McNally's caper

DRESS REHEARSAL

I’ll never forget Jack Donohue’s mood that Thursday. He was flying high — but not on alcohol or drugs. He spoke rapidly, almost spluttering in his haste to get the words out. His eyes sparkled. The brilliant grin came and went. He snapped his fingers frequently and occasionally broke into a little tap dance.

He came to room 703 to coordinate our moves that evening, when we were all to meet at the 47th Street garage.

‘Park your car a few blocks away,’ he instructed me. ‘If Fleming drives his heap, tell him to do the same. Then both of you walk over to the garage. Figure to get there about 12:30. Around then. The night watchman will have made his rounds and be back in his storefront, watching TV. We’ll get there ahead of you — me and the others. The door will be opened for you. Then we’ll go over the timing again for Friday morning. Okay? Okay?’

‘Jack,’ I said, ‘for God’s sake, will you have a drink and calm down? You’ve got the jits.’

‘No booze for me,’ he said, flashing the grin. ‘Plenty of time for that after we’ve got the rocks. By God, Bea, do you realize that at this time tomorrow I’ll be rich? We’ll all be rich!’

‘Sure,’ I said, ‘but I’d rather see you play it cool. Come on, sit down for a minute, dip your nose in the vodka. I got my daily delivery of ice from Blanche.’

‘Well … all right. But just one. Then I’ve got to run. I’ve got a million things to do.’

‘Yeah?’ I said, pouring us each a vodka in the rough. ‘Like what?’ ‘I’ve got to locate our two muscles and give them their marching orders. Find an iron for Hymie; his source didn’t come through. Make sure those coveralls are the right size for our guys. Make a checklist of the stuff we’ll be. carrying: coveralls, masks, tape, rope, pillowcases, and so forth. I want this to go down just right, Bea. We’ll be in and out of there so slick, they won’t know what hit them. And no rough stuff. Nobody gets hurt. This’ll be bigger than the Devolte heist in Frisco. Don’t you think so?’

‘Could be.’

He looked at me shrewdly for a long moment.

‘What are you going to do with your share, babe?’

‘Take off.’

‘With Fleming?’

‘Could be,’ I said again, shrugging. ‘I’ve been moving some of my stuff over to his pad.’

‘I know,’ he said, watching me. ‘Blanche told me you were emptying out your room.’

I don’t think I showed dismay.

‘It makes sense. Every rat has another hole. If someone at Brandenberg makes me, it won’t take long for someone here at the hotel or at Fangio’s to tie me up with you, Hymie Gore, and the Holy Ghost. So I figured I’d move before we cash in. Just being super-careful.’

‘I always said you’ve got a brain,’ he said admiringly. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m figuring on doing the same thing. We can each take a part of the loot so there’s no possibility of a cross.’

‘Just what I was thinking.’

He laughed heartily, slapping his knee.

‘I’d never cross you, Bea. You know that. You’re too smart for me.’

‘Just keep thinking that way,’ I told him coldly. ‘Right now we both need each other. A marriage of convenience.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he said warmly. ‘This whole shmear wouldn’t have been possible without you, babe. Well, I’ve got to run. Sticking around?’

‘For a while.’ I hesitated for a moment. Since he knew I was moving out, there didn’t seem any harm in completing the split. ‘I’ll probably take my suitcases and the rest of my stuff to Fleming’s place. I’ll give them notice here, tell them I’ll be out by Saturday.’ ‘Good enough,’ he said, nodding, it’ll be a pleasure to get out of this fleabag, won’t it, babe?’

I agreed. Wholeheartedly.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You’re used to better than this; I can tell. What are you going to do with your share? Europe? South America?’

‘Maybe. But I figure the blues will be watching overseas flights after the heist. I may just hole up in a small town somewhere. Vermont, Maine. Like that. Until the heat dies down.’

‘But not too small,’ he warned. ‘Not someplace where people ask questions about strangers. Me, I’m heading for Miami. A hustler like me can get lost in the crowd down there. Want to come along?’

I looked at him a moment, not certain he was serious. He seemed to be; he wasn’t grinning and his eyes were steady.

‘One thing at a time,’ I said finally. ‘I’ll decide after we’ve got the money in our hot little fists. If we ever do.’

‘Can’t miss,’ he assured me. ‘Call it gambler’s hunch or whatever, but I know it. This is going down, Bea.’

After he left, I finished my packing. Then I carried my two practically empty suitcases downstairs and told Godzilla behind the desk that I was checking out Saturday.

‘Before noon,’ he growled. ‘Stay a minute over, you get charged another day.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘Leavin’ kinda sudden, ain’t’cha?’ he said, leering. ‘Wassa matta, business been lousy?’

‘I’m going back to Chicago,’ I said, figuring it would be smart to give him a bum steer.

‘Yeah? What’s so great about Chicago?’

‘The desk clerks there take baths.’

It wasn’t history’s wittiest insult. I reflected that the demise of Beatrice Flanders was coming none too soon.

Back at the East 71st Street apartment, I called Dick Fleming at his office and we synchronized watches. He said he had to work late, a few hours, but would be finished in plenty of time to make the 12:30 P.M. meeting. We agreed that I’d pick him up at his apartment and we’d drive over to the garage in my rented Ford. Later, we’d have a few drinks together and celebrate the finish of the Great Literary Caper.

‘And that’ll be the end of it,’ I said.

‘I suppose so,’ he said. He sounded forlorn.

I picked Dick up at his apartment at 11:30, as agreed upon. He got behind the wheel while I applied wig and makeup, completing the doxy transformation. By 12:15 we found a parking space on West 49th Street. About 12:25 we locked the car and started walking down to 47th Street.

At that hour, it was a ghostly neighborhood, all shadows and dark windows. Dick took my arm and I was just as happy.

‘I should have brought the gun,’ I said, trying to laugh.

‘What for? Jesus, I hope they’re there! I don’t want to go wandering around these streets any longer than we have to.’

It went like silk, as Donohue would say. We came abreast of the garage on the abandoned block, turned in, the door opened, and there was Hymie Gore, grinning.

‘Ain’t this grand?’ he said.

We stepped inside and Hymie closed the door behind us. Then we were in blackness, with just the merest glow coming through brown paper that had been taped over the garage door windows.

‘Okay, Hymie?’ It was Donohue’s voice calling, very hard.

‘Sure, Jack. They’re here.’

‘Fine. You stay at the door, Hymie. Keep a sharp eye.’

‘I’ll keep a sharp eye, Jack.’

A match flickered, dimmed. Then a kerosene lantern flared. It was impossible to see the corners, but the place looked big enough to hold six cars. Two grease pits, two lifts. A back office, glass enclosed. Those windows had also been covered with taped-on brown paper.

‘I’m here,’ Donohue said. ‘Watch your step — the floor’s greasy. We checked the light from the street. We don’t show a glimmer.’

We moved cautiously into the inner office, following the lantern carried by Black Jack. The place was maybe ten-by-ten. No chairs. A lot of filth: old newspapers, sodden cartons of discarded business records, one ripped truck tire.

I shivered, imagining I heard the scuttle of rats.

‘The Waldorf it ain’t,’ Donohue said, laughing. ‘But we’re not going to live here. You know the Holy Ghost.

Now I want you to meet these two desperadoes, our new recruits. This dusky gentleman is Clement. Clement, this is Bea Flanders and Dick Fleming.’

He held the lantern close to the man he was introducing: a tall, slender black man wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a gray-flannel suit, button-down shirt, regimental-striped tie. He gave a little bow and flashed a mouthful of teeth.

‘My confreres,’ he said in a rich, rolling baritone. ‘So pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘And this gorilla,’ Donohue said, moving the lantern, ‘goes by the name of Smiley.’

There he was: short, squat, and smiling. Just the way I had seen him before, wearing a sweater under his jacket, no topcoat or raincoat. And the black leather cap, rakish as a beret.

‘Nice,’ he said. Whatever that meant.

‘Okay,’ Jack Donohue said. ‘This won’t take long. We’ve got maybe forty-five minutes, an hour, before we can leave. After the watchman makes his midnight rounds. I’ll go over it once. If you got any questions, speak up. Now you’ll notice the garage is big enough for five, six cars. No problem. So here’s how we’ll work it …’

He went over it once again: how Dick would bring his VW and I’d bring my rented Ford. Donohue would be waiting for us in the stolen car, inside the garage. We’d all transfer to the Chevy and drive over to the antique shop on Madison Avenue. We’d arrive there in plenty of time to find a parking space before the arrival of the Bonomo cleaning van. The four heavies would find us, come into our car one at a time to don Bonomo coveralls. The cleaning truck would be hijacked. The helper would be tied up, left on the floor of the van. The regular driver, at gunpoint, would be forced to drive up to Brandenberg amp; Sons. All the men, in coveralls, would be in the van. I’d follow in the stolen Chevy. Donohue would be right behind the driver, gun in his ribs, when the Brandenberg door was opened. Then all the men would pile in, locking the door behind them. I’d pull up directly behind the parked cleaning truck. When the place was stripped, and they came out with the loot in pillowcases, Donohue would jam the door closed with a rubber stopper. Then he and Fleming would come back to my car with approximately half the take. Gore, the Ghost, Smiley, and Clement would take the van with the rest of the loot. The regular Bonomo truck driver would be left trussed-up on the floor of Brandenberg’s, with the employees. We’d all rendevous right here, in the 47th Street garage.The men would take off the coveralls and ditch the van and stolen Chevy, after wiping both clean of fingerprints. Then we’d all pile into Dick’s VW and my rented Ford and go back to Donohue’s room at the Hotel Harding to count and split the take. A few hours later we’d make a call to the cops, telling them where to find the tied and gagged helper in the Bonomo van in the 47th Street garage. Just so the poor guy didn’t suffocate or die of starvation.

‘Any questions?’ Black Jack asked when he had finished.

‘A lot of questions,’ Dick Fleming said boldly. ‘You mean, after the heist, seven of us are going to go walking through the lobby of the Hotel Harding carrying bulging pillowcases?’

‘Not to worry,’ Donohue said, and I could see his grin in the yellowish lantern light. ‘I’m bringing along some cheap suitcases, shopping bags, boxes, plastic garbage bags — like that. We’ll go into the Harding two or three at a time, just strolling. That desk clerk won’t see a thing, believe me. He’s greased.’

‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘When do you guys pick up the tape, masks, rope, and pillowcases you’ll need for the hijack and heist?’

‘When we get out of the stolen Chevy on Madison,’ Donohue explained patiently. ‘Those coveralls have a million pockets. Plenty of room for all the shit.’

‘How are the four guys going to get over to Madison?’ I demanded. ‘How do we know they’ll get there on time?’

‘I guarantee it,’ Jack said. ‘They’ll be there.’

‘No doubt about it,’ Clement said. ‘We’ll be there.’

Smiley smiled.

I looked at Dick Fleming. He looked at me. I think we had the same idea: that we had pushed our legitimate questions as far as we could. We had sounded like concerned participants. We had played out the charade. I made one final effort to prove myself the professional thief.

‘What about those diversions you mentioned?’ I asked.

‘All laid on,’ Donohue assured me. ‘A friend of mine will make the calls to the cops and newspapers at exactly a quarter to nine tomorrow morning. He’ll report bombs planted in all the airline ticket offices and travel agencies in Rockefeller Center. Courtesy of some goddam Puerto Rican bunch. Fuck ‘em. What a beautiful mess that’ll be, with cops’ cars, the bomb squad, and all those people trying to get to work. The buttons won’t have any time to worry about what’s going down on East 55th Street.’

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Apparently Dick Fleming couldn’t either. We stood there in silence. I remembered that Jack Donohue had placed the kerosene lantern on the floor. We were all standing around it, a circle of ghastly, deeply shadowed faces: eyes sunk in black sockets; chins, noses, and brows highlighted in ocher, but all else in wavery gloom. Everyone seemed to be looking at me. I felt like a head witch in a coven, expected to produce the human sacrifice for the evening’s festivities.

‘Well,’ I said lamely, ‘I guess that takes care of everything. See you all in the morning.’

‘You bet!’ Donohue said enthusiastically. He held his wrist down near the lantern to read his watch. ‘Another five minutes or so and we can take off. We better not all leave at once. Bea, you and Fleming slip out first. Then the rest of us will split at intervals. That’s so no one in the tenements across the street sees a mob coming out of here at one time and begins to wonder what the hell’s going on.’

That was fine with me. The faster I got out of that bone-chilling place, the better. It smelled of grease, damp, and dead things.

‘See you soon,’ Black Jack Donohue said with a smile as Fleming and I departed.

I flipped a hand at him and didn’t look back.

An hour later I was back into my old comfortable Jannie Shean clothes. Dick and I were sitting at one end of the crowded bar at Chez Morris, celebrating our deliverance with vodka stingers. Everyone was watching the TV set behind the bar, yelling at a rerun of football highlights of the week before. Morris was down at the other end of the bar, chatting up a bird who looked so much like Beatrice Flanders that I thought she had swiped my falsies.

‘You notice?’ I asked Dick. ‘Donohue sure slurred over how the four heavies are going to find us wherever we’ve been able to find a parking space on Madison.’

‘Right,’ Dick said. ‘And then having us all walk into the Harding carrying the loot. I don’t care if it’s in shopping bags, someone’s going to notice that parade.’

‘Well, it’s not our problem anymore, is it?’

‘Still, it offends my sense of artistic integrity You know what I mean. We had a perfect plan going. Every detail thought out. Now he’s got a gang of bentnoses climbing in and out of a car parked on Madison Avenue, putting on coveralls at 8:30 in the morning.’

‘You’re right,’ I agreed. T guess Jack isn’t the slick operator I thought he was. Screw it. Let’s get drunk.’

‘I’m game,’ he said.

We tried, but it didn’t take. Vodka stingers, brandy stingers, straight brandy, nothing helped. By the time the bar was emptying out, Morris was looking at us anxiously.

‘You going to make it, Jannie?’

‘You bet your sweet patootie,’ I said. ‘I dare you to refuse us another drink.’

‘I refuse you another drink,’ he shot back promptly.

I leaned across the bar and kissed him.

‘In that case,’ I said loftily, ‘we shall take our business elsewhere. Home.’

On the walk across the street to my apartment, Dick Fleming hung on to my arm and I hung on to his. A dizzy waltz.

‘I thought I’d feel a kind of — you know — triumph,’ I said. ‘But I don’t.’

‘I know,’ Dick said, nodding sadly. ‘I thought there’d be risk and danger. Ridiculous. A bunch of rumdums.’

‘Stupid rumdums,’ I said. ‘Jesus. Black Jack Donohue. The Rockettes dancing in and out of the car, putting on coveralls.’

‘Hymie Gore! The Holy Ghost! Can you imagine?’

‘Smiley,’ I added. ‘Clement in his — executive suit. I tell you, crime in America has come to a pretty prass.’

‘Pretty pass,’ he corrected me with great dignity.

‘That’s what I said, diddle I? Now, when I write it, I’ve got to improve it. Fuck reality. Fuck Aldo Binder. It’s all

imagination, Dick m’lad. Better than reality. What do all these wet-brains know about planning a Big Caper? Master criminals, my ass. We did all the planning. The best parts were ours.’

‘Right,’ Dick said stoutly. ‘All ours.’

We went up in the elevator, assuring each other we were the Einsteins of crime. I had a little trouble with the lock to my apartment. I kept stabbing the door. Finally Dick took the key from me, using both hands, finally got the key in, the door opened.

I was very careful. Closed and locked the door behind us. Put on the chain. We went stumbling down the dark hallway. I fumbled around, found the wall switch, lighted the living room.

There was a crowd sitting around.

‘Hi there!’ Jack Donohue said brightly.