Maury was already off the phone. “Five on Flossie Billy. Five on Flossie Billy.” Willy was counting five thousand out of the green metal box in the safe, hundred-dollar bills in stacks of ten bound with strips of paper.
“Move away from the safe. Shut it, and you’re a dead man,” Salsa said.
Maury spun around, and saw Frankenstein, with a hat and a gun. Willy was skittering back away from the safe, ashen-faced, and Maury screamed, “Shut it, Willy! Shut it!”
Then Frankenstein took a step towards him and swung the gun. It hit Maury’s cheek and he fell backwards over the desk, landing in a heap on the floor. He saw things dizzily, through a red veil. He saw the masked man clout Willy with the gun. Then he saw him reach into the safe, stuff the hundreds back into the green metal box, shut it, and stand up with it tucked under his arm.
“Stay down,” Frankenstein warned. “The first head that comes up, I’ll shoot at through the window.”
Then he backed out of the office and Maury heard a car engine start and the squeal of tyres.
Willy was the first one up. he ran out of the station, leaving Maury there alone. Maury climbed up the desk and finally got his feet under him. He came staggering out, still feeling dizzy and terrified, and bumped into Willy who was coming back in.
“I couldn’t get a look at the damn plates,” Willy said. “It was a cream Thunderbird, but I couldn’t see the plates.” He pushed past Maury, “Lemme get to the phone, will you?”
“Phone? Phone?”
“I got to call the police, dumbhead!”
“Police!” A new terror grabbed Maury. “Jesus Christ, Willy! You can’t call the police!”
Willy stopped his hand halfway to the phone. “Oh!” he said. He looked at Maury. “The son of a bitch gets away clean.”
“I got to call my brother-in-law, Willy. Listen, you tell him. You tell him there wasn’t nothing I could do. Right, Willy? You were right here, right? There wasn’t nothing I could do.”
“Yeah, yeah!” said Willy distractedly. There was a look of awe on his face. “He’s away clean,” he said. “The son of a bitch is away clean.”
Maury dropped a dime into the phone, and dialled his brother-in-law’s number. While the number was ringing, he had another thought, and turned a pale face to Willy. “Sweet Jesus!” he whispered. “What if Flossie Billy wins?”
7
BRONSON STOOD AT one of the windows in his office, looking out at the night. Light spilled from other windows here and there along the façade of the house and illuminated the dark green lawn and the hedge separating lawn from sidewalk. The near curb was empty but, directly across the street, a blue Oldsmobile was parked. There was no traffic.
Twelve. Twelve robberies in five days. Over a million dollars gone, as though it had never been. Operations disrupted, customers upset, three Outfit employees dead. They couldn’t take that kind of beating. For God’s sake, a million dollars. Nobodycould take a beating like that.
And now Karns, the bastard from the West Coast, wanting a meeting of the national committee, wanting to know how the hell Bronson had managed to get them all into this mess in the first place. Karns wanted Bronson’s chair, and the only way a man ever moved up to another man’s chair was if the other man either moved up or got shoved off on his ass. But in Bronson’s case there was no up to move to he was at the top. There was no choice for him at all. He had to hold on to where he was or get shoved out, and Karns was all set to start shoving.
A million dollars. That was a hell of an argument, a million dollars, and Karns would use it. He’d argue that million dollars till Bronson was out and Karns was in, and Bronson was standing at the window now asking himself just what the hell he planned to do about it.
If it was only Parker, it wouldn’t be too bad. Go to the meeting with Parker’s head on a tray that would shut Karns’ face. But it wasn’t only Parker. Four robberies in one day, scattered all over the country. It wasn’t only Parker, it was Parker and all his damn friends. It was people Bronson had never heard of, people who were leaving banks and payrolls and armoured cars and postal trucks alone all of a sudden, and hitting the Outfit instead. Hitting race tracks and casinos and lay-off bookies and numbers collectors. Waltzing away with a million dollars in five days and giving that bastard Karns the opportunity he’d been waiting for since ‘56.
Bronson brooded. Hang it on Fairfax? Maybe that would do it. The whole mess with Parker had started in New York, in Fairfax’s territory. Fairfax had met Parker, had talked to him, had set up the trap which Parker had breezed through when he’d been paid his lousy $45,000. So even though Fairfax had set up the trap at Bronson’s order and Stern had been sent South at Bronson’s order, those arrangements could be sloughed over.
All right. Call the meeting Karns wanted. Throw Fairfax in Karns’ lap. Then see what could be done about Parker. Square the beef with him or kill him, whichever seemed best. Kill him, if possible, otherwise, square things. Let Karns chew on Fairfax and the hell with them both. Bronson had never liked Fairfax much anyway.
And when things quieted down, move a few reliable people into the West Coast operation and gradually nudge Karns out.
So the whole thing was good in a way. It had brought Karns into the open, had let Bronson see which of the regional men he had to worry about as far as trying to take over was concerned. It was Karns now he knew it. And he had also learned that none of the others was dangerous, because only Karns was trying to blame Bronson. So now he knew more than he’d known before. Besides that he could get rid of Fairfax, so maybe Parker was doing him a favour.
All over the house, rococo clocks struck eleven. Bronson grimaced at the muffled sounds. A cab stopped out front. Quill. Bronson had been up here waiting for him, but, now that Quill was actually coming up the walk, it didn’t matter any more. There were twelve robberies already, so how much did the first one matter? Furthermore, he’d just planned how to get everything straightened away.
Bronson watched Quill coming up the walk, and, beyond him, he noticed the blue Oldsmobile still parked across the street. It irritated him. This wasn’t a street for blue Oldsmobiles. This was a street for Cadillacs, for Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, for Imperials and Continentals, and an occasional ancient grey Packard.
But the character of the street was changing, no denying it. He wondered if Willa would be wanting to sell the house soon, and who would buy it. A convent, maybe, or a school for retarded children. Half the houses along the street had already been turned into institutions. Bronson’s neighbour to the left was now a school for the blind, his neighbour to the right a fraternal organization’s headquarters with a small blue neon sign over the door. Neon! On a street like this! But streets like this were anachronisms. Today’s rich were all Arthur Bronsons; they preferred red leather and chrome. The old mansions were too forbidding, and too heavily taxed; the foundation of society was being displaced by foundations.
The blue Olds a sign of it. Someone working late at one of the institutions, no doubt. Bronson shrugged it out of his mind and went out to the hall to meet Quill, who had been let in by one of the bodyguards. Willa was already in bed. They had played Russian bank together that afternoon, but it had only upset both of them. Bronson didn’t really like Russian bank. He played it because he had to do something to relieve his boredom. He felt guilty about wanting to avoid Willa in her own home, and Russian bank was the game Willa liked to play. They didn’t play for money or anything, just to see who would get high score and win, so it didn’t do much to liven things up.
Bronson didn’t know it, but Willa didn’t care for card games at all, not Russian bank, or any other card game. She played because she knew her husband liked cards and because she wanted to keep him from getting too bored. Usually, when they played, she kept up a steady chatter of small talk, not because she wanted to, but because she thought the chitchat also would help to ease her husband’s boredom. But, when he was worried about business, she knew he preferred silence, so that afternoon she had been silent.