McNally's caper

self-respecting fence would touch them. They’re wingdings. So they peddle the stuff, and right away the blues pick them up. The rocks are identified as part of the Brandenberg heist, and the fuzz get big headlines about how they broke the case so quick. You think they’re going to look for anyone else? No way! File closed. And we’re home free.’

‘Hey, wait a minute,’ Dick Fleming said. ‘Won’t they talk if they’re picked up? Identify us? Cop a plea?’

‘Oh sure,’ Donohue said cheerfully. ‘They’ll sing their little hearts out. What do you expect? But I’ll be long gone by then. Won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I said hastily. ‘Long gone.’

‘Naturally,’ Black Jack said. ‘The survival of the fittest. Wow, we’re really rolling now! Let’s have another round. This one is on me.’

So we had one more drink. Then Donohue said he was going back to the Hotel Harding and get to bed early.

I said I was going to drive Dick Fleming home, down to the Village. So we all shook hands and parted. I paid the check, including that last drink Donohue had grandly offered.

THE CONFIDENCE MAN

For the next three weeks, I spent most of my time in the guise of Beatrice Flanders, with Black Jack Donohue. He seemed to have no objection to my tagging along. In fact, I think he enjoyed the opportunity to display his expertise.

As we came closer and closer to that fatal Friday, his eyes sparkled, the brilliant grin became more frequent. ‘My luck has changed, babe,’ he said to me, laughing and snapping his fingers. ‘It’s coming my way now. And I owe it all to you.’

‘Sure, Jack,’ I said.

The way he handled the problem of getting enough Bonomo Cleaning Service coveralls for the entire gang was very cute.

Donohue had a dozen business cards made up showing that he was sales manager of the Big Apple Laundry and Drycleaning Co, at a fictitious address. Then he dressed in a conservative suit of dark-gray flannel and donned a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles fitted with window glass. The business cards bore a telephone number — the phone booth at Fangio’s.

Thus prepared and accoutred, Black Jack paid a visit to the office of the Bonomo Cleaning Service. He claimed to be sales manager of a new company specializing in industrial laundry and drycleaning.

‘We are brand-new, sir,’ he said to the boss of Bonomo. ‘Just started operations a month ago. Not yet listed in the telephone directory. But if you’ll just phone the number on my card, you can verify what I am saying.’

I was stationed near the phone booth at Fangio’s at the time Donohue told me to be there. When the phone rang, I grabbed it and said, ‘Big Apple Laundry and Drycleaning Company. Good morning.’ A harsh voice asked if we had a man named Sam Harrison working for us.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said briskly, as rehearsed by Donohue. ‘Mr Harrison is our sales manager. He’s out of the office at present, calling on customers, but if you’d care to leave a message or a number he can call…?’

‘No,’ harsh-voice said, ‘that’s okay.’

So Donohue-Harrison made Bonomo a generous offer. He would take a dozen pair of dirty coveralls, have them back the following day, cleaned and pressed, at absolutely no cost to Bonomo. Just to prove the speed and efficiency of Big Apple’s service. And the cost for a regular contract with Big Apple would be guaranteed 10 percent less than what Bonomo was currently paying.

What did the harsh-voiced boss at Bonomo have to lose? At worst he’d never get back his dozen coveralls. Peanuts. At best, he’d get the dozen coveralls cleaned for free and could cut his laundry costs by 10 percent.

So harsh-voice handed over twelve soiled, light-blue coveralls with ‘Bonomo Cleaning Service’ stitched across the back. They ended up in Jack Donohue’s room at the Hotel Harding.

‘See how easy it is?’ he said to me, laughing like a maniac. ‘Some fake paper, an earnest manner, lots of balls, and you’re in like Flynn. All life is a scam, babe. Some small, some big.’

We didn’t score such a complete success with the fence, but it wasn’t a failure either.

Donohue came up with the name of a man with a Wall Street address. He called,mentioned his contact, and set up an appointment for 4:00 P.M.

I couldn’t believe a receiver of stolen property would be working out of an office in the financial district, but Donohue didn’t think it strange.

This is a big man,’ he assured me. ‘Deals in millions. I mean hijacked truckloads, traveler’s checks, crates of transistor radios, airline tickets, computers, stock certificates, machine tools, bearer bonds — stuff like that. You think a man with the cash to handle deals like that would be working out of a phone booth? Bea, this guy is class.’

I drove Jack down to Wall Street. The office we were looking for was in one of those buildings so high that it turned your stomach just looking up at it.

But the office itself wasn’t much. Down at the far end of a marble corridor. The legend on the door read ‘Merchants Provisions, Inc. Asa Coe, President.’ There was a small outer office where a pouty, middle-aged lady sat at a typewriter. She had an enormous beehive hairdo of glossy black curls, earrings just slightly smaller than barrel hoops, and rings on every finger. A gypsy. If she had shaken a tambourine, shoved a hand at us and said, ‘Cross my palm with silver and I will tell you secrets of your past, present, and future,’ I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

She looked up slowly as we came in.

‘Yes?’ she said coldly, eyeing Jack.

‘Mr Morrison,’ Donohue said. ‘To see Mr Coe. I called for an appointment.’

‘I’ll tell,’ the gypsy said.

She stood to go into the inner office. She had a bosom that looked like it was stuffed with goose down. But there was no doubt about it: it was hers.

She was out in a few seconds.

‘He’ll see,’ she said, giving Jack Donohue a slow, calculating up-and-down stare.

The man in the inner office was, I guessed, about 342 years old. I thought it was hot as hell in there, but he had on a wool plaid shirt (buttoned to the neck; no tie), a cardigan under his suit jacket, and a wool scarf pulled across his scrawny shoulders. He was also slurping from a big mug of steaming tea.

He was seated behind a beat-up wooden desk, and there was nothing else in his private office. I mean nothing. There was his scarred desk, his wooden swivel chair, and four dark-brown walls. No file cabinets, no chairs for visitors, no pictures, no papers on his desk, no coat rack. It looked as though he had just moved in five minutes ago and was waiting for the rest of his furniture. Or maybe he was moving out, waiting for the brawny guys to wheel out desk, chair, and him.

‘Mr Coe?’ Donohue said.

The mummy looked at him. His face was a road map of wrinkles, and his complexion matched the walls. He faded into the background. All you saw were bright eyes and brown-stained teeth.

Then Coe nodded. That was some nod. It started slowly and then grew faster.For one horrible moment I wondered if he’d be able to stop, or if the nod would become more violent until the shriveled head snapped off the shrunken neck and bounded across the floor. But gradually the nod slowed, then stopped. The glittering eyes stared.

‘Yes?’ he said. A whisper.

‘My name is Sam Morrison,’ Jack Donohue said loudly. ‘This lady is my associate Miss August.’

‘Yes?’ Coe whispered.

‘As I mentioned on the phone, sir,’ Donohue went on bravely, ‘Mr Winowitz gave me your name and suggested I call. I presume you checked with him?’

‘Yes?’ Coe said.

I think he said ‘Yes.’ It was so faint, all I heard was ‘Ssss.’