Stone 588 (25 page)

"We'll be out of your way soon as we can," Fahey said, obliquely em-pathetic.

Springer nodded resignedly. He went in and looked at the open safe, imagined the greedy swiftness with which it had been emptied. He went into Linda's office. She was sitting on her desk with her legs crossed, facing the window. Smoking a cigarette. Springer had never seen her smoke before.

"How did it happen?" Springer asked.

Linda started to say but gave up on where to begin. She handed him a Xerox of several typewritten pages stapled together.

Mal's statement to the police.

The whole story was there, beginning with the Thursday taxi-ride encounter with the young woman Marcie to Saturday morning, when Mal had gotten his adhesive-taped hands free and dialed the police. While Springer read, he asked, "Where's Mal now?"

"Somewhere in Pennsylvania. He left right after he dictated that statement. Said he was going to a retreat where he couldn't talk or be talked to."

"I hope he stays there." Springer was seething.

"Claimed he was going to have himself neutered."

"I even hope he does that."

Mal's statement was not merely factual. It contained numerous subjective descriptions and confidences. There was a confessional ring to it, a mix of boast and shame. His signature on the bottom of each page lacked the usual undecipherable overflourish, was cramped and erratic.

Springer imagined the compound fracture Mal's ego was suffering. Do Mal good, he thought, perhaps limp down his perpetual hard-on, although it was difficult to picture Mal different from what he'd been over the many years. Without all the chasing and humping around he'd be a better businessman probably, but a lot of the color and spirit would be missing. Surely at that moment he was hang-head, feeling failure, doubting he'd ever recover or be able to make amends. The poor, cunt-hungry old fool, Springer thought. Not that he was about to forgive Mal. It was too big a thing and too soon for that. However, he couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

"Steiner was by earlier," Linda said. "He wants you to call him." Steiner was the firm's insurance broker.

"They got everything, 1 suppose."

"Except what was out on memo." Linda handed him several more Xeroxed pages: a typewritten list, lot by lot, of what had been stolen. "You know," she said, "maybe now would be a good time to get out of diamonds and into colored goods." It was something they'd discussed but never seriously.

"Could be."

"The market is right for it. How did your trip go?"

"I don't know for sure yet."

"Want me to stick around here?"

"Where's Lucille?" The receptionist.

"She came in for an hour. I think the police and everything rattled her. Probably out looking for another job."

"Someone ought to be here."

"I'll stick around."

Springer went out to Detective Fahey. "We need your fingerprints," Fahey told him. "We got everybody else's."

"Why?"

"Just so if we come across a print that shouldn't be here we'll know it." Fahey was tolerant, detached and possibly friendly. While the specialist inked Springer up and took his prints, Fahey said of course no Marcie Newkirk worked at Smith Barney. Nor did she live at that high-rise on 78th Street, had just made it look as though she did by walking in and out. The Scottsdale, Arizona, stuff was all a lie too. The only helpful thing was the cleverness of these people. They had something good going and they would probably keep working it until they slipped. That was how it usually went. The bastards could have a closet full of money and suitcases crammed with flash and still go out and try for another score. The stealing was what they needed, Fahey said. He also recited the litany about not getting hopes up of recovering any of what had been stolen. Goods were goods. For a final routine consolation he promised they'd keep on it.

Springer went into his office and sat with his back to the safe. His anger wouldn't let him look at it. He had never stolen anything in his life, and, although that was no reason to expect dispensation, it did make robbing him seem unfair. Fortunately he had insurance. He telephoned his broker. Bob Steiner.

"I just got through talking to the company again," Steiner said.

"There's a problem?"

"At this stage they call it a consideration."

"They don't want to pay."

"They never want to pay. Who the hell wants to pay?"

Springer blew. "For twenty years we pay their fucking premiums. We don't even bitch when they raise their rates . . . and now when something happens they're reneging."

"They may settle. I'm trying to work out a figure with them."

"Fuck that! I want what our policy covered. We had it all covered, every carat."

"Insurance is a tricky business."

"Yeah . . . now it's tricky."

"The way the company sees it there's negligence. If they can prove negligence they're not liable."

"What negligence?"

"Mal wasn't conducting proper business when it happened. He brought it on himself, as much as admitted so in his statement. That's what they're basing it on."

"A loss is a loss."

"It's an out. They thrive on outs."

"I have to sue?"

"Blame Mal. He should have talked to me before he said anything. He didn't have to go into it like he did. It was a big mistake."

"Four million," Springer said bitterly.

"Four million three is what I put the claim in for. I assume you've got the books to back it up."

"You do a lot of business with this insurance company, don't you, Bob?"

"Springer, I understand what you're implying, and because I like you and know you're under a lot of stress right now I won't take it as an insult."

Springer apologized.

Steiner accepted.

"So, what comes next?" Springer asked.

"They'll make an offer to settle. Not today or tomorrow, but eventually."

"How much of an offer?"

"I'm begging for half."

"Jesus."

"Depends on how much they want to lay out to keep their credibility in the district. That's what I'm betting on, bad word getting around."

Springer held back from erupting again. "Bob, don't let the bastards stiff me."

"I'll do what I can and a mile extra. Know that."

After hanging up. Springer sat there silently for a while. Perhaps it was the voltage of his anger; he had a strong sense of his father's presence in the room. His father was everywhere: on the other side of the desk, over by the safe peering into it, even crowding to occupy the same chair Springer was in. Sympathies and reproaches buzzed Springer's ears.

He phoned Danny.

They arranged a meet.

And a few minutes later Springer was walking west on 47th. The row upon row of diamonds in the display windows taunted him. He loathed them, every one of those hard little hunks of shit. He tried not to look at them, put on mental blinders all the way to the corner of the Avenue of the Americas, where he crossed and turned north. He was never comfortable on Avenue of the Americas. The black and glass corporate buildings loomed oppressively, each reflecting the might of the next. It certainly wasn't an avenue for losers, and Springer was sorry now he'd chosen it for the meet. At 49th was the Exxon Building. It had a perfectly engineered waterfall in front to testify to its altruism. Springer stopped there, sat on the raised edge of polished black granite that felt slippery hot to his haunches. He glanced up. The sun ricocheted off Exxon and pitilessly struck his eyes shut.

Make a million, lose two, he thought.

He glanced to his left where, seated on the same hot granite edge just a few feet away, a secretary on an early lunch hour was bringing a marijuana roach to her lips with her cerise-enameled fingernails, so short a roach and so much of a toke Springer caught the smell of lacquer burning.

He spotted Danny on the other side of the avenue, watched him cut across through the killer taxis like a matador. A different Danny Rags in work clothes: worn-shiny cheap black gabardine slacks, white shirt unbuttoned two down, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His hands. Springer noticed, were dirty from acid and gold. With his eyes and a slight flick of his head Danny asked what was wrong.

Springer told him.

Danny's expression went cold, the same icy anger Springer remembered of Just John. "Anybody hurt?" he asked.

"Four million hurts."

"Fucking thieves."

Such hypocrisy was typical of the Street.

"I figured you might have heard something," Springer said.

"Wasn't around this weekend or I might have. Took my kids to the Jersey shore. What was it, a break-in?"

Springer let him read Mal's statement.

"They were put onto Mal by somebody," Danny said. "Some other broad who'd been with him, knew his pitch."

"From Mal's descriptions do you make anyone?"

"Not right off."

"How about this Marcie?"

"Sharp the way she didn't lead with her cunt."

"Either way Mal would have gone for it."

"Easier to trust a beautiful broad like that, though."

"Maybe somebody will be around offering my goods."

"Could be in-and-outers, came into town just to make this hit."

"That's possible."

"None of the people I do business with were in on it," Danny said. "At least none of my regulars."

"What makes you sure of that?"

"They wouldn't take from you."

"Why not me?"

"You've got immunity."

"Oh?"

"As a favor to me you've got it."

"Otherwise I would have been hit before now?"

"Probably." Danny looked away to get off the subject. "What say I buy you lunch?"

"I'll pass today."

"Got to be getting back anyway. You should see what a guy brought me. A statue of a cat, like a real cat, that big. A swift on one of his teams swagged it from a house in Westbury. On the way out just because it's sitting there and looked good. Turns out it's solid eighteen K, almost five thousand pennyweights. A pair of matching chrysoberyls for eyes that'll go at least twenty-five carats each. Fucking statue's got to be worth a hundred large. Shame to melt it."

Springer wasn't in the mood for stories. "Find out what you can for me," he said glumly.

"Look, if these people were sharp enough to pull off such a finesse they won't suddenly turn into assholes. They'll deal out the goods a little at a time here and there. Shit, some of your diamonds may come in to me an hour from now, but how am I supposed to know they're yours? Goods are goods."

Again goods are goods. Springer thought bitterly.

"And even, let's say down the road a way, we make these people and get on them. All you'll get is the satisfaction of breaking their bones. That what you want?"

No reply from Springer.

Danny went on. "As a matter of fact, if you can see it from their side it's not easy to blame them. For them it was nothing personal. They were just taking care of business. Think of all the trouble they had to go through to set it up, the chances they had to take to make the move. Understand what I mean?"

"Not yet."

"Okay," Danny said. "I'll ask around." He smiled, hoping it would prime the same in return from Springer. It didn't.

They went in opposite directions. Springer continued on up the avenue, realizing along the way how dimensionally off-register he, now a major victim, felt toward everything and everyone. He had a tinge of the delusion that he could walk right through things, and several times people had to dodge aside at the last moment because he wasn't about to give way.

He told himself it would wear off.

When he got to 58th he went east. About mid-block he paused to be a deliberate audience of one for a just-up hooker who was curbing her Great Dane. She had a clear plastic sandwich bag like a mitten on her right hand, used it to grab at the mound of grainy turd the huge dog dropped. Didn't get it all but as much as she could. She inverted the bag so it contained the turd, spun its neck, and secured it with a wire tie.

Love, Springer thought.

He resumed moving along the street, which was shadowed and dingy because the buildings were high on both sides. There was the sour smell of garbage where it came daily from the service entrance of the Plaza Hotel. Near the end of the block the street opened and assumed an appropriate Manhattan air. Flying from poles above the entrance to the Plaza were the flags of France, Japan, and Sweden, acknowledging the dignitaries of those countries who were staying there. Limousines were triple-parked.

On the corner was Bergdorf Goodman. Its display windows were covered on the inside by stretches of unbleached muslin, except for a six-inch space along the bottom and the area above eye level. Springer bent down and peeked in through three windows before he saw any living feet, and still another before he saw the toes, arches, and ankles that he recognized as surely Audrey's. He tapped on the window with a fingernail, a code of three fast and two slow so she'd know it wasn't just anyone.

Audrey depressed the upper border of the muslin and looked down at him.

Because he didn't have a smile she lost hers. She removed the muslin. With a playful bow and a flourish she presented her work.

It was four female mannequins in an indigo environment. Three were adorned with summer-white party dresses: a silk organza, a crepe de chine, and a silk faconne. Layered, bloused, sashed. The manipulatable forms of those three were situated to the left. Their similar attitudes conveyed conspiracy. Each possessed a weapon, identical nickel-plated ivory-handled .32 caliber automatic pistols. Thus, to the frolic, the frou-frou, the almost promlike innocence, there was a touch of devastation. A gleaming pistol was not quite concealed up a sleeve, another was insouciantly inserted in a sash. The mannequin in the silk faconne was most prominent. She'd been put into a wide stance, chin up, arms at her sides. A pistol hung resignedly from her limp grasp. A wisp of something that resembled smoke, probably that Christmas stuff called angel's hair, trailed upward from the muzzle of the pistol. Scattered and gleaming around the mannequin's white sling pumps were several spent cartridges.