McNally's caper

Donohue, he had stopped right where he was. He just stood there, watching Black Jack walk away, come back to our Chevy with the pillowcases, toss them to Hymie Gore in the back seat, then get behind the wheel.

The salesman saw all this. He turned suddenly to the front door of Brandenberg’s, shielded his eyes, peered within. Then he turned back to the street, went down on one knee. His right hand went into the left side of his topcoat and jacket, reaching.

At the same time this was happening, the Bonomo Cleaning Service van began moving. Donohue started the Chevy rolling. The light at the corner of East 55th Street and Fifth Avenue turned green; traffic began moving across the avenue.

It all happened at once. No sequence that I could remember.

‘Move it, move it, move it!’ the Holy Ghost howled.

The jewelry salesman pulled a gun from inside his jacket and slowly, carefully, sighted it at me as we accelerated past him. Later, of course, I realized he didn’t especially want to kill me. But at the time I saw the muzzle of his revolver tracking us, and it seemed that big eye was looking only for Jannie Shean.

Then the rear door of the Bonomo van ahead of us opened slightly. A black hand with a gun came out. A shot was fired. The glass door of Brandenberg amp; Sons shattered, not far above the head of the man kneeling on the sidewalk. Shards came crashing down.

‘You fucking idiot!’ Donohue screamed.

The salesman flattened after the shot was fired and began to aim again, propping his elbow on the concrete. This time his gun was pointed toward the van ahead of us. I heard at least three shots, and saw the revolver jump in his hands.

Now there were yells, shouts. Pedestrians scattered. Squeal of brakes as cars pulled up, drivers ducked down out of sight. There was a great blaring of horns, a momentary traffic jam at the corner, then more screams and shrieked curses.

The van sideswiped a parked taxi, bounced back into the street, jammed ahead. The back door was opened wide. Clement was firing at the prone salesman.

Then unaccountably, there was a man on the sidewalk in front of the Hotel St Regis. All the other pedestrians had run for cover. But this man, conservatively clad in gray topcoat and gray fedora, had fallen into a low crouch, knees bent. He was holding a large revolver in his two hands, calmy squeezing off shots at the fleeing van as if he were on the firing range.

(Later newspaper reports said he was an FBI man, assigned to the Manhattan office, who had gone to the St Regis in hopes of effecting a reconciliation with his estranged wife).

The Bonomo van accelerated across Fifth Avenue, heading straight west on 55th Street. We went hurtling right behind, Jack Donohue cursing and wrestling the wheel. I wondered why we hadn’t turned south on Fifth, then realized it would be jammed by the police response to those bomb-scare calls.

So we went speeding west on 55th Street, as fast as we could. Traffic was heavy, but we were moving, and once we were across Sixth Avenue, I began to think we might make it.

‘Anyone hurt?’ Donohue asked. He was driving like a maniac, scraping fenders, shooting through openings, jumping lights.

No one in our car was hurt. But when I turned to look back, I saw a hole in our rear window with cracks radiating from it like a star.

Hymie Gore saw me looking, and stuck one of his thick fingers through the hole.

‘Ain’t that cute?’ he said, grinning.

A BLOODY MESS

The van arrived at the West 47th Street garage before we did. As we pulled up, Smiley opened the outside doors, then closed them behind us.

‘Trouble,’ he said as Donohue got out of the Chevy.

Jack stripped away his fake moustache and the Band-Aid stuck to his forehead. Then he stood, hands on hips, staring at the back of the Bonomo truck. One of the rear door windows was shattered. There were a half- dozen bullet holes puckering the back doors and body of the truck.

‘Nice shooting,’ Donohue said sourly. ‘Who caught it?’

‘The helper,’ Smiley said. ‘Flat on the floor, trussed like a chicken, you’d think he’d be safe. He took one through the top of his head. One pill and he’s a clunk. Clement caught two, one bad. He’s going.’

‘Let’s take a look,’ Donohue said.

He opened the rear van doors. I stood at his shoulder, peering in. It looked like a slaughterhouse in there. The roped, gagged, and taped Bonomo helper lay motionless in one corner. There was apparently a neat hole in the top of his skull. You couldn’t really see it because the hair was wet, dark, and matted around the wound. But you could see the blood glistening.

Dick Fleming sat cross-legged in the center of the van floor, surrounded by filled pillowcases and mops, buckets, sponges, squeegees, etc. His face was white as paper and his lips were trembling uncontrollably. Clement was stretched out in front of him, his head in Fleming’s lap. Dick was jamming one of the spare pillowcases into Clement’s ribs, low down, near the stomach. Clement’s eyes were closed, and he was sucking in short, harsh breaths, coughing up blood-flecked foam. There was another bullet hole in his right leg, oozing blood.

I turned away, gagging.

‘Son of a bitch!’ Jack Donohue said bitterly.

He climbed into the van. He bent down close to Clement’s face. He said something but I didn’t hear what it was. He took the sodden pillowcase from Fleming’s hand, pulled it away gently. He looked at the wound, grimaced, then pressed the cloth back in place.

He climbed out, leaned against the truck. He lighted a cigarette with shaking fingers.

‘We’ve got to get him to a hospital,’ I said.

They all looked at me with blank faces. Black Jack took a deep breath.

‘We would if it would do any good, Jannie,’ he said quietly. ‘But it wouldn’t. There’s something bad cut in there. An artery maybe. He’s on his way out.’

‘You don’t know!’ I cried furiously.

‘I know,’ Jack Donohue said, nodding, ‘I know the signs. Ten, fifteen minutes at the most. Listen, if I thought he had a chance, don’t you think I’d let you and Fleming get him to a doctor? Go take a look for yourself. Go on, take a look.’

I climbed into the van, resolving not to be sick. I steadied myself by putting a hand on Dick’s shoulder. He looked up at me, trying very hard not to weep.

‘Jannie, he’s dying,’ he said, shocked and anguished.

I looked down at that crimson pillowcase jammed into Clement’s chest. Blood was everywhere. The wounded man was soaked with it. Dick’s coveralls were stained. The floor of the van was a puddle. I couldn’t believe one body could contain so much blood.

I knelt in the mess. I smoothed Clement’s wet hair back from his forehead. His face was ashen. Now his breath was coming in great heaving sobs, as if a great weight were pressing him down. I saw his eyelids flutter, his lips move.

I leaned closer.

‘You’re going to be all right,’ I whispered to him, my lips close to his ear. ‘We’re going to get you to a hospital and get you patched up. You’ll see, you’ll be fine in a week or so. Strutting around. We’ll get you the best doctors and they’ll fix you up. Just hang in there and everything will be all right. You’ll be bopping around in your executive suit and …’

I went on and on like that. I saw his lips move again. I put my ear close to hear what he was trying to say.

‘Bullshit,’ he said.