drinking his third cup of black coffee. Lund was sitting at a table, holding his head and nibbling on a thin loaf of bread. He asked, “Okay, so I can probably sell my car—so what?”
“Sam, it was your crack about selling our passports that gave me the idea—came to me clear and cold through my drunken haze. Your car brings fifteen hundred dollars. Between Therese's savings and my cameras I can come up with a thousand,” Martin said, talking fast, the hang-over punishing his head. “We return to the States, hang around for six months— maybe less if we play our angles right. Hardly any calculated risk, the way I see it.”
Lund gave him a bloodshot stare. “Marty, one thing at a time. About selling our passports, I don't like...”
“We're not selling ours. Too risky. Only mean ten thousand and we'd probably be thrown out of France anyway. Might get more if we sold them in Germany, but then we'd be stuck in Germany or sent straight back to the States. No, Sam, we're going to return here with a dozen other passports and sell them for sixty thousand bucks!”
“Aw Marty, we both have big heads this morning, or is it afternoon? How are we going to steal all those passports?”
“Steal? No, we'll get them all kind of legal-by applying for them! That's the idea that hit me. What do you do when you want a passport in the States?”
“How much do you want me to bet on this question?”
“Stop clowning, Sam. Know how one goes about getting a passport? You either write or visit an office of the State Department, with your birth certificate, two crummy pictures, a friend who will sign that he has known you to be a good citizen for several years—and ten dollars. In a few weeks your passport arrives by registered mail. Now, how do you get a birth certificate in a big town, like New York City?”
“Beats the slop out of me,” Sam said brightly. “Wonder if quiz shows would go over big on the Paris radio?”
“Hard for me to talk with this head, so damnit, quit clowning! About a birth certificate—in New York City all you do is write to the Board of Health, give 'em the date of your birth, address where born, name of your parents and mother's maiden name. For a dollar you receive a birth certificate by return mail. Like the idea?”
“Marty, what the hell are you gassing about?”
“About the perfect swindle,” Martin said, finishing his coffee, “except we're not hurting anybody, so there won't be any complaints.” He got out of bed, wearing only shorts and socks, and his body was lean and hard as he sat down beside Sam, broke off a piece of bread. “Hope Therese comes back with the charcuterie, I'm starved. And stop giving me that blank look— Sam, the best rackets are always the simple ones.
Listen: you and me—under false names—go into any bar or poolroom in a poor section of New York, Chicago, Boston—any large city. We each pick out a guy. Take a few beers, maybe a night or two, to make small talk about the neighborhood, pretend we're boyhood chums with the guy. Point is, we each learn where our guy was born, when, and the name of his folks. That doesn't sound difficult, does it?”
“Sounds stupid. What do we do with all this great info?”
“Sam, you're really in a fog. Suppose the fellow you talk to is named Mark James and my guy is Edward Spero.... You rent a room in another part of the city as Mark James and I rent one under the name of Edward Spero—then we send away for their birth certificates. We take passport pictures of each other, hop down to the nearest passport office and make applications, as James and Spero, each being a witness for the other. In a few weeks we receive 'our' passports, as James and ' Spero, and move on. No possible traces left. Like it?”
“Think it will work?”
“Why won't it? Then we find a bar in another part of the town, say Brooklyn, start over again, only this time we go to a different passport office with our applications. Be easy to touch up the pictures and change our features with make-up. We work New York, Newark, Hartford, then go to Chicago, maybe even out to L.A. Within a few months, six at the most, we have a dozen passports, return to Paris on our own passports, sell the others. Show me a flaw?”
Sam stared at Pearson with open admiration, said, “Good God!”
“Dreamed about it in my sleep last night. Show me one thing that can throw us? All we need is time and living money and we have both. Still have to work out some details, be careful with the pictures and make-up, and most important of all, pick on the names of poor slobs like ourselves. Hell, nobody in my family, except me, ever applied for a passport. And be careful with Gabby, just tell her you're returning to the States to get your G.I. schooling straightened out. I'll have Theresa keep an eye on her.”
“Don't worry about her. She'll be faithful to me.”
Martin stared at him for a long moment, then laughed. “I don't care about her sex life, I don't want her to talk. That goes double for you too. No more drinking, chewing the fat with strangers. Talk is the one thing that can jinx us.”
“Marty, you know me. I ...”
“I know your big mouth very well, that's why I'm telling you. Sam, this means fifty or sixty thousand dollars. We make our picture, we're set for life.”
“And in a couple of years, if there's still a demand for passports, we can work the deal again, or...”
“No, just this one time. We're going to be smart operators. Most jokers get caught because they work a good thing thin.”
Sam jumped up, knocking his chair over. “Where's the paper? See when the Liberte is sailing.”
“Easy, Sam, my head won't stand one of your bursts of energy. And we'll go by a Dutch ship—they're cheaper. First thing you have to do is start parking your car around the PX, and at SHAEF headquarters out at Fontainebleau. Pass the word that you're selling the car. Only forget you're an actor, don't talk too damn much.”
CHAPTER 5
“WHAT'S THIS all about, I say something bright?” Jake asked.
“Tell me more about Andersun.”
“Not much to tell. I remember him because I get along good with all the people on my route. They're my friends. Andersun was living in a rooming house near Broadway and of course I don't get to know roomers much, but for a few days he was always waiting for me, asking if I didn't have a registered letter for him. When it finally came—I could tell it was a passport— I asked for identification and he said I knew him, but I said I needed identification and finally he came up with his birth certificate.”
“When was all this?”
Jake rubbed his nose. “Oh... at least three, four months ago.”
“Four months ago?” I repeated. Betsy said, “If it's that long ago, it would hardly have any connection with this...”
“It has to hook up.”
The cone dripped on her hand, onto Gloria's toy and for some reason as I brushed the toy off I wondered if Louise had toys and attention when she was a kid. And what did that prove and why was I even thinking about it now?
Betsy said, “I'd best go out and give this to Ruth.”
I asked Jake, “Where's this rooming house? Andersun still there?”
“Crummy joint on One Hundred and Second Street. I don't think he's there. Never get any more mail for him. Although he never put in a change of address card either. They come and go in these houses.”
“Can you remember any other letters you had for him?”
“Nope. Only would recall something special—like a reg.”
“Tell me again what he looked like.”
“Can't exactly say, except his hair seemed too red. And his voice.”
I wrote down the address of the rooming house, thanked Jake, and went back into the drugstore and phoned O'Hara, asked if he could baby-sit for me. Cy said, “Damn, you sure pick odd hours to ask! You know what time it is? Anyway, we got a bridge game going. Look, if you want, bring Ruthie here and she can sleep on the couch.”
“No, that wouldn't work,” I said. I didn't want her shoved around like a piece of baggage.
“I'm sorry, Barney, but if you'd only let me know sooner.”
“It's okay. See you, Cy.”
I went out and stepped into the car. As we drove off, Betsy asked, “What's all this mean, Barney?”
“What happened, Daddy?” Ruthie asked over her ice-cream cone.
“Look, honey, Daddy will probably be gone all night. Guess I can get May to stay with you—I hope.”
“Oh, her. I heard her say she was going to see her uncle in New Haven for Saturday and Sunday. Said he was a rich uncle —always showing off.”
I swore under my breath, tried to think of anybody else I could get to baby-sit on a Saturday night. “Ruth, would you like to sleep at my house?” Betsy asked. “In the morning we can start making some dresses.”
I was about to tell Betsy to take it slow, but where else could I find a baby sitter? Ruthie asked, “May I, Daddy?”
“Well... okay.”
Betsy smiled at Ruthie and said “That's lovely,” then asked me, “Barney, because a man with the same name as Andersun gets a passport—months ago—what does that mean for us?”
“The red hair, the twang in his voice—that's Brown, the joker who was in the bar the night of the shootings. Still haven't any motive, but he's our boy. I'm going to see Franzino, go down to that rooming house tonight. After all this waiting around, I think we're finally moving in high gear.”
I dropped Ruthie and Betsy off at her place, then drove up to the precinct house. It suddenly came to me that Brown's rooming house was just a few blocks from the Turner apartment and I wished I had some place else to leave Ruthie. The duty sergeant must have thought I was a salesman; he tried to brush me off for a while before he got Franzino on the phone. Within a half hour Franzino was at the station house, and a few minutes later Al Swan joined us, a bigwig from Homicide with him.
We raced down Broadway, the siren going most of the time, and it gave me a kick. Although when the siren
