He had to see the contents of the suitcase. Would there be $100,000? Please, yes. Make it at least $100,000. That was enough. Not a fortune. No big dent in the Prescott bankroll. Not enough to make Lou Visconti, that longshoreman who looked like a croupier, give up his important assignments and devote full attention to the missing chauffeur and the stolen suitcase.
It was time for the opening. Swaying slightly, on his feet now, relaxed and tense at once, he knew he was not going to wait a year, not an hour, to find out what he had. Even if he had gained nothing — even if all he found was a change of underwear — he was committed to the scheme. He was going to spend a year in the Catskills whether he had a fortune or a dirty T-shirt. He had to. He could not circulate until he had become a different person — not just a different person on a driver’s license, but a different person in fact, a man who could safely venture out among the Viscontis, the Feins, the Swensons, the O’Briens, and still be unrecognized. And that would take time.
The suitcase was unlocked. He lifted one side. Bright light from the Kovaks lamp shone on the exposed contents. He was right, of course. He knew he would be right. Perfection in all things. It had been his stepmother’s watchword.
He kept his excitement suppressed. Deutsch’s emotions were always suppressed. But he did feel a slight tremor, a flutter in his chest, as he looked down on the greenbacks. His hand went to his heart. A slight shortness of breath. But no wonder.
Rows and rows of twenty-dollar bills filled the suitcase. They were banded with the amounts marked, but Alfred A. Stocker, wealthy bachelor recluse with time on his hands, counted them all, counted them down to the last bill. $180,000.
What had they been intended to do? What would they have bought at Grand Central, at City Hall, in Albany, in Trenton? Stocker poured another glass of Moet and settled back on the hearth. The books on the shelves looked down on him hazily now, invitingly. Six hundred books, purchased five or ten at a time in Brentano’s on Fifth Avenue at 47th Street, while Deutsch — Stocker — had waited for Prescott to complete his business in the city.
Deutsch finished the champagne, laid the closed suitcase carefully on the floor, chose a book at random — it was a mystery novel — adjusted his elegant lamp, and began to read.
Six months later he was still reading. No unexpected event had broken the routine of his days. Each morning he went to the small shopping center in Roscoe, picked up the Daily News at the drug store, then a bag of groceries at the supermarket. He spoke to no one and never ventured farther away than Hancock.
Every day he read a mystery book from ten until one and in the afternoons he read nonfiction, mainly true crime or American history, with emphasis on the Second World War. In the evenings he watched cable television.
Deutsch altered his physical appearance with grotesque efficiency. At the outset of his stay he went on a 6000-calorie-a-day diet. Always before that a light eater and an active man, he began to expand, to soften, to balloon. Fat surrounded him like a shield of blubber.
The diet made him ill at first, but he kept at it. Eventually he came to like eating mountains upon mountains of food at each sitting. From ascetic sparrow to gluttonous hippo in a year. An effective disguise. Effective, too, was the full gray beard that soon wreathed his face.
It was during the seventh month of exile that he received his only scare. He had just returned from the shopping center, a few minutes before nine on a chilly March morning. As he eased out of the car he saw a metallic-gray Cadillac with New Jersey plates round a bend in the road and slow down in front of his A-frame house. It came to a stop. A squat man with enormous shoulders emerged from the driver’s seat and approached.
Watch out! Visconti? But was it? The man came closer. Deutsch, ex-chauffeur and open target, stood transfixed, his eyes glazed. No, it wasn’t Visconti. Still — but no, definitely no. The burly man gave him a gap-toothed smile and growled, “Hi, pop. Which way to Roscoe?”
Stocker’s breath escaped slowly from between his whitened lips and gray beard. “Straight down the road eight miles. You can’t miss it. There’s a sign that says, ‘Welcome to Roscoe.’ ”
And that was it. The rest of the time ticked away. There were a couple of references to Frank Prescott in the Daily News. The first of these relieved Stocker. It let him know that the boss of northern New Jersey had not been killed by a blow on the head; and while Stocker was pretty sure of that anyway, he could not be absolutely sure. The first three weeks after coming to the A-frame house he had not gone out to buy a newspaper. However, he had watched TV, and he assumed that Pretty Boy was important enough to rate an evening news obituary.
So Prescott was alive, testifying before a Congressional committee, winning construction contracts in Teaneck and Fort Lee, and, best of all, failing to find, maybe even forgetting about, his former chauffeur.
Stocker’s plan called for him to leave the A-frame on Monday, August 30, three days short of one year from the date of his “inheritance.” Prescott knew Deutsch’s mania for exactness, and Alfred A. Stocker accordingly wanted to avoid the anniversary.
On the morning of August 30, a clear day similar to the one on which he had become rich, Stocker packed two suitcases into the Plymouth and set out for Kennedy Airport. He took a roundabout route to avoid any travel on too-familiar roads. By now, however, his disguise was total. He weighed 253 pounds and his full beard was almost white.
To his meager collection of identifying cards and papers he had added a New York State voter-registration card. He was heading for three days in Nassau, the Bahamas. Actually, it would be forever in Nassau if he liked it as well as he expected to. But three days were all he intended to declare. For that short a stay he would need only superficial identification.
He left the Plymouth on upper Broadway, near Yonkers, a parking lot for abandoned and quickly stripped cars, as he knew from past observation. He hailed a cab for JFK. The driver, mercifully, was one of the silent ones. Stocker had no wish to talk about his past, present, or future. All he wanted was to be safely chauffeured toward paradise.
But as he approached the airport he began to get nervous. It was the first time in months he had felt any fear. There was no reason to, of course. He knew it. The plan was perfect. Every track had been covered. There was no way on earth that Prescott and his men could have traced Alfred A. Stocker. The old name — what was it? — was gone; the old appearance was gone; Stocker was a short plane hop away from retirement in the sun.
He tipped the cab driver handsomely, the way a prosperous man should tip his driver. Still, he wished the inner trembling would stop. This should be the happiest time of his life, not one of the most fearful. He fought down the chill.
Entering the International Building, he went straight to the BOAC counter to check his bags. His ticket, purchased by mail a month earlier, was in order, and Stocker received nonsmokers’ seat 9A. It was two hours until takeoff, and he intended to spend it reading Ladislas Farago’s The Game of the Foxes.
He approached a molded plastic chair in the center of the waiting room. As he was about to sit down, a tall blond man strode toward him, a quizzical expression on his face. Stocker hesitated for a moment and stared at the stranger. Visconti? Dyed hair? Fear began to rise. Silly. Stupid. It wasn’t Visconti. Take it easy. Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm.