McNally's caper

office, working on my private manuscript, Project X. I wrote down everything that had been happening to me, including my very, very secret musings on the character of one Black Jack Donohue. I must admit, he didn’t come across on paper. I mean, I couldn’t figure him, couldn’t pin him down, couldn’t fit him into any neat personality slot. Sometimes I thought him a shallow, two-dimensional cutout, a cartoon of the cheap, criminal hustler. Other times I thought I glimpsed something deeper and more complicated there, a man who was nervy and frightened, brave and scared, laughing and peevish. In short, human.

That night I wanted to be alone. I have a highly developed taste for solitude, and had had few recent opportunities to enjoy that pleasure. So that Friday night, locked safely in my East Side burrow, I devoted all my time to what I call ‘schlumpfing.’ Men might not understand it, but women will.

I washed my hair. Did a few stretching exercises. Cut and painted my toenails. Tried a new moisturizer I had bought. Ate some odds and ends I found in the refrigerator. Mixed a few crazy drinks, like a grasshopper and a black Russian. Wrote a letter of progress to Aldo Binder and tore it up. Put some Cole Porter on the turntable and danced naked around my living room, Ginger Rogers without Fred Astaire. In other words, I just schlumpfed around, spending time as though it would never run out.

I was half-listening to the midnight news on an FM radio station when I became aware of what the announcer was saying. I dropped what I was doing and listened to every word.

The newscaster was reporting a jewel robbery in San Francisco. A well-known, exclusive shop called Devolte Bros. Five or six masked gunmen. In broad daylight. Held up clerks and customers. Ransacked the store, taking only the most expensive items. In and out before police could respond to the alarms. Loot was estimated at more than two million dollars.

I turned off the radio. Two million dollars. Six masked gunmen. In and out so fast that the silent alarms were worthless.

As they say in novels, it gave one pause. The whole caper sounded like a rehearsal for our Brandenberg and Sons hit. And apparently it had gone down as planned: no one hurt, a clean getaway. I was sure Jack Donohue would hear of it, or read of it, and now I wasn’t so certain of what I had told Fleming — that the gang wouldn’t dare pull it without us.

Suppose they did? And suppose they got caught and warbled like canaries? I could see the headlines now: ‘Thieves Blame Blonde Boss. Cops Seek Femme Brain of Gem Heist. Bea Flanders Sought by FBI. Where Is the Sexy Crime Czar?’ And so on. Nice thoughts. Two hours later I got out of bed and popped a sleeping pill.

On Saturday morning I went out for the papers and read everything I could find on the robbery in San Francisco. Details were scant, but apparently six masked and armed robbers suddenly invaded the jewelry store during the lunch hour. Two of the crooks cowed clerks and customers at gunpoint while the other four did a quick and efficient job of cleaning out the display cases and the back room safe, taking the loot away in what appeared to be pillowcases.

One lovely touch was noted. When the last crook ran out of the front door, he paused long enough to insert a rubber wedge-shaped stopper under the door, which opened outward. It effectively delayed pursuit long enough for the thieves to escape unscathed in two cars, one of which had been identified as a stolen taxi.

That rubber doorstopper was a neat gimmick. The front door of Brandenberg amp; Sons also opened outward. I would have bet my bottom buck that right then, at that moment, Black Jack Donohue was out shopping for wedge-shaped rubber doorstoppers.

I spent the next night at the Hotel Harding, but there was no sign of Donohue. I was disappointed. I had had enough solitude the night before. How many nights in a row can one schlumpf? I stopped in at Fangio’s for a drink at the bar, but didn’t see Black Jack, Hymie Gore, or the Holy Ghost.

On Sunday, Donohue was still absent, I went back to East 71st Street. I called Dick Fleming at home. No answer. I called my sister. No answer. I called Sol Faber. No answer. It was that kind of day. Where was everyone? So I went to a lousy French movie and had dinner alone at Chez Morris. That didn’t improve my disposition. Or my digestion either.

Went back to my apartment to put on my doxy’s costume, preparing to return to the Hotel Harding. Then my phone rang. At last! I was beginning to think Manhattan had become a desert island.

It was Noel Jarvis, and he said he had been trying to reach me for three or four days. I mumbled something about being busy with Christmas shopping, and he said he had been busy too; the store was doing an ‘absolutely fabulous’ trade. I told him how happy I was to hear it, and what else was new?

What was new, he said, was that he hoped I might be free the following night, Monday, to have dinner at his apartment. I told him I’d be delighted. He said to show up around ‘eightish,’ very informal, wear jeans if I liked. He promised a special banquet, and he was going to get started on the sauce the moment I hung up.

So I hung up.

Monday. A lonely day mooning around the Hotel Hard-On and environs. I had heard Jack Donohue come in about 2:00 A.M. But he hadn’t knocked on my door, and when I awoke, he was gone again. I know; I knocked on his door.

Back to the East 71st Street apartment to prepare for my dinner with Noel Jarvis. The phone rang a little after 6.00. He couldn’t have been more apologetic. He had to ask me to postpone our dinner date. He was tied up at the store. They were taking inventory and he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get away in time to do the dinner justice. Would I ever forgive him? Would I give him another chance? Would I come to dinner the following night, Tuesday?

Yes, yes, and yes.

So I called Dick Fleming. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to tell him how uneasy I felt. How, after three days with no contact with Jack Donohue, I was beginning to wonder if something was going on I didn’t know about — and should. I wanted to tell him about the Devolte Bros, robbery in San Francisco, if he hadn’t heard about it. Tell him about the doorstopper. Tell him to rush over to my place for a quick roll in the hay.

His phone rang and rang. No answer. Where was everyone? What was going on?

Finally, on Tuesday, I reentered the land of the living. Had a hamburger lunch with Jack Donohue at a nausea noshery on Broadway. As I had guessed, he had read all the newspaper stories on the Devolte heist and thought the doorstopper gimmick was pure genius. He had already bought two of them. He had also slipped the lock of the Hotel Harding linen closet and had waltzed away with a dozen reasonably clean pillowcases. To carry off the Brandenberg loot. He was full of piss and vinegar, looking forward to our dress rehearsal on Thursday night. We had made plans for the five of us — me, him, Fleming, Gore, and the Ghost — to meet at the West 47th Street garage at 12:30.

‘What about the stolen car?’ I asked sharply.

‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘Our two heavies have a good one spotted. Parked in the same place every night. They’ve got the right keys for it. A seventy-six Chevy four-door. They’ll bring it to the garage on Thursday. We’ve done time trials in traffic from East 55th to the garage. Not over fifteen minutes.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now what about the two other guys, the pickup help?’

‘On standby,’ he assured me. ‘They agreed to the five grand each. They don’t know what or where or when we’re going to hit, but they’re ready for anything. You and Fleming will bring your cars to the garage at 7:00 on Friday morning. Leave them there. The three of us will take the stolen Chevy to Madison Avenue, with the masks, rope, tape, stoppers, coveralls, pillowcases and so forth. Meanwhile, Hymie Gore, the Holy Ghost, and the two standby muscles will get over to 54th any way they can. Don’t worry; they’ll make it. They’ll come into the Chevy, one at a time to pull on the Bonomo coveralls. We wait for the cleaning truck to show up at that antique shop. Then all the men, including me and Fleming, will take the van. You follow us up to Brandenberg’s in the Chevy. And that’s it. We’ll go over all this in more detail on Thursday night so everyone knows his job and the timing.’

‘You’ve got it all figured out,’ I said.

‘You better believe it,’ he said, smiling at me.

I went back to East 71st Street. I took along some personal belongings from the Hotel Harding, preparing for the final break on Thursday night. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the final split. Half-relief, half-disappointment. Dichotomous. There’s a word for you. I had never used it in a novel. I made a mental note to use it in my novel about the Brandenberg ripoff.

I took Noel Jarvis at his word and dressed informally. When I bopped into his museum-apartment, it was