McNally's caper

A MEETING OF MINDS

At 9:00 that Friday night we were seated in Donohue’s room at the Hotel Harding. I was Bea Flanders in blond wig and tight turtleneck. Jack looked like Hialeah; knife-creased silk slacks, nubby gold sports jacket, white moccasins decorated with brass trim. Dick Fleming, by contrast, looked pretty drab.

Donohue was polite, unsmiling, and very, very cool. He got us comfortable, locked the door, and supplied us with vodkas on ice. The glasses were clean.

‘Well?’ I demanded in my gunmoll voice, having decided to come on strong. ‘Are you in or out?’

‘I took a look at the place,’ Donohue said, staring at me. ‘I’ve practically lived on that block for the last two days. I was into the store twice, and I checked out the daily routine. Before I tell you what I think, spell it out for me in more detail. Just how do you plan to hit it?’

I had brought along my schedules and maps. I went over it once more:

The precise time the three of us plus the two added recruits would meet.

The route the five of would take south, me at the wheel.

I would stay with the car, doubleparked near the construction site at the corner of East 55th Street and Madison Avenue.

The four men, masked, would go into Brandenberg amp; Sons at 10:00 A.M., the moment the door was unlocked for business.

Two men would race to the rear, to the vault room, before the repairmen had a chance to slam the door or lock the safe.

The other two would cover the manager and clerks in the front room, force them to lie down, gag and tape them. The two repairmen would be treated similarly, and the aged porter if he was present.

Then the safe and showcases would be rifled as rapidly as possible. Obvious pressure alarms would be avoided; the glass cases would be smashed from the top rather than the sliding doors forced.

‘Then everyone piles out,’ 1 finished, ‘and gets in the car. By this time I’ll have pulled up in front of the store. The best route for a getaway, I figure, is to-’

‘Bullshit,’ Jack Donohue interrupted harshly. ‘Pure, unadulterated bullshit! It sucks. Do it your way and we’ll all be in the slammer within an hour. If we’re not in the morgue with tags on our big toes.’

I looked at Fleming. He looked at me.

‘All right,’ Dick said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Right,’ I said, preparing to rise and depart. ‘You say you don’t want in. That’s okay if-’

‘Shut up and sit down!’ Donohue snapped. ‘You too, Fleming. I didn’t say I didn’t want it. I just said you got a lousy plan. I thought you told me your old man was a whiz at jewelry jobs? If this is an example of how he did it, no wonder he got squashed.’

‘What the hell’s wrong with my plan?’ I said hotly. ‘I worked for weeks on this. It’s got-’

‘Shh, shh,’ Donohue said, relaxing and giving me one of his brilliant grins. ‘Just keep your voice down, Bea. Take it easy and I’ll tell you what’s wrong.’

‘First of all,’ he started, ‘I like the place. For a target, I mean. Big enough but not too big. Not too many clerks. And lots of lovely, lovely rocks-’

‘Bea told you,’ Fleming broke in. ‘At least a million.’

Donohue turned to him, flashed one of his high-powered grins.

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘A minimum of a mil. Probably more. And I’m just talking about the stuff up front, in the cases. What’s in that safe in the back room — well, who the hell knows? But it must be beautiful. Okay, that’s agreed. The place is worth the risk. And it’s ripe for the plucking. No armed guard. No TV cameras that I could spot.’

. ‘So you want in?’ I asked him.

‘I want in,’ he said, nodding, ‘but not if I have to follow your script. First of all, with a gang of five you want two cars, not one. On the getaway, they split up. That confuses witnesses and the cops, and doubles your chances of at least one car making it with half the take.’

‘Well … all right,’ I said grudgingly, ‘I’ll buy that. But that means more people. At least another wheelman.’

‘Correct,’ Black Jack said. ‘But more than just another driver. Bea, we just can’t go busting in there when the store opens at 10:00. What if a street cop or a squad car comes wandering by?’

‘Chances are slim,’ Fleming said. ‘They work on a-’

‘I know how they work,’ Donohue said sharply. ‘No regular schedule. I’m just saying what if? A cop comes rumbling by while we’re inside, and you’ve got the Shootout at the OK Corral. Or a couple of early-morning customers stroll in. Then what? That place could begin to look like Grand Central Station. With only four of us to truss them all up and cover them and empty out the place at the same time? No way! Bea, it just won’t work. We need more people and we need a better scam.’

‘Like what?’ I said.

‘Like this,’ he said, he leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘I checked out that place for two days running. The key to the whole thing is that cleaning truck that comes an hour before the store opens. You spotted that?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Every morning. At 9:00. They spend about thirty to forty-five minutes in there. The manager unlocks the door to let them in, then locks it again after they leave.’

‘Every morning?’ Donohue asked.

‘Every morning,’ I told him again. ‘Like clockwork. I watched.’

‘Good,’ he said with a satisfied grin. ‘That’s what I figured. The key is this: That truck is from the Bonomo Cleaning Service. It doubleparks right outside the store. On both mornings I watched, the manager was waiting inside the door. When he saw the truck pull up, he unlocked the door. Get it? All he’s looking for is the truck, he doesn’t even wait to see if the guys getting out are his regular cleaning crew or a gang of pirates. He sees the truck; he unlocks the door.’

‘Hijack the truck!’ Fleming burst out.

‘Right!’ Donohue said, looking at Dick with new respect. ‘Now we’ve got our second vehicle. And that cleaning van can hold a football team. And if we work fast enough, we can pile through that unlocked door before the manager realizes it’s not his usual cleaning crew. Four, or six, or even a dozen guys inside, and the door locked, the shutters down, one hour before the store opens for business. My God, in an hour, with enough outlaws, we can take the paper off the walls!’

I had an objection. ‘What if the manager doesn’t unlock until he makes sure it’s his regular cleaning crew?’

‘That’s what he should do,’ Donohue said, ‘but it’s not what he does. He’s waiting for the cleaning truck, he sees it park in front of the store, he unlocks the door. If he looks at the guys on the sidewalk, all he sees are the uniforms they wear. I’ll bet ten to one on it. A guy in a uniform or any kind of unusual clothes, you don’t look at his face, you look at what he’s wearing.’

‘So then?’ I said, beginning to get excited by his idea.

‘So then the moment that door is open, the guys in the front of the van rush it, and the guys in back push in right after them. I don’t mean it can be a stampede, but they don’t mosey either. Listen, it’ll be 9:00 in the morning; a lot of people on the streets. But all they’ll see is guys in uniform — you know, those coveralls they wear — piling out of a truck and hurrying into a store to clean it up before it opens for business. Who’s going to figure a heist is coming down? If it’s timed right, there won’t be a squeal. And cleaning guys always take tools and bags along with them — right? So we go inside with everything we need to take the place apart. We’ve got a whole hour and enough guys to make sure none of the clerks makes like a hero. When we’ve got what we came for, we leave everyone tied and gagged. We split the loot. Half the guys and half the take go in the cleaning van. You take the rest, Bea. We go by different routes. We meet later for the split. How does that sound?’

Fleming and I stared at each other again.

‘What do you think, Dick?’ I asked him.

‘How do we get the truck?’ he wanted to know.

‘Easy,’ Donohue said. ‘It’s from the Bonomo Cleaning

Service. Sign painted on the side.But it’s also got a number painted on the cab door. It’s a truck number 14. So we find out where this Bonomo Cleaning Service is located. We stake the place, find out when the trucks start on their rounds. We follow truck number 14. We learn its routine. It’ll take time, but it can be done. Then, on the day we decide to hit, we hijack Bonomo truck number 14 just before it gets to Brandenberg.’

‘What about the driver?’ I asked. ‘And his helper? They’ll find their truck gone, they’re going to scream to the cops. Then there’s a bulletin out and we’re sitting ducks.’

Donohue snapped his fingers. ‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘You’re thinking smart, Bea. So we take the truck and the crew. We tie ‘em, gag ‘em, and toss ‘em in the back of the van. When we’re finished, we ditch the van and cut the guys loose.’

‘One thing still bothers me,’ I said. ‘Are you sure the manager is going to open that door as soon as the truck pulls up? Before he inspects the cleaning crew to make certain they’re his regulars?’

‘Sure, I’m sure,’ Black Jack said. ‘He did it both mornings I watched.’

‘Two mornings,’ I said. ‘Not enough to bet everything on a habit pattern.’

‘All right,’ Donohue said, frowning at me. ‘Suppose he does look through the glass door before he unlocks it. So he sees two cleaning guys he’s never seen before. What’s he going to do — ask them through a locked door what they’re doing there and where are his regular cleaners? No, he’s going to unlock that door to talk to them. After all, the regular truck is there, and these guys are wearing Bonomo coveralls and carrying mops. He’s not going to be so suspicious that he’ll keep the door locked while he calls Bonomo to find out what’s going on.’

‘Maybe he will,’ I said, ‘and maybe he won’t. But I don’t want this whole job to hinge on that — how the manager will react if he spots two strange cleaning men. Too chancy.’

The three of us sat staring at the worn linoleum.

‘Look, Jack,’ I said finally, ‘we’re planning this for a week or two before Christmas, so we’ve got some time to get it right. Let’s do this: Next week Dick and I will cover

Brandenberg and Sons every morning at 9:00. We’ll watch the exact sequence: when the cleaning truck pulls up, when the crew gets out, when the manager unlocks the door. If it happens the way you say it does — he unlocks the door the moment the truck appears — then we’ll go with it the way you said. If he inspects the crew before he unlocks the door, then we’ll have to think of something else. Okay?’

‘Jesus,’ Donohue said disgustedly. ‘You’re acting like an old woman. We’ve got to take some chances.’

‘We’re taking plenty,’ I assured him. ‘I just don’t want to take any unnecessary ones.’

‘All right.’ He sighed. ‘You check it out. And what will I be doing meanwhile?’

‘You can locate the Bonomo Cleaning Service,’ I told him. ‘Find out when their trucks start going out. Try to get the schedule for truck number 14. Also, maybe you can ask around about fences. Guys big enough to handle a haul like this. You know this town better than I do; you’ll know where and who to ask. Can you do that?’

‘Sure.’ Donohue said promptly, mollified. ‘No problem …. You want to work through fences rather than the insurance company?’

‘Depends,’ I said. ‘On what we get and what we’re offered. But we’ve got to start somewhere, so we better have some names when the stuff is in our hands. Now what about those two heavies you said you could recruit?’

‘I can get them,’ he promised. ‘I asked them, casual-like you understand, without telling them exactly what it was, and they’re ready for a fight or a frolic. Look, these guys are mutts. Great brains, they’re not. But they’ll do what they’re told and not cry.’

‘We’ll need more,’ Fleming said, ‘if we go along with the cleaning truck gimmick. Another driver there. Another two or three to go inside.’

‘Not to worry,’ Black Jack said. ‘This town is crawling with out-of-work bentnoses. We’ll have our pick. How we’ll pay them — flat fee or a split — is something we’ll have to decide after we get the ball rolling.’

He rose, poured us more vodka. We raised our glasses to one another.

‘Success,’ Dick Fleming said.

‘Luck,’ Jack Donohue said.

I didn’t say anything. Donohue too fell silent, looking pointedly at Fleming. Dick got to his feet, muttered something about having to see someone, and left us. But not without a reproachful glance at me. I was certain he knew how my evening would end.

‘He’s okay,’ Donohue said, moving about, mixing us fresh drinks. ‘Not a bad asshole after you get to know him. And he’s no dummy. He knew right away about hijacking the cleaning truck. Not the kind of man I’d want for a close friend, but I can work with him. I just hope he’s a stand-up guy if things get rough.’

‘He will be,’ I said. ‘I trust him.’

‘I hope you’re right. Bea. You want to go to bed now?’

‘Sure,’ I said.

I did everything for him. Guilt racked me.