Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 (24 page)

 
          
Lou
yelled, “What the fuck is
that?”

 
          
“Shotgun!”
I was still fighting that leftward skid, the
squad car was still in motion, I was still praying for it to quit so I could
get my head down out of the way of that shotgun. And finally we did shudder to
a stop, no more than twenty feet from the Buick.

 
          
I
hit the switch that turned off the siren, and shoved my door open. The driver’s
face was no longer showing in the window of the Buick, and the black stick was
no longer pointing at us over the top of the car. I leaned my head out to the
side, and heard them running into the darkness in the opposite direction.

 
          
As
I was getting out of the car, I saw Lou jumping out on his side and making a dash
for the Buick. “Hey!” I yelled. “Where the hell are
you
going?”

 
          
He
looked back and saw me standing behind the open door, which would give me some
protection if they opened up with that goddam shotgun again. He stopped running
forward and crouched there, pistol pointing straight ahead but head still
turned around facing me. Looking baffled, he said, “After them. Don’t we—?”

 
          
I
said, “In that darkness?
With a shotgun?
They’ll blow
your ass off.”

 
          
He
straightened out of his crouch, all momentum gone, but he still didn’t come
back. “But we’ll lose them,” he said.

 
          
“We
lost them,” I told him. I would never have had to explain that to Paul. “Get
back here,” I said, “and call in.”

 
          
The
footsteps had faded away. Those two were gone for good, and just as well. I
came out from behind the door and walked around to look at the front of the
car. Very little of the shotgun blast had reached the windshield, so where had
the rest of it gone?

 
          
Into
the radiator, as I’d thought. Red cooling fluid was oozing out of a thousand
holes. The headlights had also been smashed. A little higher, I thought, and my
face would look like that.

 
          
It
was in that instant that I knew Tom had to stop fucking around on this Vigano
deal. He had to call him, we had to make the arrangements and get the money,
and we had to do it and get it over with. I was still willing to hang around
the six monihs before I’d pack up my family and go off to Saskatchewan, but God
damn
it,
I wanted to
see
what I’d accomplished. I wanted that money in my hand, where I
could touch it.

 
          
Lou
was walking by me, heading for his side of the car. I told him, “They shot the
shit out of our radiator. When you call in, tell them we need wheels.”

 
          
“Okay,”
he said.

 
          
I
stood there looking at the radiator, thinking about what I was going to say to
Tom.

 
          
And another thing.
After this, they’d
have
to give us a new car.

 
          
It
was a hot day. It would be really muggy and bad in the city, but fortunately
they both had the day off and they could sit around on lawn chairs in Tom’s
backyard, near the barbecue, and drink beer and work on their tans and watch
the ballgame on the Sony portable Mary had given Tom for last Christmas.

 
          
Tom
hadn’t been thinking about anything, except how hot it was and how glad he was
he wasn’t working and how maybe he’d cut out the beer and start losing weight
when the hot weather broke, but Joe had been thinking for the last few days,
ever since the shotgun incident, how to approach Tom on this Vigano question,
and he was beginning to think the only way to do it was straight out, no
beating around the bush, dead ahead.

 
          
It
was a very dull game. Cincinnati had got six runs in the first inning, and
nobody had done a damn thing since. In the bottom of the fourth, with a
deliberate walk coming up, Joe said, “Tom, listen.”

 
          
Tom
gave him a half-awake look. “What?”

 
          
“When
do we call your Mafia man?”

           
Tom looked back at the deliberate
walk. “Pretty soon,” he said.

 
          
“It’s
been two weeks," Joe told him. “We’ve already passed pretty soon, we’re
catching up on later, and I see never dead ahead."

 
          
Tom
frowned, staring at the television set, and didn’t say anything.

 
          
Joe
said, “What's the story, Tom?"

 
          
Tom
made a face, shook his head, frowned, shrugged, gestured with his beer can; did
everything but talk, or meet Joe’s eye.

 
          
Joe
said, “Come on. We’re in this together, remember? What’s the problem, what’s
the delay?"

 
          
Torn
turned his head and frowned at the barbecue grill. Ho looked as though he had a
toothache. He said in a low voice Joe could barely hear, “Day before yesterday
I went into a phone booth."

 
          
“Fantastic,"
Joe said. “Three days from now you drop the dime?"

 
          
Tom
grinned, despite himself. He looked at Joe, and he surprised himself by being
relieved that he was getting this off his chest. He said, “Yeah, I guess
so."

 
          
Joe
said, “So what’s the mattcr7"

 
          
“I
don’t know, it’s like—’’ Tom clenched his teeth, trying to find the way to put
it into words. He said, “It’s like
wo
already got away
with it, you know?
Like we shouldn’t push our luck."

 
          
“Got
away with what?
So
far all we got is
air."

 
          
Tom
shook his head violently back and forth. He was angry at himself, and he let it
show “The goddam truth is," he said, “
J’m
afraid
of that son of a bitch Vigano."

 
          
Joe
said, ‘Tom, f was afraid of the robbery. I was seared shitless when we went in
there to do that thing, but v/e did it. It worked, just like we thought it
would."

 
          
"Vigano’s
tougher."

 
          
Joe
lifted an eyebrow.
“Than us?"

 
          
“Than a stock brokerage.
Joe, we’re talking about beating
them out of two million dollars. You think it’s going to be easy with those
people?"

 
          
“No,
I don’t," Joe said. “But the other part wasn’t easy either. I say we can
do it."

 
          
“I
don’t have a way," Tom said. “It’s as simple as that It’s easy to say we’ll
work out a system where they have to bring the money and show it to us and all
that stuff, but when it comes right down to it, where the hell’s the system?”

 
          
“There
is one,” Joe said. “There has to be. Look; did we steal ten million dollars? We
aren’t stupid. If we can figure that we can figure this.”

 
          
“How?”

 
          
Joe
frowned, trying to think. He looked at the television set and the inning was
over, and some actor made up to look like a cowboy was peddling razor blades.
Joe shrugged and said, “Disguised as cops.”

 
          
“We
already did that.”

 
          
Joe
grinned at him. “We can’t do it again? Treat it the same way, use the equipment
and everything just like last time.”

 
          
“Like how?
Doing what?”

 
          
Joe
nodded, feeling very pleased with himself. “We’ll think of it,” he said. “I
know we will. If we just keep talking about it, we’ll work it out.”

 
          
And
a little later that afternoon, they did.

 
          
They’d
gotten off duty together at four in the afternoon. Joe had his Plymouth today,
and they drove across town, through the park at 86th Street, and over into
Yorkville where they stopped at a comer with a pay phone. Tom called the number
Vigano had given him, and asked for Arthur, and said his name was Mr. Kopp. A
gravelly voice said Arthur wasn’t in, but was expected, and could he call Mr.
Kopp back? Tom read off the number of the pay phone, and the gravelly voice
hung up.

 
          
Then
twenty minutes went by. It had been a hot day, and it was gradually becoming a
hot evening. They both wanted to go home and take their clothes off and stand
in the shower for a while. Tom leaned against the side of the phone booth and
Joe sat on the fender of the Plymouth, and they waited, and twenty minutes went
by with the speed of grass growing.

           
Finally Tom looked at his watch for
the fifteenth time and said, “It’s been twenty minutes.”

 
          
Reluctantly
Joe said, “Maybe we should—”

 
          
“No,”
Tom said. “He told me if he didn’t call back in fifteen minutes, we should try
again later. We’ve waited twenty minutes, and that’s enough.” Joe was still
reluctant, because he didn’t want to have to nerve Tom up to this all over
again, but he gave in without any more argument, saying, “Okay, you’re right.
Let’s go.”

 
          
Even
though they now had a plan, Tom hadn’t been all that eager to talk to Vigano again.
“Fine,” he said, and started toward the passenger side of the Plymouth, and the
phone rang.

 
          
They
looked at each other. They both tensed up right away, which Tom had expected
but which surprised Joe. He’d had the idea he was under better control than
that “Go on,” he said.

 
          
Tom
had just been standing there. “Right,” he said, and turned back, and went into
the phone booth. The phone was just starting to ring for the second time when
he lifted the receiver and said, “Hello?”

 
          
“Is
that Mr. Kopp?” Tom recognized Vigano’s voice. “Sure. Is that Mister—
”

 
          
Overriding
him, Vigano said, “This is Arthur.”

 
          
“Right,”
Tom said.
“Arthur, right.”

 
          
“I
expected to hear from you a couple weeks go.”

 
          
Tom
could feel Joe’s eyes on him through the glass walls of the booth. With a
sheepish grin, he said, “Well, we had to get things set up.”

 
          
Vigano
said, “You want me to tell you where to bring the stuff?”

 
          
“Not
a chance,” Tom said. “We’ll tell
you
where.”

           
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Vigano
said. “Give me your setup.”

 
          
Tom
took a deep breath. This was another of those moments of no return. He said,
“Macy’s has a wicker picnic basket. It costs around eighteen bucks, with the
tax. It’s the only one they’ve got at that price.”

 
          
“Okay.”

 
          
“Next
Tuesday afternoon,” Tom said, “at three o’clock, no more than four people, two
of them female, can carry one of those baskets into Central Park from the west
at the Eighty-fifth Street entrance to the park roadway. They should turn
right, go down near the traffic light, and sit down on the grass there. No
later than
four o’clock
,
either I or my partner will show up to make the exchange. We’ll be in uniform.”

 
          
Vigano
said, “With another basket?”

 
          
“Right.”

 
          
“Isn’t
that kind of public?”

 
          
Tom
grinned at the phone. “That’s what we want,” he said.

 
          
“It’s
up to you,” Vigano said.

 
          
“The
stuff in your basket,” Tom said, “should not have traceable numbers and should
not be homemade.”

 
          
Vigano
laughed. “You think we’d palm off counterfeit on you?”

 
          
“No,
but you might try.”

 
          
Serious
again, almost sounding as though he’d been insulted, Vigano said, “We’ll
examine each other’s property before we make the switch.”

 
          
“Fine,”
Tom said.

 
          
“You’re
a pleasure to do business with,” Vigano said.

 
          
Tom
nodded at the phone. “I hope you are, too,” he said, but Vigano had already
hung up.