1972 - Just a Matter of Time (18 page)

Patterson felt the blood drain out of his face. He had a sudden presentiment that something was going to happen and this something was something he didn’t want to know about.

‘All right,’ he said, his voice unsteady, ‘if you really mean I’m to do nothing, then I’ll do nothing. But when she calls me, what am I to say?’

‘What makes you think she will call you?’ Bromhead asked, turned and left the room.

Patterson, cold and frightened, realized he was now involved in something far worse than forgery, but the fingers of gold beckoned to him: one hundred thousand dollars a year for life!

He had to think of himself. He had to rely on Bromhead. He was in too deep a trap not to have to rely on Bromhead. He went into the vestibule and opened the front door. He saw Sheila on the terrace arranging the orchids in a vase. He crossed to the elevator and pressed the down button.

As he descended in the elevator, his mind was in a whirl. In a situation like this you can’t just do nothing, he told himself and yet Bromhead had told him to do exactly that. Tomorrow morning, if he didn’t do something, he knew Mrs. Morely-Johnson would be telephoning asking him why he hadn’t come.

If you want to keep your inheritance, Mr. Patterson . . . do
nothing
.

Since he had read Mrs. Morely-Johnson’s will he had thought about nothing else during his leisure moments than how he would use this massive inheritance. He would of course resign from the bank. He would scrap all his clothes and buy himself a complete new wardrobe. He would book a passage on the Queen Elizabeth for Europe. First, he would savour London. He would play around there, staying at the Dorchester Hotel, then he would move on to Paris, staying at the Plaza Athene. He was sure he wouldn’t be lonely: with his looks and his money he would only have to lift an eyebrow and girls would materialize. Then two weeks at the Eden in Rome. By then he would have had enough of the city lights. He would head for Capri and relax in the sun. He would stay there during the season. Patterson loved the sun and from what he had heard, the Italian girls really know how to give out. From then on there would be time to make further plans, but this was the master plan to be put into operation immediately the inheritance was his.

But as the elevator took him to the ground floor, he was sick with anxiety. Do nothing? It seemed to him that his dreams and plans were falling to bitter pieces. He thought of Bromhead.

The man seemed so confident. Do nothing? Do nothing? The elevator doors swished silently open and he walked into the lobby.

‘Hi, Chris!’

He came to an abrupt standstill, his heart skipping a beat. Advancing towards him, his fat face beaming was the last man he wanted to see: Abe Weidman. Somehow, he forced a smile, thrusting out his hand. As Weidman pumped it, he managed to say, ‘This is a surprise, Abe. What are you doing here?’

‘Just thought I’d drop by and see the old lady . . . she likes attention.’ Weidman winked. ‘I wanted to take another look at those Picassos. Have you been to see her?’

‘Yes.’ For a long moment Patterson’s mind refused to work. It bounced around inside his skull like a terrified mouse getting away from a cat. Then he got himself under control. ‘Take my

advice, Abe and skip it. She’s in one of her bad moods.’

Weidman’s eyebrows shot up.

‘What’s biting her?’

‘God knows . . . I don’t have to tell you . . . every so often she gets like this. Old age, I guess.’ He caught hold of Weidman’s arm. ‘Come and have a drink with me.’

Weidman hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Sure . . . if she’s like that.’ He allowed himself to be steered towards the bar. As they were walking together across the lush carpet, Bromhead came out of the elevator. He saw them go into the bar and his eyes narrowed. This was getting dangerous. He turned and reentered the elevator back to the penthouse.

As the elevator took him upwards, he told himself that he must now make arrangements for an unbreakable alibi. He found Mrs. Morely-Johnson settling herself before the piano. She was taking off her beautiful rings, making a little pile of them on the side of the Steinway. She looked up as Bromhead approached.

‘Excuse me, madam.’

She peered at him.

‘Is that you, Bromhead?’

‘Yes, madam.’

She completed piling her rings and then struck C sharp. She smiled. Yes, she told herself, her touch remained constant. She struck E flat.

‘What is it, Bromhead?’

‘The Rolls needs servicing, madam. If you are agreeable, I would like to take it to Los Angeles early tomorrow morning. I will have it back by five o’clock.’

‘Los Angeles? Isn’t that a long way to go?’

‘It’s the only garage I trust,’ Bromhead said. ‘A Rolls is a very special car, madam.’

‘And you will be away all day? I can’t remember . . . have I any appointments, Bromhead?’

‘I asked Miss Oldhill . . . there are no appointments.’

She played a quick scale.

‘Very well. Be sure you give yourself a good lunch, Bromhead.’

‘Yes . . . thank you, madam.’

Bromhead regarded her as she began to play. Although he had no ear for music, instinct told him he was listening to a performer of great talent. He looked long and closely, because he liked the old lady and at this moment he sincerely wished she hadn’t so much money for he knew he was looking at her for the last time . . . this saddened him.

Seven

A
t one time, Joey Spick was considered the most efficient of Solly Marks’s debt collectors. He was a bulky man with tremendous shoulders and short, thick legs. He looked as amiable as an enraged orangutan. But now, through a misjudgment of human nature, he had become what Marks called ‘deadwood.’

He had been demoted to odd-job man with a social status no higher than the man with the dustpan and brush who runs behind circus horses ready to take care of trouble.

At one time Joey could terrorize any debtor. He had a neat trick which really scared the crap out of people behind in their payments. He would stand before them making a growling noise, then expand his muscles and the seams of his jacket would split. He kept a scared little tailor busy sewing the seams together again after he had given his demonstration. It was a terrifying performance and more often than not it produced immediate payment. If, however, the debtor just didn’t have the money, then Joey would produce his length of piping.

Some five months ago, Joey had what seemed an easy assignment. He was told to collect two thousand dollars from a Chinese cook who was late in his payments. Joey was only cautious when he had to talk to men larger than himself, which was seldom, and this Chinese cook was old, brittle and apparently harmless. Joey looked forward to parting what was left of the old man’s hair with his stick of lead.

He arrived at the restaurant, made his request while he lovingly fingered his cosh. The Chinaman bowed and said the money was ready and Joey felt frustrated. He followed the old man into the kitchen. Joey was pretty dull-witted. The saucepan on the stove half-full of boiling cooking fat meant nothing to him. The old man waved to the table where an envelope was lying. As Joey, off his guard, picked up the envelope, he received the hot fat in his unattractive face.

It took Joey some eight weeks in hospital to recover from this assault and by that time the Chinese cook had vanished into the blue, leaving Solly Marks minus two thousand dollars and minus his most reliable collector. It became obvious when Joey came out of hospital he wasn’t going to be the same man as when he went in. Not only was he disfigured - that in itself wouldn’t have been a bad thing because he now looked even more terrifying with white scars running down his puffy red face where the fat had caught him - but he had lost his morale.

Although Marks started him off again as a debt collector, Marks quickly realized that Joey had lost his bite. Joey was now always looking for another saucepan of hot fat and he ran at any sign of opposition. Regretfully, Marks took him off debt collecting and made him an odd-job man and a man who merely did odd jobs for Marks was very poorly paid.

Marks believed in economizing when he could. He now had another I.O.U. for ten thousand dollars from Bromhead and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t give Joey the chore of acting as second guard. He would only have to pay Joey forty bucks a week and the rest of the money would be profit and if there was anything Solly liked it was quick, large profits.

So Joey got the job of looking after Gerald during the night while Hank looked after him during the day. This was a chore that Joey found boring and hateful. For one thing he liked sitting in his favourite bar during the evening, tossing back cheap whisky; then he liked to go to bed: he was a great man for sleeping. To sit on an upright chair all the goddamn night outside Gerald’s door was the worst job Marks had so far given him.

For the past twenty-nine days, Gerald had been held prisoner in what is called a walk-up, cold-water apartment. It was on the top floor of one of Marks’s tenement buildings, strictly reserved for poor Blacks. The apartment consisted of a reasonably large room with a beat-up bed, a beat-up armchair, a table, an upright chair and a rented TV set. Off this room was a kitchen no bigger than a closet equipped with a greasy electric grill and a dirty, cracked sink. On the other side of the room was a shower and an ancient toilet: the flush worked from time to time, but not often: the shower dribbled cold water. There was a threadbare carpet on the floor of the main room which produced puffs of dust When walked on. The only window was boarded up by two bits of wood that allowed the minimum of hot summer air to infiltrate. The room was always unbearably hot and the noise coming from the other apartments practically drowned the sound of the television set even with the sound right up.

Gerald was used to living rough, but not this rough. Had he been better housed, provided with a girl, he might have been prepared to accept his kidnapping, but because Marks was too mean and wished to make a profit and had imprisoned him in this stinking slum, Gerald, his suppressed rage vicious, was determined to break out.

His first attempt had nearly succeeded, but he had been too confident. While Hank had been dozing in a room along the corridor, Gerald had managed to get the lock off the door with a knife he had found in the kitchen. Hank had checked the room twenty minutes later, found Gerald gone, raced down the stairs, got into his car and had had headed fast for the bus station. That had been Gerald’s mistake. Thinking about it later, he realized the bus station would be the first place Hank would come looking for him. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

As he was boarding the bus, having spent his last few dollars on a ticket - dollars kept hidden in one of his shoes - Hank, beaming broadly had tapped him on his shoulder. So great was Gerald’s fear of this huge Negro that he went with him without fuss to the car and back to his prison. There, he received four violent slaps across his face - the fourth one knocking him cold.

Gerald came to to find that Hank had screwed a bolt on the outside of the door and further escape plans seemed frustrated until Joey Spick arrived.

Looking at Joey, knowing he was the night guard, Gerald’s hopes of escape returned. He could see Joey was not only dull witted, but also a lush. It took only three nights for Gerald to find out that Joey fell asleep soon after 22.00, lulled by the rotgut whisky he had brought with him to pass the night hours.

He could hear Joey snoring. He knew Hank either was out or sleeping in a room at the end of the corridor and he began to formulate a plan.

Then one night he heard Hank talking to Joey in the corridor.

Listening, his ear against the door, he learned on the night of the twentieth, Hank was visiting his girlfriend. He heard Hank say, ‘Watch this little bastard, Joey. I won’t be back until after two. You hear me? You keep awake!’

‘Waja mean?’ Joey sounded indignant. ‘When I do a job for Solly, I do it!’

‘Okay . . . so you keep awake!’

Gerald decided the next night then was the now or never attempt to break out.

The following evening, around 20.00, Joey unbolted the door, came into the room and slapped down a paper sack containing two greasy hamburgers which had been Gerald’s staple diet for the past twenty-nine nights.

Gerald ignored him. He was watching television. There was a good western on, but Gerald scarcely noticed the action. He was very tense. Then Hank came to the open door. Hank was wearing a white suit, a black shirt with a pink tie with orange circles and an orange coloured straw hat. He stank of toilet water and after shave and his black eyes glittered expectantly. He was going on the town with his girl who he knew would give out at the end of the evening.

‘Sleep tight, baby,’ he said to Gerald. ‘Dream of me. I’ll give you a blow-by-blow account tomorrow.’

Gerald didn’t look around. Shrugging, Hank left and Joey leaned against the wall to see the last moments of the film. The final gun battle didn’t impress him.

‘Punks,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Actor punks,’ and he went out, shutting the door and shooting the bolt.

Leaving the television on, Gerald ate the hamburgers. He now had no money and he didn’t know when he would get his next meal. Somehow he had to reach Sheila. She was the only one who would help him. He was smoulding with rage and viciousness. He was now determined to blow Bromhead’s smart moneymaking plan sky-high. Nothing now would please him more than to fix Bromhead for what he had done to him. He would see his goddamn aunt and tell the stupid old cow about Bromhead and Patterson, but he wouldn’t mention Sheila. He would see Sheila first, warn her what he was going to do so she could get out. When he had convinced his aunt, he would join Sheila and they would go back to New York together. Sheila would get her job back at the hospital and they would forget all this crap about having a million dollars. Who the hell wanted a million dollars? With the money Sheila made as a nurse, they could live all right together. He might even try to make some money himself - just how, he didn’t know, but he would think about it later.