Red Rag Blues (7 page)

“No. Why should it? Kind of job we handle all the time.”

“And the ten deliveries from the banks to a rented office?”

“So what? Most the offices in Manhattan are rented.
This
office you're standing in, it's rented. The guy was polite, he paid cash. See?” He had found the paperwork. “William McKinley. All kosher. Strictly routine.”

“Yeah. President McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo in 1898.”

“Before my time. Maybe this is a relative … Hey, look at this.” He had the messengers' job sheets. “McKinley signed different names. G. Washington … A. Lincoln … U. S. Grant.”

“Cute,” the detective said. “Cute as crabs.”

One thing, there was no lack of witnesses. No lack of descriptions, either. Depending on who you believed, the suspect was a clean-shaven 25 with gray eyes and no scars, or a 40-year-old with a Clark Gable mustache, brown eyes and a birthmark like a strawberry on his neck. The birthmark was Billy Ogilvy's contribution. “Which side?” the cop asked. “Right,” Billy said, and touched the left side of his neck. The cop reversed his pencil and rubbed out birthmark. Billy saw that, and was hurt. “You'll never catch the guy,” he said. “I met him. He's a mastercrook.”

Ten banks, no leads: it was a headache. Bank robbery was a federal offense. The NYPD gladly turned it over to the FBI. The banks had lost five thousand bucks and change. Let Hoover's agents bust their nuts over it.

*

Luis kept five hundred dollars and put the rest in a safe deposit box which he rented at a branch of Chase Manhattan on 72nd
Street. Then he took a cab to 84th and First. No cops in sight. Julie was sitting on the stoop, reading the
Trib.
“Someone left it at Mooney's,” she said. “I can't afford newspapers. That bastard McCarthy's muckraking again. See? Says he's found more Reds in the State Department.”

“I thought we might go to Central Park and drink some chilled white wine. Have you got a nice frock to wear?”

She squinted up at him: he was standing with his back to the sun; his face was a dark blank. “You sound like Daddy Warbucks,” she said. “I'm not Li'l Orphan Annie.”

He laughed. “I haven't the faintest notion what that means.”

“Means you're out of your depth. Something else you don't know.”

They went inside. He showered, and changed all his clothes. “Jolly warm, New York,” he said. “Is there a laundry handy, by any chance?”

She was watching him dress. “On every block. They like to be paid. And I'm behind with the rent. So what makes you so chipper?”

“Chipper …” he murmured. “I knew a chap in Madrid who was chipper. Freddy Ryan. Remember Freddy? Trained with me to spy for the
Abwehr,
until they shot him. Poor old Freddy. Didn't look chipper when he was dead. Looked as if he'd been kicked in the goolies.”

“This is America. If you mean nuts, say nuts. Let's go.” She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

“Like that? It's a waste of your legs. Haven't you got a pretty frock?”

“Wrong gal. Shirley Temple I'm not.”

“America has ruined you.” But even that didn't make her smile.

Fisk had a guilty secret. He liked crime. For him, a day without crime was flat, dull, worthless. That was why he had joined the FBI. He had a law degree from Yale, his family were Presbyterians, and he couldn't do wrong any more than he could play the bass saxophone, so crooks fascinated him. He and they were alike yet unalike; a puzzle and a challenge. He felt much the
same way about women. In a flash of inspiration he suggested to the manager of the messenger agency that the person who hired ten guys to rob ten banks might have been a woman.

The manager was amused. “You saying I don't know Arthur from Martha?”

Fisk's supervisor, Prendergast, looked on. When the FBI had taken the ten-bank steal from the NYPD, Fisk had been eager to be involved. “Bring your notebook,” Prendergast said. “You can take statements.” They had questioned many people and they were getting nowhere. Now the kid had an original idea. “What's on your mind?”

“The nature of the crime. It's evasive, there's no risk of violence to the criminal. That's how a woman would rob a bank: get someone else to do it.”

“Listen, sonny,” the manager said loudly, “if it's built like man, talks like a man, and grows hair on its knuckles it ain't a woman.” He was annoyed at having to tell his story all over again.

“I arrested a female, couple of years ago,” Prendergast said. “Walked like Betty Grable, talked like Joan Crawford, when we searched her she was hung like Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger, both.”

“That's different,” the manager said. “This still wasn't no woman.” He pictured Luis. “Most I can say is maybe the guy was a fruit, on account of he was wearing fruit boots.” They were interested. “You know,” he said, “them soft suede things look like the fairies made 'em.”

It was a lucky break. Well, law officers have plenty of bad luck; they also have good luck once in a while. Fisk phoned Immigration at Hoboken, got the contact address which Luis had given: an apartment on East 84th Street. “I want a black bag job on that apartment as soon as possible,” Prendergast said. If the money was there, the case was closed. That kind of search wasn't legal, but this was the Bureau. Who gave a shit about the law?

*

They took a taxi to Central Park South, to a hotel she knew. The foyer was a cool and lofty place with an ambitious fountain. Bronze statues of naked youths danced in a circle through the spray. Their streaming, glistening skin made them look as if they
were on the spree. “I come here a lot,” she said. “Just to look around. It's free. I want to be like them. Run in the rain.”

“Something I'd buy a ticket to see,” he said, and regretted it. Too flip. Her silence made it worse. “Sorry,” he said. She walked away. For the first time since he arrived, he thought perhaps she disliked him. That raised a flutter of panic. Without Julie he would be alone in New York, alone everywhere, in fact. Spending money had kept him busy in Venezuela; but it hadn't created a different person.

They went into the restaurant. He ordered a bottle of Blanc de Blanc, a plate of
hors d'oeuvres,
some breadsticks. Spending money helped the little panic to fade.

“Herb Kizsco came by the apartment,” she said. Luis had to work his memory: Kizsco, academic, head like a melon, got fired, drove a taxi. “He heard Enrico was let out of jail. Seems the church hired an attorney to put the squeeze on Immigration.”

“That's good.”

“Yeah. Except, those nice folks from Internal Revenue were waiting. They want to audit his tax returns for the last seven years.” She ate an olive.

“If Enrico charged a dollar a meal, he couldn't have made any profit.”

“Forget profit. They'll find mistakes, irregularities. Anything they want to look for, they'll find, they always do. They'll put him out of business. He might as well quit.”

“That's persecution. Surely the government—”

“The government's running scared, just like the rest of us. The whole country's scared shitless.”

Luis looked around. The place was calm, quiet, prosperous, unhurried. This wasn't York Avenue, where people lived on the sidewalk in their undershirts. This America was as solid as Fort Knox. He wanted to know why Julie had been fired, but instinct said this was not a good time to ask. So he smiled instead. Back in the old days, his smile had worked like sunlight on flowers. Not now, though.

“I hope you can pay for the booze,” she said. He nodded, and kept the smile burning. “This morning you were flat broke,” she said. “Now suddenly it's taxis and frocks and imported wine.”

“Busy day. My associates negotiated profitable deals with several banks.” He forked an anchovy.

She thought about that. He gave her more wine. “Luis, I know you better than anyone in the world. I know your beautiful body,
every square inch of it.” Hope lurched in his loins. “I know your shabby soul,” she said, “and I know your cock-eyed mind. Whenever you sound pleased with yourself, you're lying.”

“I have five thousand dollars and change.”

“Good. Tomorrow you can get an apartment of your own.”

For a few seconds they looked each other in the eye. Both were afraid. Julie was afraid that she would fall back in love with a man who could only be trouble. Luis was afraid he would lose the only woman he could be honest with. Also dishonest with.

The moment passed. They talked about harmless things: Manhattan, what to see, what to avoid.

Time to leave. He signaled for the bill. The waiter looked young enough to be his son. “Suppose I told you I was a Russian spy,” Luis said to him, casually, as he sorted out money. “What would you do?”

“I'd expect a good tip, sir.”

“Yes? Why?”

“It's a bull market, sir. From what I hear.” He was quick and cheerful. Luis laughed, and added more to the tip.

When they were outside, she said: “Smart kid. Just don't judge everyone by him. Can we afford the movies? Then dinner?” He smiled, and waved down a taxi. “Don't do that Russian spy crap again,” she said. “It gives me cramps.”

The first man into the apartment wore Con Ed coveralls. He carried a Con Ed toolbox and, if pressed, he could show ID from Con Ed. He got in by using picklocks that were not Con Ed issue. He was a retired cop who did illegal entries for the FBI. He preferred the Con Ed identity because it let him search anywhere for gas leaks or

faulty electric cables, including under the floorboards. Nine times out of ten, your amateur robber hid his stuff under the floor. Tenth time, he buried it in the back yard. People did what they saw in the movies. No imagination.

But he found no scarred wood, or scratched nails, or disturbed dust: the floorboards hadn't been moved since Pearl Harbor. He went down the hall and peeked at the backyard. Kids on a tree swing. Guy poking burgers on a barbecue. Forget it.

He went back to the apartment. Somebody knocked on the door, so he opened it. Repairman from New York Telephone. “Name of Conroy?” the man said. “Fault on the phone?”

“Join the party. Hey … You're with the Bureau, right?”

They studied each other.

“Used to be,” the repairman said. “I remember you now. NYPD? Yeah. Small world. I retired, but the pension sucks, so I work freelance. Break-ins, bugs, taps. Same old stuff. British Intelligence hired me. They want to know, did this guy write his life story yet. You?”

“Lookin' for bank robbery evidence. Hell, it's all paper. Work shared is work halved, right?”

Together they searched the apartment, inch by dusty inch, and found nothing. They were drinking Julie's coffee when the landlord came in, followed by the two old guys Luis had offended on York Avenue. They were all drunk. The landlord was one boilermaker short of being fighting drunk.

“The fuck you two pricks doin' in my buildin'?” he shouted.

“Fixin' the leak in your worn-out gas stove,” the Con Ed man said.

The landlord sniffed the air, hard. “You smell anythin'?” he demanded. The two old guys sniffed. “Ain't no gas smell in here,” they said. “No, sir.” One of them clacked his teeth, which the excitement had loosened.

“No pleasin' some people,” the Con Ed man said to the phone repairman. They were unworried. They had the force of injustice on their side.

“Get your ass outa my buildin', boy,” the landlord said. “Ain't no gas smell here! Shoot your mouth at me, I'll stick this fist in it.”

“Reason there ain't no gas smell, pop, is because I just fixed the damn leak.”

“This
my
buildin'! Anythin' leaks, I get told first!” He was so furious that he was spitting a fine spray. “How the fuck you get in here?”

“Door was open. Look, since you're bein' so damn reasonable, tell you what I'm gonna do. This your buildin', you're entitled to one hunderd percent of it, and that includes the lousy leak in your stinkin' stove, so I'm gonna take this big heavy wrench an' give a good hard smack, right where I fixed it. See? Where the gas smell came from. Your smell, right? You want it back? You can have it back.”

“Sure he wants it back,” the repairman said. “Belongs to him.”

“Call a cop,” the landlord told the two old guys. One of them picked up the phone. “Dead,” he said.

“I'm fixin' that,” the repairman said. “Takes a while. Want to wait?” The landlord grabbed the phone and flung it at him and missed. “That's not your property!” the repairman warned. “Belongs to the phone company!”

The row was still raging when Julie and Luis walked in. “There's the sonabitch!” the two old guys cried. “That's the lousy Commie bastard!”

“You're outta here,” the landlord told her. “Bad enough you're a whore, but look at you, whorin' with
this
stinkin' Commie! Out!”

“The man's right,” one of the two old guys said. “Ain't American,” the other said. The Con Ed man and the NY Telephone man slipped away.

“Pack your stuff,” Julie told Luis. She dragged a suitcase from under her bed. Ten minutes later they were on the corner of First, looking for a taxi.

“Why would the phone company send a guy to fix the phone?” she said. “It wasn't bust. It got cut off a month ago, when I couldn't pay the bill. And I never asked Con Ed to fix anything.”

A taxi slid alongside. “What's a good hotel?” Luis asked.

“They're not interested in me,” she said. “They know everything about me. So it has to be you.”

They stayed at the Drake. Separate beds.