Speak of the Devil

14

THE CLOISTERS IS A BRANCH OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF Art. I can get to the Met from Margo’s by walking directly across Central Park. Catch me in a jogging mood and I can make it there in ten minutes. But the Cloisters is located in Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan, a mile beyond the George Washington Bridge and some six miles from Margo’s place. I’m not that fond of jogging.

I took the A train to 190th Street, where a cattle-style elevator brought me up to street level. They call this part of Manhattan Washington Heights. The area is essentially a long bulge running north-south along the Hudson, rivaling in height the bare-faced Palisades cliffs across the river in the state that isn’t New York. The rents are more reasonable here than farther south in the city, and the racial mix is decidedly melting-pottish. In recent years the yuppies and neo-yuppies have purchased places in Washington Heights. There may not be a Starbucks or a Banana Republic on every corner yet, but housing wise you get more bang for the buck, especially if you nab a place with a view of the river.

The sun was out. The sky was blue. There was an autumn nip in the air. I was getting by with a light sweater, a Yankees cap and a checked sport jacket. There’s a used-clothing place on Columbus Avenue called Housing Works. Margo and I had gone there just before they closed Friday night and picked up the sport jacket for fifteen dollars. It was part of my disguise. I’d be able to write it off on my taxes.

I met Philip Byron at a stone gate on the south end of Fort Tryon Park. He looked pale and unhappy. Next to him on the ground sat a large green JanSport backpack. It was bulging like an overstuffed sausage.

“Is that a million dollars in there?” I asked.

“You have no idea how difficult it was to pull this together so fast.”

“Come on. A politician. A million bucks. Sounds like a finger snap to me.”

“You’d be wrong.”

I grabbed hold of the canvas strap at the top of the bag and lifted. Good thing I had used my healthy arm. “I hope Nightmare isn’t a weakling.”

“I don’t like this,” Byron said. “I can think of a dozen better ways to arrange a hand-off. He’s got something in mind.”

“Of course he does. And he knows we know it. And he knows we don’t know what it is. That’s about as level a playing field as we’re going to get here.” I hoisted the bag onto my right shoulder. It would have been easier to carry it on my back, but I didn’t trust the torquing of my bad shoulder. I asked, “Where’s the cop?”

Byron frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re standing on a street corner with a million dollars in a backpack. Our resident psycho is out here somewhere. Probably somewhere close. I’m not calling you a coward, I’m just saying you don’t strike me as stupid.”

“He explicitly instructed no cops. No one touches him.”

“I know what he instructed. But I also know how the police operate.”

My eyes traveled down the wide road. There was a fair amount of street traffic, most of it coming into the park. A hot-dog cart stood near the gate. The vendor stood leaning against the cart, smoking a cigarette. Byron shook his head slowly. Another elevatorload of people had just come up from underground, most of them drifting toward the Cloisters. About two hundred feet from the gate, a large black man was stretched out on a bench, sleeping.

“Don’t tell me it’s him. A child could pick that up.”

Byron shook his head again. “It’s the nanny.”

I followed his eyes. Across the street from where the man was sleeping, an Asian-American woman was seated on a bench with a blue baby carriage in front of her. She was reading a paperback book.

I asked, “Is there a real baby in there?”

“Video camera. Wide-angle lens.”

“You’re breaking the rules.”

“Not really. No one said anything about not taking pictures.”

“Will she follow us?”

“At a distance. Outside only. We’ll be picked up inside by someone else.”

“I thought Leavitt was keeping this whole thing as quiet as possible.”

“The undercovers don’t know the details. Their instructions are to act for my safety, and once they’ve seen you, for yours.”

And with my checked sport coat, I’d be hard to miss.

“Remember what you said on the phone last night,” I said. “We want this to go smoothly and simply.”

“That’s the plan.”

“So no surprise interferences, right?”

“That’s right. We leave the bag, he picks it up, it’s over.”

We started walking. From the corner of my eye, I saw the “nanny” closing her book.

“You don’t even need me,” I said, adjusting the bag on my shoulder.

“Commissioner Carroll wanted you.”

“In case things go wacky.”

“They won’t. At least not on our end.”

We reached the stone gate. The hot-dog vendor tossed his cigarette to the street and called out in a light Irish brogue, “Hot dog, Mac?”

I answered back, “My name’s not Mac.”

Byron was a step ahead of me, so he didn’t see the guy’s wink. Nor mine back to him.

LET NO ONE SAY, AND

SAY IT WITH SHAME,

THAT ALL WAS BEAUTY

HERE, UNTIL YOU CAME

I read the sign out loud. It was planted in the ground at the base of the park’s heather garden. “Where I come from, they just say ‘No Littering.’ ”

Byron was putting on a pair of sunglasses. Along with his short hair and grim stiffness, they made him look like FBI. We walked without speaking along the dregs of the heather garden. I’d been there in the early summer, when the air was nearly choked with fragrances from all the flowers. Now it was fallow and scraggly. The Hudson was visible off to our left. A wide blue undulating ribbon.

Fort Tryon Park is laid out in a series of grass terraces broken up by large outcroppings of boulders left behind after the glaciers wormed slowly through several thousand years ago. A six-hundred-foot promenade weaves around the boulders, leading to the Cloisters. We approached from the south, the dramatic view. A pair of black crows were dive-bombing each other above the medieval building’s terra-cotta roof.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a monk?” I asked Byron.

“Never thought about it.”

“No sex. No pockets. No television. Eat like a bird. Out of the rack before the sun comes up. Never harm a hair on the head of a fly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Monks,” I said. “Monks and nuns. Monasteries. Convents. The cloistered life. Turning away from the world’s distractions and focusing instead on the subtle rhythms of the spirit. Or maybe it’s the soul. I can never remember what the difference is.”

The sun glinted off Byron’s shades. “I’m not following you.”

“Just thinking out loud,” I said. “Whoever we’re handing over this money to obviously has some seriously crossed wires. You don’t normally associate nuns and monasteries with public massacres and blackmail. I think our Mr. Nightmare is what psychiatrists would call conflicted. What do you think? A very unhappy former choirboy, maybe?”

“We’re not here to analyze him. We’re here to pay him off.”

“What makes the mayor think this guy’s going to go away after this? It’s possible, I guess. But a million dollars in today’s world isn’t what it used to be. He could burn right through it and come on back for more.”

Byron took a moment before responding. “We’ve discussed that. But we feel we have no choice. The mayor has to protect the citizens of this city.”

We reached the entrance and made our way up an enclosed winding stone walkway to the admissions desk. “Mr. Small,” Byron said to the woman at the desk. “He’s expecting us.”

She indicated an arched doorway past the gift-shop entrance. “Right through there.”

I followed Byron through the arched doorway and up a short flight of stairs. The museum’s offices were at the top of the stairs. A bespectacled man with thick gray hair was waiting for us. He took us into a small office. Byron introduced us. He was Gerald Small, director of the Cloisters. Mr. Small was wearing a gray wool suit and a red-striped tie. He looked like he was bravely toughing out a migraine.

“I’m not happy with this,” he said immediately to Byron. His voice was nasal and grating. “I don’t enjoy being left in the dark. I want to be on record with that.”

“There is no record, Gerald,” Byron replied coolly. “But I hear you. And the mayor appreciates your cooperation.”

“Appreciation is one thing. You were a little more specific when you called me.”

Byron offered a reassuring tone. “The mayor keeps his promises, Gerald. Mayor Leavitt is very enthusiastic about the museum’s restoration initiative. You can depend on seeing the fruits of that enthusiasm.”

“Fruits of that enthusiasm,” I repeated. “I like that.” My enthusiasm was blandly received by both men.

Gerald Small retrieved a burgundy jacket from atop his desk and held it out to me. I removed my checked jacket and put on the burgundy one. It was a little tight across the shoulders but not so bad. From my pants pocket, I pulled out a small folding mirror and a neatly trimmed false mustache with gummy webbed backing. I affixed the mustache to my upper lip, checking in the folding mirror to see that it was on straight. From my shirt pocket, I produced a pair of black-framed glasses. I put them on, removed the Yankees cap, gave my flattened hair a finger-combing against the grain, then turned to Philip Byron. “Presto change-o.”

“Where’s the bag that was left on Wednesday?” Byron asked Small. The museum director opened a small coat closet and pulled out a black canvas backpack. It was a little larger than the green JanSport. Byron took the backpack and unzipped it.

Across the top of the note retrieved from the Gristedes had been typed: NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION. The note instructed that a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills be bundled and delivered to the Cloisters by Saturday afternoon. The money was to be transferred into a bag that had gone unclaimed earlier in the week. The claim number on the bag was 16. The bag and the money were to be returned to the coat-check room by noon on Saturday and stowed in cubby number 16. The note included the instructions to the mayor about the green tie, the word “Wisconsin” and the warning that any deviations from the instructions or attempts to detain or pursue the person claiming the bag would result in “more public blood.”

It was now nine-fifteen.

After the museum had closed on Friday night, a team of technicians had arrived and installed a new set of security cameras, one for each of the Cloisters’ two entrances and one in a large wicker purse that had been strategically placed in one of the cubbies in the coat-check room. I had my doubts that the Cloisters’ hastily installed cameras were going to capture anything other than another disguise. But I wasn’t running that part of the game, so I kept quiet. In addition to the technicians who installed the cameras, an explosives expert had made the trip up to the Cloisters on Friday evening and inspected the unclaimed bag. It was clean.

We transferred the money to the black bag and made our way to the coat-check room, where Gerald Small explained the system to me. “You clip a number to the bag or the coat or whatever it is they’re checking. The bags you put in order in the cubbies. The coats you hang in order on the rack. You give the customer the plastic tag with the corresponding number.”

“I think I can handle that.”

“It’s very straightforward.”

“Do I accept tips?”

“No tipping.”

“Shucks.”

Officer Kevin McNally was being buried with full police honors at noon, and the mayor and Byron were attending. The operation was now officially in my hands. Before leaving, Byron told me that the undercover cop inside the museum was wearing a Giants jersey. Number 08. This isn’t how numbers appear on Giants jerseys, so the chances of a second person showing up at the Cloisters wearing Giants jersey number 08 were essentially zilch.

Comforting.

The museum opened at nine-thirty. I fielded about a dozen customers right off the bat, and then a lull set in. The steadier stream began around ten-thirty. A Saturday madrigal program was being conducted in one of the galleries at eleven.

From my vantage point, I had an uninterrupted view of the entrance nearest me and a partial view of the one across from the admissions desk. From that entrance, if a person wanted, he or she could go directly into the gift shop before paying admission. I looked around and found the newly installed security cameras, but I couldn’t tell if they were calibrated to take in the gift-shop entrance.

I handled my duties admirably. Seems I was born with all the right skills. My anonymity threw me a little at first; 90 percent of the people handing over their coats or bags looked right through me if they looked at me at all. But I assisted in their indifference with equal doses of my own. I was there to blend in, not stand out. One person, a fat boy with black bangs, tried to draw me out as he handed over a heavy brown coat-“Hey! Do you like white meat or dark meat?”-but his mother, nearly his twin in a scary way, snapped at him to shut up.

Just before eleven o’clock, I was engaged a second time. A jean jacket was thrust at me, accompanied by something small wrapped in white paper.

“Here you go, Mac.”

“What’s this?” I muttered without moving my lips.

Jigs Dugan offered his shit-eating grin. “Hot dog. Thought you’d be hungry.”

I let the hot dog fall into a wastebasket at my feet. I took the jean jacket and gave Jigs his number.

“Thanks.” He pulled a dollar from his pocket. “Where’s your tip cup, Mac?”

“We don’t accept tips… sir.”

“I’d join a union if I were you, Mac.”

“Go away,” I muttered.

Jigs shoved his fists together and cracked his knuckles. The scar on his right cheek hooked as he sneered at me. “They got paintings of naked women here, Mac?”

“If you’re lucky, you might find a cherub. And you can quit with the Mac already.”

Jigs drew my attention to the pager on his belt. “You need me, bubba, you just whistle,” he said in a low voice. A tall man was stepping up behind him, shrugging out of a long black Burberry coat.

“The madrigal program is starting in a few minutes, sir,” I said stiffly and loudly to Jigs.

He put on a sage face. He was completely aware of the man waiting behind him. “Madrigals? Well, that’s good. Can’t get enough of those madrigals this time of year, right?” He turned and bumped purposefully into the tall man. “Oops. Sorry, there, Mac.”

The man had nearly a foot on Jigs. He gave him a pissed-off look. Of course, he had no way of knowing that the first person Jigger Dugan ever killed had given him one of those looks. The third one, too, if I have my stories straight.

HIGH NOON ARRIVED. HIGH NOON PASSED.

The cop with Giants jersey number 08 made several passes in view of the coat-check room. People drifted in from the direction of the gallery where the madrigal program had just ended. A few of them came directly for their coats and bags. Nobody handed me number 16.

Jigs passed by about twenty minutes later. He had latched on to a pair of young women. One of them looked soft and doughy, a little homely. Her friend was taller, skinnier and glaring at Jigs like a hawk. Jigs stole a quick glance my way and touched a finger to his upper lip. My fake mustache needed centering.

ONE O’CLOCK. MY LEGS WERE TIRED. WHAT THEY NEEDED IN THIS stuffy little closet was a stool. Conditions in my workplace were getting to me. Normally the coat-check person would have been spelled for lunch, but this wasn’t normally. There was a million dollars in cubby number 16.

I considered the cold hot dog in the wastebasket. I turned around and made a face at the wicker bag holding the video camera. I started wondering what sort of junk was in the other checked bags. A little chill ran through me as I recalled the scene the other night at Barrymore’s.

JIGS’S TWO WOMEN CLAIMED THEIR COATS AT AROUND TWO-FORTY. The tall one was chewing out the doughy one for giving “that creepy Irish guy” her phone number. The doughy one countered that he “was sort of cute.” As she handed me her claim number, she added to her friend, “I can look out for myself.”

Maybe so. But I know Jigs Dugan, and he can look after himself, too. Jigs wandered by some ten minutes later, smiling like a wolf.

“I found that cherub you were talking about, Mac.”

IT HAPPENED AT TEN MINUTES AFTER THREE. I HAD ENTERED INTO A fugue state, and it took a moment for it to register that I was looking at a blue claim tag with the number 16 on it. My heart took a running leap against my ribs.

A woman in her mid-fifties stood in front of me. She had graying brown hair cut in a fashionless bowl, sharp cheekbones and large eyes the same color as the tag she had just pulled from a purse. She was dressed in a long beige jacket and a pair of brown slacks. Of all the day’s customers, she was making the most direct eye contact. Her thin eyebrows arched quizzically.

“I’m sorry. This is going to sound a little peculiar. But… well, I think something has been left here for me.”

My cell phone was sitting open in cubby number 12, right below the million-dollar cubby. Jigs’s pager number was programmed into the speed dial. The plan had been that in retrieving the backpack from number 16, with my back blocking what I was doing, I would hit the speed dial and fire off a call to Jigs’s pager. The moment he got the call, Jigs was to make a beeline for the entrance area, eyeball the person retrieving the bag, then step outside and perform his invisible shadow act. It was a gamble-the note from Gristedes had been clear as to what the consequences of a tail would be-but Jigs Dugan was a man worth betting on. Besides, the note hadn’t been addressed to me.

I took the claim tag from the woman’s hand.

“I’m a little confused,” she said again.

I didn’t want to stare. I turned away, being sure to give the wicker bag with the hidden camera a full frontal view of the woman. I started for my cell phone, then hesitated. Something was wrong here. I reached one hand up to grapple with the bag while I quickly hit the few buttons on my cell phone with the other. Then I grabbed hold of the bag with both hands. Cubby 16 was slightly higher than my head. My bad shoulder practically burst into flames as I pulled the bag down.

She can’t possibly carry this.

The woman was still talking. “… so maybe I should talk to someone first. Take a look at-”

She was reaching into her purse. From the arched doorway, I saw Gerald Small moving fast, one arm raised as though he were hailing a taxi. Out of the corner of my eye, I also noted a dark blue jersey, number 08.

I landed the backpack directly on top of the woman’s purse. The counter rattled.

“Oh!” She pulled her hand back.

Gerald Small was charging forward. “Listen! Listen! I just received-” He stopped. He saw the backpack sitting on the counter. “Oh my God!”

He lunged at the woman. Speedy little devil. The woman screamed. I whipped off the stupid glasses and grabbed at Small. The man was growling like a deranged terrier. He had the woman by the arm. She was clawing at his fingers. “Let me-”

I did the job for her, peeling the museum director’s fingers off her arm.

“Freeze! Police!” The cop in the Giants jersey had his gun out and was holding it at arm’s length, both hands wrapped firmly around the handle. “Freeze!”

It wasn’t clear who he was barking at. The barrel of the gun was hopping stiffly between the terrified woman, the ballistic museum director and me. Behind the cop, people were scrambling for cover.

A second pistol appeared. An old snub-nose. Somehow, amid all the noise, the telltale click of its being cocked sounded very clearly. The sound seemed to echo off the stone walls. The pistol’s barrel was three inches from the undercover cop’s head. It didn’t waver so much as a millimeter. Steady hand. Practiced hand.

“You’ll lower it, or it’s off to the angels with you,” Jigs Dugan said calmly. “Count of three. That’s one, two-”

The cop lowered it.

Jigs didn’t. Not right away.