Sex, Lies & Serious Money

57

Curly left the Y via the emergency exit and walked down the alley to the street, where he found a cab. It was raining lightly and was colder; he pulled his jacket more tightly around his neck. He got out at the corner and walked down the street to the building where Irv had a small apartment. As requested, he walked down the steps to the basement door and waited under the stoop.

Irv appeared a little after eleven and handed Curly a slip of paper. “Take a cab to this address and wait for me across the street from the shop. We don’t want to be seen together.”

“All right.”

Irv handed him a brown paper bag with something heavy in it. “This is what you wanted, and I’m taking five hundred out of your end to pay for it. There’s six cartridges, too.”

“Fine with me,” Curly said, slipping the bag into his jacket pocket.

“Me first,” Irv said. “Wait a couple of minutes then find a cab.” He strode off as best he could, limping.

Curly checked the address, in the East Nineties, then headed for the corner and hailed a cab. Ten minutes later, with little traffic to slow him, he got out of the cab and checked the block. No person in sight. He crossed the street and found Irv waiting behind some trash cans.

“You watch for anyone, and I mean anyone coming,” Irv said.

“Right,” Curly replied, and turned toward the street while Irv went to work on the front door. Finally, he heard it open.

“Come on,” Irv said.

“How do you know the alarm isn’t working?” Curly asked.

“Inside information. Besides, do you hear an alarm?” He hustled Curly inside. And led the way to the rear of the store. Outside the small rear office was a large double-doored safe.

“Here’s how it goes,” Irv said. “You wait in the front, staying out of sight. If you see anything small enough to put in your pocket that might be worth real money, take it, but I’m pretty sure everything worth stealing is in this safe. This is probably going to take me half an hour, maybe longer. I managed to practice on a similar model, so it shouldn’t be impossible.”

“Then go to it,” Curly said. He walked up front and looked around. Shades were drawn over the windows and door, so he didn’t have to worry about being seen from the street. He took a taped flashlight from his pocket and had a look around with the narrowed beam. There was a tempting case of guns, but he was already heeled; everything else was musical instruments, stereo equipment, binoculars, and knickknacks. He took the .38 snub-nosed Smith & Wesson from its bag, scooped up the cartridges, and loaded them, then crumpled the bag and put it back in his pocket; he was leaving no trace.

He found a stool, had a seat, and waited.

When they had been inside nearly an hour, Irv sang out, “Got it!”

Curly got up and walked back to the safe and played his flashlight beam around the contents. Quite a lot of jewelry, but he wasn’t taking anything that could tie him to the job. What interested him more was the steel box Irv was working on with a hammer and chisel. “Faster this way,” he said. He hit the lock a couple of heavy blows, and it popped open, revealing stacks of cash, each secured by a rubber band. Irv stuffed the cash into a black bag he had apparently brought with him. “We’ll count it at my place,” he said, “but I reckon there’s at least thirty grand here.” He handed Curly the bag. “Let me lock up before we go.”

Curly pulled the .38 from his pocket. “I’ll pay you for the .38 now.” He took a couple of steps back and fired at the back of Irv’s head. The man sprayed blood and bone, then collapsed like a punctured balloon and lay still.

Curly tripped the front door lock and closed it firmly behind him. At the corner he turned down the avenue and glanced at his watch. Half an hour to get there; he would walk it.

Butch dressed in the dark; he pulled on a black sweater, got into his plastic raincoat, and brought along a knitted cap. Finally, he went to a kitchen drawer and put on a pair of light gloves, then retrieved Theresa’s little .25 automatic, which had been wiped clean of prints, inside and out. He put that into his raincoat pocket.

He closed his apartment door behind him, then took off his loafers and padded down the stairs to the lobby, encountering no one at this hour of the night. Once on the street, he walked rapidly the few blocks to the Fifth Avenue and Seventy-second Street entrance to Central Park and turned toward the band shell, three minutes’ walk away. As he approached, he checked the time: 12:46 AM. He took a seat in the front row of the benches and waited.

In the few minutes remaining, he reviewed how he had come to this point in his life. During all his time in prison, he had avoided any violence but what was necessary to keep from being bullied, and after he had been discharged from parole he swore to himself that he would not ever do anything that might return him to prison. Curly had destroyed all that for him — first, with intimations of friendship, then by crude threats, then by the raid on Laurence’s bank account. He admitted to himself that he had willingly cooperated with Curly, but he had rapidly grown sick of him. He had promised that if he ever saw the man again, he would kill him, and now he was at that point, and he wasn’t sure he could go through with it.

Still, he had brought no money to give Curly, so unless he was allowed to walk away, he would have to take steps.

He heard no footsteps, but then suddenly, Curly sat down beside him.

“Evening,” he said. “I’ve got something for you.” He reached into a bag and pulled out a stack of hundreds, secured with a rubber band. “Here’s the fifteen grand I took from you, maybe with a bit more for interest.”

Butch was flabbergasted. He took the money and set it on the bench beside him. “Where’d you get it?”

“A friend and I made a score earlier tonight. This was my share.”

“Well, shit, Curly,” Butch said, “that’s damned good of you. I hadn’t ever expected to see it again.”

“I’m hitting the road, and I’ve got more than enough to get me there,” Curly said. “There’s a girl, too. She lives in Florida, and that’s where I’m headed. I think I’ve had it with New York and New York’s had it with me.”

“Well, Curly,” Butch said, “I wish you and your girl every happiness.” He took the .25 automatic from his pocket, pointed it at Curly’s right temple, and fired.

Curly collapsed sideways onto the bench and lay very still. Butch picked up the black bag, stuffed the money Curly had given him into it, then looked into the other bag he had brought with him; he was sure that the computer contained information about their raid on Laurence’s bank account. He found Curly’s MacBook Air laptop and put that into the black bag with the money. He went through Curly’s pockets and there was nothing of note except a snub-nosed pistol, which he dropped on the ground next to the body; then he got up, tucked the black bag under his arm, and walked out of the park.

He walked home, stopping at a garbage can to smash the laptop and hide it under the other trash, reckoning there might be some reference to him in the contents, then he walked home.

During the remainder of his walk, he unloaded and dismantled the small gun and dropped pieces of it and the remaining ammunition and his raincoat and gloves in trash cans along his route.

Back at his building he found the lobby empty and took the elevator to his floor. He then pressed the lobby button and let it descend back to the lobby. He let himself into his apartment, switched on the kitchen lights, and examined his clothing for blood spatter, but the raincoat and gloves had taken it all; he was clean.

He went into the living room and emptied the black bag onto the dining table. A quick count told him there was a little over fifty thousand dollars there. He would add that to his safe-deposit box tomorrow. He hid the bag in a kitchen drawer.

He was overwhelmed with relief at having removed the only obstacle to his success and happiness, and he fell into bed exhausted and slept soundly.