The Procane Chronicle (11 page)

“Our diplomatic friend almost panicked,” Procane said tonelessly, “but he came up with the information.” He got it by mounting a twenty-four-hour bug on his colleague’s home phone. “The tape he furnished us was mostly in Spanish and mostly in coded references,” Procane went on, “and it took me nearly forty-eight hours to break it, but when I did I was sure that we had the information we needed.”

“He was nervous as hell,” Wiedstein said. “He kept calling me every thirty minutes or so from his hotel here wanting to know if the information was solid. After we decided that it was I went by and picked him up and drove him to LaGuardia where I handed him ten thousand dollars for his efforts and a set of the pictures to remember us by. He was so grateful I thought he’d bawl.”

Procane nodded approvingly at Wiedstein and then looked at me. “So, Mr. St. Ives, for an investment of approximately seventy-three thousand dollars—plus six months of our time—we have learned where and when we probably can steal a million dollars from certain persons engaged in the international narcotics traffic.” He paused. “A most unsavory crowd, I assure you.”

“You don’t have to assure me of anything. What I’d like to know is how you want me to earn that twenty-five thousand you mentioned earlier. You said something about needing a witness, but that sounds a little fancy. What do you really want, someone to applaud when it’s all over?”

Procane again clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes roam around the ceiling. It was a position he seemed to like. “I think this is going to be a little harder for you to believe, Mr. St. Ives.”

“That’ll make it just like everything else I’ve heard today.”

“I suppose every man who reaches my age suddenly realizes that he is not, after all, immortal. And it is around this time that many of us, I should think, look back and ask, is this all there is to it, or even, where did I go wrong?”

Procane paused for a moment, his eyes still on the ceiling. He looked reflective, Janet Whistler looked embarrassed. Wiedstein looked bored, as if he had heard it all before. Often.

“These middle-aged reflections sometimes lead to renewed bursts of vigor,” Procane said. “This may account for what I consider to be the rash of menopause babies. Have you noticed it?”

“I haven’t paid much attention,” I said.

“The statistics are interesting.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“These heretofore childless parents are actually having their last crack at immortality.”

“All right.”

“In effect, they’re saying, ‘remember me.’”

“You, too.”

“Yes, me, too, Mr. St. Ives.”

“The million-dollar score. It’ll be preserved in the
World Almanac
.”

“There and other places.”

“You can read about it in jail.”

“I’ll never read about it.”

“Why?”

“It won’t be reported until I’m dead.”

“Ah,” I said, probably because I felt that he wanted me to.

“You’re beginning to understand.”

“Sure. You want me to write it up.”

“That’s it.”

“Then what?”

“Give it to me.”

“And it’ll be found among your effects.”

Procane nodded. “In a leather binder, don’t you think?”

“That would be nice. What about your friends here?” I said, indicating Janet Whistler and Wiedstein.

“Just change our names,” Wiedstein said.

“Change us completely,” Janet said.

I began to get interested. “For twenty-five thousand?”

“That’s right,” Procane said.

“A complete story about the theft, using your name but not theirs. Everything else factual.”

“Correct.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I want a professional job from a disinterested observer.”

“When’d you come up with this idea?”

“I’ve been toying with it for some time,” Procane said. “But I couldn’t decide how to approach a writer.”

“If you’d mumbled something about the twenty-five thousand, there’d have been a line of them halfway down the block inside of an hour.”

“I need a discreet one.”

“Twenty-five thousand will buy that, too.”

“Aren’t you interested?”

“Sure, I’m interested. If you’re still alive when it’s all over, just give me a ring. You can either tell me about it or tape it. I’ll write it up and even furnish the leather binding. Morocco would be nice.”

“I admired your style when you wrote your column,” Procane said. “I’m sure you could do an excellent job.”

“Something like the one that was done on Robin Hood.”

“I don’t want a—what is it called—a puff piece.”

“Of course not. You want a straightforward, factual account.”

“I want a little more than that, Mr. St. Ives.”

“What?”

“I want an eyewitness report.”

“My eyes?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Quite serious.”

“What am I supposed to do, peep around your shoulder while you jam a gun into somebody’s ribs and note the deadly earnestness of your tone when you say, ‘Okay, pal, this is a stickup’?”

“It will be quite a story, won’t it?”

“Somebody else can write it.”

“There’s more to it than the little I’ve told you.”

“You’ve already told me too much.”

Procane smiled. “This will be my final operation.”

“‘The Last Score.’ I’ll give you the title free.”

“What will happen to the money could be quite interesting.”

I felt myself weakening and hated it. “What?”

“I don’t really need it, of course,” Procane said. “I’m quite wealthy, so half of it—less the expenses I’ve already incurred—will go to Miss Whistler and Mr. Wiedstein as a kind of a bonus that will mark our severed relationship. After this final operation, they’ll be on their own.”

“And the other half million?”

“I’m not sure you’ll believe me, so you have my permission to have our mutual lawyer, Mr. Greene, confirm it. I think he should have completed the paper work by now.”

“Paper work for what?”

“There’s an organization up in Harlem that works with drug addicts.”

“So?”

“Some time next week it’s going to get a half-million-dollar contribution from an anonymous benefactor.” He paused and said, “Me,” and then grinned and licked his lips a little as if he found the irony of it all delicious.

I
AGREED TO DO IT,
of course. At first I told myself that it was because I needed the money. When that wore thin I tried to blame it on the junkies up in Harlem who needed a helping hand. But after I admitted that half a million dollars wouldn’t even help cure Harlem’s sniffles, although a few billion might make a small dent in its problems, I stopped kidding myself and faced the real reason. It wasn’t pretty, but it was simple. The real reason that I said yes was because I wanted to be in on a million-dollar steal.

I suppose that basically Procane and I were something alike. He wanted to steal a million. I wanted to watch. Perhaps I wanted to watch him do it as much as he wanted to do it. There’s something voyeuristic about all newspapermen, even those who leave the trade and go on to better things, such as embezzlement and loan sharking and public relations. Nobody held a gun on me. Nobody threatened me with exposure. All they did was offer me the chance and after I got through protesting enough to make it seem decent, I grabbed it.

I decided that Procane’s story was just farfetched enough to have some truth in it. I long ago had given up any illusions I might have entertained about finding the good thief, yet I couldn’t help but rate Procane a notch above the others I had dealt with although that was probably because he stole only money that had already been stolen in one way or another. Also his manners were better, which demonstrated, I suppose, that there wasn’t much of the egalitarian in me as I had thought.

So it was a mixture of normal greed and abnormal curiosity that made me agree to become a thief. There was no point in calling myself anything else. It was a long way from Sherwood Forest and besides nobody can tell me that the Merrymen joined up because of a stricken social conscience.

Procane looked surprised when I said yes. He probably thought that it would take at least another five minutes to convince me and he may even have been a little disappointed that I didn’t give him the chance to use up all of his arguments.

“So you agree?” he said.

“I think that’s what yes usually means.”

“And the terms are satisfactory?”

“Almost. You said twenty-five thousand. I’ll take half now.”

That didn’t bother him at all. He opened a desk drawer and took out a square gray-metal box, the kind that you can buy at the drugstore for $1.98 to keep important papers in. He counted out $12,500 on to the desk in fifties and hundreds. They made a tidy little pile about an inch high. The three thieves looked at me. I thought Wiedstein had a faint sneer on his face, but it could have been only a sad smile. Nobody said anything. Finally, I rose, leaned over the desk, and picked up the money. As soon as I had it in my hands, I wanted to give it back. But I didn’t. I made a roll of the bills and stuffed them into a trouser pocket. Then I sat down again.

“Well, now,” Procane said. “I won’t ask for a receipt.”

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“No, I shouldn’t think so.”

“You’re in now, St. Ives,” Wiedstein said. “All the way.”

“Not quite,” I said.

The three of them looked at each other, once again demonstrating how nicely they could get along without words. Procane’s face lost its normally bland expression. His mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed, and something happened to his chin. It seemed to grow harder. He suddenly looked like a thief. A mean one.

“I think you’d better explain that,” he said, his tone matching his look.

“Sure. I’m in, just like Wiedstein says, but I’m in for only what I was hired to do and that’s watch. Nothing else. I’m not the utility man. If somebody gets shot, don’t expect me to be the substitute getaway driver or carry the money or shoot back or anything else. I’ll be an observer, but that’s all. And if I think that’s going to get me shot up or killed, I won’t even be that. In other words, don’t count on me for help of any kind.”

Procane’s face relaxed. “That’s all we expect of you.”

“Anything else and you’d just get in the way,” Wiedstein said.

“Fine,” I said. “Where will it be and when?”

“It will be tomorrow night as I mentioned earlier,” Procane said. “As for where, I can only tell you that it will be in Washington.”

“Oh,” I said and there must have been something in my tone or my expression because Procane frowned and said, “I refuse to be more exact, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Washington is exact enough.”

“Is there something about Washington that bothers you?”

“I’ve had a little bad luck there. But so have a lot of other people.”

“I see,” Procane said, but I could tell from his tone that he didn’t. “I’m sure you understand why I prefer not to tell you the details of our plans.”

“Probably because I could sell them for a lot of money.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t do that.”

“But there’s no sense in taking the chance.”

He smiled. “No, there isn’t, is there?”

I smiled back. We were all friends again. “Just tell me where you want me to be tomorrow and when.”

He thought about that a moment. “Here, I think. Around noon?”

“Fine. Anything else?”

He looked at Janet Whistler. She shook her head. So did Wiedstein. Procane rose and held out his hand. “I’m delighted that you’ll be with us, Mr. St. Ives. I really am.” I accepted his hand and it still felt as though it belonged to a high school principal, but one who had a tough district.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“Mr. Wiedstein will drive you home. He’s going that way.”

“All right.”

I said good-bye to Janet Whistler and Procane and followed Wiedstein from the room. We went out the front door and turned right on Seventy-fourth. “I’m parked around the corner,” Wiedstein said. Around the corner we stopped at a dusty, two-year-old Chevrolet sedan. Wiedstein unlocked the curb-side door for me.

“I thought you’d have something fancier,” I said.

“I don’t need it,” he said and I decided that his remark could be taken on several levels.

He drove well, making the lights work for him, and we were at Fifty-seventh and Park before he said anything else. Then he said, “I think you’re nuts.”

“For saying yes?”

“For even listening to him.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a good chance you’ll get mixed up in a shoot-out where somebody’ll get killed. That means you’ll be mixed up in murder.”

“Does Procane’s plan call for that?”

“No. He’s never used a gun. Not to shoot anyone with. Not that I know of anyway.”

“Why should he this time?”

“Because he may not have any choice.”

“He must have taken that into consideration.”

“He takes everything into consideration.”

“You sound as though you’re trying to talk me out of it.”

Wiedstein glanced at me. “No, I’m just trying to convince you that you should be prepared for anything.” He paused for a moment. “Anything,” he said again.

“What about the people who’re supposed to steal the million dollars and then blame it on Procane? What’re they going to be doing all this time?”

“Doing what Procane’s plan predicts they’ll do.”

“And what’s that?”

“That’s part of the plan.”

“And you can’t tell me that.”

“No, I can’t tell you that.”

“Maybe you can tell me this. Does he use a computer to help him come up with his plans?”

“It’s a lot like a computer, only it’s better.”

“What is it?”

“His brain.”

We drove in silence for a while and then I asked, “What’re you going to do with your share, retire at twenty-four?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Well?”

“You don’t retire on a couple of hundred thousand.”

“You could try.”

“I won’t.”

“You like your work, huh?”

“It’s all I know.”

“Where’d he find you?”