“It’s got more style. Not so middle class.”
Like I told dad, he has pizzazz.
Banks, casinos, machine guns, getaway cars, sirens. I sentence you to spend the rest of your natural life… time off for good behavior…
“Well?” Harry said. “Are you with me?”
“It might be amusing,” said Miss Wong.
“What about you, Number Three?”
“What would you expect me to do?”
“You’ll do as you’re told.”
“I would have to know more than that.”
“Of course he would,” said Miss Wong. “And so would I.”
“No need to get excited.”
She was clearly not excited. Her breathing was calm and her brow was as smooth as ivory. “As you very well know I do not believe in violence. I have no objection to a little heist for the sake of sport and to keep the juices flowing, but if guns are to be employed I want to know about it.”
“Leave everything to Harry, luv.”
“Fuck off.”
“Now do you call that being reasonable?”
“Perfectly.”
He scowled at her. It was a look to make your blood run cold. She never flinched.
“If you two think you can dictate to me you’re off your chumps,” he said.
“Take it or leave it,” she said.
He turned to me. “Is she speaking for you too?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, you can both jump ship anytime you want.”
She went down the companionway steps and began putting her things into a little canvas bag marked Laotian Airlines.
Harry said, “Hold on.”
“Yes?”
He had lost his bluster. “Stay.”
“Why?”
“I need you.”
She went on putting things into the bag.
“Listen,” he said in a conciliatory voice, “it’s all been worked out. The whole deal is in my briefcase. Grogan will be here in a little while and we’ll go over it with you.”
She put the Laotian Airlines bag aside but did not unpack it.
CHAPTER 13
“WE WILL GAS THE BASTARDS,” GROGAN told us.
“Will we now?” said Miss Wong. “What kind of gas?”
“Harmless enough, beauty. Temporarily incapacitating.” The professor paused to take a swallow of his gin and tonic. It made me uncomfortable to look at him. For one thing he was so tiny, and for another he had a facial tic that made his right eye screw up and wink. When he winked like that everything became a big joke. But he wasn’t joking as he looked over the stuff contained in the briefcase.
“This is a duplicate diagram of the air-conditioning system for the Paradise Island Casino,” said Grogan. “Note that it is powered by a ten-ton reverse cycle unit situated on the roof. Note too that the same system—which I might add is entirely enclosed within the casino—leads also to the men’s room. You may well wonder what the men’s room has to do with it, but I will get to that in due course.
“An air-conditioning unit, as you may know, is cooled by a cylinder of freon gas. The gas is released into a system of coils and the air is cooled by passing over those coils. The cold air is then pumped down through the ducts.
“Since this is a new building and since the air conditioning is kept on twenty-four hours a day, there are no windows. No opening of any kind, as a matter of fact, besides the main doors and one at the rear of the building. To all intents and purposes, therefore, the building is a sealed unit, a sort of stoppered bottle. Don’t you see the beauty of it?”
“No,” said Miss Wong.
“Why it’s so childishly simple and absolutely foolproof you can hardly believe it. First you have to understand how the casino operates. Gambling is, of course, a state of mind, a delusion. The psyche of the gambler, like that of any paranoid, has been liberally explored and has been found to be full of more worms than a tub of shit left standing in a flower garden. Logically he knows that the odds favor the house and that in all likelihood the machines may even be fixed. But he tells himself that every so often someone wins—as indeed they do; the house sees to that—and he tells himself that he may be the one. Which is rather on a par with some pimply faced bank clerk dreaming that when he goes out to lunch at a hotdog stand he will meet Raquel Welch and she will take him home to bed. It is within the realm of possibility, but only just. In other words, a mug’s game. La Grande Illusion, as the French say. Gambling therefore is a not a sport for winners but for born losers.
“Now the casinos understand all this very well, and they go out of their way to nurture the illusion. This is done by giving the operation an air of looseness and ease. For one thing there are no armed guards visible, because the presence of weapons would make the gambler uneasy and serve to destroy the illusion. And for another, the money is handled in the most casual way. Cash should not be visible any longer than necessary and should be replaced at once by chips, since chips have an air of unreality anyway and contribute to the illusion. So when the mug buys his chips at the table, his money is immediately raked down through a slot into a box kept beneath the table. Every so often these boxes are removed and carried into the cashier’s cage where they are emptied. The money is totaled there and eventually carried into the manager’s office where it is placed in a safe. But on a busy Saturday night a considerable amount of money remains in the cashier’s office. I would estimate anywhere from one to two hundred thousand dollars. That, as they say in gangster parlance, will be our take.”
I was impressed. Two hundred thousand! Most men go a lifetime and never see that much. One fast night’s work. My heart thumped. Miss Wong never batted an eyelash.
“You still haven’t told us how you mean to go about it,” she said.
Grogan’s tic speeded up, right eye going like a strobe light. “Gas, luv. Man on roof is dressed like air-conditioning repairman. Carries cylinders presumably containing freon. Actually not freon at all. Mixture of cyclo-propane and nitrous oxide. Injects into system. Renders all within hors de combat.”
“For how long?”
“Fifteen to twenty minutes. Ample. No harm done. Everybody happy. Nitrous oxide, as you may know, is sometimes referred to as laughing gas. Gives you a charming high and then a nice little nap. Everybody in the place will feel absolutely marvelous just before they cork off. The cyclo-propane will simply reinforce the effects of the nitrous oxide. No long term effects or gastrointestinal disorders. Nice?”
“But if we’re robbing the place what’s to keep us from going to sleep too?” I said.
“A good question, young man, and the answer is obvious. Gas masks.”
“You mean we just stroll around wearing gas masks and waiting for everybody else to keel over?”
“Certainly not. All a question of timing. Strictly observed schedule. Robbers in men’s room occupying crappers. Put on masks. Sit there waiting. Gas injected 0130. Masked men emerge 0145. Fifteen minutes to remove cash. Depart building 0200. Board Jezebel 0210. Underway without lights for parts unknown 0215.”
“There have got to be guards outside the building?” said Miss Wong. “How do you propose to take care of them?”
“Two indolent native youths. One near the parking lot and one at the main door. Parking lot man will not see anything unusual in our emerging from building, getting into rented car, and driving away. Possibly he can later furnish authorities with a rough description but nothing more. Doorman to be distracted.”
“How?”
Grogan stared with intense interest and obvious admiration at the opening of her shirt. His cheek muscle nearly jumped out of its skin. “I had thought of you for that purpose, my dear. You will be wearing one of your more fetching costumes and you will stroll by to have a few words with him. Presuming that he has the proper masculine instincts, I can assure you he will be thoroughly distracted.”
“Who will be on the roof?” I said.
“You will.”
/> “And where do I meet you?”
“We will arrange a rendezvous for both yourself and Miss Wong.”
Something fishy about that. No use making an issue of it now. Crooks have to trust each other. Basic principle of crookery. All the same…
“Where do we get the gas?” I said.
He gave me a nod of approval. “A sharp lad, Harry. The gas is easily obtained through Amalgamated Hospital Supply in Miami. I will purchase it there and store it in scuba tanks. Such tanks are customarily carried into the Bahamas by skin divers and there is no reason for anyone to question their validity. At the proper time I will turn the tanks over to you, and you will carry them up to the roof. Luv-er-ly?”
“Beautiful,” said Harry before I could answer. “And what makes it doubly beautiful is that this is not anybody’s hard-earned bread we will be lifting. I mean this is dough that has already been played and lost. When we take it who will we be taking it from? A bunch of lousy crooks.”
It was a good point and it made me feel a little better about the whole thing, although, to tell you the truth, at that point I could hardly believe they were serious.
“You’ve neglected to inform us on the most important point of all,” said Miss Wong.
Harry grinned. “I know. How the dough is to be split.” She nodded.
“Thirty-five percent to me for furnishing the boat, the people, the organization, and the original idea. Fifteen percent to Grogan for technical assistance and various other refinements. The other fifty percent to be split on equal shares among the rest of you.”
“How many is that likely to be?”
“Don’t know yet. Might be five, might be ten. Well what do you say? In?”
She gave that tinkling laugh like temple bells. “Why not?”
“What about you, Number Three?”
“If you’ll just call me by my right name,” I said.
“Didn’t know you were so sensitive, Clayton.”
“Clay will do.”
“Done.”
Just like that. I mean Harry made everything so simple. Rob a casino. Fly to the moon. Why not? It was so simple I still didn’t believe it was for real. Some kind of elaborate put-on. But I couldn’t be sure. After all he did do things. I mean he had gotten that crazy boat all the way down from New York. And Miss Wong was certainly real enough. And I had seen the way he pulled it off with Mrs. Burger. Well, I would go along for the ride. I could always pull out later.
Harry brought out the rum.
“To crime,” said Grogan.
We drank to that.
CHAPTER 14
I HEARD A WOMAN SCREAM. MY FLESH crawled.
“Lawd! Lawd! Jeezus! Help me Jeezus!”
Rape? Murder? Run away or toward it? Clouds racing across the moon. Trees bending before the wind. Ten o’clock? Eleven? I had been wandering around the island looking for Elvira. No luck. Now this. I waited for someone to do something, but no one did. The scream again. I ran up the path over a little hill. A white church like bone in the moonlight. Screaming, screaming. Who commits murder in a church? Grabbed the shutter bar above the window and chinned myself.
Hellish surprise. Six of them rolling around on the floor with their skirts up, yelling. But nobody laying a hand on them except maybe the devil. And there he was. My darling Miss McGee’s senator. White linen suit and eyes like black diamonds. Moustache gleaming. Satan preparing to pitchfork them all into hell. Skirts right up around their hips, bouncing black bottoms. But the senator is not the devil after all, because he is reading from the Bible. Some Sunday school.
“I am coming, Lawd!”
Dropped down. Saw Elvira. Standing in the doorway wearing gray slacks, lime green sweater. Beautiful Watusi. Cool. Smokes a cigarette. Pays no attention to hellish proceedings. Blows a smoke ring in my direction. Grins. Beg her to meet me outside. Shakes her head. Senator beating his meat with Bible. Ladies pounding bottoms.
“Coming Lawd!”
She is walking toward me. Stiff hair in that Afro cut standing out like a thorn tree on the veldt. So long and lean the wind seems to float her along above the ground. My heart floats with her.
“Come for your turtle soup, baby?”
Speechless.
“Kind of past your bedtime, huh, baby?”
The senator’s voice rises on the wind. Roebucks and breasts.
Tattoo of hips and naked thighs on dusty board floor.
“You kind of dig that Song of Solomon, baby?”
She moves closer. Eyes big and scary in the moonlight. Cat’s eyes. Perfume. Sweat. Rum. Voodoo goddess in the Haitian rain forest. I back away. She comes after me. Backs me down toward the beach and puts one long limber leg behind me so that I topple over backward. She is on top of me and all that time her lips have been glued to mine. Helpless as a fly on flypaper. Her fingers at my zipper. Fingertips like chips of ice.
“Relax, baby.”
Probably cut my heart out with a stone knife. Drinks chicken blood for breakfast. Sacrificial goat. What a way to go. Despite myself I am beginning to enjoy it.
“Mmm, lovely,” said she.
One hand inside the waistband of her slacks and down over her bottom. No panties. Like squeezing two hard beautiful soccer balls. She pulls my hand away. “Uh Uh.”
“What’s the matter?”
No answer. Instead she slides my pants down over my hips and bends over me. Teeth like a tigress. My God.
“Nice?”
I am unable to speak.
“All systems go. Rocket to the moon, baby.”
I return to earth scorched and spent.
“When will I see you again?”
“Quien sabe?”
“We’re leaving in the morning.”
“Dat’s de way wid you sailor cats. Sail away and leave us black gals behind.”
“Can’t you be serious?”
“Oh man, don’t ask me to be serious. That’s the worse scene of all.”
The screaming and yelling had ended and so had the senator’s voice.
“Listen, I love you.”
She laughed and kissed me. I felt a little funny about kissing her.
“Go away, sailor boy.”
“But I do.”
“So you do. Man, it ain’t exactly the Hope diamond, is it! Scat now. Momma got to run.”
And she did.
Loved her. Hated her. Thought of her in bed with the senator kissing him as she had kissed me and wanted to kill her. Broke into a sweat and ran down the path and out onto the dock and straight into the black water. Wanted to be eaten alive by the biggest fucking barracuda in the world. Was not eaten by anything but scraped the hell out of myself on the pilings. Climbed aboard. All quiet except for Harry snoring. Wished Miss Wong was awake. Wanted to ask her a million questions. Smeared iodine on the gash. Wow! Sat on deck and tried to count stars. Fell asleep at ninety-nine.
CHAPTER 15
WE WERE UP AND AWAY AT DAWN. THE SUN was the color of boiled lobster.
“Red sky at morning/sailor take warning,” said Harry, rubbing his hairy back against the mizzen mast.
We steamed along hard on the wind. Harry decided it would be a good time to take what he called his sea bath. He lowered himself naked from the bobstay and let the water foam over him. He hung there for about half an hour and then pulled himself up and smeared himself from head to foot with Wesson oil. With his oiled red fur he looked more than ever like an ape and smelled like a salad.
Miss Wong stayed in her bunk. She said people developed anxieties and insecurities from getting up too early. That wasn’t the way she said it exactly. What she said was, “Epidemic dislocation conditioning to insanity and reality beyond expectation.” When I asked her what that meant she said it was just another way of saying anxiety and not to wake her for anything short of shipwreck.
We went booming along. It was great. Out there on the Banks the bottom came up and looked us in the eye. It was all clear clean sand, like sailing across a f
looded desert. Not much sea life but occasionally something scraggly crawling away from our shadow. Once a big ray flapping off and another time a little shark with pig eyes. Nothing else for a hundred miles.
Then we began to see birds and native sloops. Jolly black men who sailed better than we did and grinned at us as they went by. At night the wind died and we lay motionless under the moon. Harry played something sad and sweet on his accordion, and Miss Wong sang in a foreign language. When I asked her what it was she told me it was the Chinese version of “They’re Hanging Danny Deever in the Morning.”
We drifted backwards and lost a few miles. Way off to the east a buoy blinked. A shooting star scratched the sky. Something man-made went smoothly through space like a glow worm. Harry was full of a lot of dope about the constellations. He knew all about them and the myths that were connected with them, and he had a way of making it exciting.
Every now and then I would think about Elvira and feel my prick rise.
Miss Wong sang another Chinese song that sounded like knives being scraped together. Harry sang his favorite number—“Take It in Your Hand, Mrs. Murphy.”
We ate raw conch. It had the taste and texture of rubber.
Now and then I thought of home and Mary Ann and how nice it would be to share this beautiful night with her. Then I began to think of robbing the casino and maybe getting shot in the guts, and Mary Ann bending over me with the tears running down her cheeks.
I fell asleep on deck. When I woke up I was alone and cold. The moon had crossed the sky and the stars were pale. I wondered if Harry and Miss Wong were down below making love. If they were I didn’t resent it. I wanted them to be happy.
A little breeze came up. I slacked the main and let her run. The water was so smooth it was like sailing in a dream. The only sound was the chuckle of wavelets under the bow. The sky ahead turned gray and then pink. I lay on my back and steered with my toes. Just before the sun rose Miss Wong came and sat beside me. She brought with her two cold hotdogs and a hardboiled egg. I ate the egg in one bite and the dogs in another.
She put her arm around me and I leaned back against her. I could feel the slow rise and fall of her breathing. When I began to think of making something more of it, she let me know without any words but in a friendly way it was no dice. I really didn’t mind. It was so nice the way we were.
Harry & the Bikini Bandits Page 6
