McNally's caper

But if you’re smart, you’ll stick to the small stuff. Rings, unset stones, maybe a bracelet or two. Things you can sell or hock without anyone asking questions. Help yourself.’

We watched Angela and the Holy Ghost paw over the heap of sparkling jewelry. They followed Donohue’s advice and selected only single stones, rings, earrings, gold chains, cufflinks. Angela filled her purse; the Ghost jammed his pockets.

‘Well,’ the Holy Ghost said awkwardly, ‘it was a good one, Jack. Just like you said.’

‘You bet,’ Donohue said, winking at him. ‘A nice Christmas for you — right?’

‘You better believe it,’ the Holy Ghost said. ‘Presents for everyone. Weil be careful with this stuff, Jack. I mean, we won’t put on any flash.’

‘I know you won’t,’ Donohue said. ‘I know you’ll play it smart. You want to take one of the cars?’

‘No,’ the Ghost said. ‘We’ll manage without.’

‘Sure,’Jack said. ‘I understand. Be lucky.’

‘Yeah,’ the Holy Ghost said. ‘You, too.’ He went over to Hymie Gore, patted the big man’s cheek. ‘Take care of yourself, Hyme.’

‘What?’Gore said.’Oh … yeah. See you around, pal.’

The Holy Ghost turned to Dick Fleming and me.

‘Very pleased to have made your acquaintance,’ he said.

‘Likewise,’ Angela said.

Then they were gone. Donohue locked the door behind them, put on the chain.

‘They may make it,’ he mused. ‘They may just. The Ghost is smart enough to move the stuff slowly, all over the place. He’ll unload it here, there, everywhere. He’s no dummy. Hyme, how about you? Want to split?’

Hymie Gore looked up from his tumbler of vodka.

‘I’ll stick with you, Jack,’ he said, if that’s okay with you?’

‘Sure,’ Donohue said, if that’s what you want.’

He sat down in an armchair. But he didn’t sit, he collapsed. I realized what this day had taken out of him. He was drained, shrunken. He seemed to be running on pure nerve; he had no physical strength left. I wondered how long he could go on without rest, without sleep. Until he was safe, I supposed, and wondered if that time would ever come.

He sipped his vodka and regarded Dick and me thoughtfully over the rim of his glass.

‘That leaves you two,’ he said. ‘You got a couple of choices. I’m going to run, probably south to Miami. I got to get out of the city. They’ll burn me here. Me and Hyme. If you want to come along, that’s okay. As long as you know that I call the plays. Your other choice is to stay and take your chances with the law. Sorry about that clunk in your closet, Fleming, but it had to be. Then there’s the robbery, and those two stiffs in the garage on 47th. You’ll have to weasel out of all that. Plus the bomb scares, the stolen Chevy, and so forth. But it’s your decision. If you want to stay, we’ll tie you up — just tight enough to give us a chance to split. Then you can call the cops and sing your hearts out.’

‘But you’ll take my book?’ I asked him.

He grinned at me.

‘You bet your sweet juicy little ass. An insurance policy, like. You two want to talk it over, go right ahead. Go over in the corner where Hyme and I can’t hear you. Just keep in sight, that’s all.’

I motioned with my head,and Dick and I moved over to the window. Donohue and Hymie Gore stayed where they were. Both were stretched out, drinks propped on their chests. Their heads were back, eyes half-closed. But I had seen how quickly they could move. I wasn’t about to try a mad dash for the phone or the locked and chained door.

‘Dick,’ I said, holding his arms, ‘what do you think? What do we do?’

‘I don’t know, Jannie,’ he said bewilderedly. ‘Where do we stand on this whole thing? Legally, I mean?’

‘It’s a mess,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’m no lawyer, but here’s how I see it: We can claim that we acted under duress, that we were forced to take part in the robbery and witness the killing of Smiley against our will.’

‘It’s the truth,’ Dick said hotly.

‘Sure it is. I was threatened by a knife, you by a gun. But the cops are going to ask. “You claim you were under duress for twelve hours? And never once during that time, not for one instant, could you have yelled, screamed, fallen down in fake faint, or done anything else to bring this whole thing to a screeching halt?’”

Dick was silent.

‘We’ll have the devil’s own time proving duress,’ I went on. ‘But that’s not the worst of it. The worst is that goddamned manuscript of mine, that lousy Project X. Donohue is never going to let that out of his hands, because it proves we were the kingpins in the robbery, the leaders. We planned the whole caper. We picked the target, cased the place. I made nice-nice with the manager, and you checked out police surveillance of the store. With that manuscript in his hands, if he’s ever picked up by the cops, Donohue can claim we set the whole thing up and he was just a hired hand. That’s what he meant by calling it an insurance policy.’

‘But you were just doing research for a book.’

‘Dick, that’s the oldest gag going. It’s got whiskers. The cops hear that excuse every day in the week. Every john caught with a hooker claims he was just doing research for a book. Burglars, muggers, second-story men, swindlers, kidnappers — when they’re caught, all of them claim to be writers, doing research. If I tell the cops the truth — I was doing research — they’ll fall down laughing. They’ll read that manuscript and all they’ll see is a day-by-day account of the planning of a spectacularly successful jewelry store heist that left three men dead — so far.’

‘But we’re not criminals,’ Dick protested. ‘We have no records. We both earn a good living. We’re solid citizens. What possible motive would we have for pulling an actual robbery?’

‘Greed,’ I said. ‘Sick excitement. A clever DA could.suggest a dozen motives. Maybe we did it just to prove how smart we are, to outwit the cops, to defy society and the law. Whatever. But the motive really isn’t important if the cops get their hands on Project X. They’ve got a conviction on that alone.’

‘Then you figure we don’t have a chance if we give ourselves up?’

‘I didn’t say that. Maybe if we surrender and prove we didn’t profit from the crimes, a smart, expensive lawyer could get us off with a fine, suspended sentence, probation. It’s possible. You want to take the chance?’

He was silent again, rubbing his blond eyebrows furiously from side to side.

‘Jannie,’ he said finally, ‘you do what you want to do, and I’ll do what I want to do. I mean, we don’t necessarily have to do the same thing, do we? If we disagree, we can go our separate ways, can’t we?’

I looked at him curiously.

‘Sure, Dick,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to try to talk you into anything. It’s your neck. It’s your decision how to save it.’

He sighed. ‘Got a cigarette?’ he said.

I went back to the cobbler’s-bench cocktail table, picked up a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches, brought them back to Dick at the window. Jack Donohue opened his eyes to watch what I was doing, but he didn’t say one word.

‘Let me tell you something,’ Dick said, lighting our cigarettes. ‘When the bullets started banging through that truck, I flopped down on my face, as flat as I could get. My head was close to the Bonomo helper. He was a young, husky, good-looking guy. I was staring right at him when he was hit. He shuddered and then he was dead. I knew it. And then, later, Clement died while I was holding him. In my arms. And then we opened the pillowcases and saw all that gorgeous jewelry we had stolen. And then Smiley was killed.’

‘So?’ I said, perplexed. ‘What’s the point?’

‘The point is,’ he said, turning away from me to stare out the window, ‘the point is that there’s never been any drama in my life. Never. I’m thirty-one years old and the most exciting thing that’s happened to me up to now was a week’s vacation in Acapulco, where I got diarrhea. I do all the smart, senseless things a single man in Manhattan is supposed to do. But I never kidded myself that I was living. I mean, nothing was happening. I looked forward to a long safe, uneventful life. Jannie, it wasn’t enough.’

I stared at the back of his head, wondering why he wouldn’t look at me. What he was saying had meaning. I