Lawrence Sanders - McNally's caper

Then I turned off all the lights and got out of there, making certain the front door locked on the spring latch. I rode home grandly in the limousine, and the uniformed chauffeur insisted on seeing me to my door.

‘Mr Jarvis ordered it, miss,’ he said firmly, so I let him do his job.

Later, safely locked within my own apartment, I undressed swiftly, got into bed, and tried to ponder the contradictions in the character of Mr Jarvis-Rossi.

But I fell asleep thinking of a broiled veal chop and warm zabaglione, and smiling happily.

At 9:00 that Friday night we were seated in Donohue’s room at the Hotel Harding. I was Bea Flanders in blond wig and tight turtleneck. Jack looked like Hialeah; knife-creased silk slacks, nubby gold sports jacket, white moccasins decorated with brass trim. Dick Fleming, by contrast, looked pretty drab.

Donohue was polite, unsmiling, and very, very cool. He got us comfortable, locked the door, and supplied us with vodkas on ice. The glasses were clean.

‘Well?’ I demanded in my gunmoll voice, having decided to come on strong. ‘Are you in or out?’

‘I took a look at the place,’ Donohue said, staring at me. ‘I’ve practically lived on that block for the last two days. I was into the store twice, and I checked out the daily routine. Before I tell you what I think, spell it out for me in more detail. Just how do you plan to hit it?’

I had brought along my schedules and maps. I went over it once more:

The precise time the three of us plus the two added recruits would meet.

The route the five of would take south, me at the wheel.

I would stay with the car, doubleparked near the construction site at the corner of East 55th Street and Madison Avenue.

The four men, masked, would go into Brandenberg amp; Sons at 10:00 A.M., the moment the door was unlocked for business.

Two men would race to the rear, to the vault room, before the repairmen had a chance to slam the door or lock the safe.

The other two would cover the manager and clerks in the front room, force them to lie down, gag and tape them. The two repairmen would be treated similarly, and the aged porter if he was present.

Then the safe and showcases would be rifled as rapidly as possible. Obvious pressure alarms would be avoided; the glass cases would be smashed from the top rather than the sliding doors forced.

‘Then everyone piles out,’ 1 finished, ‘and gets in the car. By this time I’ll have pulled up in front of the store. The best route for a getaway, I figure, is to-’

‘Bullshit,’ Jack Donohue interrupted harshly. ‘Pure, unadulterated bullshit! It sucks. Do it your way and we’ll all be in the slammer within an hour. If we’re not in the morgue with tags on our big toes.’

I looked at Fleming. He looked at me.

‘All right,’ Dick said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Right,’ I said, preparing to rise and depart. ‘You say you don’t want in. That’s okay if-’

‘Shut up and sit down!’ Donohue snapped. ‘You too, Fleming. I didn’t say I didn’t want it. I just said you got a lousy plan. I thought you told me your old man was a whiz at jewelry jobs? If this is an example of how he did it, no wonder he got squashed.’

‘What the hell’s wrong with my plan?’ I said hotly. ‘I worked for weeks on this. It’s got-’

‘Shh, shh,’ Donohue said, relaxing and giving me one of his brilliant grins. ‘Just keep your voice down, Bea. Take it easy and I’ll tell you what’s wrong.’

‘First of all,’ he started, ‘I like the place. For a target, I mean. Big enough but not too big. Not too many clerks. And lots of lovely, lovely rocks-’

‘Bea told you,’ Fleming broke in. ‘At least a million.’

Donohue turned to him, flashed one of his high-powered grins.

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘A minimum of a mil. Probably more. And I’m just talking about the stuff up front, in the cases. What’s in that safe in the back room — well, who the hell knows? But it must be beautiful. Okay, that’s agreed. The place is worth the risk. And it’s ripe for the plucking. No armed guard. No TV cameras that I could spot.’

. ‘So you want in?’ I asked him.

‘I want in,’ he said, nodding, ‘but not if I have to follow your script. First of all, with a gang of five you want two cars, not one. On the getaway, they split up. That confuses witnesses and the cops, and doubles your chances of at least one car making it with half the take.’

‘Well … all right,’ I said grudgingly, ‘I’ll buy that. But that means more people. At least another wheelman.’

‘Correct,’ Black Jack said. ‘But more than just another driver. Bea, we just can’t go busting in there when the store opens at 10:00. What if a street cop or a squad car comes wandering by?’

‘Chances are slim,’ Fleming said. ‘They work on a-’

‘I know how they work,’ Donohue said sharply. ‘No regular schedule. I’m just saying what if ? A cop comes rumbling by while we’re inside, and you’ve got the Shootout at the OK Corral. Or a couple of early-morning customers stroll in. Then what? That place could begin to look like Grand Central Station. With only four of us to truss them all up and cover them and empty out the place at the same time? No way! Bea, it just won’t work. We need more people and we need a better scam.’

‘Like what?’ I said.

‘Like this,’ he said, he leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘I checked out that place for two days running. The key to the whole thing is that cleaning truck that comes an hour before the store opens. You spotted that?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Every morning. At 9:00. They spend about thirty to forty-five minutes in there. The manager unlocks the door to let them in, then locks it again after they leave.’

‘Every morning?’ Donohue asked.

‘Every morning,’ I told him again. ‘Like clockwork. I watched.’

‘Good,’ he said with a satisfied grin. ‘That’s what I figured. The key is this: That truck is from the Bonomo Cleaning Service. It doubleparks right outside the store. On both mornings I watched, the manager was waiting inside the door. When he saw the truck pull up, he unlocked the door. Get it? All he’s looking for is the truck, he doesn’t even wait to see if the guys getting out are his regular cleaning crew or a gang of pirates. He sees the truck; he unlocks the door.’

‘Hijack the truck!’ Fleming burst out.

‘Right!’ Donohue said, looking at Dick with new respect. ‘Now we’ve got our second vehicle. And that cleaning van can hold a football team. And if we work fast enough, we can pile through that unlocked door before the manager realizes it’s not his usual cleaning crew. Four, or six, or even a dozen guys inside, and the door locked, the shutters down, one hour before the store opens for business. My God, in an hour, with enough outlaws, we can take the paper off the walls!’

I had an objection. ‘What if the manager doesn’t unlock until he makes sure it’s his regular cleaning crew?’

‘That’s what he should do,’ Donohue said, ‘but it’s not what he does. He’s waiting for the cleaning truck, he sees it park in front of the store, he unlocks the door. If he looks at the guys on the sidewalk, all he sees are the uniforms they wear. I’ll bet ten to one on it. A guy in a uniform or any kind of unusual clothes, you don’t look at his face, you look at what he’s wearing.’

‘So then?’ I said, beginning to get excited by his idea.

‘So then the moment that door is open, the guys in the front of the van rush it, and the guys in back push in right after them. I don’t mean it can be a stampede, but they don’t mosey either. Listen, it’ll be 9:00 in the morning; a lot of people on the streets. But all they’ll see is guys in uniform — you know, those coveralls they wear — piling out of a truck and hurrying into a store to clean it up before it opens for business. Who’s going to figure a heist is coming down? If it’s timed right, there won’t be a squeal. And cleaning guys always take tools and bags along with them — right? So we go inside with everything we need to take the place apart. We’ve got a whole hour and enough guys to make sure none of the clerks makes like a hero. When we’ve got what we came for, we leave everyone tied and gagged. We split the loot. Half the guys and half the take go in the cleaning van. You take the rest, Bea. We go by different routes. We meet later for the split. How does that sound?’