Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 (27 page)

 
          
The
other man turned his head and looked at me- Then he faced outward again and
said, “Let him.”

 
          
The
first man nodded. His fish eyes kept watching me. He said. “Go ahead.
A few.”

 
          
“Fine,”
I said. As I leaned forward to reach into the basket, I looked down the road.
Joe was due about now.

 
          
I
let Tom off at
Columbus Avenue
and
S5th Street
, went on up to 90th, made a right turn, and
headed over to Central Park West. Then I turned south, and drove slowly down
alongside the park to consider the situation.

 
          
Everything
looked normal, as far as I could see. I didn’t believe it, but that was the way
it looked. There’s a long oval road called the Drive that goes all the way
around inside the park, and every entrance to it that I saw was blocked with
gray Police Department sawhorses; the usual thing for a Tuesday afternoon.
People with bicycles were going in past the sawhorses, and wherever I could
catch a glimpse of the Drive inside the park it was full of bicycles sailing
by. Nobody I saw had a sign on his back that read
Mafia.

 
          
It
took twenty minutes to go down to 61st Street and then come back up again, and
when I went past 85th Street it was fine by me that Tom was still sitting there
with the newspaper in his lap. I wasn’t ready to leap into action just yet. To
tell the truth, I was getting a late case of cold feet.

 
          
Maybe
it was because everything looked so peaceful. When we’d gone up against the
brokerage, there had been people around with uniforms and
guns,
there’d been closed-circuit television and locked doors to go through and all
kinds of things to pit ourselves against. But here there was nothing, just a
peaceful afternoon in the park, summer sunshine everywhere, people riding
bicycles or pushing baby carriages or just lying on the grass with a paperback
book. And yet this was a much tougher situation; the people we were up against were
meaner, and we were pretty sure they were out to kill us, and they knew we were
coming.

 
          
So
where were they?

 
          
Around;
that much I could be sure of. Since Tm on the uniformed force I haven’t had
much to do with stakeouts, but I know from Tom that it’s possible to flood an
area with plainsclothesmen and not have anything look out of the ordinary at
all. And if the Police Department could do it, the mob could do it.

 
          
I
was supposed to check with Tom every fifteen minutes, so after I saw him I
headed over to Broadway and farted around there for a little while.
Ran my beat, in fact.
I was on duty at the moment, which was
the simple straightforward way I’d gotten hold of a car this time. It had
turned out Lou had a girl friend that went to
Columbia
and lived up near the campus and didn’t
have any classes on Tuesday afternoons. So for the last three weeks I’d been
giving him a couple hours to shack up with her; drop
him
off at her
place, pick him up later. It was an established pattern now, nothing out of the
ordinary, and it gave me a couple of hours alone with the car; with the numbers
changed again.

 
          
Fifteen
minutes. I went back over to the park, passed by Tom again, and he still had
the newspaper in his lap.

 
          
This
time, I didn’t like it I was still nervous, I still had cold feet but my
reaction when I’m scared of something is that I want to get it done and over
with. No stalling around, building it up, making myself even more nervous than
I was already.

 
          
Come
on, Vigano. Make your play, let’s do something.

 
          
Because
of my nerves, my driving was getting bad. A couple times, if I’d been in a
civilian car I would have racked it up for sure; but people pay more attention
to police cars, so they saw me in time to get out of the way. But that’s all I
needed, was to be involved in some fender-bumping argument over on Columbus
Avenue while Tom was making contact in the park; so after the second trip past
him I didn’t do much driving at all, just pulled in next to a hydrant on 86th
to wait the fifteen minutes out.

 
          
I
had the radio on, listening to the dispatcher, though I don’t know why. I sure
wasn’t going to respond to any squeals, not now. Maybe I was listening for
something to tell me the whole thing was off, we’d blown it and could go home
and forget the whole thing.

 
          
In
the back seat, directly behind me, was the picnic basket
It
was half full of old copies of the
Daily
News.
On top we’d scattered some fake diplomas and gag stock certificates
we’d picked up in a novelty shop on
Times Square
.
They ought to look good enough for a fast peek, which is all we meant
to
give the other side before we made our play. If things
worked out right

 
          
Fifteen
minutes. I pulled away from the hydrant made a loop around, and passed Tom
again, and he didn’t have the newspaper on his lap any more.

 
          
All
of a sudden I had a balled-up wet wool overcoat in my stomach. I was blinking
like a
hophead,
I could barely make out the numbers
and the hands on my watch when I raised my arm in front of my face to check the
time.
Three thirty-five
.
All right.
All right

 
          
I
drove up to
96th Street
, the next entrance to the Drive. I stopped with the nose of the car
against one of the sawhorses blocking the road, and stumbled and almost fell on
my face getting out from behind the wheel. I walked around to the front of the
car, lifted one end of the sawhorse, and swung it out of the way. Then I drove
through, put the sawhorse back, and angled the car slowly down the entrance
road to the Drive.

 
          
I
was in the only kind of vehicle that could come into the park on a Tuesday
afternoon. That was the edge we had; we could drive, and the mob had to walk.

 
          
I
stopped by the Drive and checked my watch again, and I had three minutes before
I should start to move. Tom needed time to make contact.

 
          
Bicycles
streamed by me, heading south, the same direction I would go. There’s no law
about it, but most people who ride bicycles in the park treat the Drive as a
counter-clockwise one-way street, the way it is the rest of the week for cars.
Every once in a while somebody would come up in the other direction like a
salmon going upstream—usually it was a teen-ager—but most of the traffic was
southbound. Even the women pushing baby carriages were all heading south.

 
          
I
didn’t want any shooting in here today. Aside from what would happen to Tom and
me, they could really rack up a score on women and children.

 
          
Time.
I shifted into drive and joined the stream of bicycles
and matched their pace on down toward Tom.

 
          
They
had rehearsed this, they’d gone through it over and over again, they both knew
their parts; and still, when Tom looked up from the picnic basket and saw the
police car threading its way toward him through the bicycles, he was amazed at
the relief he felt. Now that Joe was actually here, Tom could admit to himself
the fear he’d been carrying in the back of his mind that for one reason or
another Joe would fail to show up.

 
          
Joe
hadn’t had that worry about Tom. The only unacknowledged fear he’d been
ignoring was that Tom would already be dead before the patrol car got there.
Seeing Tom
alive
relieved Joe’s mind a little, but not
much; they were still just at the beginning of this ride.

 
          
Joe
eased the car to a stop near the picnickers. Tom had half a dozen bills from
the basket clenched in his right fist, taken from the top and the middle and
the bottom— they didn’t want the fakery with old newspapers done right back at
them—and now he said to the picnickers, ‘Take it easy. I’ll be right back.”

 
          
They
didn’t like it. They were looking at the patrol car and at each other and up
the hill toward their friends. They obviously hadn’t figured on the patrol car,
and it was making them upset. The first man, with his hand still inside his
jacket, said, ‘‘You better move very
slow
.”

 
          
“Oh,
I will,” Tom said. “And when your hand comes out from under there, it better
move
slow
, too. My friend sometimes gets nervous.”

 
          
“He’s
got reason,” the picnicker said.

 
          
Tom
got to his feet and walked slowly over to the patrol car, coming up to it on
the right side. The passenger window was open. He bent to put his elbows on the
sill, hands and forearms inside the car. A nervous grin flickering on his face,
he said, “Welcome to the party.”

 
          
Joe
was looking past him at the picnickers, watching their tense faces. He looked
tense himself, the muscles bunched like a lumpy mattress along the sides of his
jaw. He said, “How we doing?”

 
          
Tom
dropped the handful of bills onto the seat. “I spotted five guys so far,” he
said. “There’s probably more.”

 
          
Reaching
for the microphone, Joe said, “They really don’t want us to get paid.”

 
          
“If
there’s
enough of them,” Tom said, “we’re fucked.”
Into the microphone Joe said, “Six six.” To Tom he said, “That’s the chance we
took. We worked it out”

 
          
“I
know,” Tom said. He rubbed perspiration from his forehead onto the back of his
hand, and from there to his trouser leg. Half-turning, staying bent, keeping
one elbow on the
windowsill,
he looked around at the
sunny day and said, “Christ, I wish it was over.”

 
          
“Me, too.”
Joe was blinking again, having trouble seeing
things. Into the microphone, he said, “Six six.”

 
          
The
radio suddenly said, “Yeah, six six, go ahead.”

           
Picking up the money from the seat,
Joe said, “I got some bills for you to check out.”

 
          
‘‘Okay,
go ahead.”

 
          
Joe
held one of the bills close to his face, and squinted so he could read the
serial number. “This one’s a twenty,” he said.
“B-five-five-eight-seven-five-three-five-A.”

 
          
The
radio read the number back again.

 
          
“Check,”
Joe said.
“Another twenty.”
He read off the number,
listened to it repeated, and then did the same thing with a third bill, a
fifty.

 
          
“Give
me a minute,” the radio said.

 
          
Tom
muttered, “If we have a minute.”

 
          
Joe
put the microphone away under the dashboard and held one of the bills up by the
open window to study it with the light behind it. Squinting at it, focusing
with difficulty, he said, “Looks okay to me. What do you think?”

 
          
The
grin twitched on Tom’s face again. “I was too nervous to look,” he said, and
reached into the car to pick up one of the bills from the seat. He studied it,
felt the paper between thumb and first finger,
tried
to remember the signs of a phony bill. Over on his side of the car, Joe was
checking another of the bills, seeing this one a little more easily; he was
beginning to settle down, now that something was happening.

 
          
“I
guess it’s all right,” Tom said. Irritably he tossed the bill back on the seat.
“What’s taking him so long?”

 
          
Joe
dropped the bill and rubbed his eyes, then said, “Go talk to the people.”

 
          
Tom
frowned at him. “Are you really as cool as all that, or is it bullshit?”

 
          
“It’s
bullshit,” Joe said. “But it’ll do.”

 
          
Tom’s
grin turned a little sickly. “I’ll be back,” he said, and left the car, and
walked over again to the picnickers, who were watching him with great
suspicion. He hunkered down where he’d been before, and talked directly to the
first man, who seemed to be the leader of the group. He said, “I’ll be going
back over by the car. When I give a signal, one of you
carry
the basket over there.”

 
          
The
first man said, “Where’s the trade?”

 
          
“The
other basket’s in the car,” Tom said. “We’ll do the switch there. But only one
of you come over, the rest stay right here.”

 
          
The
first man said, “We’ve got to look it over.”

           
“Sure,” Tom said. “You bring the
basket, you get in the car, you check the other one,
you
get out again.”

 
          
The
second man spoke up, saying, “In the car?” He frowned at his friend, not liking
that.

 
          
Tom
said, “Let’s not make it any more public than we have to.”
Which
was an argument they should appreciate.

 
          
They
did. The first man said to the second, “It’s all right. It’s better inside.”

 
          
“Sure,”
Tom said. “You stick
tight,
I’ll let you know when.”
He got to his feet, trying to look nonchalant and sure of himself, and walked
back over to the car. Leaning in again, he said, “Anything yet?”

 
          
Joe
was twitching like a wind-up doll. Waiting was the worst thing in the world for
him. “No,” he said. “How’s it going?”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” Tom said. “Their friends haven’t come down from the hills yet, so
I guess we’re still ahead.”

 
          
“Maybe,”
Joe said, as the radio suddenly said, “Six six.” They both started; as though
they hadn’t been expecting that sound. Joe grabbed the microphone and said.
“Yeah, six six.”

 
          
“On
those bills,” the radio said. “They’re clean.”

 
          
Joe’s
face suddenly opened into a big wide smile. It was going to be all right, he
all at once knew that as a positive certainty. “Okay,” he said into the
microphone. “Thanks.” Putting the microphone away, he turned and gave Tom the
big smile and said, “We go.”

 
          
Tom
hadn’t been affected the same way. The fact that the money was real just
confirmed for him the knowledge that the mob was out to kill them. Counterfeit
money or stolen money with traceable numbers might have meant the mob would be
content merely to cheat them, but real money meant their lives were definitely
at stake. Having trouble breathing, Tom responded to Joe’s big smile with a
small nervous grimace, and then turned away to make a little waving gesture
toward the picnickers.

 
          
The
women over there were looking a little green, as though the situation had
become trickier than they’d been led to believe. They were sitting staring
outward, waiting for disaster to strike or relief to come at last. The two men
looked at one another, and the first man nodded. The second one got reluctantly
to his feet, picked up the basket, and carried it toward the car.

 
          
It
took him forever to make the trip. Joe kept staring across the car and out the
open side window at him, willing him to move faster. Tom watched the slope up
toward Central Park West; three of the guys he’d spotted before were clustered
together up there now, talking things over. They seemed excited. Was that a
small walkie-talkie one of them had in his hand?

 
          
“They’ve
got an army,” Tom said. All at once, he saw how hopeless it was; the two of
them against an army, with army equipment and an army disregard for life.

 
          
Joe
ducked his head, trying to see Tom’s face. “What?”

 
          
The
guy with the picnic basket was too close. Tom said, “Nothing. Here he comes.”

 
          
“I
see him.”

 
          
Nervousness
could have made both of them irritable right then. If it hadn’t been for the
pressure of what else they were doing, they could have turned on each other
instead, bickering and snarling like a couple of dogs in a vacant lot.

 
          
The
guy with the basket reached the car. Tom opened the rear door, and saw the
guy’s face register that he’d seen the other basket in there. But he didn’t
make a move to enter.

 
          
“Get
in,” Tom said. Up the slope, one of the
trio
was using
the walkie-talkie.

 
          
“Tell
your friend to open the basket. Lift the lid.”

 
          
“For
Christ’s sake,” Tom said, and called in to Joe, “Did you hear him?”

 
          
Joe
was already twisting around in the seat, reaching over the back of it for the
basket. “I heard him,” he said, and lifted the lid. The gag certificates with
their fancy designs showed indistinctly in the shadows.

 
          
The
men up the hill were moving this way; casually, not hurrying yet. Some other
men were also strolling this way from other directions. Tom, trying to keep his
voice calm and assured, said, “You satisfied now?”

 
          
For
answer, the guy shoved his basket ahead of himself onto the back seat, and
immediately slid in after it, reaching across it toward the other basket to get
a closer look at the papers in there.

 
          
Tom
slapped the door shut, pulled the front door open, and slid in. “They’re
coming,” he said.

 
          
Joe
already knew that; there were more of them coming up from the other side of the
road,
he could see them through the bicycle riders. He
had the car in gear already, and at once they rolled forward.

           
The guy in the back seat yelled,
“Hey!”

 
          
Tom’s
hand patted the seat between himself and Joe, found the .32 there where it was
supposed to be, and came up with it. Turning in his seat, seeing the guy back
there reaching into his jacket, Tom laid the pistol atop the seatback, aiming
at the guy’s head. ‘Take it easy,” he said.