Cops and Robbers

17

They had rehearsed this, they’d gone through it over and over again, they both knew their parts; and still, when Tom looked up from the picnic basket and saw the police car threading its way toward him through the bicycles, he was amazed at the relief he felt. Now that Joe was actually here, Tom could admit to himself the fear he’d been carrying in the back of his mind that for one reason or another Joe would fail to show up.

Joe hadn’t had that worry about Tom. The only unacknowledged fear he’d been ignoring was that Tom would already be dead before the patrol car got there. Seeing Tom alive relieved Joe’s mind a little, but not much; they were still just at the beginning of this ride.

Joe eased the car to a stop near the picnickers. Tom had half a dozen bills from the basket clenched in his right fist, taken from the top and the middle and the bottom — they didn’t want the fakery with old newspapers done right back at them — and now he said to the picnickers, “Take it easy. I’ll be right back.”

They didn’t like it. They were looking at the patrol car and at each other and up the hill toward their friends. They obviously hadn’t figured on the patrol car, and it was making them upset. The first man, with his hand still inside his jacket, said, “You better move very slow.”

“Oh, I will,” Tom said. “And when your hand comes out from under there, it better move slow, too. My friend sometimes gets nervous.”

“He’s got reason,” the picnicker said.

Tom got to his feet and walked slowly over to the patrol car, coming up to it on the right side. The passenger window was open. He bent to put his elbows on the sill, hands and forearms inside the car. A nervous grin flickering on his face, he said, “Welcome to the party.”

Joe was looking past him at the picnickers, watching their tense faces. He looked tense himself, the muscles bunched like a lumpy mattress along the sides of his jaw. He said, “How we doing?”

Tom dropped the handful of bills onto the seat. “I spotted five guys so far,” he said. “There’s probably more.”

Reaching for the microphone, Joe said, “They really don’t want us to get paid.”

“If there’s enough of them,” Tom said, “we’re fucked.”

Into the microphone Joe said, “Six six.” To Tom he said, “That’s the chance we took. We worked it out.”

“I know,” Tom said. He rubbed perspiration from his forehead onto the back of his hand, and from there to his trouser leg. Half-turning, staying bent, keeping one elbow on the windowsill, he looked around at the sunny day and said, “Christ, I wish it was over.”

“Me, too.” Joe was blinking again, having trouble seeing things. Into the microphone, he said, “Six six.”

The radio suddenly said, “Yeah, six six, go ahead.”

Picking up the money from the seat, Joe said, “I got some bills for you to check out.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

Joe held one of the bills close to his face, and squinted so he could read the serial number. “This one’s a twenty,” he said. “B-five-five-eight-seven-five-three-five-A.”

The radio read the number back again.

“Check,” Joe said. “Another twenty.” He read off the number, listened to it repeated, and then did the same thing with a third bill, a fifty.

“Give me a minute,” the radio said.

Tom muttered, “If we have a minute.”

Joe put the microphone away under the dashboard and held one of the bills up by the open window to study it with the light behind it. Squinting at it, focusing with difficulty, he said, “Looks okay to me. What do you think?”

The grin twitched on Tom’s face again. “I was too nervous to look,” he said, and reached into the car to pick up one of the bills from the seat. He studied it, felt the paper between thumb and first finger, tried to remember the signs of a phony bill. Over on his side of the car, Joe was checking another of the bills, seeing this one a little more easily; he was beginning to settle down, now that something was happening.

“I guess it’s all right,” Tom said. Irritably he tossed the bill back on the seat. “What’s taking him so long?”

Joe dropped the bill and rubbed his eyes, then said, “Go talk to the people.”

Tom frowned at him. “Are you really as cool as all that, or is it bullshit?”

“It’s bullshit,” Joe said. “But it’ll do.”

Tom’s grin turned a little sickly. “I’ll be back,” he said, and left the car, and walked over again to the picnickers, who were watching him with great suspicion. He hunkered down where he’d been before, and talked directly to the first man, who seemed to be the leader of the group. He said, “I’ll be going back over by the car. When I give a signal, one of you carry the basket over there.”

The first man said, “Where’s the trade?”

“The other basket’s in the car,” Tom said. “We’ll do the switch there. But only one of you come over, the rest stay right here.”

The first man said, “We’ve got to look it over.”

“Sure,” Tom said. “You bring the basket, you get in the car, you check the other one, you get out again.”

The second man spoke up, saying, “In the car?” He frowned at his friend, not liking that.

Tom said, “Let’s not make it any more public than we have to.” Which was an argument they should appreciate.

They did. The first man said to the second, “It’s all right. It’s better inside.”

“Sure,” Tom said. “You stick tight, I’ll let you know when.” He got to his feet, trying to look nonchalant and sure of himself, and walked back over to the car. Leaning in again, he said, “Anything yet?”

Joe was twitching like a wind-up doll. Waiting was the worst thing in the world for him. “No,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “Their friends haven’t come down from the hills yet, so I guess we’re still ahead.”

“Maybe,” Joe said, as the radio suddenly said, “Six six.”

They both started; as though they hadn’t been expecting that sound. Joe grabbed the microphone and said, “Yeah, six six.”

“On those bills,” the radio said. “They’re clean.”

Joe’s face suddenly opened into a big wide smile. It was going to be all right, he all at once knew that as a positive certainty. “Okay,” he said into the microphone. “Thanks.” Putting the microphone away, he turned and gave Tom the big smile and said, “We go.”

Tom hadn’t been affected the same way. The fact that the money was real just confirmed for him the knowledge that the mob was out to kill them. Counterfeit money or stolen money with traceable numbers might have meant the mob would be content merely to cheat them, but real money meant their lives were definitely at stake. Having trouble breathing, Tom responded to Joe’s big smile with a small nervous grimace, and then turned away to make a little waving gesture toward the picnickers.

The women over there were looking a little green, as though the situation had become trickier than they’d been led to believe. They were sitting staring outward, waiting for disaster to strike or relief to come at last. The two men looked at one another, and the first man nodded. The second one got reluctantly to his feet, picked up the basket, and carried it toward the car.

It took him forever to make the trip. Joe kept staring across the car and out the open side window at him, willing him to move faster. Tom watched the slope up toward Central Park West; three of the guys he’d spotted before were clustered together up there now, talking things over. They seemed excited. Was that a small walkie-talkie one of them had in his hand?

“They’ve got an army,” Tom said. All at once, he saw how hopeless it was; the two of them against an army, with army equipment and an army disregard for life.

Joe ducked his head, trying to see Tom’s face. “What?”

The guy with the picnic basket was too close. Tom said, “Nothing. Here he comes.”

“I see him.”

Nervousness could have made both of them irritable right then. If it hadn’t been for the pressure of what else they were doing, they could have turned on each other instead, bickering and snarling like a couple of dogs in a vacant lot.

The guy with the basket reached the car. Tom opened the rear door, and saw the guy’s face register that he’d seen the other basket in there. But he didn’t make a move to enter.

“Get in,” Tom said. Up the slope, one of the trio was using the walkie-talkie.

“Tell your friend to open the basket. Lift the lid.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Tom said, and called in to Joe, “Did you hear him?”

Joe was already twisting around in the seat, reaching over the back of it for the basket. “I heard him,” he said, and lifted the lid. The gag certificates with their fancy designs showed indistinctly in the shadows.

The men up the hill were moving this way; casually, not hurrying yet. Some other men were also strolling this way from other directions. Tom, trying to keep his voice calm and assured, said, “You satisfied now?”

For answer, the guy shoved his basket ahead of himself onto the back seat, and immediately slid in after it, reaching across it toward the other basket to get a closer look at the papers in there.

Tom slapped the door shut, pulled the front door open, and slid in. “They’re coming,” he said.

Joe already knew that; there were more of them coming up from the other side of the road, he could see them through the bicycle riders. He had the car in gear already, and at once they rolled forward.

The guy in the back seat yelled, “Hey!”

Tom’s hand patted the seat between himself and Joe, found the .32 there where it was supposed to be, and came up with it. Turning in his seat, seeing the guy back there reaching into his jacket, Tom laid the pistol atop the seatback, aiming at the guy’s head. “Take it easy,” he said.