Plunder Squad

Five

Griffith awoke as the plane touched down on the runway. The first jounce startled him out of sleep, and the second reminded him where he was.

He sat up, amazed at himself, and stared out the window next to his elbow at Newark Airport in the rain. He never slept on planes, never, and yet he had slept away practically this entire flight.

It must be because he’d been sleeping so badly at home the last few nights. He was between lovers now, and he never did sleep very well with no one else in the bed, but more important than that was this problem of the robbery. He regretted the whole affair, deeply regretted it, but there was no longer any way out.

And if Renard turned him down again, there would be no way in, either. No way to do anything. No survival at all.

Renard couldn’t turn him down, it was as simple as that. The man must understand the position, he must cooperate.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon; even on Saturday, not at all a good time to attempt to get into New York City. Griffith took the regular bus to the West Side Airlines Terminal, and phoned Renard again from there: “I’m in New York.”

“If you insist.” When irritated, Renard always sounded bored, his drawl getting longer and slower, his manner sleepier and more remote. Griffith had never heard him sound so totally bored as he did right now.

Griffith said, “I’m at the West Side Terminal.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’ll be right up.”

“Yes,” said Renard, in a jaundiced way. “I suppose you will.”

Griffith hung up, and took a cab to Renard’s place: a high terraced apartment on Central Park West, facing the park. Renard had once titled his apartment, as though it were a painting: “Renard Amid the Analysts.”

At home, Griffith usually felt like a cosmopolite in exile, but in New York he felt like a visiting provincial. He knew it put him at a psychological disadvantage, and he tried to ignore the feeling or overcome it, but he never quite succeeded.

And particularly not in the presence of Renard, whose manner was so condescending in any event. And disconcerting; he answered the door now wearing nothing but a baby-blue bathing suit and pink shawl tied with a bow at the neck. He was a tall man, but very flabby, with sagging breasts half hidden by the shawl, and rolls of flesh folding over the bathing suit at the waist all the way around. He looked like dough that had been allowed to rise too long, until it overflowed the rim of the bowl.

“Well, you are here, aren’t you?” Renard said, as though his own fatalism amused him. “You might as well come in, since you’ve ridden the elevator and all.”

Griffith stepped inside, feeling awkward and inept. It was as though he were the one improperly dressed, not Renard. “I didn’t want to talk on the phone,” he said.

Renard gave him a tired smile left over from some happier occasion. “Dear boy, I don’t want to talk to you at all, by any method. But my little desires go for naught. Come along, I’m gardening.”

Griffith followed him through the large cluttered expensive rooms of the apartment toward the terrace. Renard walked as though he were related somehow to some barnyard fowl—ducks or geese. And when he walked he held his hands up and out from his body, forearms parallel with the floor, as though he were carrying a very large invisible tray, or was about to point to interesting sights along the route.

The terrace was brick-floored and brick-railed, twenty feet wide and extending eight feet out from the building. Most of the available area had been given over to plants of various kinds, small trees and bushes, but no flowers. To Griffith, it was ridiculous to have all these plants in pots up here when the view was of all of Central Park, stretching away to left and right across the street. They were on the twelfth floor, and the view included practically the whole park.

But Griffith would never say anything to Renard about that. Renard cut away at him too much as it was, without provocation; provoke him, and God alone knew what would happen.

Renard had a thick piece of carpet he moved from place to place to kneel on when working on his plants. He now adjusted this, grunting and puffing as he bent over to move the carpet, and then lowering himself as gracefully as a camel, and Griffith permitted himself the luxury of sneering at Renard’s back.

Without turning around, Renard said, “I suppose you might as well say your little piece and get it over with.” He began poking in dirt with a little trowel.

“I need money,” Griffith said, trying to keep his voice calm and businesslike.

“No.” Renard half turned and gave a bright artificial smile. “There, that’s taken care of. So nice you could drop in. You can find your own way out, can’t you?”

“I can’t get the paintings without money first.”

Renard waggled the trowel in mild reproof. “We really have talked about all this,” he said. “Right from the very beginning. Bring me the paintings, I will give you the money.”

“I have people to do it, but—”

Closing his eyes, looking pained, Renard waggled the trowel more vigorously. “No no no, dear boy, no details. I asked you to spare me the details.”

”They insist on proof I have the money,” Griffith said. “Or they won’t do it.”

Renard opened his eyes again and looked mock-forlorn, like a circus clown. “How sad,” he said.

“I’ve agreed to open savings accounts, and let them hold the passbooks.”

“A clever arrangement.”

“But I don’t have the money.”

Renard cocked his head to one side, gave Griffith a kind of sad smile, and very slightly shook his head. Bright-eyed, still smiling, he turned back to his plants.

Griffith was letting his desperation show, and he knew it, but he didn’t seem able to stop it from happening. “I’ve done what I could,” he said. “I’ve mortgaged everything, I’ve borrowed from eveiybody, I’ve strapped myself to the wall.”

Faintly, Griffith heard Renard go tsk-tsk. But his back remained turned, his attention remained blatantly on those stinking plants.

A picture came into Griffith’s mind: Renard, going over the terrace railing, falling a dozen stories, splattering on the pavement like a pound of butter. And every plant, pot and all, flung down after him, one at a time.

He squeezed his hands together. He had to make this work, Renard was his last chance. “I need seventy thousand,” he said. “I have to have it. And I need it right away.”

Renard sighed. Sitting back on his haunches, resting his hands on his legs, he looked over his shoulder at Griffith and said, very distinctly, “I am not going to give it to you, and that is my last word on the subject.” He turned away again.

“If I don’t get the money, they won’t do it!”

Renard shrugged. He worked with the trowel.

“I’m already in debt, I’ve already gone too far with this thing! If they don’t do it, I’m ruined!”

No reaction at all.

“God damn it, Jack, if they won’t do it you won’t get the paintings!”

Another sigh. Renard sat back again, half turned again, said, “That would be very sad. My customer would be morose. I too would be morose. But life would go on.”

“Not my life.”

A shrug, a lift of the eyebrow—who cares?

“Jack, I’ll give you two more paintings. Your choice.”

Renard shook his head. “I want the six we discussed, and that’s all I want.”

“They’re all valuable, for God’s sake!”

“Leon, I will not hold stolen goods. I have a customer for the six. You give them to me, I give them to him. He pays me, I pay you. The paintings are in my possession for the maximum of thirty minutes. I will not hold stolen paintings.”

“I’m going to.”

Another mocking little expression, and Renard turned away again.

Griffith was at a loss. He stood there looking at Renard’s fat back, covered by the pink shawl, and he wished there was some way to make all of this un-happen, to get back out of it again.

Renard had come to him in the first place because he’d known Griffith was in bad financial shape. Renard had a customer for six paintings currently in a tour of modern art. If Griffith could get his hands on them, Renard would pay sixty-five thousand dollars for the six.

From there, it had very quickly grown out of control. Why be content with stealing the six? Why not take the whole lot of twenty-one, and find customers of his own for the other fifteen? Unlike most stolen goods, which sell at less than the equivalent over-the-counter price, there tended to be a certain romantic cachet to stolen art; a painting certifiably unshowable frequently demanded and received a higher figure than if it were being sold through normal channels by its legitimate owner.

Through other people in the dealer world, Griffith had contacted Mackey, and at first things had seemed to be simple and safe. Mackey would do the job for one hundred thirty thousand, exactly twice what Renard was paying for only six of the paintings. Griffith would give Mackey Renard’s sixty-five thousand when the job was done, and pay him the rest over the next year or so, as money came in.

But then Mackey’s friend Parker had shown up, and the complications had started. Griffith had allowed Parker to drive him up another thirty thousand because there was still plenty of slack left over in the fifteen paintings he’d be keeping for himself. But then it turned out they wanted a guarantee of the existence of the money. Griffith had promised them he had it, because by then the thing was so real and necessary to him that he didn’t want them getting cold feet and quitting on him. Also, Griffith had been very rich for the last several years, until the recession, and he retained the belief that money could always be gotten somehow.

But maybe it couldn’t. He had pawned, he had mortgaged, he had borrowed, and he was still seventy thousand dollars short of the amount. And he knew them now, Mackey and Parker; they wouldn’t do it without a guarantee of the money.

And if it didn’t happen? Griffith’s financial position had been shaky before this; now that he’d borrowed so much, committed himself to this thing so deeply, there was no other way out. He had to get the paintings, he had to get the robbery done, or he was finished.

He had been silent for quite a while, staring at Renard’s back, thinking. Now Renard turned his head again, and something he saw in Griffith’s face seemed to startle him; maybe even frighten him. He straightened up on his knees, and held the trowel more prominently. And his voice was much gentler than usual as he said, “Well, you really are desperate, aren’t you?”

Griffith didn’t know what it was Renard had seen or supposed, but he was quick enough to take advantage of it. “Yes,” he said. “I need the money.”

Renard seemed to consider. Resting a forearm on the brick railing, he mused out at the park. Finally, still looking out that way, he said, “You could borrow it, of course.”

“I’ve borrowed everything I could. There’s nobody left to loan to me.”Renard cocked an eye at him. “Well, that isn’t precisely true,” he said.

Griffith shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I do know some people who would loan to you. But they’re somewhat dangerous to deal with.”

“Who?”

Renard looked out at the park again, frowning slightly. “Well, I don’t quite know what to call them. I suppose they’re connected with the Mafia somehow.”

“They loan money?”

“Yes. All you want.”

Griffith wasn’t following. He knew there was something that hadn’t yet been said, but he didn’t know what it was. He said, “What’s the hook? What’s the problem?”

“Their interest,” Renard said thoughtfully. He gave Griffith a frank look and said, “They charge two percent a month.”

“My God!”

Renard nodded judiciously. “Yes, that is too steep,” he said. “Forget it.”

“No, wait.” Griffith was thinking hard; two percent of seventy thousand dollars was fourteen hundred dollars. One month was all he’d need the money for. Fourteen hundred dollars wasn’t a terrible price to pay. “I could do it,” he said. “I have to do it.”

Renard studied him again. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t have any choice.”

“You want me to call them.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s up to you, of course.”

Griffith said nothing. Renard considered him for a few seconds more, then sighed and hoisted himself to his feet. “I’ll be a few minutes,” he said. “Enjoy the view.”

Griffith didn’t enjoy anything. He stood there on the terrace, breathing as though he’d run up the twelve floors from the street. He stared out at the park, but didn’t really see it; all he saw was the numbers he owed, the numbers he needed, the numbers he was surrounded by.

When Renard came back, he had a piece of paper with him. He also had his normal style back, without that moment of seeming gentleness and concern. “You go on and see these people,” he said. “They’re waiting for you.”

For some reason, it was important to Griffith that he not open the paper and read what it said in Renard’s presence. He took it, stuffed it away in his trouser pocket as though it had no particular importance, and said, “Then I’ll let you know when I have the paintings.”

“Yes, you do that,” Renard said, and glanced toward his plants.

“I’ll let myself out.”

“Mm-hm.”

Griffith felt a sudden moment of rage, so strong that he actually did see red at the corners of his vision. Without another word, he turned away, stumbled slightly on the threshold going into the apartment, and hurried through the soothing rooms and out.

He was down on the street before he took out the paper again and read what was written on it, in Renard’s unnecessarily curlicued hand: “Boro Hall Realty, 299 Atlantic Ave. Bklyn.”

Brooklyn. Griffith was disgusted, and so was the cabdriver he got. “That’s wonderful,” the driver said, and slapped down his meter bar as though he’d like to thump Griffith down through the pavement into the ground.

It was a silent miserable nerve-racking half-hour trip, the cabby trying to make time through heavy traffic, Griffith tense and nervous anyway at the idea of whom he was to be borrowing money from. And at the end of the trip, it was almost anticlimactic to have Boro Hall Realty be a flyblown shabby little storefront outfit on a grubby fourth-rate block. Was this where Griffith would be given seventy thousand dollars, in this hole-in-the-wall with the ads for cheap apartments Scotch-taped to its dusty windows?

Half afraid this whole trip was a cruel joke on Renard’s part, Griffith paid the driver and went inside, where a heavy-set middle-aged woman with a bust you could have set a checkerboard on gave him a pseudo-bright look and said, “May I help you?”

Hesitantly, his mind full of the practical-joke idea, he said, “My name is Leon Griffith. I believe I’m supposed to see somebody here?” And he couldn’t help making it a question at the very end.

But she said, “Oh, yes, we’ve been expecting you. Mr. Smith will see you. Through that door there.”

He went past half a dozen empty scarred desks to the door at the rear of the room, and through it into a small crowded seedy office reeking with the aura of poverty. The thin fiftyish man at the desk had the look of a failed lawyer: shiny suit, wrinkled tie, dandruff on his shoulders, watery eyes behind bent-rimmed glasses. And yet, when he glanced over at Griffith in the doorway, there was something unexpected in his face, some assurance or confidence that didn’t go with his appearance or his surroundings.

Griffith gave his name again, and the man at the desk smiled, more in personal satisfaction than in greeting. “Come on in,” he said. “I’m Mr. Smith. Sit down.”

I shouldn’t be here, Griffith thought. I should get out of here. But it was too late for that, it had been too late for months now.

“You come well recommended,” Mr. Smith said. He was pulling forms out of drawers. “If you’ll fill these out—”

They seemed to be ordinary loan application forms: name, occupation, income, bank accounts, references. In silence Griffith filled them out, and then pushed them across the desk toward Mr. Smith, who went through them slowly and carefully. Griffith sat there, watching Mr. Smith read and wondering what the man was thinking. Nothing showed in his face at all.

Finally Mr. Smith nodded and put the forms down and said, “Well, you seem fine, Mr. Griffith. Now, you understand the terms of the loan?”

“I think so.”

“Two percent per month.”

“Yes.”

“With a minimum of six months’ interest.”

Griffith said nothing. He stared at Mr. Smith.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No.” Six months’ interest: eighty-four hundred dollars. Almost ten thousand dollars.

Mr. Smith’s smile was sympathetic. “In that case,” he said, “I imagine you also didn’t realize the first six months’ interest is taken in advance.”

“In ad—” Griffith shook his head, unable to understand.

“If you borrow seventy thousand dollars,” Mr. Smith said, being gentle and friendly, “you’ll actually receive sixty-one thousand six hundred. But of course your interest is paid for the first six months.”

“But I need seventy.”

“In that case,” Mr. Smith said, “I suggest you borrow eighty. That way, you’ll receive in cash seventy thousand, four hundred dollars.”

“How much—uh, how much interest?”

“Nine thousand, six hundred dollars.”

An incredible amount. Griffith licked his lips. Faintly, he said, “And then I have to pay the principal in six months?”

“No no, not at all. So long as you continue to pay the interest, you don’t have to worry about the principal.”

“Sixteen hundred dollars a month?”

“That’s right.”

“Every month, as long as I want, until I pay the principal.” Mr. Smith nodded.

Griffith saw the doom opening up in front of him. Almost two thousand dollars a month. It would keep him off-balance, keep him from getting very far ahead, probably keep him from ever paying off the balance.

Ever? God, no. He’d have to get the eighty thousand together sometime. Within a year, anyway. Somehow or other. Once this current mess was straightened out, he’d be able to work on the problem of the loan.

Mr. Smith said, “Do you want to go ahead?”

Nervously, Griffith nodded. “Yes,” he said.