After he left, I finished my packing. Then I carried my two practically empty suitcases downstairs and told Godzilla behind the desk that I was checking out Saturday.
‘Before noon,’ he growled. ‘Stay a minute over, you get charged another day.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘Leavin’ kinda sudden, ain’t’cha?’ he said, leering. ‘Wassa matta, business been lousy?’
‘I’m going back to Chicago,’ I said, figuring it would be smart to give him a bum steer.
‘Yeah? What’s so great about Chicago?’
‘The desk clerks there take baths.’
It wasn’t history’s wittiest insult. I reflected that the demise of Beatrice Flanders was coming none too soon.
Back at the East 71st Street apartment, I called Dick Fleming at his office and we synchronized watches. He said he had to work late, a few hours, but would be finished in plenty of time to make the 12:30 P.M. meeting. We agreed that I’d pick him up at his apartment and we’d drive over to the garage in my rented Ford. Later, we’d have a few drinks together and celebrate the finish of the Great Literary Caper.
‘And that’ll be the end of it,’ I said.
‘I suppose so,’ he said. He sounded forlorn.
I picked Dick up at his apartment at 11:30, as agreed upon. He got behind the wheel while I applied wig and makeup, completing the doxy transformation. By 12:15 we found a parking space on West 49th Street. About 12:25 we locked the car and started walking down to 47th Street.
At that hour, it was a ghostly neighborhood, all shadows and dark windows. Dick took my arm and I was just as happy.
‘I should have brought the gun,’ I said, trying to laugh.
‘What for? Jesus, I hope they’re there! I don’t want to go wandering around these streets any longer than we have to.’
It went like silk, as Donohue would say. We came abreast of the garage on the abandoned block, turned in, the door opened, and there was Hymie Gore, grinning.
‘Ain’t this grand?’ he said.
We stepped inside and Hymie closed the door behind us. Then we were in blackness, with just the merest glow coming through brown paper that had been taped over the garage door windows.
‘Okay, Hymie?’ It was Donohue’s voice calling, very hard.
‘Sure, Jack. They’re here.’
‘Fine. You stay at the door, Hymie. Keep a sharp eye.’
‘I’ll keep a sharp eye, Jack.’
A match flickered, dimmed. Then a kerosene lantern flared. It was impossible to see the corners, but the place looked big enough to hold six cars. Two grease pits, two lifts. A back office, glass enclosed. Those windows had also been covered with taped-on brown paper.
‘I’m here,’ Donohue said. ‘Watch your step — the floor’s greasy. We checked the light from the street. We don’t show a glimmer.’
We moved cautiously into the inner office, following the lantern carried by Black Jack. The place was maybe ten-by-ten. No chairs. A lot of filth: old newspapers, sodden cartons of discarded business records, one ripped truck tire.
I shivered, imagining I heard the scuttle of rats.
‘The Waldorf it ain’t,’ Donohue said, laughing. ‘But we’re not going to live here. You know the Holy Ghost.
Now I want you to meet these two desperadoes, our new recruits. This dusky gentleman is Clement. Clement, this is Bea Flanders and Dick Fleming.’
He held the lantern close to the man he was introducing: a tall, slender black man wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a gray-flannel suit, button-down shirt, regimental-striped tie. He gave a little bow and flashed a mouthful of teeth.
‘My confreres,’ he said in a rich, rolling baritone. ‘So pleased to make your acquaintance.’
‘And this gorilla,’ Donohue said, moving the lantern, ‘goes by the name of Smiley.’
There he was: short, squat, and smiling. Just the way I had seen him before, wearing a sweater under his jacket, no topcoat or raincoat. And the black leather cap, rakish as a beret.
‘Nice,’ he said. Whatever that meant.
‘Okay,’ Jack Donohue said. ‘This won’t take long. We’ve got maybe forty-five minutes, an hour, before we can leave. After the watchman makes his midnight rounds. I’ll go over it once. If you got any questions, speak up. Now you’ll notice the garage is big enough for five, six cars. No problem. So here’s how we’ll work it …’
He went over it once again: how Dick would bring his VW and I’d bring my rented Ford. Donohue would be waiting for us in the stolen car, inside the garage. We’d all transfer to the Chevy and drive over to the antique shop on Madison Avenue. We’d arrive there in plenty of time to find a parking space before the arrival of the Bonomo cleaning van. The four heavies would find us, come into our car one at a time to don Bonomo coveralls. The cleaning truck would be hijacked. The helper would be tied up, left on the floor of the van. The regular driver, at gunpoint, would be forced to drive up to Brandenberg amp; Sons. All the men, in coveralls, would be in the van. I’d follow in the stolen Chevy. Donohue would be right behind the driver, gun in his ribs, when the Brandenberg door was opened. Then all the men would pile in, locking the door behind them. I’d pull up directly behind the parked cleaning truck. When the place was stripped, and they came out with the loot in pillowcases, Donohue would jam the door closed with a rubber stopper. Then he and Fleming would come back to my car with approximately half the take. Gore, the Ghost, Smiley, and Clement would take the van with the rest of the loot. The regular Bonomo truck driver would be left trussed-up on the floor of Brandenberg’s, with the employees. We’d all rendevous right here, in the 47th Street garage.The men would take off the coveralls and ditch the van and stolen Chevy, after wiping both clean of fingerprints. Then we’d all pile into Dick’s VW and my rented Ford and go back to Donohue’s room at the Hotel Harding to count and split the take. A few hours later we’d make a call to the cops, telling them where to find the tied and gagged helper in the Bonomo van in the 47th Street garage. Just so the poor guy didn’t suffocate or die of starvation.
‘Any questions?’ Black Jack asked when he had finished.
‘A lot of questions,’ Dick Fleming said boldly. ‘You mean, after the heist, seven of us are going to go walking through the lobby of the Hotel Harding carrying bulging pillowcases?’
‘Not to worry,’ Donohue said, and I could see his grin in the yellowish lantern light. ‘I’m bringing along some cheap suitcases, shopping bags, boxes, plastic garbage bags — like that. We’ll go into the Harding two or three at a time, just strolling. That desk clerk won’t see a thing, believe me. He’s greased.’
‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘When do you guys pick up the tape, masks, rope, and pillowcases you’ll need for the hijack and heist?’
‘When we get out of the stolen Chevy on Madison,’ Donohue explained patiently. ‘Those coveralls have a million pockets. Plenty of room for all the shit.’
‘How are the four guys going to get over to Madison?’ I demanded. ‘How do we know they’ll get there on time?’
‘I guarantee it,’ Jack said. ‘They’ll be there.’
‘No doubt about it,’ Clement said. ‘We’ll be there.’
Smiley smiled.
I looked at Dick Fleming. He looked at me. I think we had the same idea: that we had pushed our legitimate questions as far as we could. We had sounded like concerned participants. We had played out the charade. I made one final effort to prove myself the professional thief.
‘What about those diversions you mentioned?’ I asked.
‘All laid on,’ Donohue assured me. ‘A friend of mine will make the calls to the cops and newspapers at exactly a quarter to nine tomorrow morning. He’ll report bombs planted in all the airline ticket offices and travel agencies in Rockefeller Center. Courtesy of some goddam Puerto Rican bunch. Fuck ‘em. What a beautiful mess that’ll be, with cops’ cars, the bomb squad, and all those people trying to get to work. The buttons won’t have any time to worry about what’s going down on East 55th Street.’
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Apparently Dick Fleming couldn’t either. We stood there in silence. I
