"This feels more like the Ritz brothers. The Ritz brothers with a social conscience, of course."
"I see that you remain skeptical of my efforts toward civic improvement.
You think I'm a loony, a deranged visionary, a crackpot."
He shook his head. "No. As much as anybody could, I admire your intentions. And I have to admit I admire Jack Lenihan for getting it all started. It's just that it won't have been worth it if you-or all of us-are hacked to bits by crazed dope fiends. Martyrdom interests me only when it's somebody else's, preferably having taken place in the fourteenth century. The pain is eased by chronological distance, and if you haven't slept with the person."
"I think I can work it out so that you won't become Poughkeepsie's first saint. Not that Aunt Moira wouldn't be real proud of you if you did."
"How? How will you work that out?"
"I'm giving it a lot of thought."
He said, "I'll be right back. They'd have toothbrushes in there, wouldn't they? And Saratoga water?"
"Probably."
"In this diocese there is no canonization for the orally unkempt."
At 5:25 P.M., under a frozen black sky, Mack Fay returned. He parked the pickup behind the Ford Toot had left in front of the Trenky house and let himself in the front door with a key. Twenty minutes later Toot came out and walked toward the convenience store. I pulled around the corner and out of sight of the house, and Toot climbed in the back seat.
"Fay is in 2-C, second floor rear, next to the bathroom. I'm in 2-A, and I think somebody is in 2-B-I can hear a radio in there playing Jerry Falwell's top hits. If anybody's on the third floor they don't talk or walk. It looks as if the third floor is empty. There's a locked door at the entrance to the stairwell leading up to it."
"Where is Fay now?"
"He came upstairs and went into his room. As soon as I heard footsteps outside my door, I made for the bathroom and passed him while he unlocked the door. I got one quick glimpse of his room but I didn't see any suitcases. After I peed, I went back to my room and listened. A couple of minutes later Fay left his room and went down the stairs. He didn't come outside, did he?"
"No."
"Then he must be in Mrs. Trenky's apartment. Both doorways from the front hallway lead into it. I wish you could meet her. She's a sweetheart-Pert Kelton doing Carole Lombard."
"She bought your 'salesman' story?"
"I'm Jim O'Connor the Third and I sell designer fan belts to fashion-conscious yuppies who might have to open the hoods of their Volvos in front of strangers."
"No. Tell me you didn't tell her that."
Toot grinned. "No, just ordinary fan belts. I picked something I figured she wouldn't want one of."
"Does Flo serve meals?"
"Not to tenants like me. To Fay maybe. They appear to be good friends, at least."
"Why don't you grab a sandwich and a Sunday paper inside the store, then go back and relax? If Fay goes out without the bags, we'll move in right away while you distract Mrs. Trenky. If he stays put, it's Plan B at nine-thirty tonight." I explained Plan B.
Timmy sat goggle-eyed and Toot looked a little queasy too. We tried to synchronize Toot's watch with mine, but we couldn't figure out which of the tiny holes to push a pin into-and we had no pin-so I synchronized my watch- which had a stem, a big hand, and a little hand-with Toot's and we agreed that Plan B would go into effect precisely at 6:30 P.M., Pacific Standard Time.
Through the evening and into the night Mack Fay did not leave the Trenky rooming house. At 6:30 PST, right on schedule, Toot emerged from the house, got into his rental car, and pulled around the corner. Timmy climbed in with him and they drove off. I waited and watched. Lights burned in the Trenky front windows, but none were lighted on the second or third floors.
An hour and fifteen minutes later Kyle and Timmy returned. They had traded in the little Ford Escort for a Thun-derbird, whose trunk contained objects I had instructed them to pick up from the basement of our house.
Kyle walked back to Trenky's, and Timmy and I went to work. It took half an hour to get the snow chains on the T-bird's big wheels, and as soon as we had finished that job I drove the car over to the alley behind Mrs. Trenky's house and backed down it. The alley had been plowed earlier in the day and maybe the chains wouldn't have been necessary, but better safe than sorry, and sorry in this case could have been sorrier than I had ever been.
While Timmy slid behind the wheel of the T-bird, I removed the two hundred feet of nylon rope from the trunk, looped one end around the car's bumper, and tied it in a sheep shank. The other end I dragged through the snowy darkness of Flo's backyard and ran it around the two main supporting posts of Flo's old three-story back porch. I pulled the rope taut, tied it, and trudged back to Timmy.
"Three minutes."
"What if somebody drives up the alley? There are garages back here."
"Then don't wait. Go."
"He bent down and rested his head against the steering wheel. "This is a crime and probably a mortal sin. I can't believe I am doing this." He was genuinely distressed.
"Do you want me to do it? I'm Presbyterian. I could do it myself and still get out to the front door in time."
He stared glumly at the windshield and thought this over. "No. Go ahead.
The worst that can happen is I'll burn in hellfire for eternity."
"If that's what happens, thanks for the favor. I guess I'll owe you one."
His shoulders shook with a little laugh, or sob, and he said, "Okay. Three minutes." We checked our watches.
I had taken the Thunderbird's tire iron out earlier and now I stuck it up my sleeve. I ambled around the corner onto the side street and then down Third. I passed the Trenky house, where a raised shade on the second floor was quickly lowered and raised again, a signal from Toot that he had seen me pass by. The street was quiet in the frigid night. I heard only the muffled gabble of TV sets inside the houses I crunched past. At the end of the block I turned and moved back north, pacing myself so that I would arrive in front of the Trenky house at exactly 8:27 P.M., Pacific time, 11:27 Eastern.
The roar was impressive, like Alec Guinness' bridge dropping into the river Kwai. My heart hopped twice in my rib cage. A loud yelp came from inside the Trenky living room and I pressed hard against the wall as a curtain was yanked aside. Then a raised voice, male, and pounding footsteps moved away from me. I dashed up the wooden steps and as I went caught a quick sideways glimpse of the T-bird clanking across the intersection and past the convenience store, the car trailing odds and ends of nylon and splintered lumber behind it.
Toot yanked open the front door and gestured toward the stairs. I went up them as he headed toward the door to Flo's kitchen. It took me ninety seconds to fiddle the lock on 2-C-too long, I was afraid, but there I was and another ninety seconds to ascertain that the suitcases were not in Fays room. Not in the closet, not under the unmade bed, not amidst the paperback novels on the floor by the bedside with titles like The Sultan of
Twat.
The door to the third-floor stairway was secured by a padlock. I used the tire iron to rip off the U-bolt. The stairwell was dark and I hadn't brought a flashlight, so I risked the wall switch, which illuminated a ceiling fixture in the third-floor hall. I sped upward.
Groping through the three third-floor rooms and their closets, I found nothing but old odds and ends of furniture. Below me were sounds of increasing commotion, and other excited voices came from Third Avenue. I checked the third-floor bathroom. Nothing.
I had just about concluded that the five suitcases were either in Flo Trenky's apartment or in the basement and that I would somehow have to come up with a Plan C, when I spotted the attic entry hatch panel on the ceiling. An old wooden kitchen chair rested nearby-not for sitting on, it appeared. Standing on the chair, I unlatched the hook and eye that held the panel in place and lowered the unhinged side. I reached up, groped, and found them.