She made a face; obviously she was thinking about the TV-bugged bedroom. I hadn’t been thinking about that; I’d been thinking about what Mike had said about the way Aiello had shown him the contents of the safe and bragged about it. If Aiello would be that expansive with Mike, it wasn’t reasonable to suppose he hadn’t displayed the wealth for Joanne.
She said, “I’ve seen the safe, when he had it open, quite a few times. Most recently two days ago. DeAngelo was there putting some money in, for Madonna, I suppose. Aiello never missed a chance to point to the little black steel box with the roll of film in it. He didn’t have to say anything because I knew what was in the box and he knew I knew. He just pointed and grinned.”
“This may disappoint you,” I stated, “but I’m not particularly interested in that. What I want to know is what else you saw in the safe.”
“Money, mostly, and half a dozen metal boxes.” Her answers were coming easier, more smoothly, all the time. There was no hesitation. She went on: “The boxes were different shapes and sizes but they were all the same kind. Black-painted steel with locks. Like safe-deposit boxes. Each one had a little cardboard label in a brass slot, like the labels on office file drawers.”
“And there was a name on each label,” I said.
She nodded. “I suppose you want to know whose names they were. I wish I could remember, Simon. You’ve got to understand, every time he opened that safe and dragged me up to look inside, there was only one thing that drew my eye. It was that little square box with my name on it. He always kept it right out front, on a shelf at eye level, so I couldn’t possibly miss it. The rest of the boxes were farther back inside, on different shelves, and you had to walk inside to see what was written on them, all but one or two, and one of them just said ‘S. Aiello.’ I suppose it was his personal property, and the other one had Frank Colclough’s name on it, but you already know about him.”
“How about bundles of money with people’s names on them?”
She nodded. “There were four or five of those. I don’t remember seeing that doctor’s name anywhere, what was it, Brawley? I’ve never seen him before, I’m sure. Of course I’ve heard of him. He’s very high class in the trade, the kind of surgeon all the rich, fashionable people go to. He’s on the boards of both hospitals and he’s active in charities. I suppose if you don’t read the society page you might not have heard of him, but believe me, he’s well known by all the Somebodies.”
“But you never had reason to suspect any connection between him and the mob before.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Can you remember any of the names that were on the bundles of cash?”
“I’m afraid I can’t. There’s a reason, of course. You just said Aiello liked to show things off. But obviously there were certain things he wouldn’t want to give away, and those would include the names of people who had money in his safe, wouldn’t they? Usually the bundles were turned so that the names didn’t show. Once or twice he got careless and flipped one over by mistake, but I don’t recall—no, wait. Yes I do. The other day, when DeAngelo brought the briefcase full of cash, Aiello had to make room for it, and he moved several of the bundles. He stacked them up on a front shelf down at the bottom, and three of them had the names showing. Now let me think. One was Colclough, I remember that, and another one—yes, I’m sure it was Raiford.”
“What about the third one?”
She shook her head, concentrating. I said, “Brawley?”
“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.” She looked up at me and shook her head again. “I just can’t remember. Maybe if we leave it alone it will come back to me.”
“Okay. Let’s try something else. When you went to the house this morning the safe was empty. Did you mean that literally? Everything gone?”
She nodded. “Of course the shelves were still there and I didn’t get down on my hands and knees to make sure they hadn’t left something on the floor at the back, but it looked to me as if everything was gone. The works.”
“All the money and all the black lockboxes.”
“Yes.”
“All right, now think a minute. If all that stuff were stacked up in one heap, instead of spread out on shelves, how much space would it take up?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, could you fit it all in the trunk of a car, or would you need something bigger?”
“Oh—I see. Well, of course I don’t really know. I’d imagine if you had a big car with a big trunk compartment, and you didn’t mind stuffing wads of cash in all the funny little nooks and corners, you might get all of it in. But it would have to be big.”
“Like, say, a Cadillac?”
“I suppose so. I don’t think I’ve ever looked inside the trunk of a Cadillac.”
“Who do you know that drives a pink Cadillac?”
“I—I’m not sure I know anybody. I don’t really pay much attention to the make of cars. I can’t tell one make from another.”
Neither could I, any more. Fifteen or twenty years ago you could, but nowadays they were all pressed out by what looked like the same cheap stamp mills. I said, “Any large pink car, then. Pink cars aren’t all that common.”
She took a while to think about it and there was no doubt she was giving it full effort, but she came up empty. I said, “It’s okay,” and went back to the phone. This time I gave the switchboard Vincent Madonna’s number.
I had to run the gauntlet of Freddie, the Neanderthal, and DeAngelo, whose hoarse whisper sounded a bit out of breath, before I got put through to the big cheese. Big, I thought, green and moldy. Madonna snapped at me without friendliness and I said, “I need a fact. It may help both of us get what we’re looking for if you can answer a question.”
“Where are you?”
I grinned at the phone. “Don’t play games. You’ve got Ed Behrenman and I don’t know how many other goons glued to this place. You know damn well where I am.”
I had to hand it to him. He actually chuckled into the phone. Then he said, “What fact?”
“Who do you know that drives a pink Cadillac?”
“What?”
I just waited, seeing no point in repeating it, and after a moment his basso profundo resumed: “Offhand, I don’t know anybody who’d be seen dead in a pink Cadillac. Are you serious?”
I recalled the classic Continental in his drive and knew I’d hit on a sore spot. If Madonna had any taste, aside from his weird preoccupations with voyeurism, it seemed concentrated in his worship of fine automobiles. I could see how a car painted pink might offend him. It also indicated he would probably have noticed it if any of his acquaintances had driven into his driveway in such an abomination.
I thanked him and got off the line after he recited the expected litany of veiled threats. Naturally he didn’t commit himself to anything actionable over the telephone but the meaning was clear to both him and me. I couldn’t help feeling more shaken than ever when I hung up, and Joanne couldn’t help but notice it.
She was giving me a cool stare. She said, “So you did go to see him. What kind of deal have you made with him?”
“You don’t trust anybody, do you?”
“Simon, I want to.”
Her faith was so tattered I couldn’t keep attacking her. Instead, I gave her a brief resumé of the day’s unhappy events. I condensed it but left out nothing important. At the end I said, “There’s no question I’ve been floundering. We’re still in that boat without hooks or bait. The only clue that makes any sense is that pink Cadillac Mike saw leaving Aiello’s when he went there the second time last night. If he was telling the truth, and if it was a pink Cadillac. He was a bit vague about it and it was the middle of the night. Headlights might make a car look pink even if it was orange or red or yellow. Of course, the chances are even if we do find a pink Cadillac we’ll discover it was stolen three hours before the robbery. But it’s just about the only lead we have, and we’ve only got”—I looked at my watch—“a little over forty hours to settle this.”