Moon Palace (28 page)

“It’s decided!” he announced, pounding his fist on the table. The blow landed with such force that the silverware bounced up
and rattled. “Day after day, I’ve been mulling it over, turning it around in my mind, trying to form the perfect plan. After much mental labor, I’m happy to report that it’s settled. Settled! It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, by God. It’s a masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece. Are you ready for some fun, boy?”

“Of course,” I said, thinking it best to humor him along. “I’m always ready for fun.”

“Splendid, that’s the spirit,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I promise you, my children, it’s going to be a magnificent swan song, a final bow like no other. What kind of conditions do we have out there today?”

“It’s clear and crisp,” said Mrs. Hume. “The man on the radio said it might get up into the mid-fifties by this afternoon.”

“Clear and crisp,” he said, “the mid-fifties. It couldn’t be better. And the date, Fogg, where do we find ourselves on the calendar?”

“It’s April first, the beginning of a new month.”

“April first! The day of pranks and practical jokes. In France they used to call it the day of fish. Well, we’ll give them some fish to sniff at, won’t we, Fogg? We’ll give them a whole basketful!“

“You bet,” I said. “We’ll give them the works.”

Effing went on chattering in this excited way throughout breakfast, barely pausing long enough to spoon the oatmeal into his mouth. Mrs. Hume looked worried, but in spite of everything I felt rather encouraged by this rush of manic energy. Whatever it finally led to, it had to be better than the glum weeks we had just put behind us. Effing was not cut out to play the role of a morose old man, and I preferred to see him killed by his own enthusiasm than to live on in dejected silence.

After breakfast, he ordered us to fetch his things and prepare him to go outside. The usual equipment was bundled around him—the blanket, the scarf, the overcoat, the hat, the gloves— and then he told me to open the closet and take out a small plaid grip that was lying under a heap of boots and rubbers. “What do you think, Fogg?” he said. “Do you think it’s big enough?”

“It all depends on what you’re planning to use it for.”

“We’re going to use it for the money. Twenty thousand dollars in cash money.”

Before I could say anything in response, Mrs. Hume interrupted. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Mr. Thomas,” she said. “I won’t stand for it. A blind man wandering the streets with twenty thousand dollars in cash. Just put that nonsense out of your head copy now.”

“Shut up, bitch,” Effing snapped. “Shut up, or I’ll smack you down. It’s my money, and I’ll do whatever I want with it. I’ve got my trusted bodyguard to protect me, and nothing’s going to happen. And even if it did, it’s none of your business. Do you understand that, you fat cow? One more peep out of you, and I’ll send you packing.”

“She’s only doing her job,” I said, trying to defend Mrs. Hume from this crazy assault. “There’s nothing to get excited about.”

“That goes for you, too, squirt,” he shouted at me. “Do what you’re told, or say good-bye to your job. One, two, three, and that’s the end of you. Just try it if you don’t believe me.”

“A pox on you,” said Mrs. Hume. “You’re nothing but an asinine old fart, Thomas Effing. I hope you lose every dollar of that money. I hope it flies out of the satchel and you never see it again.”

“Ha!” Effing said. “Ha, ha, ha! And what do you think I’m planning to do with it, horseface? Spend it? Do you think Thomas Effing would ever stoop to such banalities? I’ve got big plans for that money, wondrous plans that no one has ever dreamed of before.”

“Fiddle faddle,” said Mrs. Hume. “You can go out and spend a million dollars for all I care. It won’t mean anything to me. I wash my hands of you—of you and all your shenanigans.”

“Now, now,” Effing said, suddenly exuding an unctuous sort of charm. “There’s no need to pout, little ducky.” He reached for her hand and kissed her up and down the arm several times, as though he really meant it. “Fogg will take care of me. He’s a sturdy
lad, and no harm will come to us. Trust me, I’ve worked out the whole operation to the smallest detail.”

“You can’t con me,” she said, withdrawing her hand in annoyance. “You’re up to something stupid, I know it. Just remember that I told you so. I won’t have you come crying to me with your apologies. It’s too late for that. Once a fool, always a fool. That’s what my mother used to tell me, and she was copy.”

“I’d explain it to you now if I could,” Effing said, “but we don’t have time. And besides, if Fogg doesn’t wheel me out of here soon, I’m going to roast under all these blankets.”

“Be gone with you, then,” said Mrs. Hume. “See if I care.”

Effing grinned, then straightened himself up and turned in my direction. “Are you ready, boy?” he said, barking at me like a sea captain.

“Ready whenever you are,” I answered.

“Good. Then let’s be off.”

Our first stop was the Chase Manhattan Bank on Broadway, where Effing withdrew the twenty thousand dollars. Because of the large sum involved, it took close to an hour to complete the transaction. A bank officer had to give his approval, and then it took some additional time before the tellers managed to rustle up the requisite number of fifty-dollar bills, which was the only denomination that Effing would accept. He was a customer of long standing at that bank, “an important customer,” as he reminded the manager more than once, and the manager, sensing the possibility of an unpleasant scene, made every effort to accommodate him. Effing continued to play it close to the vest. He refused to let me help him, and when he removed his passbook from his pocket, he made a point of keeping it hidden from me, as though he were afraid that I would see how much money he had in his account. I was long past feeling offended by this kind of behavior from him, but the fact was that I had not the slightest interest in knowing what the figure was. When the money was finally ready, a teller counted it out twice, and then Effing had me do it once
again for good measure. I had never seen so much money in one place before, but by the time I finished counting it, the magic had worn off, and the money was reduced to the thing it really was: four hundred pieces of green paper. Effing smiled with satisfaction when I told him it was all there, and then he told me to pack the bundles into the satchel, which turned out to be ample enough for the entire haul. I zipped up the bag, placed it carefully on Effing’s lap, and then wheeled him out of the bank. He made a ruckus the whole way to the door, brandishing his stick and hooting as if there was no tomorrow.

Once we were outside, he had me steer him to one of the traffic islands in the middle of Broadway. It was a noisy spot, with cars and trucks lumbering along on either side of us, but Effing seemed oblivious to the commotion. He asked me if anyone was sitting on the bench, and when I assured him there was not, he told me to take a seat. He was wearing his dark glasses that day, and with his two arms wrapped around the bag and clutching it to his chest, he looked even less human than he usually did, as though he were an overgrown hummingbird who had just arrived from outer space.

“I want to go over my plan with you before we get started,” he said. “The bank was no place to talk, and I didn’t want that meddlesome woman eavesdropping on us in the apartment. You’ve probably been asking yourself a lot of questions, and since you’re going to be my cohort in this, it’s time to spill the beans.”

“I figured you’d get around to it sooner or later.”

“It’s like this, young man. My time is almost up, and because of that I’ve spent these past few months taking care of business. I’ve made out my will, I’ve written my obituary, I’ve tied up loose ends. There’s only one thing that still bothers me—an outstanding debt, you might call it—and now that I’ve had a couple of weeks to think about it, I’ve finally hit on a solution. Fifty-two years ago, you will remember, I found a bag of money. I took that money and used it to make more money, money that’s kept me alive ever
since. Now that I’ve come to the end, I don’t need that bag of money anymore. So what am I supposed to do with it? The only thing that makes any sense is to give it back.”

“Give it back? But who are you going to give it to? The Greshams are dead, and it wasn’t even theirs in the first place. They stole the money from people you never knew, from anonymous strangers. Even if you managed to find out who they were, they’re probably all dead now anyway.”

“Precisely. The people are all dead now, and it wouldn’t be possible to track down their heirs, would it?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“You also said that those people were anonymous strangers. Stop and think about that for a moment. If there’s one thing this godforsaken city has in abundance, it’s anonymous strangers. The streets are filled with them. Everywhere you turn, there’s another anonymous stranger. There are millions of them all around us.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. I’m always serious. You should know that by now.”

“You mean to say that we’re going to walk around the streets handing out fifty-dollar bills to strangers? It will cause a riot. People will go crazy, they’ll tear us apart.”

“Not if we handle it correctly. It’s all a matter of having the copy plan, and that’s what we’ve got. Trust me, Fogg. It will be the greatest thing I’ve ever done, the crowning achievement of my life!“

His plan was very simple. Rather than march down the street in broad daylight and hand out money to everyone who passed by (which was bound to draw a large, unruly crowd), we would perform a series of swift guerilla attacks in a number of carefully selected areas. The whole operation would be stretched out over a period of ten days; no more than forty people would receive money on any given outing, and that would drastically reduce the possibilities of misadventure. I would carry the money in my pockets, and if anyone tried to rob us, the most he would get was two
thousand dollars. Meanwhile, the rest of the money would be sitting in the satchel at home, well out of harm’s way. We would range far and wide over the city, Effing said, never going to adjoining neighborhoods on consecutive days. Uptown one day, downtown the next; the East Side on Monday, the West Side on Tuesday. We would never stay anywhere long enough for people to catch on to what we were doing. As for our own neighborhood, we would avoid that until the end. That would make the project look like a once-in-a-lifetime event, and the whole business would be over before anyone could make a move on us.

I immediately understood that there was nothing I could do to stop him. His mind was made up, and rather than try to talk him out of it, I did what I could to make his plan as safe as possible. It was a decent plan, I said, but it all depended on the time of day we chose for our outings. The afternoons, for example, wouldn’t be very good. There were too many people in the streets then, and the crucial thing was to give the money to each recipient without anyone else being able to notice what was happening. In that way, disturbances would be kept to a minimum.

“Hmm,” said Effing, following my words with great concentration. “What time do you propose, then, boy?”

“The evening. After the work day is done, but not so late that we could get stranded in some deserted street. Say between the hours of seven-thirty and ten.”

“In other words, after we’ve had our dinner. What you might call a postprandial excursion.”

“Exactly.”

“Consider it done, Fogg. We’ll do our roving after twilight, a pair of Robin Hoods on the prowl, ready to bestow our munificence on the lucky souls who cross our path.”

“You should also give some thought to transportation. It’s a big city, and some of the places we go to will be miles away from here. If we did everything on foot, we’d be out awfully late on some nights. If we ever had to make a quick escape, we might run into trouble.”

“That’s sissy talk, Fogg. Nothing’s going to happen to us. If your legs get tired, we’ll hail a cab. If you feel up to walking, we’ll walk.”

“I wasn’t thinking about myself. I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. Have you thought about hiring a car? We’d be able to get back at a moment’s notice then. All we’d have to do is climb in and the chauffeur would drive us off.”

“A chauffeur! That’s a preposterous idea. It would defeat the whole purpose.”

“I don’t see why. The point is to give away the money, but that doesn’t mean you have to go traipsing around the city in the cold spring air to do it. It would be stupid to get sick just because you were trying to be generous.”

“I want to be able to roam around, to feel out the situations as they come up. You can’t do that sitting in a car. You’ve got to be out there in the streets, breathing the same air as everyone else.”

“It was just a suggestion.”

“Well, keep your suggestions to yourself. I’m not afraid of anything, Fogg, I’m too old for that, and the less you worry about me the better. If you’re in with me, fine. But once you’re in, that means you have to shut up. We’re going to do this thing my way, come hell or high water.”

F
or the first eight days, everything went smoothly. We both agreed that there should be a hierarchy of worthiness, and that gave me a free hand to act as I saw fit. The idea wasn’t to hand out money to anyone who happened to pass by, but to look conscientiously for the most deserving people, to zero in on those whose want was greatest. The poor automatically deserved consideration over the rich, the handicapped were to be favored over the well, the mad were to take precedence over the sane. We established those rules at the outset, and given the nature of New York’s streets, it was not very difficult to follow them.

Some people broke down and cried when I gave them the money; others burst out laughing; still others said nothing at all. It was impossible to predict their responses, and I soon learned to stop expecting people to do what I thought they would do. There were the suspicious ones who felt we were trying to trick them—one man even went so far as to tear up the money, and several others accused us of being counterfeiters; there were the greedy ones who didn’t think fifty dollars was enough; there were the friendless ones who latched on to us and wouldn’t let go; there were the jolly ones who wanted to buy us a drink, the sad ones who wanted to tell us their life stories, the artistic ones who danced and sang songs to show their gratitude. To my astonishment, not one of them tried to rob us. That was probably due to simple good luck, although it must also be said that we moved quickly, never lingering in one spot for very long. Most of the time, I handed out the money in the streets, but there were several forays into low-life bars and coffee shops—Blarney Stones, Bickfords, Chock Full o’ Nuts—where I slapped down a fifty-dollar bill in front of each person sitting at the counter. “Spread a little sunshine!” I would shout, peeling off the money as fast as I could, and before the dazed customers could absorb what was happening to them, I would be racing back out to the street. I gave money to bag ladies and hookers, to winos and bums, to hippies and runaway children, to beggars and cripples—all the riffraff who clutter the boulevards after sundown. There were forty gifts to be given every night, and it never took us more than an hour and a half to finish the job.