Scarlet Night (25 page)

“Exactly,” Campbell said.

Julie stabbed the yolk of an egg. She certainly looked forward to that trip up the Hudson.

T
HE DESK SERGEANT INTRODUCED
O’Grady to Patrolman Donnelly, and explained, “He’s applying for a guard job over at the Campbell estate.”

Donnelly was a young officer with plump rosy cheeks, a dimpled chin, and the handclasp of an orangutan.

“No reason he can’t ride with you this morning, is there?” the sergeant said.

“Be glad of the company.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” O’Grady said to the senior officer, who had been cordiality itself. “Maybe some day I’ll be able to do you a good turn.”

“That’s what we’re counting on, my friend. He’s got our boys running their asses off with that security system of his. Sometimes I think he short-circuits on purpose.”

“We can’t complain, Sarge. He’s given us and the Fire Company more damn athletic equipment—you’d think we were going in for the Olympic games.”

In the car, Donnelly said: “You know anything about the Gimpel Burglar Alarm System?”

“Not much.”

“Remind me when we get back and I’ll give you a copy of the manual. I don’t know how much good it’s going to do you. These electronic things are tricky. He’s got a vault in the house and every once in a while when he opens it, he trips the gate system. But the way that’s timed, if somebody doesn’t pass through the eye in fifty seconds, it closes itself, but at the same time it sets off the alert at headquarters, and we have to check it out. Understand what I’m saying?”

“I do and I don’t. I’ll catch on from the book.” He felt himself lucky to be able to read the points of a compass. “Why doesn’t Campbell read the book himself?”

Donnelly laughed. “I wouldn’t ask him that if I were you.”

“He’s that kind, is he?”

“You don’t cross him. As long as you say yes to him you’ll be all right. You’d think I knew him to hear me talking. I only saw him once in my life, the day they found the dynamite. I’ll tell you about that in a minute.”

Donnelly paused to respond to a radio signal. He continued over the chatter on the police band: “There wasn’t much publicity about it. They’re a great lot at Maiden’s End for protecting their privacy. Anyway, the state police got a call a couple of weeks back from a man identifying himself as a priest. He’d been told there was some two hundred sticks of dynamite buried three years ago in the woods not far from Campbell’s gate, the stuff vented and the place marked. But by now it was nitroglycerine, see, and volatile as hell. They got the Army Ordnance experts out and they dealt with it. I’ll show you the place when we pass there. We had the whole area cordoned off, evacuated every house. Two companies of fire apparatus stood by. It turned out to be a hell of a good party. The firemen’s auxiliary brought sandwiches and somebody thought to bring out a couple of bottles of vodka. But what I started to tell you, right in the middle of the operation, Campbell drove up in his limousine, got out, and started to give orders. Two state troopers took him by the elbows and marched him back to his car and told him not to leave it. Everybody standing around with cups in their hands gave a cheer for the troopers. But I’m going to tell you, it was a damned frightening business and nobody’d want to go through it again.”

“Did they find out what it was there for?”

“They found out where it came from—stolen from a sewage project upstate. But nobody seems to know who stole it, or what they intended to do with it, or why they left it there till now. You don’t know with these radical groups. There’s a new one in the papers every day.”

“The dynamite was all in one place, was it?” O’Grady said.

“What was found was all in one place. Whether or not they found all that was stolen back then—that could be something else.”

O’Grady thought about it. He thought about Julie Hayes and himself cavorting around the skirts of the estate. “By God,” he said, “I’d hate to put my foot in a pothole like that.”

R
OMANO SAT AT THE
head of the table and beamed with pleasure. “I can hardly believe that every man and lady of you has done so well. And may I say to a nautical man, welcome aboard, O’Grady.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ve never been aboard anything like it before in my life.”

“Think of the Cause, dear man. Think of the Cause.”

“Oh, I am. But I’m also thinking of the dynamite. That was a perishing bit of information to come by—and the place where they destroyed it: as bald as an ice rink.”

Michael said, “Let me give you a little inside information, Johnny. If you’re going to hide dynamite in two batches, you ain’t going to put them side by side like tombstones. You’re going to put them in two different cemeteries, so if they find one, they ain’t going to find the other just by looking around where the first one was. Right?”

O’Grady thought it through and nodded agreement. Throughout the meeting, he cast a sidelong glance at Michael now and then: for the life of him, he could not make the connection between the man translating for him at the restaurant that night and the one beside him now.

Michael returned to the Gimpel Security System manual which he had been studying. “What I think I better do, boss, is get in touch with a friend of mine, you know who I mean—Hard Luck Louis? After his accident he got to be an expert on how to open things the right way.”

“Take Alberto along. He’s an engineer and he will be working inside with you.”

“I have a feeling we won’t need that information,” Alberto said. “Not if our timing is right.”

“You must be prepared,” Romano said. “You have no idea the things that can go wrong. It would destroy me to think of anything happening to that Chinese folio.”

Tsin Dynasty pornography. It had taken Julie half the trip home to get that information out of Alberto.

“And you seen the money sitting in there in the vault?” Michael said to Alberto.

“I saw four pieces of luggage, plaid airplane luggage. I couldn’t very well say, ‘What’s in that luggage?’ could I?”

“You did splendidly,” Romano soothed. “It would be the plaid of the Campbell clan, no doubt.”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t trust all this cooperation, Mr. Romano.”

“And you are quite right not to do so,” Romano said.

“You will want two roads of egress,” he went on. “Can you manage the park gate, O’Grady? And the padlock at the entrance to the park?”

“I can, sir. I have a pair of cutters that’d go through the chain of a ship’s anchor.”

“Can you think of any further information you haven’t given us?” Each of them had separately accounted on tape his assignment of the day, but O’Grady had been self-conscious discovering his voice was being recorded.

“Not at the moment, sir.”

It was interesting, Julie thought: from the instant of their meeting, O’Grady had called Romano sir. Instinct. His response to the environment and Romano’s manners. She was sure he had no idea who Romano was.

“If anything does occur to you, call Alberto. Now tell me what it is you are to bring me in the morning.”

“The full names and the passport numbers of the boys.”

Romano smiled as though a child had given the correct answer. It irked Julie, although she wasn’t sure why—something to do with her own pride. Crazy. Not so crazy.

“You may leave now, O’Grady. Be here at ten in the morning. Do you have enough money?”

“It’ll do, sir.” Julie could have cheered him for that.

He got up from the table and Alberto with him to see him down. They were now using the service elevator.

Julie said, “I’d like to go too—unless you want me to stay.”

“Of course, Miss Julie. You must rest and dress for the party. I have the distinct feeling you did not enjoy your work today.”

“It’s a day I’d just as soon forget.”

He waited in silence. Michael got up and limped out after O’Grady and Alberto.

“He dropped anchor and chased me around a bit. That’s all.”

Romano made a noise of distress. “Aren’t men the most extraordinary egotists?”

“Yeah…most of them.”

“You seem to have been called upon to give a great deal…for the Cause.”

Julie met those deep-seeing eyes which she had once so feared.

He looked down at his hands and folded one over the other. Then he looked at her again, blinking brightly. “Enjoy your evening, my dear. We shall have our plans complete when you arrive in the morning.”

T
ONY GAVE THE CAB
driver Maude Sloan’s address and settled back. There was a whistle to his breathing that was drowned out when the cab started moving. Julie had invited him upstairs for a martini and the last of the caviar she and Jeff had bought at Orly airport. What she had really invited him upstairs for was to see
Scarlet Night
before it ended its residency. If she were going to tell the story someday, she wanted an available witness.

Tony groped for her hand and held it on the seat between them. His was a big, soft mitten. “I can’t think of any nicer way for an old cocker like me to spend a Saturday night than taking out his best friend’s wife. How old are you, Julie?”

“Twenty-five going on twenty-six.”

“Tell me something…”

“Almost anything, Tony.”

“What in hell is an oil painting doing hanging over the kitchen table?”

“It’s on its way out,” Julie said.

“Don’t let Jeff do that to you. If you like it, keep it.”

“Yeah.”

Tony gave her hand a squeeze. “Want to sell it to me?”

“No!”

“I thought I might be doing you a favor.”

“Besides, what would Fran say?”

“I had in mind taking it down to the office, if you want the truth.”

Julie said, “I just realized something. The truth is pretty repetitious.”

“Julie, my pet, at my time of life—so are the lies.”

The party had reached the upper decibels. Wall-to-wall people, as was said of parties given by a friend of Julie’s. Tony Alexander was recognized at once. A lot of people hustled him until Maude Sloan fought her way through to him and Julie. “How nice of you to come, Mrs. Hayes.”

“I’m sorry Jeff is out of town.” Not at all sorry. Nor would Jeff be with this crowd. “Do you know Tony Alexander?…Mrs. Sloan, Tony.” A crazy notion—probably the result of a week of tape recordings—Julie felt she hadn’t said the words at all. Somebody’d pushed a button and they came out.

Tony raised his voice and pointed to the ceiling while he shouted: “That’s a gorgeous stretch of tin.” Embossed scroll work, the whole length of the loft; it was an enormous room at the far end of which, if they ever got there, Julie supposed they would find a kitchen and a bedroom. There was a lavatory in the hall next to the elevator out of which wafted still the not-so-gentle reek of sweatshop days.

“But a disaster in acoustics,” Maude Sloan shouted back. “There’s a bar at either end.” Then to Julie: “You’ll recognize Ginni—long auburn hair.” Ginni hadn’t mentioned their visit. “Or she’ll find you,” she added. “She has a surprise for you.”

Oh, boy.

Tony, propelling Julie toward the nearest bar, growled, “She should have hired Roseland.”

It was at the bar that Ginni caught up with them. She kissed Julie on either cheek and pretended not to notice Tony at all. Tony somehow looked ten years younger when he presented himself for introduction.

Ginni took hold of Julie’s hand to make sure of her attention. “Ralph sends his love.”

Ralph. “Mmmm,” she said, waking up. “Where is he?”

“He’s husking corn at the Iowa State Fair. Can you believe it?”

“Can’t be,” Tony said. “It’s too early.”

Ginni cast him a reproachful look. “Maybe he’s just practicing for it.” To Julie: “I called that shop he used to own and his cousin found him for me.”

Why, Julie wondered, had she tracked him down? To make sure where he was? That he wouldn’t stumble into the middle of the caper?

“I didn’t want him to hold it against me that things went wrong when he got back to this country. He’s one of the nicest boys I ever met. Mother liked him too.”

“She did, didn’t she?” Julie said, trying to get hold of reality.

“Didn’t you?” Ginni said, wide-eyed and full of guile.

“Oh, yes,” Julie said, and it was true.

“I lied to him, Julie. I told him that I’d gone to visit you and saw
Scarlet Night.
I said it was just beautiful where you had it hanging over the mantel in the living room.”

“Thanks,” Julie said. “It’s going to be great if he comes back to see it himself.”

“I didn’t tell him you were giving it to that Rubinoff. I didn’t mention Rubinoff at all. He won’t come, Julie. Not for years and years. Maybe when he’s got a string of tow-headed youngsters he wants to show New York to.”

“Tow-headed,” Tony said, finally having a martini in hand. “Where did you ever pick up a word like that?”

“From Ralph Abel, the man we’re talking about. I invited him to come back to Naples to the commune and start over, but he kept talking about a silver thimble somebody gave him. He’ll be a tailor just like his father, Julie, whom he really loved. All we’ll be to him are beautiful memories,”

“Both of us?”

Ginni laughed and gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. “I love you,” she said. “I hope next time you’re on the Continent you’ll come and visit me in Naples.”

She gave them a flash of teeth and drifted off.

Julie said, “I’m ready to go when you are, Tony.” Miss Page had always said a lady never sweats. Wrong. Or else…

Tony looked at his watch. “How about the first show at The Bottom Line?”

“Great.”

In the clanking, rasping elevator that went down by leaps and halts, Tony said, “She don’t know much about corn, but I’ll bet she’s great in the hay.”

J
ULIE CLEANED HOUSE AGAIN
on Sunday afternoon. Compulsively. Her instructions from Romano were the simplest of anybody’s. She would go downstairs with Rubinoff as though going out on a date of her own. When Rubinoff drove away, Alberto would pick her up in a white Mustang, and they would try to keep Rubinoff in view. If they lost him it would not be critical. Michael, the more experienced driver, would hold closer to him, Michael now driving a green Pontiac station wagon. She and Alberto would pick up O’Grady at Forty-third Street and Twelfth Avenue. They would all rendezvous at the golf range near Maiden’s End.