Lawrence Sanders - McNally's caper

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll scream.’

‘Good.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We got a little more than an hour. We’ll go back to the junction and park where we can watch who comes in.’

And that’s what we did, retracing that cracked road until we came to the paved junction that, Donohue told me, led eventually back to the Federal Highway. We were in a neighborhood of one-story cinderblock homes, some with front yards of green gravel, a few with boats on trailers in their garage driveways.

We parked there, settled down, lighted cigarettes, and waited. Jack had brought his binoculars, but they were of no use. That misty fog was still so thick we could see no more than twenty or thirty yards. But we could make out the turnoff to that road leading to the deserted hotel.

Sitting there, closed around by the fog, swaddled in silence, we talked slowly in murmurs. Jack wanted to know all about my life. Mostly my childhood. Where I had been born, where I lived, the places I had visited.

But mainly he wanted to know how I had lived when I was growing up. How many rooms did our various homes have? Did we have servants? How many cars did we own? Did we belong to a country club? Did I attend private schools? How much money did my parents spend on my clothes? What kind of presents did I get for Christmas?

It wasn’t just curiosity, I knew; it was a hunger. He wanted a firsthand view into a world he coveted, a vision of moneyed ease. He saw it as a life in sunlight. Beautiful women and handsome men sat around on a seafront terrace, sipped champagne and nibbled caviar served by smiling servants. It was class.

I didn’t have the heart to disabuse him. So I embellished my descriptions of what childhood was like when there was money for everything, people were polite and kind, and life was a golden dream in which every wish was granted. He kept smiling and nodding away, as if what I told him was no more than he had envisioned. I wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t imagined a thousand times. There was a world like that; he knew it, and he couldn’t get enough of it.

But then, a few minutes after three, he straightened up behind the wheel.

‘Car coming,’ he said in a tight voice.

We both leaned forward, squinting through the fogged windshield. It was a big black car, a Cadillac, and it came to the access road, slowed, then made the turn.

‘How many men did you see?’ Donohue demanded.

‘Two. In the front seat.’

‘That’s what I saw. We’ll follow them in.’

He started up. We turned into the tarred road leading to the hotel. The black car ahead of us was lost in the mist. We found it parked outside the gate in the chainlink fence. We saw two men picking their way across the littered grounds to the hotel.

Jack grunted with satisfaction.

‘The short guy is Garcia,’ he said. ‘I’m sure of that. The tall gink must be the paperman. We’ll wait till they get inside.’

When the two men disappeared into the hotel, Jack pulled up ahead of the Cadillac. Then, with much backing and hard cramping of the wheel, he turned the Cutlass around until we were heading back the way we had come, away from the hotel. Then we got out of the car. Donohue left the key in the ignition and the doors unlocked.

‘Just in case we wish to depart swiftly,’ he said with a thin smile.

We walked back to the Cadillac, inspected the back seat. Empty. Jack tried the trunk lid. It was locked.

‘Looks okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in now. You all set?’

‘Sure.’

He gave me one of his flashy grins, pulled me close, kissed my lips.

‘Win, lose, or draw, babe,’ he said, ‘it’s been fun.’

‘Hasn’t it?’

‘Let’s go.’

We stooped through the cut in the fence. We started toward the hotel. We both had right hands in our raincoat pockets. We must have looked like a pair of assassins.

Donohue paused a moment on the porch. He took a final look around. No one in sight. Nothing stirring.

‘Remember what I told you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Keep an eye on that road. If I make a play, be ready to cover my back. And be ready to run.’

I nodded dumbly. Suddenly I needed to pee.

They were waiting for us in the hallway. The little one, Manuel Garcia, was wearing a clear plastic raincoat over a suit of horrendous green plaid. His pointy shoes were two-toned, yellow and brown. He wore a ruffled purple shirt with a wide tie in a wild carnation print. The knot was as big as my fist. His black hair was slicked back with pomade. He wore diamond rings on both pinkies, and when he grinned, gold sparkled in his front teeth.

Donohue had been right; I could smell his fruity perfume from six feet away.

The taller man, presumably the passport forger, was dressed like an undertaker: black shoes, black socks, a shiny black suit, a not-too-clean white shirt, a black tie hardly wider than a shoelace. He had a long, coffin-shaped face, badly pitted with acne or smallpox. He never looked directly at us. His pale eyes kept darting — left, right, up, down. I thought he was just shifty-eyed, but then I realized he was scared witless. He was carrying a brown paper bag and his hands were trembling so badly the paper kept crackling.

No introductions were offered, none asked.

‘Let’s go in there,’ Donohue said, gesturing toward the open door of the room he had selected.

‘Why not ri’ here?’ Garcia said. His voice was surprisingly deep, almost booming.

‘Too open,’ Jack said and cut short any further argument by leading the way into the dining room.

We trooped after him. I took up a position in the corner, away from the others. I stood at an angle where 1 could see the gate and the access road and also keep an eye on what was going on in the room.

I gripped the pistol in my raincoat pocket tightly, but kept my finger out of the trigger guard. Jack still had his hand in his raincoat pocket. Garcia, in that clear plastic coat, obviously had nothing in his pockets. And he carried his arms slighly out to the sides, palms turned outward, as if to prove his peaceful intentions.

‘You got the necklace?’ he asked, grinning.

‘Sure,’ Jack said. ‘Right here. You got the papers?’

‘Joe, you show him,’ Garcia said.

The three men were standing in a close group. There was no place to sit down, no chairs, no table, no sofa — nothing.

The undertaker fumbled open his paper bag. He pulled out a sheaf of documents. In his nervousness he dropped a card to the littered floor. He swooped quickly to retrieve it and tried to smile apologetically at Garcia. He held out the papers to Donohue.

I looked out at the gate and road. Only the two cars standing there. Nothing moving.

Donohue examined the papers carefully, taking his free hand from his gun pocket. If they were going to make a

move, this would be the time to do it. I watched carefully. But they made no move. Just waited patiently while Jack shuffled slowly through the documents, examining every page of the passports, the Social Security cards, the drivers licenses, the birth certificates.

He stopped suddenly. Raised his head. Glanced quickly toward me.

‘Road clear?’ he said.

I looked again.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’

He frowned. ‘Thought I heard something.’

‘Maybe the wind,’ Garcia said, grinning. ‘Maybe the rain.’

‘Maybe,’ Jack said shortly. He went back to examining the papers.

‘You bring the pictures?’ Garcia said. ‘For the passports?’

‘Sure,’ Donohue said, nodding. ‘We got them.’

‘Good,’ Garcia said. ‘Jose, he’s got glue and the stamp. Firstclass work.’

Then I heard it. A dull, sodden thump.