Speak of the Devil (15 page)

“Where’s the bag that was left on Wednesday?” Byron asked Small. The museum director opened a small coat closet and pulled out a black canvas backpack. It was a little larger than the green JanSport. Byron took the backpack and unzipped it.

Across the top of the note retrieved from the Gristedes had been typed: NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION. The note instructed that a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills be bundled and delivered to the Cloisters by Saturday afternoon. The money was to be transferred into a bag that had gone unclaimed earlier in the week. The claim number on the bag was 16. The bag and the money were to be returned to the coat-check room by noon on Saturday and stowed in cubby number 16. The note included the instructions to the mayor about the green tie, the word “Wisconsin” and the warning that any deviations from the instructions or attempts to detain or pursue the person claiming the bag would result in “more public blood.”

It was now nine-fifteen.

After the museum had closed on Friday night, a team of technicians had arrived and installed a new set of security cameras, one for each of the Cloisters’ two entrances and one in a large wicker purse that had been strategically placed in one of the cubbies in the coat-check room. I had my doubts that the Cloisters’ hastily installed cameras were going to capture anything other than another disguise. But I wasn’t running that part of the game, so I kept quiet. In addition to the technicians who installed the cameras, an explosives expert had made the trip up to the Cloisters on Friday evening and inspected the unclaimed bag. It was clean.

We transferred the money to the black bag and made our way to the coat-check room, where Gerald Small explained the system to me. “You clip a number to the bag or the coat or whatever it is they’re checking. The bags you put in order in the cubbies. The coats you hang in order on the rack. You give the customer the plastic tag with the corresponding number.”

“I think I can handle that.”

“It’s very straightforward.”

“Do I accept tips?”

“No tipping.”

“Shucks.”

Officer Kevin McNally was being buried with full police honors at noon, and the mayor and Byron were attending. The operation was now officially in my hands. Before leaving, Byron told me that the undercover cop inside the museum was wearing a Giants jersey. Number 08. This isn’t how numbers appear on Giants jerseys, so the chances of a second person showing up at the Cloisters wearing Giants jersey number 08 were essentially zilch.

Comforting.

The museum opened at nine-thirty. I fielded about a dozen customers right off the bat, and then a lull set in. The steadier stream began around ten-thirty. A Saturday madrigal program was being conducted in one of the galleries at eleven.

From my vantage point, I had an uninterrupted view of the entrance nearest me and a partial view of the one across from the admissions desk. From that entrance, if a person wanted, he or she could go directly into the gift shop before paying admission. I looked around and found the newly installed security cameras, but I couldn’t tell if they were calibrated to take in the gift-shop entrance.

I handled my duties admirably. Seems I was born with all the right skills. My anonymity threw me a little at first; 90 percent of the people handing over their coats or bags looked right through me if they looked at me at all. But I assisted in their indifference with equal doses of my own. I was there to blend in, not stand out. One person, a fat boy with black bangs, tried to draw me out as he handed over a heavy brown coat—“Hey! Do you like white meat or dark meat?”—but his mother, nearly his twin in a scary way, snapped at him to shut up.

Just before eleven o’clock, I was engaged a second time. A jean jacket was thrust at me, accompanied by something small wrapped in white paper.

“Here you go, Mac.”

“What’s this?” I muttered without moving my lips.

Jigs Dugan offered his shit-eating grin. “Hot dog. Thought you’d be hungry.”

I let the hot dog fall into a wastebasket at my feet. I took the jean jacket and gave Jigs his number.

“Thanks.” He pulled a dollar from his pocket. “Where’s your tip cup, Mac?”

“We don’t accept tips . . .
sir
.”

“I’d join a union if I were you, Mac.”

“Go away,” I muttered.

Jigs shoved his fists together and cracked his knuckles. The scar on his right cheek hooked as he sneered at me. “They got paintings of naked women here, Mac?”

“If you’re lucky, you might find a cherub. And you can quit with the Mac already.”

Jigs drew my attention to the pager on his belt. “You need me, bubba, you just whistle,” he said in a low voice. A tall man was stepping up behind him, shrugging out of a long black Burberry coat.

“The madrigal program is starting in a few minutes, sir,” I said stiffly and loudly to Jigs.

He put on a sage face. He was completely aware of the man waiting behind him. “Madrigals? Well, that’s good. Can’t get enough of those madrigals this time of year, right?” He turned and bumped purposefully into the tall man. “Oops. Sorry, there, Mac.”

The man had nearly a foot on Jigs. He gave him a pissed-off look. Of course, he had no way of knowing that the first person Jigger Dugan ever killed had given him one of those looks. The third one, too, if I have my stories straight.

HIGH NOON ARRIVED. HIGH NOON PASSED.

The cop with Giants jersey number 08 made several passes in view of the coat-check room. People drifted in from the direction of the gallery where the madrigal program had just ended. A few of them came directly for their coats and bags. Nobody handed me number 16.

Jigs passed by about twenty minutes later. He had latched on to a pair of young women. One of them looked soft and doughy, a little homely. Her friend was taller, skinnier and glaring at Jigs like a hawk. Jigs stole a quick glance my way and touched a finger to his upper lip. My fake mustache needed centering.

ONE O’CLOCK. MY LEGS WERE TIRED. WHAT THEY NEEDED IN THIS stuffy little closet was a stool. Conditions in my workplace were getting to me. Normally the coat-check person would have been spelled for lunch, but this wasn’t normally. There was a million dollars in cubby number 16.

I considered the cold hot dog in the wastebasket. I turned around and made a face at the wicker bag holding the video camera. I started wondering what sort of junk was in the other checked bags. A little chill ran through me as I recalled the scene the other night at Barrymore’s.

JIGS’S TWO WOMEN CLAIMED THEIR COATS AT AROUND TWO-FORTY. The tall one was chewing out the doughy one for giving “that creepy Irish guy” her phone number. The doughy one countered that he “was sort of cute.” As she handed me her claim number, she added to her friend, “I can look out for myself.”

Maybe so. But I know Jigs Dugan, and he can look after himself, too. Jigs wandered by some ten minutes later, smiling like a wolf.

“I found that cherub you were talking about, Mac.”

IT HAPPENED AT TEN MINUTES AFTER THREE. I HAD ENTERED INTO A fugue state, and it took a moment for it to register that I was looking at a blue claim tag with the number 16 on it. My heart took a running leap against my ribs.

A woman in her mid-fifties stood in front of me. She had graying brown hair cut in a fashionless bowl, sharp cheekbones and large eyes the same color as the tag she had just pulled from a purse. She was dressed in a long beige jacket and a pair of brown slacks. Of all the day’s customers, she was making the most direct eye contact. Her thin eyebrows arched quizzically.

“I’m sorry. This is going to sound a little peculiar. But . . . well, I think something has been left here for me.”

My cell phone was sitting open in cubby number 12, right below the million-dollar cubby. Jigs’s pager number was programmed into the speed dial. The plan had been that in retrieving the backpack from number 16, with my back blocking what I was doing, I would hit the speed dial and fire off a call to Jigs’s pager. The moment he got the call, Jigs was to make a beeline for the entrance area, eyeball the person retrieving the bag, then step outside and perform his invisible shadow act. It was a gamble—the note from Gristedes had been clear as to what the consequences of a tail would be—but Jigs Dugan was a man worth betting on. Besides, the note hadn’t been addressed to me.

I took the claim tag from the woman’s hand.

“I’m a little confused,” she said again.

I didn’t want to stare. I turned away, being sure to give the wicker bag with the hidden camera a full frontal view of the woman. I started for my cell phone, then hesitated. Something was wrong here. I reached one hand up to grapple with the bag while I quickly hit the few buttons on my cell phone with the other. Then I grabbed hold of the bag with both hands. Cubby 16 was slightly higher than my head. My bad shoulder practically burst into flames as I pulled the bag down.

She can’t possibly carry this.

The woman was still talking. “. . . so maybe I should talk to someone first. Take a look at—”

She was reaching into her purse. From the arched doorway, I saw Gerald Small moving fast, one arm raised as though he were hailing a taxi. Out of the corner of my eye, I also noted a dark blue jersey, number 08.

I landed the backpack directly on top of the woman’s purse. The counter rattled.

“Oh!” She pulled her hand back.

Gerald Small was charging forward. “Listen! Listen! I just received—” He stopped. He saw the backpack sitting on the counter. “Oh my
God
!”

He lunged at the woman. Speedy little devil. The woman screamed. I whipped off the stupid glasses and grabbed at Small. The man was growling like a deranged terrier. He had the woman by the arm. She was clawing at his fingers. “Let me—”

I did the job for her, peeling the museum director’s fingers off her arm.

“
Freeze! Police
!” The cop in the Giants jersey had his gun out and was holding it at arm’s length, both hands wrapped firmly around the handle. “
Freeze
!”

It wasn’t clear who he was barking at. The barrel of the gun was hopping stiffly between the terrified woman, the ballistic museum director and me. Behind the cop, people were scrambling for cover.

A second pistol appeared. An old snub-nose. Somehow, amid all the noise, the telltale
click
of its being cocked sounded very clearly. The sound seemed to echo off the stone walls. The pistol’s barrel was three inches from the undercover cop’s head. It didn’t waver so much as a millimeter. Steady hand. Practiced hand.

“You’ll lower it, or it’s off to the angels with you,” Jigs Dugan said calmly. “Count of three. That’s one, two—”

The cop lowered it.

Jigs didn’t. Not right away.

IF ONE MORE PERSON HAD TRIED TO SQUEEZE INTO GERALD SMALL’S tiny office, the floor would have buckled. It held three comfortably. Four in a pinch. Five was not going to float. I dispatched the undercover cop. He was the largest of the five, and from where I sat—on a corner of Gerald Small’s desk—the most expendable. What he knew, I knew, and I knew more.

The cop still had a chip on his shoulder about being drawn on by wiry Jigs Dugan. Jigs was leaning against a file cabinet with his arms crossed, taunting the cop with his best Irish smirk. The cop swore under his breath as he lumbered out of the room.

“Okay. Now there’s a little more oxygen for the rest of us,” I declared.

The woman who had arrived with claim number 16 was seated in the office’s only chair other than the one behind Gerald Small’s desk, which was occupied by its owner. She sat erect, with her hands in her lap. Once all the artillery had been put away at the coat check, I’d cautioned her, “This is a police matter. I’m going to ask that you remain silent for the time being.”

She repeated what had already become abundantly clear: “I’m confused by this whole matter.”

Gerald Small was huffing and puffing like an old Stanley Steamer.
I demand to know this, I demand to know that. I will not put up with people waving guns all over my museum. This and this and that and that
. A wavering finger took aim at Jigs, along with a wavering voice. “Who is that man?”

I answered matter-of-factly, “He’s a friend of mine. Francis Dugan.”

Gerald Small sputtered, “He could have killed somebody.”

I stole a glance at Jigs. “True. Or he could have saved somebody.”

“Or both,” Jigs threw in.

“I
demand
an explanation.”

“Mr. Dugan is my responsibility,” I said. “I asked him to come to the museum. Philip Byron knows nothing about him.”

That was when Gerald Small delivered his provocative bombshell.

“Philip Byron is missing.”

“Missing?” For no logical reason, I looked to the woman as if she might be able to offer some illumination. But unless she had mastered the Queen of All Poker Faces, she was as clueless as the chair she was sitting in. I turned back to Gerald Small. “Who says he’s missing?”

“I got a phone call. I was coming down to tell you. Philip never showed up at that officer’s funeral. His car was found on Fort Washington Avenue, not more than a quarter mile from here.”

“Who called you?”

“The mayor himself.”

The woman in the chair brought her fingers to her throat. “My goodness.”

Small went on, “The mayor asked about the money. He wanted to know if it had been picked up.”

The woman opened her mouth to speak, but I raised a silencing hand. I knew that this was exactly what Philip Byron would have wanted had he been here. Containment. Gerald Small knew as little as possible about why a million dollars had been delivered to his museum’s coat-check room for pickup.
There is no record, Gerald
. Whatever the woman would have to say about why she had shown up with claim number 16 in her purse, I didn’t want her blabbing it here.

The backpack was sitting next to me on the desk.

“Why don’t you stow that somewhere?” I said to Small. “We’ll be back for it.” I slid off the desk.