“Thank you,” she said, very softly. “Desperate people are often inconsiderate.”
“Yeah, but I’m not that desperate.”
“Somehow you’re the most desperate person I ever met.”
“You might be right at that.”
The motel was on the way to Abe’s club. We stopped there to leave Mary’s automobile and go in Jerry’s, and to smoke the last two joints. Ever since Carol had said she didn’t feel like going with us, and especially since we’d left, Jerry had been pensive. He wanted to go home and apologized for his mood.
“Damn, I wish you weren’t on the lam,” he said. “We could build a paint-contracting business out of west hell. Your education is the thing I need. I’ve got connections but I can’t handle the administrative end.”
“That’s milk that got spilled a long time ago. Besides, I like being a criminal. I know what I’m doing there.”
“Yeah, if I didn’t have Carol …”
“That’s like the spilled milk. It’s a fact. You’d be a fool. You’ve got the world by the nuts.”
“I hope so. I’m scared. What if something goes wrong?”
I laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Do you know how insane that sounds? Here’s an asshole worried ’cause he’s happy. Would you rather be miserable and have nothing to lose? Man, you’re too fuckin’ much.”
Jerry laughed, too, but when I walked him out to his car the preoccupation had returned. He slipped something into my pocket just before he got behind the wheel. I knew it was money but waited until he dropped me at the club before checking it: a hundred-dollar bill.
Abe’s club was so jammed that the overflow spilled onto the sidewalk. Every table was full and customers were stacked three deep at the bar. The doorman—a hunk of beef on the hoof—said that Abe was gone and would be back in half an hour. Manny was working the rush behind the bar. It took ten minutes to edge close enough to him to talk. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, perspiration beaded his forehead, and he was mixing drinks as if he was a machine. He yelled over the bar that he’d made arrangements to pick up a .45 pistol and a police-model shotgun. The yell equaled a whisper in the room’s uproar. He threw a drink in front of me and went back to work. I found a corner from which to watch the crowd work hard to have fun.
Minutes later the band climbed the ladder to start a set. Angie was with them; she wore a costume bikini. The group twanged and thumbed, gathered themselves, and suddenly the electronically mixed music throbbed forth. It assaulted the sensibilities while overhead colored lights spun madly and added to disorientation. Still high on pot, my whole being was a conduit of feeling, a circus of awareness. There were no thoughts unless awareness of sensation is a thought. My body yearned to twist and gyrate.
Angie writhed and twisted and shook her ass in a stylized version of the arm-waving bacchanalia on the crowded dance floor. Yet she was indifferent, lacked the joy that others more clumsy were feeling. She was an erotic experience nevertheless; so were the others thronging the room, their skirts high, flashing white legs—or in taut pants that stirred the imagination. The music, the pandemonium, the young women all combined to make it a pleasurable way to spend an evening.
Two A.M. The last drinks had been served, the doors were closed and patrons were heading toward coffee shops or home. Bartenders and cocktail waitresses were rushing to rinse glasses, wipe the bar, clean ashtrays. The tawdriness of the club filled the vacuum created by the departing throng. I stood aside, waiting for Manny January.
Abe Meyers came up beside me. “Come on to the office. There’s somebody I want you to meet.” It was the first time he’d given me any attention during the evening, although our eyes had met through the crowd several times.
“Yeah, who’s that?” I was cold.
“Somebody who buys jewelry.”
Instantly I remembered Bulldog. The earth had swallowed him when he became involved with Abe Meyers and hot jewelry. But just talking to someone was no risk. And diamonds interested me. A big jewelry score is easier than a comparable score in currency. The problem was getting rid of a big load. A couple thousand dollars worth was easy, but when the amount became big it was hard. A friend of mine once robbed a San Francisco jeweler for three hundred thousand dollars in diamonds. A week later he was caught with all of it. He was living in a ten-dollar-a-week furnished room and had sixty dollars in his pocket and every piece of jewelry was in a bureau drawer. Two weeks later he committed suicide by leaping from the courthouse window—on the eighth floor.
The man sat behind Abe’s desk and started to rise when we came in, but Abe waved him to remain where he was. He was husky, going bald, wore a plain white shirt, open at the throat, and a cardigan sweater. He didn’t look rich, except for the fat green cigar between his teeth—and when he removed it a ring flashed on his little finger, a diamond solitaire so big it had to be real. A man who wore plain white shirts and sloppy sweaters wouldn’t put five carats of paste on his finger. He eyed me speculatively and I stared back.
Abe introduced us. “Eric Warren, Max Dembo.”
“Can we do any business?” the man asked.
“We can talk about it and see.”
“I’m mainly interested in diamonds, but I’ll handle other gems if the amount is worthwhile.”
“How much can you handle?”
“Whatever you can bring.”
“What about a hundred grandworth?”
“I can handle, I’d imagine, half-a-million dollars worth.” He smiled.
I was dumbfounded, had expected him to hedge on the hundred thousand. Silence dangled, broken only by the sound of movement beyond the door.
He cleared his throat. “A clarification is in order. I can definitely handle half a million dollars worth, providing it isn’t one or two stones—say half a million in stones up to three carats—but it would take a few days to get all your money for that much. I’d have to take everything out of the settings and fly to New York. The trip would take two, perhaps three days. I’d give you a substantial down payment on delivery.”
“Eric’s a diamond merchant,” Abe said. “He’s got an office downtown.”
“Here’s my card,” Eric said.
“What’s to stop you from taking a flight to Buenos Aires from New York?”
“That wouldn’t be good business,” he said.
“Eric’s got a wife and family,” Abe intervened. “He wouldn’t run off under those circumstances.”
“It’s happened before. But fuck all that for now. What’s the price?”
“I’ll do better than you’ll usually get. I’ll give you two-thirds of the wholesale—about a third of the retail. On half-a-million it would be about a hundred and fifty grand.”
The price was right. The standard rate was one-fifth of retail, or a third of wholesale.
“What do you think?” Abe asked.
“Sounds good—but offhand I don’t know of any score. I’ll think about it and check on Mr Warren here.” I fingered the card and slipped it into a shirt pocket.
“Call me when you want to talk some more,” Eric said. “We’ll have lunch together. Or drop in to my office. You might find something there for yourself—cut-rate for business associates.”
“I might do just that.”
Manny January was waiting when I came out of the office. Manny was now dapper in jacket and muffler. “What was that?” he asked.
“Just some bullshit. What about those guns?”
“The guy will loan ’em if I keep ’em until they’re used. He wants me to be responsible. When the score comes off he wants three hundred dollars. It’s a Colt .45 and a Remington 12 gauge.”
“He wants more than they cost.”
“I know it—but what can I do?”
“Get ’em. If the score comes off it’ll be worth it.”
“You won’t burn the guy, will you?”
“No, I’ll pay him. Like I said, it’ll be worth it.”
Abe Meyers came out
of the office and passed us. Angie Nichols was waiting for him. Over her brief costume was a dark mink coat that fell just above her knees.
“Angie’s doing okay for herself,” I said.
“Abe’s present to her.”
“I thought she was a square.”
“Squares know a good thing when they see it.”
“Glad to hear somebody can get something from him. I wanted to bone her down—but it doesn’t look like I can pay the tariff.”
“Abe’s got to pay. He’s fat as a pig and got a dick like a mosquito, so I hear.”
“They say it doesn’t matter to your lovemaking abilities.”
“Bullshit! I never had to buy a broad a mink coat.”
It made me laugh.
Later, as I sat in a cab going through the empty streets, I felt good—quietly exuberant. Things were beginning to move, the possibilities were growing. I had the joyous sensation of being in control of my world. I was doing what I knew how to do.
L&L Red saw me come into the pool hall and quickly finished his mug of beer. He was enthusiastic, and led me back to the sidewalk where he joyously declared that he’d found the crime partner I wanted, a two-hundred-and-forty-pounder, an ex-convict out of San Quentin who knew the game and was looking for a score. “Name’s George Rimmer,” Red said, “big guy about forty years old.” The name brought no recollection, but San Quentin has thirty-eight hundred convicts (and I’d seen three times that many faces with the turnover of eight years) and there was no way to know all of them. George Rimmer might have been a loner, or run with an Okie clique.
We went to see the man. He was living in a room two blocks from where Joe Gambesi had grown up; it had been a terrible slum even then. The stairwell was unlighted, smelled of urine where winos had pissed on the wall, and graffiti had been painted in black paint. It was an unlikely place to find a journeyman criminal. The criminals I knew and respected would prefer being on the prison yard for trying to get something than living like this.
Red knocked on the door. The man who opened it, bearded and wild-haired, made me burst into laughter. “George Rimmer” rang no bells, but the man before me was “Gold-tooth George”, a wretch who’d sold fellatio in prison for two packs of cigarettes a trick—three packs to blacks. He also habitually locked himself up in protective custody after getting too deep in debt. On sight of me, he flinched, and I laughed even harder.
Driving away, I explained the situation to Red. He didn’t think it was funny. He’d even bought George several drinks the night before.
“C’mon, I’ll buy ’em back for you,” I said. “I’ve gotta pick up some bogus I.D. and see some people.”
“When’re we really gonna have a party, Max? I mean really fuckin’ ball it up?”
“Soon as I tear off some money you line us up a couple freaky foxes.”
It made him happy to think about it.
7
WHEN I pulled into the motel, I was thinking of Johnny Taormina, wondering if he was having second thoughts. An hour before he’d claimed to be unable to give a definite time that the game was going off. I’d growled at him and he’d whined that he was telling the truth, never knowing that my rent was due in the morning and that was what disturbed me. Yet there was still a chance that he was balking at the last moment.
I was thinking of this—and of getting Mary’s car back to her—when I trudged up the steps. One foot was in midair and my door was five feet away when I saw that the light was on and someone was moving around. Heat! Like a cat with its tail stepped on, I leaped sideways and broke full tilt at the darkness beside the building, crashing like a fullback into high shrubbery and breaking through; then leaping down a fifteen-foot embankment into a brush-filled ditch. I lay silent and motionless where I landed, staring up at the brink of the ditch and listening for any sound. All I could see was the black border of clouds drifting across the face of a half moon. All I could hear was traffic in the distance. My racing heartbeat slowed after a few minutes. I felt the scratchy nettles of the weeds and the itch where the bushes had torn at my arms and face. It was obvious that nobody had seen me. That there’d been no outcry and chase calmed me; if I was unseen I was as safe as I’d been an hour ago.
I began to move along the ditch. The most reasonable thing, I thought, was that the maid had found the revolver. If so, O.K., I’d lost it and a few clothes. Maybe I could find a way to get Mary’s junkheap. They obviously hadn’t seen me drive up in it. Twenty feet along the ditch where there was a dark area, I scrambled up the embankment to the shrubbery and peered out.
Jerry Shue’s station wagon was parked ten feet from Mary’s car. It was Jerry in the room. “Bastard motherfucker,” I cursed. If I’d been properly watchful I’d have seen the light and the parked automobile the moment I turned in from the street.
When I walked into the room I expected Jerry’s eyes to widen at sight of the cockleburs in my hair and bedraggled appearance and to laugh with gusto at the story. Jerry neither noticed nor laughed. There was a redness in his eyes. His clothes were also unkempt; he needed a shave and his hair was messed.
“I slipped the lock,” he said, “I didn’t want to wait in the car.”
“Man, you look bad. What’s wrong?”
“Carol’s got leukemia.”
“No. Man, goddam …” The awful statement left me without words. With eyes closed for emphasis, I shook my head in mute sympathy. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe it’s a mistake.”
“No, it’s something they call malo fibrosis—leukemia is part of it or it’s a part of leukemia. I’m going to need money. I already owe eight hundred and she’s going to have everything there is. If you still want me on that caper …”
“Man, I don’t want you to decide when your mind’s all fucked up. You’re on the edge of hysteria.”
“I’ve thought about it and decided. I know what I’m doing.”
“Decide tomorrow. I want you with me—but—you know what I mean.”
“I don’t want to go back to the apartment tonight.”
“Where’s Carol now?”
“In the hospital.”
“Stay here, or get a hotel room.”
“What time is it?”
“Got no watch, but it’s about one-thirty.”
“Let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry and I feel guilty about it. If I’m moving around I feel better.”
Outside, he handed me the ignition keys. Summer was dying and the night air was chill. He inhaled deeply. Minutes later, as the automobile surged onto the freeway, he seemed less overwrought.
“Where to?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I headed toward Long Beach; it was good a place as any.
“She’s taking it good,” Jerry said. “Either she’s got unbelievable courage or she doesn’t accept it.”
Over coffee we decided that I’d go with him to visit in the morning. We talked about what we were going to do. He believed he was returning to crime solely to assure that Carol had everything money could buy. It might have been true, but I’m inclined to think that somewhere in the psychological mosaic was a need to fight dilemma with blind aggression—to lash out blindly and get revenge. His best move would have been to bear witness and endure, for it was better for Carol to be in a charity ward of the county hospital than have him in jail or dead—and she’d then be in the charity ward anyway. None of these arguments persuaded him, and so as dawn neared and we turned back up the coast highway toward Los Angeles it was agreed that he’d go with me.
“When do we make the first score?” he asked.
“Whenever he gives the word. It could be tomorrow or the next day. There’s another thing—I met some dude the other night who wants diamonds. I’m gonna check him out … see if he’s for real.”
“I’m game for anything. Eight or nine grand will help, but not for very long. We’ve got no insurance … nothing.”
“We’ll make money. If you’ve got enough guts there’s m
oney damn near lying on the ground.”
“Yeah, but the real good heists are where you can cut off that silent alarm and root around for fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“I know somebody who can do just that. He’s up at a road camp and wants to duff. I’m going to pick him up pretty soon. He’s black.”
“I don’t care if he’s polka dot if he’s solid and can hold up his end—and I trust your judgment.”
When we turned in from the seacoast the eye of day was opening. Jerry had gone to sleep beside me.
Carol used a remote control switch to turn off a television set as the nurse ushered us into the room and faded away. Jerry had shaved and changed clothes.
Carol looked much better than at the apartment. I hadn’t noticed her pallor then, but recognized it now from the change. Jerry looked more sickly than Carol.
“I thought you might like to see Max,” he said.
“Sure. Hi,” she said, wiggling her fingers to me and smiling. “Don’t look so solemn.”
Her brightness made me feel worse, but I managed to smile. “How do you feel?”
“So good I can’t believe I’m sick. All I needed was some fresh blood. I’m ready to go home.”
“Tomorrow, the doctor says,” Jerry said.
We stood at the foot of the bed, feeling uncertain. Jerry walked around and kissed her. She smiled and patted his cheek. “That’s a good boy. Settle down. I’m not dying tomorrow. When the time comes you’ll be tired of me. Sit down—both of you.”
Jerry pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down. I stood beside him, wanting to light a cigar and restraining myself.
“Mrs Johnson called me today,” Carol said. “She went by the apartment twice and you were gone. The chlorine machine is goofing and the pool is like poison gas. She was upset. She wants to know how long I’ll be here. I told her I’d be home in a day or two. She didn’t even ask what was wrong.”
“We’ll start paying our rent,” Jerry said. “Fuck all that work. We wasted too much time for fun already. We’ll get somebody in to do the housework.”
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