Эд Макбейн: Jigsaw

“Fine. I wish you lots of luck. Yes or no? Shit or get off the pot.”

Krutch smiled at Carella, as though sharing with him his aversion to such crude language. Carella ignored the smile. He was agreeing with Brown. He hated coy disclosures. The 87th Squad ran a nice little store up here on the second floor of the building, and so far the only thing Krutch was spending in it was time. Their time.

Sensing the impatience of the two detectives, Krutch said, “Let me fill you in.”

“Please do,” Brown said.

“Fade in,” Krutch said. “Six... ”

“What?” Brown asked.

“That’s a movie expression. Fade in.”

“You involved with movies?” Brown asked, ready to confirm the suspicion he’d harbored from the moment Krutch walked in.

“No.”

“Then why the movie expression?”

“Everybody says ‘Fade in,’ ” Krutch explained.

“I don’t say ‘Fade in,’ ” Brown replied.

“Okay, so we won’t fade in,” Krutch said, and shrugged. “Six years ago, in this city, in broad daylight on a rainy afternoon in August, four men held up the Culver Avenue branch of NSLA and got away with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s a lot of kale. The branch, incidentally, is located in this precinct.”

“Go on,” Carella said.

“You remember the case now?” Krutch asked. “Meyer and O’Brien were working on it.”

“I remember it,” Carella said. “Go ahead.”

“Do you remember it, Detective Brown?”

“Yes,” Brown said.

“I don’t think I got your name,” Krutch said, turning to Carella.

“Carella.”

“Nice to meet you. Are you Italian?”

“Yes.”

“The leader of the gang was Italian. Fellow named Carmine Bonamico, record as long as your arm. In fact, he’d just got out of Castleview after serving a five-and-dime there. First thing he did, while he was still on parole, was knock over the bank. You remember any of this?”

“I remember all of it,” Carella said.

“Are my facts correct so far?”

“They are.”

“My facts are always correct,” Krutch said, and smiled. Nobody smiled with him. “The wheelman was a young punk named Jerry Stein, a Jewish kid from Riverhead, his first job. The two guns were both ex-cons, Lou D’Amore from Majesta and Pete Ryan, also from Riverhead, a regular little United Nations they had on that job. They came in just before closing time, grabbed as much as they could from the vault, shot one of the tellers, and then drove off, presumably heading for Calm’s Point, which is where Bonamico lived with his wife. It was raining; did I mention it was raining?”

“You mentioned it.”

“They got onto the River Road, and had almost reached the Calm’s Point Bridge, when the car went into a skid, hit another car, and caused a traffic tie-up. Two patrolmen from the Three-Six pulled up in a squad car, and Bonamico and his pals opened fire. All four of them were killed inside of five minutes. The great mystery is why they began shooting at all. The car was clean. It was later searched from top to bottom, but the bank loot wasn’t in it. Not a dime of it.” Krutch paused. “Okay, dissolve...”

Brown looked at him.

“Trans-American gets called in, Irving Krutch investigating.” He grinned. “That’s me. Result? Two years of intensive search for that money, and no trace of it. We finally settled the claim in full, seven hundred and fifty G’s from our coffers to NSLA’s.” Krutch paused. “That’s bad. I don’t have to tell you how bad that is.”

“How bad is it?” Brown asked.

“Bad. Bad for Trans-American, and especially bad for Irving Krutch who couldn’t find the money. Irving Krutch was up for a promotion at the time. Instead, Irving Krutch is now handling minor claims, at the same salary he was getting six years ago. Krutch is an ambitious fellow. He doesn’t like dead-end jobs.”

“Why doesn’t Krutch change his job?” Carella suggested.

“Because the field’s a narrow one, and losing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the kind of word that gets around very fast. Besides, Krutch has an inordinate amount of pride in his work.”

“Do you always talk about yourself in the third person?” Carella asked. “Like your own biographer?”

“It helps me to be objective. It’s hard to be objective about losing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the company, especially when the case has been officially closed by your squad.”

“Who told you that?” Carella said.

“You got the thieves, didn’t you?”

“The case is still in our Open File.”

“How come?”

“Let’s say we also have an inordinate amount of pride in our work,” Carella said. “The money wasn’t in the car. Okay, the River Road is some three miles from the bank. Which means that somewhere along the escape route, the money could have changed hands. If that happened, then the rest of the gang is still at large, just itching to spend all that cash. We’d like to get them.”

“Forget it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The money wasn’t turned over to anybody. If you’re keeping the case open in hope of finding the rest of the gang, forget it. There were only four of them, and they’re all dead.”

“Do you know that for a fact?’

“Yes. I got it from Bonamico’s sister-in-law.” Krutch paused. “You mind if I tell it in order?”

“Any order you like,” Brown said, “so long as you tell it.”

“Okay, dissolve. Krutch is still bugged by the loss of that money. It keeps him awake nights. His company has settled the claim, not to mention his future, but it still bugs him. Where can the money be? Who’s got it? Bonamico is no master criminal, mind you, but neither is he stupid enough to throw that kind of cash out the window of a getaway car. So where the hell is it? Krutch keeps wondering about it. Krutch keeps tossing and turning at night...”

“Krutch should be writing mystery stories,” Carella said.

“...obsessed with the thought of locating that cash and becoming a contender again.”

“A contender?”

“At Trans-American.”

“Oh, I thought maybe you also did a little boxing on the side,” Brown said.

“Matter of fact, I used to box in the Navy,” Krutch said. “Middleweight division.” He paused, eyed them both shrewdly, and said, “You guys don’t like me much, do you?”

“We’re civil servants,” Brown said, “soliciting information from a private citizen who may or may not possess knowledge of a crime. We are patiently waiting. If we have to wait much longer, we’ll be forced to rent you office space.”

“I like your sense of humor,” Krutch said, and smiled.

“My wife doesn’t,” Brown said. “We’re still waiting, Mr. Krutch. We are getting old and gray waiting.”

“Okay. Two months ago, I got lucky.”

“You mean you were still working on this thing?”

“Not officially. Only on my own time. Pride, remember? Ambition. Tenacity. Krutch the would-be contender. I opened the paper one morning two months ago and learned that a woman named Alice Bonamico had died of cancer at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Calm’s Point. No one would have noticed her passing, of course, if she hadn’t incidentally been the widow of one Carmine Bonamico who had knocked over a bank six years earlier and caused the loot to magically disappear. I knew the lady because I’d talked to her often when I was investigating the claim. She was a nice type, quiet, pretty in a dark Sicilian way, you’d never think she’d been married to a cheap hood. Anyway, the newspaper item said that she was survived by a sister named Lucia Feroglio. I made a mental note, and later discovered she was a spinster, also living in Calm’s Point.”