Anybody know you’ve got this stuff, other than you and me? Maddie, I suppose she knows.”

  “Not even Maddie.”

  Hurley unbuckled his belt and retucked his shirt, to offset with preoccupation the directness of what he was about to suggest. “How about fuck Ruder,” he said as though it was an impetuous notion that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Unless, of course, Mitch chose to jump on it.

  “Sure,” Mitch played along.

  “How about you were never in New Rochelle last night. You were anywhere other than New Rochelle. We pop the stones from all this shit, melt down and Ruder gets fucked.”

  That last part appealed to Mitch.

  Hurley knew that. “How much do you think we’d be looking at?” he asked.

  “Two, maybe three million.”

  “So, I get my horse farm in Maryland, you can have an all-paid-for place on Martha’s Vineyard or somewhere.”

  In the various recoveries Mitch had made over the years there’d never been an opportunity such as this. Everything about it was right for doing wrong. No one except Hurley knew he’d made the recovery; Mrs. Kalali and Roger Addison would get their six million from Columbia Beneficial; Ruder would be out on his ass.

  “Could you handle it?” Hurley pressed.

  “Nearly.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hurley challenged, “you’re too fucking straight. How anyone in this twisted business could stay so straight is beyond me.”

  “You’re right,” Mitch said, his tone letting Hurley know as far as he was concerned the subject had ended. He continued correlating the swag and was soon done. When he went down the loss list he saw every piece was accounted for.

  Except one.

  Number 32.

  The two enscribed emeralds.

  He mentioned that to Hurley.

  “Are they actually missing?” Hurley asked.

  “What do you mean actually?”

  “Just that maybe they appealed to you.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Hurley, go out and come in again.”

  “Nothing sinful about helping yourself to a little hold-out.”

  “Make up your mind. One minute I’m too straight, the next I’m holding out. Shit, if I was going to hold out something from these goods it wouldn’t be those two scratched-up emeralds.”

  “I guess.”

  “No guess to it.”

  “Then maybe the emeralds got accidentally dropped someplace. In your car or at home. That possible?”

  Mitch considered it. Car? No. Home? No. Andy’s during the clean-up? He didn’t think so, no. But it was strange that only one item should be missing and that it should be this one. Might Ralph have taken a fancy to them and put them aside? He could have, but would he? Why would he? They weren’t the sort of things an experienced fence such as Ralph would keep. They were too identifiable.

  “Anyway,” Mitch brightened, “forty-seven out of forty-eight isn’t bad.”

  Hurley agreed. “Want to go have a beer?”

  “I’ve too much work to do.”

  Hurley almost let it go at that. He looked off thoughtfully, as though weighing what had ensued during the last quarter hour. When he brought his look back he did an amending face. “Sorry about the attitude,” he said. “I’m on the rag. My room at the motel in Baltimore was right next to the ice machine.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Sure about the beer?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Later’s not good for me. See you tomorrow.”

  With Hurley gone, Mitch decided on a time-out. He left the photographs and the swag on the floor, switched off the light and shut himself in. Seated at his desk, he tried to blank his mind. It had been overaccelerating since yesterday and Peaches.

  He wished his was the sort of mind that could be turned off and on. Some people claimed they could do that. The meditators. He’d never been good at meditating. Once, years ago, he’d attended a transcendental meditation class and given it an open-minded month. At least once each day, sometimes twice, he’d sat quietly with eyes closed and chanted the nonsense syllable that was his mantra. But always some aspect of 47th Street came jabbing in, as though the mantra had usurped its place.

  Now he drew in deep breaths, relaxed his shoulders and defeated the urge to turn and peek through the slats of the drawn blinds at Visconti’s office across the way and 47th below in its Wednesday summer afternoon mode. Instead of the peek, Mitch imagined it, which was, really, as compulsive as a peek.

  The back of Visconti’s head above the back of his expensive leather chair. The Luchino Visconti movie poster on the wall beyond. A silver salver of fruit on the side table? On the street below two-thirds of the people would be tourists. Obvious because of the way they were dressed and their stop-and-go walks from window to window, diamonds to diamonds. Tomorrow, Mitch told himself, he’d walk the street, down one side and back up the other. By tomorrow the street would have heard of the recovery. He wouldn’t, however, be taking any bows. The street didn’t like being deprived. Swag was grist for its mill.

  The telephone.

  Were his eyes caught on it or was it staring at him? Why hadn’t Maddie called? He regretted now not having given her a departing hug. Maybe she was out shopping, defying curbs and bumpers, or maybe at that moment she was seated on a hard bench in the Grecian wing of the Metropolitan absorbing vibrations from ancient marble nudes. He should have hugged her, put some love in her ear. There should never be any should haves.

  Why hadn’t Ruder called? It would be better if Ruder called him rather than …

  It was as though he’d launched the wish and it had been immediately granted. Shirley came on the intercom with:

  “Ruder on one.”

  Mitch didn’t get on the line for nearly a minute, then opened with a busy: “Yes, Keith.” He rarely called Ruder by first name, never thought of him that way.

  “How are you, Mitch?”

  “Depends on who you ask. What’s up?”

  “Having not heard from you I was wond
ering how things were going.”

  “You sound as though you’ve got something,” Mitch told him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Could be it’s your sinuses. I seem to recall your telling me you had a problem with allergies. A lot of ragweed in the air this time of year. And pollen.” Actually, Ruder sounded the same as ever, stuffy and dry.

  “It’s probably the connection,” Ruder said a bit exasperated. “Anyway, do you have good news for me? The situation here is getting rather squeezy to say the least.”

  “Hang on a second.” Mitch held the receiver at arm’s length and covered the mouthpiece lightly while he pretended to be giving instructions to Shirley regarding a letter that had to go out today. The figure two million eight hundred thousand was nonchalantly mentioned. “Now,” he got back to Ruder, “where were we?”

  “I was asking if you had any news for me.”

  “Oh, yes. I guess you mean regarding the Kalali case.”

  “Of course.”

  “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “Message?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. Come on now, Keith, you’re toying with me.”

  “I don’t toy!” Ruder snapped, his true disposition coming through. He controlled. “You left a message with my secretary?”

  “No.”

  “Then with whom?”

  “Your secretary must have been out. The electronic answering system was on. You know, that press one if, press two if thing.”

  “I didn’t get the message.”

  “Goes to show that system isn’t infallible. Really Keith, you sound raspy. It could be your throat. You ought to have it looked into. I had an acquaintance who sounded similar. He ended up in Sloan-Kettering.”

  “What was the goddamn message?” Ruder was only a few nerve ends from losing it.

  God, how much he disliked this man, Mitch thought. Why not do what Hurley had suggested: not mention the goods, pop the stones and let Ruder take his fall?

  Moment of truth.

  “I’ve recovered the Kalali swag,” Mitch said so rapidly and run together it sounded like nonsense.

  “What? What was that?”

  “What you wanted to hear.”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  Mitch did an impatient exhale and said again what he’d said, but this time disconnecting and drawing out each syllable.

  Ruder was overwhelmed, overjoyed, couldn’t hold in a short length of laugh. “You’re remarkable,” he said. “I knew you’d come through for me, Mitch. You’re remarkable.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, where’s the jewelry?”

  “I have it.”

  “Bring it down.”

  “You’ll cut me a check.”

  “First of the month.”

  “Okay, first of the month I’ll bring it down. That’s only ten days.”

  “Be reasonable Laughton [now it was Laughton]. This is a large, structured organization. A check of that size takes some doing. Certain people have to approve, certain signatures are required. You understand.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Bring it down.”

  “Cut a check.”

  In the silence Mitch could hear capitulation. “I’ll do my best,” Ruder told him.

  Mitch hastily gathered up the pieces of jewelry from the floor.

  Shirley helped.

  She also supplied an Henri Bendel shopping bag with another of the same inside it for Mitch to carry the jewelry in. It would be safer than his attaché case. There had been a rash of snatch-and-run robberies lately involving 47th Street dealers. Thieves waited around the district, spotted a likely-looking dealer with his case in hand, followed him and, at his least wary moment, sideswiped him full speed.

  Just another variation in the perpetual foray between West 47 dealers and stealers.

  No one, however, went about with six million worth of jewels in a shopping bag. Shirley topped the jewelry with layers of tissue paper, tucked the paper in well around the edges.

  Mitch was in high spirit during the taxi ride downtown. The shopping bag on his lap. He forgave the cramped, cage-like back seat and the suicidal Israeli driver. He forgave the buses for their bullying and sooty exhausts. A happy hello to that mix of marvelous New Yorkers crossing at 39th. The same for the well-off obscured by the dark-tinted windows of the chauffeured Rolls-Royce equivalently stopped for the light.

  He gave the taxi driver an undeserved two-dollar tip and entered the thirty-two-story gray fortress that was the Columbia Beneficial building.

  The elevator was like a pneumatic box with its soft, long stops. The reception area had nothing on its gray walls except the company name. The receptionist, a prototypical older aunt, once married forever divorced, didn’t have even a New York smile for Mitch, told him it would be only a minute. He believed her and remained standing.

  At the five-minute mark he opted for one of the gray leather sofas. It wheezed as he sat. The magazines on the low table were only Sports Afield, Reader’s Digest and Life.

  At the seven-minute mark Mitch realized this qualified as a wait and at twenty minutes his needle was nearing the red.

  Ruder’s secretary saved the moment, came out to lead Mitch in. She was professionally pleasant. Mitch didn’t know her by name, just by sight. She had a wide, humpy ass, and, to make it worse, it was in a tight, white flannel skirt.

  Mitch followed it down the corridor past executive offices to the one that was Ruder’s.

  “Mr. Ruder has been called into an emergency meeting,” the secretary said. “You’re to leave what you’ve brought with me.” She extended her hand to receive the shopping bag.

  “Nothing doing,” Mitch told her. “I need to see Ruder.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Call him out of the meeting.”

  “It’s not being held here. It’s an outside meeting.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Not this afternoon.”

  The dickhead knew about this when I spoke to him, Mitch thought. Or else Miss all-ass here is fibbing for him while he hides in the executive toilet.

  “My instructions are to put what you’ve brought into Mr. Ruder’s safe, to give you a receipt and an appointment for ten tomorrow morning.”

  She said it straight, it sounded straight.

  Mitch glanced at the safe inset in the wall to the left. It was open, empty. He didn’t relish the prospect of having this six million in a shopping bag on the end of his arm any longer. Besides, rush hour was about to occur and he’d have a problem getting a taxi uptown. He pictured himself on the subway with the shopping bag.

  “What kind of receipt?” he asked.

  “The loss list.”

  Mitch’s reluctance had its say: “I don’t think so. Are you absolutely sure Ruder isn’t coming back? Is he where I might reach him by phone?”

  “I’ve already revised Mr. Ruder’s schedule to accommodate you at ten tomorrow morning.”

  Mitch’s compliance had its say: “May I please see that loss list?” The secretary handed it to him. He saw it was identical with the one he had, in fact, the original. That each page was separately signed and dated as received by Ruder was reassuring. Ten tomorrow morning wasn’t unreasonable.

  “Who knows the combination to that safe?” Mitch asked. “Do you?”

  “No, only Mr. Ruder knows the combination. He had it changed only a few weeks ago.”

  Mitch’s trust was not total. He wouldn’t permit the secretary to put the jewelry into the safe. Saw to it himself, inserted the shopping bag and all into that steel hole. It was a tight fit. He closed the safe door, twisted the handle which slid the bolts into place and locked it by rotating the combination dial four times around.

  For a while that night was a sensational night for Mitch. Despite his less-than-satisfactory trip to Ruder’s office, he climbed back up to the altitude of his high of that day and stayed up throughout dinner and afterwards.
/>   Maddie soared with him.

  In keeping she chose to wear a next-to-nothing, a red silk satin number by Alberta Ferretti that was bare on top and bottomed out mid-thigh.

  “It calls for a strong mouth, don’t you think?” she said while getting ready.

  “By all means a strong mouth,” Mitch insinuated.

  “Oh, you,” she admonished archly.

  The center drawer of her dressing table was fitted with a slotted rack for her tubes of lipstick. About a dozen tubes arranged according to shade left to right from nearly naive to saturnalism. This night she went straightaway to the extreme right for Yves St. Laurent’s Mischievous Rose, spun it up and began applying.

  She paused from that effort to ask: “Do you think it’s absolutely essential that I wear panties?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were I eighteen and going out to a rock club I wouldn’t. It’s okay, though, isn’t it, that my titties are on their own?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This fabric shows off my nips.”

  “You’re treacherous. I don’t think you realize how treacherous you are. Want a refill?”

  They were having some blanc de blanc as an overture. The bottle was only about two drinks from empty. Mitch poured and Maddie started on her lips again. She paused again. “Did I mention that Straw phoned today? From Kennedy. He and Wally are off to London to give the Cleremont a try. Something tells me they’ll come back married. That would really scorch Marian.”

  “How long will they be gone, did he say?”

  “I suppose as long as it takes.”

  “It,” Mitch thought aloud.

  Maddie stared at the mirror, intensely, as though she could see her image. “Tell me true, precious,” she said, “am I beginning to look as though I’ve been around the garden a few times. All I have to go on is what you tell me. Do I? And don’t fib.”

  Mitch leaned and delivered a mere touch of a kiss to the round of her bare shoulder. “You look like you’ve just found the path and are still amazed by the blossoms.”

  “What a sweetie you are.”

  They were slightly sloshed by the time Billy dropped them off at Le Cirque. Everything was pleasant to amusing. Even things that ordinarily weren’t so pleasant or amusing. The dinner was superb. They shared some moules. Couldn’t decide on dessert so they ordered six of the offerings and took only nibbles of each.