Lawrence Block - Manhattan Noir

Maxie broke for lunch at 2 o’clock.

Maria walked in eight minutes later.

Seated beside Minthorn’s desk, legs crossed, with his eyes fixed on the underside of her brown thigh, she made her pitch.

“But a man like you knows this,” she added. “A man in your position.”

Flattery, and the way she said “position”: lips pursed, her tongue peeking between her teeth for the little hiss.

And Minthorn knew she was right. A bunch of people from Macy’s and Gimbel’s who cashed their checks were from the islands, janitors and bus boys and such, and they needed to bank somewhere. To have someone to greet them in Spanish, to help them, a gentle twist of the arm…

“Whatever it is you invest, you make back quick,” she said.

“And someone as lovely as yourself to grace our branch…”

Maria pretended to blush, bringing her tapered fingers to her throat.

He hired her immediately, hoping her sense of propriety would wither in time.

She waited outside the bank on Eighth Avenue, shivering as the lunchtime crowd rushed by, their shopping bags brimming.

Coming back from Child’s, Maxie turned onto the avenue, topcoat collar high, and he looked right at her as he pushed the revolving door to enter the heated lobby.

She saw he hadn’t recognized her, and she knew it was going to be all right.

Find where Maxie kept his gun, look at the spot every morning when he leaves for the bank, and tell Maria when the piece was gone. Find where Maxie kept the gun, look at the spot every morning, and tell Maria…

The butterflies in her belly, prickle in her neck and chest, the way time stood still when she was gone: They all told Mitzi that she’d do whatever Maria said.

Never occurred to her that Maria might do her wrong like everybody else she’d fallen for.

Maxie’s gun rested beneath his array of socks, each pair rolled in a tight ball, diamonds on the ankles.

And then it was gone.

Wrapped in a thirsty robe, Mitzi went downstairs, drawing toward Maria’s lilting voice.

“It’s gone,” she said.

Maria in a black slip, and she was rolling up her hose. “He leave the same time?”

Mitzi nodded, and she watched as Maria went to her closet, brought out a dress in indigo-blue.

“Is it going to be today?” Mitzi asked.

“No, no, mi amor, ” she replied as she slipped into the garment, stole a glance at the clock on the nightstand. “The money comes late this afternoon. Tomorrow. Has to be.”

“Should I be… Should I be scared?”

Maria wasn’t due at the bank until 10, but she found Minthorn liked it if she showed up early.

“No, you just do what we said.”

Maria pecked her cheek, then erased the lipstick trace. “Margarita, don’t think,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“Okay, Maria.”

A moment later, Mitzi was alone.

She sprayed Maria’s perfume into the air, and stood beneath the cloud of flowers, summer songs, a feathery sway. For the rest of the day, Maria’s scent clung to her fingertips and her red hair.

Mitzi felt like a heel stealing Maxie’s valise, but Maria said he wasn’t going to need it, and besides, he left it behind, dumping it like he was dumping her.

He took his razor, though. Took his ties, a shirt, two pairs each of boxers and those diamond socks too, and she saw him packing the night before last, one eye open under the covers, carefully stuffing the duffel he’d bought. Spent a long time looking at his cocoa suit in the closet, fingering the sleeve, and she knew he hated like hell to leave it behind.

Mitzi lifted the slacks, figuring what the hell.

Kerchief knotted under her chin, she went down the stairs, everything she owned in the valise but the therapeutic lamp and her old cardboard suitcase, and she was thinking a handful of talc might’ve captured the sweat soaking under her arms, running along her ribs.

She looked at Maria’s door.

Maria said Pennsylvania Station, 9:18. Track 101, Baltimore, and to stay put even if the seat next to her was empty when the train pulled out.

Maria had given her a ticket, and as Mitzi stepped onto the avenue, the cold stinging her face, she tapped her pocket, felt the envelope. Tapped it twice more for luck.

Baltimore to D.C. to Shreveport via Roanoke, Chattanooga, and Birmingham.

Maria said she always wanted to drive to Texas, said they’d cross the border at Eagle Pass. Said she had a brother in Salinas.

Baltimore would’ve been enough for Mitzi, leaning into the wind, a bitty thing under buildings pricking the clouds. She’d never been south of Battery Park.

Maxie had ice-water veins, never regretted shooting off Bippy Brown’s ear and now he didn’t give a damn about nothing. In less than an hour, he’d be back at the Hotel New Yorker using his real name, Mr. H.J. Blubaugh, having them deliver eggs, sunny-side up, and hash browns too.

Puckett thanked him for the container of black joe, and Maxie sat on the piano bench to remove his galoshes, putting his hat and topcoat on the case, wondering if he was going to have to kill anybody to get it done.

Wick, the senior teller, was already at her station, puckered lips, rouge, and all business, and then the Mexican broad entered, head held high.

The ex-cop walked across the lobby, falling in behind the Mexican on his way to the can.

Maxie eased the gun from the piano bench and dropped it into the side pocket of his blue suit jacket. As he went toward the locker room, he saw Minthorn opening the vault door, grunting.

The Mexican broad was sitting at her desk under the stairs, and she was still wearing her coat.

Puckett pissing away behind a door to the men’s room.

Maxie opened his locker and saw that his duffel bag was gone, and his clothes.

On the shelf, a record: “Moonlight and You” by the Benny Walters Orchestra, cornet solo by Bippy Brown, back when he had two ears.

Maxie felt a jolt, but he already had it spent. “Fuck it,” he said, charging out.

Puckett thought he heard someone call his name.

Passing Minthorn and the open vault, Maxie marched around the counter, and the tellers looked at him, wondering, thinking, Maxie … ?

He grabbed the startled Wick by the meat of her arm, yanked her off the stool, rammed the.38 against her spine, and told her he didn’t give a shit if he had to kill her now or later, just keep her mouth shut.

She said, “See here, Maxie-”

Maxie, a nasty bastard, didn’t have a free hand to clap her, so he bit her hard on the back of her neck, drawing blood.

“Ready to shut it now?” he said, as he spit to the side.

They advanced toward Minthorn, who was stacking the cart with thick packets of bills and a fat bag of coins.

Puckett backed out of the toilet, and then he looked at Maria who, with a wide-eyed nod of her head and a sideways glance, told the ex-cop what was going on.

Puckett drew his side arm, held it shoulder high. He stayed under the stairs as Maxie and Wick passed the final teller.

“Minthorn,” Maxie said.

The vice president turned and, no panic, lifted his hands in the air. And then he said, “Maxie, let her go. Maxie, she’s got three kids.”

Maxie released Wick’s arm, grabbed her hair by the bun.

Wick hissed, but didn’t scream, blood dribbling.

“Maxie, for Christ’s sake, take the money. Just let her-”

Puckett squeezed the trigger.

Out of the corner of his blue, blue eyes, Maxie saw it, saw how the whole thing was going to end.

The bullet in the air, and he remembered it was Bird who gave him his nickname. Bird dubbed him Mum, since he didn’t yap much, and then Bird, as well read as anybody and twice as quick, upped it to Maximum, calling him Maxie.