Once a Crooked Man (20 page)

A capricious summer shower fell as they passed along Oxford Street, but by the time Harry made his way up the steps of the Five Sumner Place Hotel the sun shone brilliantly. A gentleman with a thick middle European accent was able to give Harry a room on the ground floor.

Inside was sufficient space for the task in hand. The bathroom was small and clean. On top of the icebox were a kettle, tea bags, packets of powdered milk and a plastic spoon. Sunlight streamed in from a bay window that overlooked the little garden. On the right of this was a high wall and along the left was a greenhouse where tables were already laid ready for breakfast.

Harry sat down on the bed, picked up the phone and dialed the airline but was informed that all the flights in Business Class were fully booked. The priority code that Lizzie had written on the piece of paper magically produced two seats.

Lizzie had suggested he figure a way to smuggle the cash, so he lay back on the coverlet and mentally did the math. A hundred and fifty packets of one-hundred-dollar bills needed to be concealed in something that wouldn't cause undue comment. Everything would also have to be taken on the plane, either in the cabin or as checked baggage. What could he use? What would pass inspection by the TSA with their meticulous and often painstakingly slow checks?

Was there anything that actors routinely carried with them when they flew to a location? Or the crew? What about a film unit? Even the smallest carry a lot of gear, and usually in metal cases. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary to travel with one for a camera, and others for lenses and spare batteries. But could such equipment be protected by 5 percent foam padding and 95 percent cash? The weight wouldn't be a problem, as camera cases are notoriously heavy.

Harry locked the room and took the key with him. At a Cyber Café in the King's Road he went online and began to search the Web. It soon became clear that with so much redundancy in the electronic world there was a great deal of old equipment for sale. He chose a seller in Ealing with an Arriflex 16SRII SR2 movie camera complete with lenses, batteries and film magazines plus a Nagra Stereotime Code recorder IV/S. This selection was primarily because everything was packed in “three sturdy aluminium cases.” The seller also listed a phone number. Harry called and after a brief conversation ran out and jumped into a taxi.

The cases were piled in the corner of a garage in a semi-detached house. Harry opened all three, ostensibly to check the equipment but actually to again make mental calculations. Each case was padded with almost three inches of dark blue foam. He quickly realized there would be room to spare. With the time he had left he figured he wouldn't find anything much better, so he peeled off the necessary number of notes and loaded everything into the waiting taxi. To complete the job he needed tools and other paraphernalia, so halfway down the Edgware Road he made the driver wait while he went into drug- and hardware stores.

Back at the hotel he cleared a space in the middle of the room and sat down at the little desk to calculate on paper exactly how many packets of bills he could hide in each case. Then the real work began.

 

34

When the Murphy family moved to Brooklyn they didn't own a car. Not wanting to waste the space, Harry's father turned the garage at the side of the house into a workshop. As well as doing necessary household repairs, he took up woodworking as a hobby. Many of his tools hung on two sheets of pegboard above the workbench, all outlined in red to indicate exactly where they went. When Harry was old enough to sit on the bench without falling off he was given the task of replacing them. This gave him a respect for every hammer, saw and screwdriver. As he grew bigger he was permitted to use the tools and would spend long hours with his dad making projects of his own. Over time he became quite an accomplished carpenter.

One of Harry's first professional jobs was as an intern to a summer stock theater in Ogunquit, Maine, where he was hired for twelve weeks to oversee the gathering of all the props and furniture for each of six productions. Old glasses, cracked crockery, books, clocks, radios and an assortment of flower vases filled the shelves of the prop room. Everything else had to be begged or borrowed. With the grand title of assistant stage manager he was sent at all hours of the day and night to every corner of town to procure whatever was needed. What he couldn't find he made. By the end of the season, he was an adept electrician, upholsterer, metalworker, plasterer and plumber, so the task before him now was no great challenge.

The camera case linings were carefully loosened, removed and hung over the towel rails in the bathroom. With a black felt pen and a ruler he drew thin lines on the foam where the cuts needed to be made. The slicing and dicing took several hours and he used up an entire box of industrial razor blades. With small sharp scissors he removed all the tiny unwanted pieces of projecting foam and smoothed out the cavity. Great patience was called for throughout as he couldn't leave even the slightest trace that might reveal what he had done.

With demolition complete he cleaned up, packed all the detritus into a plastic bag and on a deserted street corner dumped it into a garbage can. His stomach was rumbling in protest at being neglected for so long so he headed towards the lights at the end of the road and an all-night deli.

Back in his room he lay on the bed and enjoyed two Chicken Tikka sandwiches and a large bottle of orange juice. His energy was renewed and his gut silenced. Pulling on a pair of disposable rubber gloves he turned to phase two.

Each packet of bills was tightly wrapped in several layers of cling-film. Then they were assembled into bundles and put in alternate directions into the precut cavities. Miraculously, they all went in perfectly.

With an awl, a pair of tweezers and a box of Q-tips the linings were gently glued back where they were before and the fabric smoothed flat and cleaned of any surplus glue. The only trouble was that there was now a strong smell from the adhesive. Harry opened all the windows and propped the cases as close to the night air as he could. Exhausted, he flopped down on the coverlet.

Lizzie woke him up very early. The phone rang six times before Harry managed to locate it in the bedclothes and press the key.

“Congratulations! We are set to go,” said Lizzie. “Did you make the reservation?”

“Sure did,” said Harry sleepily.

“Which flight?”

“The first one, like you said.” He yawned. “What the hell time is it? Where are you?”

“I am in my office” came the reply. “I'm sending someone over to pick up the money.”

“What?” Harry asked, slightly confused.

“The suitcase,” she said patiently. “I need the money.”

“That's going to be a bit awkward.”

“Why?” she said sharply.

“I sort of made other arrangements.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She sounded concerned.

“You told me to work out how to smuggle it and I did. I now have three extra cases,” he explained, “for camera equipment. I've wrapped and stashed the bills inside them.”

“Why did you do that?”

“You told me to.”

“I told you to?”

“Yes. You said I was to find a way to smuggle the cash back into the States.”

There was a distinct silence. Lizzie gave a little laugh. “Let me get this right. You bought three camera cases and hid the cash inside them?”

“Yes,” said Harry. “I removed most of the linings and replaced them with the money. I would have preferred something more modern, maybe video equipment, but this was the best I could find at short notice. All I need to know is what we have to do about the airline.”

“How did you pay for all this?”

“I used some of the cash. Don't worry; I can sell all of it in New York and put the money back. I just need to know what happens when we turn up at check-in with three extra bags.”

“Just a minute, Harry,” she said, and covered the mouthpiece. Muffled sounds could be heard as she talked to someone in the office. Then she took her hand away. “You do what you would do under normal circumstances. You call the airline and tell them what you got. Let them know the bags are properly labeled and can be opened for inspection. They'll tell you what else you need to do.”

“Did I do wrong?” asked Harry.

“No, Harry,” replied Lizzie with a chuckle, “you did absolutely right.” And she hung up.

A wide-awake Harry sat up and called British Airways. After endless layers of computerized menus a human voice came on the line and Harry was able to describe his predicament. The voice told him that there would simply be an additional charge for each extra bag.

“That's all?” asked Harry.

“Yes, sir” came the pleasant reply. “I'm sure you'll have no problem.”

Harry was encouraged by her optimism.

 

35

The girl with the red high heels tucked the money into her bra and picked up her fuzzy pink sweater from the bedroom floor. Max let her out into the street and went back up to the crumpled sheets. Several hours later his eyelids twitched as he heard a knocking. Rocco was tapping on the doorframe.

“I brought us some food,” he said. “I thought you might be hungry after your strenuous night's work.”

“Very funny,” said Max.

“Maurizio made some hash and eggs.”

“Yeah. Just what the doctor ordered.”

Slowly regaining his equilibrium, Max stretched and ambled through to the dining table. “Bitch fucked like a wild animal,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Made deep growling noises in her throat every time she came.”

Rocco handed Max a knife and fork as he sat down. “Where did you find your fuzzy friend?”

“Picked her up on the street. What a body! Not an ounce of fat. And strong legs. Trouble was up top. All pumped full of that silicone. I can't get used to the feel of those fucking things.”

As they ate, Max asked, “You never told me. Who gave you Eddie Ryan?”

“Joe Piscarelli.”

“Ratface?”

“Yes.”

“Have you called him?”

“No need. He'll know what happened. If he has any news he'll call us.”

Max shook his head. “We need to know what he knows. Call him.”

“Okay. No problem.”

“When did you get back?”

“Last night. Just got into bed and watched TV.
Goodfellas
. Great movie. I kept thinking how glad I was that you guys are not like those guys. It's no wonder they all got busted.”

Max got up to put on fresh coffee. “Did I ever tell you about the first time I was involved in a hit?”

“No. When was it?” asked Rocco.

“I was sixteen. Papa Aldo came into my bedroom in the middle of the night and told me to get up, get dressed and get myself downstairs. He told me a capo in one of the families wanted a cousin eliminated. A cousin for Christ's sake! Seems the guy had committed ‘an unforgivable sin.' The old bastard didn't want relatives or associates involved, so he looked around for an outsider. Papa was the first one he asked.

“I remember sitting at the kitchen table, just like this. He was leaning against the icebox in the corner, smoking one of his thin rolled cigarettes, drinking his coffee. That was the first time I came face-to-face with the reality of what he did. Boy, did I wake up fast.”

Rocco leaned back in his chair as Max continued.

“We drove over the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan, crossed the island and took the West Side Drive up to Seventy-ninth. Papa never said a word until we parked off Amsterdam and began to walk up the avenue. ‘I've been following this guy for the last two nights,' he told me. ‘He goes to the same bar and hangs out with the same group of associates until two in the morning. Sometimes he walks home, either alone or with a friend, or sometimes he takes a cab. You can never be sure.'

“Then he pulls this bit of paper out of his pocket and hands it to me. It had a phone number scribbled on it in pencil: ‘You call that number at exactly twenty-five minutes past one. When you get an answer, you ask for Vittorio. If they want to know who's calling, you say, “Sandy.” Got it?'”

Max poured some coffee.

“We stopped at a pay phone and synchronized watches. He went into the bar and I made the call just like he said. Back then it cost a dime. I looked at that coin in my hand and thought it was such a small price for a man's life. But I dropped it in. Did what I'd been told to do. When I got the unsuspecting Vittorio on the line I heard a soft pop and a loud grunt and that was it.”

He sat back down at the table. “I stood on the sidewalk expecting to see my old man come running. Almost three minutes went by. I began to get worried something had happened to him. Then he comes sauntering out of the bar rolling a cigarette. He gave me a friendly wave and crossed the road. Together we walked to the car. You know what he told me on the way back home?”

“What?”

“He said that what we did was like a war. We only fight the enemy. Only the bad guys. Never the good guys. No way would the Bruschettis be asked to kill anyone unless he'd gone real bad. That way no one got whacked that shouldn't get whacked.

“Two days later I read in the paper that the cleaning woman in the bar had found the body of an alleged member of the Mafia slumped in a phone booth. The night before, everyone who passed by assumed the bastard was making a very long-distance call.”

Rocco smiled.

“You know what else Aldo told me that night?” said Max.

“No. Tell me.”

“‘Never be impulsive or reckless. Think before you act.' Told me it was like sawing wood. You measure twice and cut once.”

“He was right,” said Rocco. “It's a lot nicer up here than on Rikers.”

“Ain't that the truth,” agreed Max with a grin. “I'm glad you're back. I don't like it when you're not here.”