On the Brinks

by Sam Millar

  He raised an eyebrow, but remained silent as he walked me to the door, watching me stroll toward First Avenue for a taxi.

  It wasn’t until later – when it was all too late – that he mentioned the black man following me up the street. He was sure he had seen him some place before, but just like me, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it at the time.

  By the time we figured it all out, there was no longer any time to figure.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  A Room With a View

  The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.

  Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

  Memory is man’s greatest friend and worst enemy.

  Gilbert Parker, Romany of the Snows

  Eventually, Pat came up with an apartment to store the money in. It was 330 First Avenue, apartment 10D. The impression he gave me was that a friend who was no longer in the country had rented out the apartment to him.

  It was a rent-controlled apartment, a real gold mine in space-poor New York. It had the tired, dusty look of the uninhabited. A few posters lined the walls; families of dried-out plants sat withering in each room, mingling with random heaps of records and books. Lots of books. All I needed was the music from The Odd Couple to be playing. It was obvious the place hadn’t been lived in for some time.

  We went outside to bring in the bags of money. As I turned in the corridor, a man was waiting at the elevator door, as if waiting for it to open. He was a black man. That was unexpected, as the apartment complex was exclusively white. As I walked towards the lift, he opened the door, smiling.

  “Which floor?” he asked, holding the door.

  Suddenly, my Belfast wariness kicked in. He was dressed rough, almost like a homeless man, but the manicured fingernails gleamed like mother-of-pearl, contradicting. Also, no black man in New York would open the door for a white man, inviting him to enter first. It would be tantamount to being an Uncle Tom. My suspicion heightened. I had seen this man before, but couldn’t put my finger on where.

  “No thanks,” I said, hoping my face didn’t say too much. “I’ve some stuff I need to bring in. You go on ahead.”

  It dawned on me as the lift door closed, sending him on a solo journey: he was the same black man I had caught looking into the back of the van. Perhaps he had spotted the contents, and was waiting for an opportunity to get the bags? What if his gang was here, waiting? I watched as the lift button lit up, stopping at floor six.

  Pat entered the corridor and I told him to wait, keep an eye on the bags, something wasn’t right.

  “Where’re you going? What’s wrong?”

  But I was gone, running up the stairs like a madman, taking them two at a time, the adrenaline giving me super powers. I was going to find out, once and for all, who this bastard was, what he was up to.

  What if he has a gun? A knife? the voice of common sense asked, as I reached the sixth floor, panting like a dog. But I didn’t want to hear that, just get him, grab him by the throat and give a good tight squeeze. He’d soon tell me all that I wanted to know.

  But he wasn’t there. The corridor was deserted, except for the sound of my breathing.

  “Bastard,” I said, loud enough for him to hear. I knew he was there, somewhere. It wasn’t my imagination or nerves, as Pat argued after we entered the apartment, bolting it shut.

  “It could simply be stress,” he reasoned. “Probably a janitor. Something innocent. That’s usually how it is.”

  But my gut told me he was wrong.

  I told Pat he would receive at least ten percent of whatever amount was final. Before he could protest at not wanting a penny, I said, “Think of what you could do for the homeless with that.” His mind began to calculate.

  “They’ll be safe here. I’ve something more permanent in mind, but this will do for now,” Pat assured me, as we dropped a couple of US Army duffle bags on the bare floor, making a dead-thud sound.

  “We need a money-counter,” I said, after we’d brought all the money into the room. “I still haven’t a clue how much there is.”

  I doubted if he believed me.

  “I’ll have one, probably by tomorrow. Tuesday at the latest,” he said.

  We left the apartment, agreeing to meet in the morning, knowing the laborious task of counting piles of money lay ahead. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, and wondered how long it would take to count it, get it out of my sight. The smell of used paper was making me physically sick, making my head swim.

  Unknown to us, from the safety of a café door, New York City detective Garry Beekman watched as we stepped out into the sunshine.

  “They’re leaving,” he whispered into a small mouthpiece to his commander.

  No sooner had we left the apartment than ten FBI agents – part of the 100-strong team sent to capture us – alighted on the building, while others tailed us home.

  They worked like ants, the remaining Feds, placing surveillance cameras in and around the tenth-floor common area. In the “EXIT” sign, directly facing the apartment, they placed a “pin head” camera, smack in the middle of the “X”. Within twenty minutes, they had locked in to their command centre at One Police Plaza, and were quickly given the go-ahead for Candid Camera to proceed.

  “Perfect,” came the static reply. “Just perfect.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Caught by the Balls. Again

  AUGUST 1993

  Whatever befalls you was prepared for you beforehand from eternity …

  Marcus Aurelius

  Our offer now stands at $750,000 for information.

  Brinks Incorporated, offering a record highest amount ever offered for information on a robbery in US history

  The money-counter made a soft hum, like an insect’s wings. So soft, yet I thought it might still be heard above the skull-penetrating noise of New York traffic, screaming from outside the windows. Pat said he couldn’t hear the hum, and I put it down to my growing paranoia, as I watched dollar bills blur at the speed of light, consumed by the greedy mouth of the counter.

  Later on, one person would agree with what I had just said. A female FBI agent, right outside the apartment door, her ear glued to it, giving the thumbs-up to the “X” in the “EXIT” sign. An enormous grin on her face said, “We’ve got them!”

  We continued blabbering away, while Key Hole Kate strained her neck, grinning.

  “We have a bit of a problem,” said Pat, as we stopped for a well-earned cup of tea. “That Englishman, Ronnie, has been about my place. He wanted to know if I had seen you lately, and if I knew where you were living now.”

  My face remained expressionless, but my stomach knotted. I knew it was only a matter of time before he came sniffing.

  “What did you say?”

  “Told him the truth. That I hadn’t seen you.” He smiled. “It’s never a sin to tell a lie to an Englishman. But I’m worried. That sneaky grin of his told me that he knows something.”

  Although Pat tolerated Ronnie, he neither liked nor trusted him. Ronnie’s Irish blood meant nothing to Pat, and he often referred to him, witheringly, as “the Englishman”.

  The whirring whisper of the counting machine continued unabated, highlighting the silence. Pat wanted to ask where Ronnie fitted in, but for the moment he allowed the silence to torture me. Finally, I said, “He’s trying to get rich on another man’s balls. Forgive the expression, Pat, but he’s a coward, a dog returning to its own vomit to see what it can find.” I was shaking with anger.

  “I never did trust him, you know,” replied Pat, wrapping an elastic band around a brick of $100 bills. “Never trust an Englishman. Trust the Devil first.” Pat sipped his tea while I wondered.

  Then Key Hole Fucking Kate almost came crashing through the door. She had slipped against it, just a little bit too eager.

  I spilt the tea. “What the hell was that?” I said, in a stage whisper, as I walked to the door, dreading that it might be Ronnie. Could he have followed Pat? Worse: the black m
an with a gang, all waiting to charge in, guns in their hands.

  I peeped through the spy-hole before pulling the door. Nothing. The crash of someone throwing crap down the garbage disposal echoed up from the basement, making me laugh a nervous laugh.

  “What was it?” asked Pat, edging on his chair.

  “Garbage.”

  I closed the door, bolting it to keep monsters out, while Key Hole Kate – two doors away on the landing – released the air from her lungs, making a sorry face at the “X”. Shit! The boss will have something to say about this.

  “What should we do about Ronnie?” asked Pat, returning to the subject I was trying to avoid.

  “Nothing for now. He can’t do any damage at the minute.”

  Still, I thought, sitting back on the chair, when all was said and done, Ronnie had been good to me. Despite being a pain in the arse, he had treated me more than fairly in the casino. If only he had seen it through to the end, he’d be laughing now, the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, handing out money to the poor.

  I was grinning now, picturing him squeezing his face against the restaurant window, laughing as we rushed for the door; grabbing boxes full of rotten bananas, thinking he had it made; stealing a brand new van, as a bewildered Pakistani chased after him down Tenth Avenue. Far too many good memories to try to erase.

  I knew there was only one way to stop him sniffing any further, and to stop the tiny pang of guilt I felt: Money. He’d get a cut, even though he didn’t deserve it.

  “I’m going to have to give him something, Pat. It’s the only way. Otherwise we’ll never get rid of him. Gather one of those bags, and stick a few stacks in it.”

  “You can’t be serious? He’ll think he’s got you running scared. Better that he thinks you’ve left the country, because no matter how much you give him, he’ll want more.”

  “No, he doesn’t think like that. I know him.”

  “You thought you knew him well enough at the start, and look how he turned out. I’d advise against it. He’s only bluffing.”

  I was already packing the money. It was done. It made little impression on the piles in front of us.

  “An awful lot of money …” said Pat.

  $100,000 is a lot of money now, but it wasn’t then. I was simply glad to see it go. The smell of it was getting worse, as were my headaches, caused by the talc-like stench of paper.

  “Okay,” said Pat, resigned to the inevitable. “I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “Soon,” I advised. “He’ll be over the moon with that. Get him out of the picture.”

  We left the apartment to the plants and piles of money and made our way down, taking the elevator. As we descended, a coterie of Feds ascended, taking the steps two at a time. They had at last been granted a “sneak and peek” search warrant from a federal judge. By the time I was placing the ignition key in my truck, the agents were inserting their master key in the door of the apartment, video recorders in hand, ready to film the mess we had left behind: suitcases and duffle bags resting on the floor, their contents spilling out like paper vomit; the money-counter sitting grinning at them; scraps of paper with the so-far money calculated.

  We hadn’t even bothered to close the living room window. The fire escape, neatly attached outside, was just begging for someone to come in and rob us. That would have been funny, said one agent to the other, as he checked his list of serial numbers against some of the piles stacked naked on the bed.

  They all held their breath, waiting, as one of their comrades slowly checked the numbers on his notepad against the numbers on the money. If they didn’t match, the Feds were in trouble and they knew it. From the piles of money, they searched out the $100 bills, hoping to find some of the $200,000 with known serial numbers.

  Each agent in the room froze as the black man spoke, in barely a whisper: “Series 1990; Mint: Richmond, Virginia; serialized E07510010A to E07510061A. Gentlemen, there is a god.” A grin spread across his entire face. “We have a match.”

  They slapped each other on the back, grinning like Halloween lanterns. This meant big promotions. Yes, sir! Fucking big! The black man quickly eased all the agents out, nice and quiet, not wanting to disturb the sleeping money. In a couple of days, hopefully, it would be time to close down shop, make the arrests, alert the media, go home and have a nice hot bath.

  Eight weeks he had been dressed like a homeless man, and he was beginning to smell like one. He would appreciate a good long soak. After that, well, he would want to have a word with me …

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Arrest and Diesel Therapy

  NOVEMBER 1993

  Federal agents have suddenly netted a veritable Sean O’Casey farce of circumstance and suspects. Bags of money scattered in a dim tenement apartment; Millar, an Irish revolutionary hiding out in America as a comic book dealer in Queens, New York; O’Connor, an Irish American cop and “Father Pat”, a classically ascetic Irish priest.

  Francis X Clines, New York Times

  Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.

  Pancho Villa’s last words to his supporters

  Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said nothing.

  My words to supporters upon being arrested by the FBI

  It was Friday, two weeks later. Everything was going well. Pat had just returned with me from the leafy suburbs of Westchester County, where I planned to buy a $300,000 home. He told the estate agent not to worry about the money, as the Church was funding the payments. We both thought that funny.

  Of course, we wouldn’t have found it so funny had we known that every spoken word had been recorded by the four FBI agents sitting only a couple of feet away, eating lunch at the next table.

  One of them, a devote Catholic, boiled with anger at the remark.

  After dropping Pat at his home, I entered the main post office in Jackson Heights, a fist-full of money orders in my pocket. “Loose change”, to the tune of $30,000, rested in the inside of my coat. It was the down payment for a Fredrick Remington statue that I had my eyes on.

  The sky overhead was threatening, giving this Friday afternoon a nasty Monday flavour. As I walked towards my truck, I failed to notice how unusually taciturn the normally boisterous streets had become. Usually, the Chinese merchants would be screaming their heads off at potential customers, telling them not to miss this once-in-a-lifetime deal, holding up decapitated ducks, and tiny pigs still wet with blood. Tiny drops of rain began to fall, making me quicken my pace.

  No sooner had I reached for my keys than I went flying, hard, against the truck. It felt like being hit by a rhino; the first thought in my head was that I was being mugged. My arms were shoved as far up my back as they would go without breaking, while voices screamed, “Where’s your fuckin’ gun?”

  I was dazed, and for a moment I thought I was dead, as I floated somewhere out to sea.

  “Sam? Sam? Can you hear me? Do you have a gun?”

  Why, yes. Of course I do. It’s in the back of the truck, along with the machine guns and flame-thrower. “No,” I managed to say, as they handcuffed my wrists and thumbs, before lifting me up and bundling me into the back of a car, one of six that had cordoned off the top and bottom of the street, stopping all traffic.

  “You know who we are?” asked the same voice, this time much calmer.

  The rain came in force. It banged against the car, making it sound like a hollow tin, summoning up images of the dole, Sundays in Belfast, the RUC, Celtic beaten by Rangers, and a million other horrors that only rain can conjure up.

  The repetitive voice went on and on: DO DO DO YOU YOU YOU KNOW KNOW KNOW WHO WHO WHO WE WE WE ARE ARE ARE…?

  The normal forty-five-to-sixty-minute drive into Manhattan took less than twenty minutes, as the convoy of cars, sirens blaring, sliced through the buttery traffic like a hot knife.

  At One Police Plaza, my hand- and thumb-cuffs were removed, and the bad-cop/good-cop routine was insultingly begun.

  “We’re
givin’ ya the chance to ‘get down first’, Sam, because ya’ve gotta wife ’n’ kids,” said Good Cop, a beefy Fed attired in a college blazer, shirt and tie.

  At that very moment, while he was displaying this touching concern for my family, his associates were smashing in the door of our home with a battering ram, pointing their guns at the head of my nine-year-old daughter, and screaming at her, “Where’s all your father’s money! If you don’t tell us we will take you away, and you will never see your mother or father again!”

  “Getting down first” is an American euphemism for informing on one’s associates. The FBI has a ninety percent success rate for convictions, mainly due to people turning informer against each other. It can all be summed up in the words of a spokesperson at the US Treasury Law Enforcement Academy, inducting new recruits: “Gentlemen, in this business, you’re only as good as your rats.”

  “Don’t be a fall-guy for the rest of ’em,” advised Good Cop. “We’ve already got Maloney, O’Connor and McCormack. They’ll spill their guts out if you refuse our one-time offer.” He got up from the chair and opened the door. “Listen.”

  From next-door, I could hear Pat talking away, like a parrot. It sounded all dark and whispery. But he wasn’t trying to get down first. Far from it. He was simply maintaining his innocence, stating the facts that he had never heard of this man O’Connor or Simmy Mullar, as a Bostonian-twanged FBI man had pronounced my name.

  What was really baffling was the McCormack. Who the hell was he?

  “Maloney’s begging us to let him get down first, but you’re married – just like me – and I don’t want to see you go to the penitentiary for the rest of your life. Understand? Do you?” He was so concerned about my welfare, it was touching. The RUC would have a field day with these guys, I thought, as Bad Cop entered the room. If I wasn’t too careful, he’d force me to listen to country-and-western music or blow smoke into my eyes, something really terrible.