McNally's caper

Hardly at the panic level, but low enough to require replenishing. When money is going out freely, and nothing is coming in, the bankroll dwindles at a ferocious rate.

So Donohue decided to drive into Miami the next day. We discussed timing, procedures, and contingency plans. It was agreed that he would go alone, leaving the bulk of the Brandenberg loot in our apartment at Rip’s. But he would take one big necklace of startling beauty and value, just as a sample to show an interested fence, if he was able to locate one. Also, we would cut up one of the heavy chokers, prizing out individual stones. Those he would attempt to peddle wherever he could, for ready cash.

Til be back by 7:00 in the evening at the latest,’ he said. ‘Remember, that’s cut-off time. If I’m not back by then, or haven’t called, it means I’ve been nobbled. Then you grab what’s left of the ice and take off.’

‘Take off?’ I said. ‘How? Where to?’

‘Cab. Bus. Plane. Train. Walking. Do what you have to do. Just get out of here. Fast. Because if Rossi grabs me, I’m going to talk. Eventually. You know that, don’t you?’

I leaned forward to kiss him.

‘I know,’ I said, nodding. ‘But you said your luck’s running hot. You’ll come back.’

‘Sure I will, babe,’ he said, pouring on one of those high-powered grins. ‘I’m too mean to die; you know that.’

I looked at him critically. His bleached hair was now combed straight back from his forehead. His eyebrows were lightened, and he had grown a wispy moustache that we had attempted to dye with indifferent results. But I doubted if anyone would recognize him from a reported description.

I had an odd thought: that with his lightened hair and eyebrows, he resembled Dick Fleming. They could have been brothers.

We spent that evening cutting up the choker and prying out the diamonds. Then we went to bed early. Our sex that night was like our first time together when he had been fierce, hard, filled with desperate energy. He was a one-way lover again, taking what he wanted. He wore me out. Almost.

The next morning he left most of the remaining cash with me, wrapped the big necklace and loose stones in handkerchiefs and slid them in his inside jacket pocket. He carried a revolver in his belt and concealed an automatic pistol under the front seat of the car.

It was time for him to go. He paused a moment, frowning.

‘What is it?’ 1 said.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I may call you and tell you to bring the rest of the jewels to a certain place. You know?’

‘Sure.’

‘But I might be under a gun when I make that call. If I call you “Jan” or “Jannie,” you’ll know it’s okay and you can bring the stuff. But if I call you “Bea,” you’ll know someone’s forcing me to make the call. Got that?’

I nodded dumbly.

Then he kissed me.

‘See you around,’ he said.

‘Stop in any time,’ I said.

He smiled and was gone.

I went out to the beach and spread my towel, as far away from other sunbathers as I could get. I had brought along a quart thermos of chilled white wine, and I sipped that all afternoon and thought of nothing. Two men spoke to me, but I didn’t answer. After a while they moved away to easier pickings.

It was a smoky day, the sun in and out of clouds shaped like dragons. I lay there and felt myself, felt my skin burning and tight. I wanted to be naked. I wanted that sun inside me, searing and consuming.

I went back to the motel about 3:00 and took a hot shower to take the sting away. Then I put on a loose shift and did more typing. I had persuaded Donohue to let me buy a portable, promising to type only during the day. Now 1 continued converting the handwritten legal pads to typed manuscript pages.

It was a mechanical job: no thinking required. If I wondered why I was doing it, what importance Project X could possibly have other than representing a horrible danger if the cops ever got hold of it, I suppose I thought of it as the last slender link with my past, with a world lost and gone, evidence of a corner turned.

The truth, I now believed, was that I didn’t want to die in an alley, as Hymie Gore had, or to be blown away on a dusty backwoods road, like Dick Fleming, without leaving this account of what had happened to me and how it happened. Project X was really my last will and testament.

I finished my typing for the day. Straightened up the pages, locked the ms. away in one of the suitcases. Then I poured myself a vodka over ice and settled to wait for Jack Donohue.

By 6:00 P.M., I had started to think coldly of what I would do if he didn’t return. I would consolidate my personal belongings, trying to jam clothes, the Brandenberg stones, Project X, and the guns into two suitcases and maybe into one shoulder bag. Then I’d call a cab. I’d go to Ft. Lauderdale airport and get a seat on a plane going anywhere. It didn’t really matter. I’d just go as far as I could. When the money ran out, I’d cut up more of the jewelry and peddle the stones. I’d change my name and try to change my appearance again. I’d start a new-

There was a key in the lock. Jack Donohue walked in, looking drained. I burst into tears and flew to him. I almost knocked him over.

‘Jesus Christ, baby,’ he said, ‘take it easy. I’m still in one piece.’

He wouldn’t tell me what had happened in Miami until we had eaten, saying he hadn’t had a bite all day and was famished. So we went to a seafood joint on the Intracoastal and ordered red snapper amandine. I picked at my food, but Donohue gobbled and went to the salad bar three times. The place was too crowded and too noisy for a private conversation.

Then we returned to Rip’s and mixed tall brandies with soda. We took our drinks out onto the beach. We went barefoot, Jack rolling up his cuffs. There were a few other beach strollers, but it seemed to me the sand and sea belonged to us alone.

There wasn’t a full moon — that would have been too much — but we watched a silver scythe come out of the ocean, and that was as pretty as Donohue had promised. The surf was pounding. Black waves rolled in and then crashed into white foam. We could feel the spray on our skin, driven by a moaning wind. There were scudding clouds, hard stars, a sky that went on forever.

There was a chill in the air, even in Florida, but the brandy helped, and the sand was still warm beneath our toes. It was such a natural scene: beach, ocean, sky, clouds, stars, moon, wind. It could have been perfect. But there were people.

‘There’s good news and bad news,’ Jack Donohue said. ‘I’ll give you the bad first.’

‘Thanks.’

‘The guys I thought 1 could depend on, I can’t. The few I called hung up on me. The few I saw turned around and walked the other way. A few who would talk told me I’m poison. The word’s got around. The Corporation was very heavy on this: You help’Jack Donohue and you spend the rest of your life with busted kneecaps, pushing yourself along on a little platform on wheels. If you’re lucky. Listen, I don’t blame the guys; they’ve mostly got wives and kids. Or girlfriends anyway.’

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘Also the charter planes,’ he went on. ‘The outfits that will fly anyone anywhere for a price. The Corporation had tipped them, too. Jack Donohue goes nowhere. Ditto the fences. They won’t touch me. That Rossi had been one busy little boy. As far as Miami goes, I got leprosy.’

‘If we give back the Brandenberg jewels?’ I asked.

‘No go. The Corporation wants the Donohue jewels. My family jewels.’

‘How about the good news now? I think I could stand some.’

He halted and I stopped beside him. We took a few sips of our drinks, looking up at that sparkling night.

‘The good news is this: I unloaded about half those loose stones in jewelry shops. More than twenty grand.’

‘That’s fine,’ I said faintly.

‘So we’re not hurting for cash. But you know where I peddled most of the rocks? In the Cuban section. Miami is full of Spies. And not only Cubans, but from all over South America. A lot of loose money there. I figure the smart guys are getting out of those banana republics before they get stood up against a wall and shot. And, there’s a lot of cash around from the dope trade. They’re running gage and coke in every hour on the hour. All cash deals, of