The Procane Chronicle

12

Procane went on for another fifteen minutes about why he was convinced that whoever had blackmailed him out of one hundred thousand dollars was now going to steal a million more from some drug combine and blame everything on him. He built a solid enough case although I couldn’t help but wonder how high his analyst rated him on the paranoia curve.

After a while I grew tired of listening and said, “Okay, you’ve sold me. Now why don’t you just tip off the federal cops and let them nab everyone red-handed — the smugglers, the dealers, and the guys who’re going to steal the million and blame you for everything.”

Procane gave his head a small stubborn shake. “I have a considerable financial investment to protect”

“That’s not it.”

“No?”

“No. The real reason is that you want to be a million-dollar thief. I’ve been listening to you for almost an hour and I’d say that the whole thing has become an obsession. You want to join the thieves’ hall of fame. You want recognition so bad that it’s distorted your thinking.”

The room grew quiet. Procane made a careful examination of his right thumb. Wiedstein discovered something interesting about the rug. Janet Whistler found a painting that she liked. The silence put on a little weight. It had grown fat by the time Procane said, “There’s a kernel of truth in what you say, of course.”

“You’d better tell him and get it over with,” Wiedstein said, still examining the rug.

Procane ended the inspection of his thumb, used it to smooth down his moustache, and said, “Yes, I rather think you’re right.”

For a moment or two I thought that we were going to get another fat silence, but Procane said, “We’d like you to join us, Mr. St. Ives.”

I didn’t hesitate. I said, “No chance.”

“Not as a participant.”

“Still no.”

“But as a witness.”

“It’s against the law.”

“You would be adequately compensated.”

“Not enough to die.”

“The risk would be minimal.”

“I’d make an unpleasant cripple.”

“I was thinking of around twenty-five thousand.”

“I’ll listen.”

“That’s all I ask.”

I still maintain that it was curiosity, not greed, that kept me from walking out. After all, I had just earned $10,000. In addition, there was $327 in my checking account and earlier in the year I had purchased $5,000 worth of highly touted common stocks that were still worth around $900 the last time I had looked at the financial page. So I was flush enough and therefore silly enough to listen to some thief tell me how he planned to steal a million dollars.

Actually, all three of them told it. When one of them dropped the story, another would pick it up and tell it for a while. Each of them spoke in the same flat, matter-of-fact tone, as if their plan to knock over a million-dollar heroin buy was no more interesting than a week they had once spent together in Memphis a long time ago.

After deciding that a heroin transaction would be his most likely prospect for a million-dollar steal, Procane’s next problem was to find one. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. His first move had been to turn both Janet Whistler and Miles Wiedstein into addicts — in theory, at least. They found themselves a pusher and in two months bought enough from him to establish themselves as heavy users. After three months they claimed poverty and became pushers themselves, staking out a small slice of the upper East Side as their territory.

Their supplier was a Puerto Rican they knew only as Alfredo. Over the months they bought forty-six thousand dollars’ worth of low-grade heroin from him with money that supposedly came from their customers, but actually came from Procane. They threw the heroin down incinerators.

They had to act and talk like addicts and to do this, they had to associate with addicts. “It was difficult at first,” Janet Whistler said. “Later on I think we came to feel a little pity for them. It’s not a good way to be sick.”

It was Janet who eventually discovered the link they needed, an impoverished South American diplomat, very minor, who liked to fly up from Washington for New York parties. She met him at one given by Alfredo, the Puerto Rican supplier. Still using that same flat, totally unemotional tone she described how in bed the diplomat liked to boast of one of his embassy colleagues who, he claimed, was very big in the heroin smuggling trade. She said that it took a lot of time and a lot of care and an immense amount of flattery to get enough details out of him to make sure that he knew what he was talking about. Shortly after they became convinced that he did, the diplomat hinted that something big was about to happen. So Janet and Wiedstein set him up.

It was the usual arrangement, nothing fancy. Wiedstein burst into the hotel room and started snapping pictures of the diplomat and Janet without any clothes on. Wiedstein then threatened to send the pictures to the diplomat’s ambassador, who also happened to be a brother-in-law, unless the diplomat found out everything he could about the next heroin delivery planned by the colleague who supposedly was very big in the smuggling trade.

“Our diplomatic friend almost panicked,” Procane said tonelessly, “but he came up with the information.” He got it by mounting a twenty-four-hour bug on his colleague’s home phone. “The tape he furnished us was mostly in Spanish and mostly in coded references,” Procane went on, “and it took me nearly forty-eight hours to break it, but when I did I was sure that we had the information we needed.”

“He was nervous as hell,” Wiedstein said. “He kept calling me every thirty minutes or so from his hotel here wanting to know if the information was solid. After we decided that it was I went by and picked him up and drove him to LaGuardia where I handed him ten thousand dollars for his efforts and a set of the pictures to remember us by. He was so grateful I thought he’d bawl.”

Procane nodded approvingly at Wiedstein and then looked at me. “So, Mr. St. Ives, for an investment of approximately seventy-three thousand dollars — plus six months of our time — we have learned where and when we probably can steal a million dollars from certain persons engaged in the international narcotics traffic.” He paused. “A most unsavory crowd, I assure you.”

“You don’t have to assure me of anything. What I’d like to know is how you want me to earn that twenty-five thousand you mentioned earlier. You said something about needing a witness, but that sounds a little fancy. What do you really want, someone to applaud when it’s all over?”

Procane again clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes roam around the ceiling. It was a position he seemed to like. “I think this is going to be a little harder for you to believe, Mr. St. Ives.”

“That’ll make it just like everything else I’ve heard today.”

“I suppose every man who reaches my age suddenly realizes that he is not, after all, immortal. And it is around this time that many of us, I should think, look back and ask, is this all there is to it, or even, where did I go wrong?”

Procane paused for a moment, his eyes still on the ceiling. He looked reflective, Janet Whistler looked embarrassed. Wiedstein looked bored, as if he had heard it all before. Often.

“These middle-aged reflections sometimes lead to renewed bursts of vigor,” Procane said. “This may account for what I consider to be the rash of menopause babies. Have you noticed it?”

“I haven’t paid much attention,” I said.

“The statistics are interesting.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“These heretofore childless parents are actually having their last crack at immortality.”

“All right.”

“In effect, they’re saying, ‘remember me.’”

“You, too.”

“Yes, me, too, Mr. St. Ives.”

“The million-dollar score. It’ll be preserved in the World Almanac.”

“There and other places.”

“You can read about it in jail.”

“I’ll never read about it.”

“Why?”

“It won’t be reported until I’m dead.”

“Ah,” I said, probably because I felt that he wanted me to.

“You’re beginning to understand.”

“Sure. You want me to write it up.”

“That’s it.”

“Then what?”

“Give it to me.”

“And it’ll be found among your effects.”

Procane nodded. “In a leather binder, don’t you think?”

“That would be nice. What about your friends here?” I said, indicating Janet Whistler and Wiedstein.

“Just change our names,” Wiedstein said.

“Change us completely,” Janet said.

I began to get interested. “For twenty-five thousand?”

“That’s right,” Procane said.

“A complete story about the theft, using your name but not theirs. Everything else factual.”

“Correct.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I want a professional job from a disinterested observer.”

“When’d you come up with this idea?”

“I’ve been toying with it for some time,” Procane said. “But I couldn’t decide how to approach a writer.”

“If you’d mumbled something about the twenty-five thousand, there’d have been a line of them halfway down the block inside of an hour.”

“I need a discreet one.”

“Twenty-five thousand will buy that, too.”

“Aren’t you interested?”

“Sure, I’m interested. If you’re still alive when it’s all over, just give me a ring. You can either tell me about it or tape it. I’ll write it up and even furnish the leather binding. Morocco would be nice.”

“I admired your style when you wrote your column,” Procane said. “I’m sure you could do an excellent job.”

“Something like the one that was done on Robin Hood.”

“I don’t want a — what is it called — a puff piece.”

“Of course not. You want a straightforward, factual account.”

“I want a little more than that, Mr. St. Ives.”

“What?”

“I want an eyewitness report.”

“My eyes?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Quite serious.”

“What am I supposed to do, peep around your shoulder while you jam a gun into somebody’s ribs and note the deadly earnestness of your tone when you say, ‘Okay, pal, this is a stickup’?”

“It will be quite a story, won’t it?”

“Somebody else can write it.”

“There’s more to it than the little I’ve told you.”

“You’ve already told me too much.”

Procane smiled. “This will be my final operation.”

“‘The Last Score.’ I’ll give you the title free.”

“What will happen to the money could be quite interesting.”

I felt myself weakening and hated it. “What?”

“I don’t really need it, of course,” Procane said. “I’m quite wealthy, so half of it — less the expenses I’ve already incurred — will go to Miss Whistler and Mr. Wiedstein as a kind of a bonus that will mark our severed relationship. After this final operation, they’ll be on their own.”

“And the other half million?”

“I’m not sure you’ll believe me, so you have my permission to have our mutual lawyer, Mr. Greene, confirm it. I think he should have completed the paper work by now.”

“Paper work for what?”

“There’s an organization up in Harlem that works with drug addicts.”

“So?”

“Some time next week it’s going to get a half-million-dollar contribution from an anonymous benefactor.” He paused and said, “Me,” and then grinned and licked his lips a little as if he found the irony of it all delicious.