Lawrence Sanders - McNally's caper

Dick fell asleep, head on my shoulder, his fine hair tickling my nose. But I couldn’t sleep. My brain was churning. I went over again and again what Aldo Binder had said, what Sol Faber had said, what Dick Fleming had said. What I should do and not do, write or not write. A woman’s curse: worrying unnecessarily about what men think.

Dick was sleeping soundly. I kissed the tip of his nose. I moved his head off my shoulder as gently as I could. I disentangled arms and legs, pulled away and slipped out of bed. I pulled the sheet and blanket up and tucked him in. Then I went padding naked into my office, snapped on the goose-neck lamp, closed the door.

It was warm in there, toasty enough so that I didn’t need a robe. I sat down in the swivel chair, trying to keep it from creaking. I wondered if the seat cushion would leave button marks on my bare ass. I got out a long, yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen. But I didn’t write down a word.

It started out as something wild, ridiculous, nonsensical. Then harebrained. Then merely insane.

How long I sat there, brain-storming. I don’t know. At some point the door opened. Dick stood there, naked as a pin, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

‘Dick,’ I said excitedly, ‘sit down and listen.’

‘What time is it?’

‘How the hell should I know? Two, three in the morning. Sit down and listen to my great idea.’

Grumbling, he folded himself into the armchair on the other side of the desk. He shook his head from side to side, trying to clear the sleep away.

‘Okay,’ he sighed patiently, ‘I’m awake. Go ahead; what’s your sensational idea?’

I told it to him.

‘How’s that for making contact with reality?’ I said, laughing excitedly when I was done. ‘How’s that for getting back to “true-to-life” details? I can’t make my next book any more realistic than that, can I?’

He looked at me queerly.

‘And get caught and do twenty years?’

‘I’m not going to commit the crime,’ 1 said, ‘I’m just going to find out how to plan it. At the final step, just before the breaking-and-entering, I’ll bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. I can imagine the rest of it; the actual crime will write itself. Don’t you see what I’m doing? I’m going to put myself in place of my chief villain. I’m personally going to go through everything he’d have to go through: all the problems, difficulties, fears, delays. I’m going to experience everything I’ve been writing about and didn’t know about. My God, Dick, I’m going to become a Master Criminal!’

He took a deep breath and blew it out, staring at me with that same look I couldn’t fathom, as though he thought I had flipped.

‘You’re going to recruit an actual gang?’

‘Right,’ I said, nodding. ‘Bad guys. Bent noses with a lot of experience. Felons.’

‘And how are you going to find them — put a want ad in The Christian Science Monitor?’

‘Dick, that’s just the point — don’t you see? I’ve got to find out how you’d go about recruiting a gang. Who you’d have to contact. How you’d find him. For instance — a gun. If I’m going to be a modern Ma Baker, I’ll need a gun. How do I go about getting a gun in New York City? I’m sure it can be done, but howl That’s the kind of problem I’ll have to solve. But look at what I’ll be learning!’

‘Jannie, are you serious about this?’

‘Of course I’m serious!’

‘Do you know what you’re getting into, getting a gun and hiring a gang of crooks? What happens when you hire your thugs and rehearse them for your Big Caper, and then call it off at the last minute? What do you think their reaction will be?’

‘Oh hell, Dick — I can handle that. They’re all morons. I’ll just tell them it’s off and disappear. If I pay them for a week or two of rehearsals, I’m not hurting them, am I? But that’s just a minor detail. I haven’t yet figured it all out. I’m just drafting the grand concept. What do you think?’

‘Jannie, there may be danger. Real-life danger, not pretend.’

‘Of course there will be danger! There has to be danger. How else can my Big Caper be realistic? How can it ring true? I want to learn about the danger. I want to be afraid. That’s what the whole idea is about. Where are you going? Back to bed?’

He had uncoiled his naked length from the armchair and was starting for the door.

‘Be right back,’ he said.

He returned in a moment with the brandy bottle and our two glasses. He set the snifters on my desk blotter and poured us hefty shots.

‘Jannie,’ he said, ‘I want in.’

‘What?’

‘I want in. I want to be the first member of Jannie’s gang.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘No crazier than you. How about it?’

I stared at him, trying to understand.

‘Dick, this has nothing to do with misguided chivalry, does it? The macho male joining up to protect the weak, defenseless woman from the big, bad men?’

‘Do I look like a macho male?’ he asked reasonably. ‘Use your brain, Jannie; what do I know about guns, knives, or physical combat?’

‘Then why?’

‘The adventure,’ he said. ‘The risk.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

The following evening, Dick came over after dinner. 1 had dined with Laura and my brother-in-law, and had to endure a two-hour replay of the great tit-raising. It was recited in excruciating detail while their live-in housekeeper served us quivering hemispheres of salmon in aspic.

I got home before Dick arrived and prepared for our conference by setting out scratchpads and ballpoints, glasses, a bucket of ice, and a chilled bottle of vodka.

Despite what Aldo Binder thought, I did read the tabloids, and like most writers in my field, I clipped everything relating to crime — specific cases, statistics, new developments in police procedures, etc. I kept all these snippets in a series of bulging file folders, and the one I pulled out that evening was labeled Current Crimes.

What I was after was the type of crime that offered maximum gain and minimum risk. After Dick was ensconced in the armchair in my office, we divided Current Crimes into two roughly equal stacks of clippings and began breaking them down into classifications: homicides, robberies, burglaries, kidnappings, extortions, blackmail, hijacking, etc. Then we combined similar piles and started eliminating. Homicides went first, of course. Small potatoes. We also discarded blackmail and extortion. Both required a special knowledge, or leverage, we simply didn’t possess. We eliminated kidnapping because it was distasteful and hijacking because we wouldn’t know what to do with a 747 or a trailer-load of cigarettes if we stole one.

That left burglaries and armed robberies. We mixed another drink and divided the two stacks of newspaper stories by target: individuals, offices, stores, banks, armored trucks, hotels, etc. Some of these, such as banks and armored trucks, were thrown out because of the expertise involved.

Individuals, offices, stores, or hotels seemed to both of us to offer the best opportunities. But robbing an individual or burglarizing an individual apartment or house scarcely qualified as a Big Caper. It would require one criminal, two at the most. We were looking for a crime demanding a gang.

We considered a luxury hotel as a possible target.

‘The trouble with looting a hotel,’ Dick said, skimming the clippings, ‘is that that too requires inside information. The crooks obviously know when the safe deposit boxes are loaded. That hints of some hotel employee being in cahoots, doesn’t it?’