The Procane Chronicle

13

I agreed to do it, of course. At first I told myself that it was because I needed the money. When that wore thin I tried to blame it on the junkies up in Harlem who needed a helping hand. But after I admitted that half a million dollars wouldn’t even help cure Harlem’s sniffles, although a few billion might make a small dent in its problems, I stopped kidding myself and faced the real reason. It wasn’t pretty, but it was simple. The real reason that I said yes was because I wanted to be in on a million-dollar steal.

I suppose that basically Procane and I were something alike. He wanted to steal a million. I wanted to watch. Perhaps I wanted to watch him do it as much as he wanted to do it. There’s something voyeuristic about all newspapermen, even those who leave the trade and go on to better things, such as embezzlement and loan sharking and public relations. Nobody held a gun on me. Nobody threatened me with exposure. All they did was offer me the chance and after I got through protesting enough to make it seem decent, I grabbed it.

I decided that Procane’s story was just farfetched enough to have some truth in it. I long ago had given up any illusions I might have entertained about finding the good thief, yet I couldn’t help but rate Procane a notch above the others I had dealt with although that was probably because he stole only money that had already been stolen in one way or another. Also his manners were better, which demonstrated, I suppose, that there wasn’t much of the egalitarian in me as I had thought.

So it was a mixture of normal greed and abnormal curiosity that made me agree to become a thief. There was no point in calling myself anything else. It was a long way from Sherwood Forest and besides nobody can tell me that the Merrymen joined up because of a stricken social conscience.

Procane looked surprised when I said yes. He probably thought that it would take at least another five minutes to convince me and he may even have been a little disappointed that I didn’t give him the chance to use up all of his arguments.

“So you agree?” he said.

“I think that’s what yes usually means.”

“And the terms are satisfactory?”

“Almost. You said twenty-five thousand. I’ll take half now.”

That didn’t bother him at all. He opened a desk drawer and took out a square gray-metal box, the kind that you can buy at the drugstore for $1.98 to keep important papers in. He counted out $12,500 on to the desk in fifties and hundreds. They made a tidy little pile about an inch high. The three thieves looked at me. I thought Wiedstein had a faint sneer on his face, but it could have been only a sad smile. Nobody said anything. Finally, I rose, leaned over the desk, and picked up the money. As soon as I had it in my hands, I wanted to give it back. But I didn’t. I made a roll of the bills and stuffed them into a trouser pocket. Then I sat down again.

“Well, now,” Procane said. “I won’t ask for a receipt.”

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“No, I shouldn’t think so.”

“You’re in now, St. Ives,” Wiedstein said. “All the way.”

“Not quite,” I said.

The three of them looked at each other, once again demonstrating how nicely they could get along without words. Procane’s face lost its normally bland expression. His mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed, and something happened to his chin. It seemed to grow harder. He suddenly looked like a thief. A mean one.

“I think you’d better explain that,” he said, his tone matching his look.

“Sure. I’m in, just like Wiedstein says, but I’m in for only what I was hired to do and that’s watch. Nothing else. I’m not the utility man. If somebody gets shot, don’t expect me to be the substitute getaway driver or carry the money or shoot back or anything else. I’ll be an observer, but that’s all. And if I think that’s going to get me shot up or killed, I won’t even be that. In other words, don’t count on me for help of any kind.”

Procane’s face relaxed. “That’s all we expect of you.”

“Anything else and you’d just get in the way,” Wiedstein said.

“Fine,” I said. “Where will it be and when?”

“It will be tomorrow night as I mentioned earlier,” Procane said. “As for where, I can only tell you that it will be in Washington.”

“Oh,” I said and there must have been something in my tone or my expression because Procane frowned and said, “I refuse to be more exact, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Washington is exact enough.”

“Is there something about Washington that bothers you?”

“I’ve had a little bad luck there. But so have a lot of other people.”

“I see,” Procane said, but I could tell from his tone that he didn’t. “I’m sure you understand why I prefer not to tell you the details of our plans.”

“Probably because I could sell them for a lot of money.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t do that.”

“But there’s no sense in taking the chance.”

He smiled. “No, there isn’t, is there?”

I smiled back. We were all friends again. “Just tell me where you want me to be tomorrow and when.”

He thought about that a moment. “Here, I think. Around noon?”

“Fine. Anything else?”

He looked at Janet Whistler. She shook her head. So did Wiedstein. Procane rose and held out his hand. “I’m delighted that you’ll be with us, Mr. St. Ives. I really am.” I accepted his hand and it still felt as though it belonged to a high school principal, but one who had a tough district.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“Mr. Wiedstein will drive you home. He’s going that way.”

“All right.”

I said good-bye to Janet Whistler and Procane and followed Wiedstein from the room. We went out the front door and turned right on Seventy-fourth. “I’m parked around the corner,” Wiedstein said. Around the corner we stopped at a dusty, two-year-old Chevrolet sedan. Wiedstein unlocked the curb-side door for me.

“I thought you’d have something fancier,” I said.

“I don’t need it,” he said and I decided that his remark could be taken on several levels.

He drove well, making the lights work for him, and we were at Fifty-seventh and Park before he said anything else. Then he said, “I think you’re nuts.”

“For saying yes?”

“For even listening to him.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a good chance you’ll get mixed up in a shoot-out where somebody’ll get killed. That means you’ll be mixed up in murder.”

“Does Procane’s plan call for that?”

“No. He’s never used a gun. Not to shoot anyone with. Not that I know of anyway.”

“Why should he this time?”

“Because he may not have any choice.”

“He must have taken that into consideration.”

“He takes everything into consideration.”

“You sound as though you’re trying to talk me out of it.”

Wiedstein glanced at me. “No, I’m just trying to convince you that you should be prepared for anything.” He paused for a moment. “Anything,” he said again.

“What about the people who’re supposed to steal the million dollars and then blame it on Procane? What’re they going to be doing all this time?”

“Doing what Procane’s plan predicts they’ll do.”

“And what’s that?”

“That’s part of the plan.”

“And you can’t tell me that.”

“No, I can’t tell you that.”

“Maybe you can tell me this. Does he use a computer to help him come up with his plans?”

“It’s a lot like a computer, only it’s better.”

“What is it?”

“His brain.”

We drove in silence for a while and then I asked, “What’re you going to do with your share, retire at twenty-four?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Well?”

“You don’t retire on a couple of hundred thousand.”

“You could try.”

“I won’t.”

“You like your work, huh?”

“It’s all I know.”

“Where’d he find you?”

“Procane?”

“Yes.”

“In a gutter.” He looked at me and grinned sardonically. “Don’t let the rough finish fool you, St. Ives. At nineteen I was graduating from Stanford. At twenty-one I was commanding an infantry company in Vietnam. At twenty-three I was in the gutter.”

“It sounds like a lively tale.”

Wiedstein shook his head. “Not really.”

“What was it, drugs?”

“They don’t do anything for me.”

“A woman could have done it.”

“Nothing so romantic. It was booze.”

“You don’t have the earmarks.”

“You mean because I’m a Jew.”

“That didn’t cross my mind. Your age did.”

“Jews aren’t supposed to be drunks. They’re supposed to have all this warm family support that keeps them from falling into the bottle.”

“I’ve heard that theory.”

“But you don’t believe it?”

“I believe it’s a theory that’s used to explain why not too many Jews are alcoholics. But I’ve known some who were. Or are.”

“Now you know another one.”

“How bad is it?”

“Well, I’ve always been precocious. I made the whole thirty-year trip in less than three years. Blackouts. Convulsions. The whole thing.”

“Where were you?”

“San Francisco and here. Procane found me in a gutter in the Village. He took me home with him.”

I shook my head. Wiedstein glanced at me. “Sounds a little rich, right?”

“It doesn’t sound like the way I think Procane should sound.”

“He was looking for me. Or somebody like me. He got the idea from his analyst.”

“Someday I’ll have to meet that one.”

“His analyst told him a bright, reformed drunk would make a hell of a thief. Procane’s only problem was to find one young enough. He went looking and found me.”

“But you weren’t reformed.”

“I was ripe though. Or thought I was. I lived at Procane’s place for six months. He started teaching me what he knew. I wasn’t too keen about it at first, but what the hell, I was broke and it was free room and board and a little pocket money. I kept sober for three months.”

“Then what?”

“Then I got drunk.”

“What happened?”

Wiedstein pulled up in front of the Adelphi and put the car in park. “Procane gave me one more chance. He made it clear that that’s all it was. No lectures. Nothing. Then we pulled a job together and that was it. I was cured. That doesn’t mean I can drink, but the compulsion’s gone.”

I must have looked dubious because Wiedstein gave me another sardonic grin. “Still sounds a little rich?”

I nodded. “A little.”

“It’s not really. It’s just that I found out something about myself.”

“What?”

“That I can substitute one compulsion for another,” he said. “Now I’d rather steal than drink.”