Chief Thief

Chapter Five-1

Chapter Five

Thief

The clerks at CBBI accepted my deposit without a second glance, and gave me my receipt. I’d dumped my newly-acquired bearer-bonds into their capable hands. For a twenty-percent fee they would deal with their processing into other channels. By the time the insurance agents were finishing their reports, my safety deposit box would be topped off with the proceeds.

As I was leaving the bank, I glanced at the bank’s vault and realized that I was looking at it with a thief’s eye. The door was armor-sealed, and the floor looked like steel-reinforced mesh interwoven with concrete. Pretty secure, but I couldn’t help wondering what kind of thief would try to make the attempt.

A desperate one, I decided; somebody stupid enough to think that he could get away with it. I was neither. I was almost one-fourth of the way to my goal, and I was doing fine. No need to muddle up my batting average now by trying for a home run when a single would do.

I caught a bus and headed uptown to visit my fence. By now he would have taken delivery of a handful of jewelry that I had acquired in Las Vegas the week before. The mark in question had been a successful gambler whose wife put Imelda Marcos to shame. The reports that I had read said that she had more jewels than she knew what to do with, which made her a very tempting target. The information was right, and imagine my surprise when I’d found that despite all that, she had her jewelry organized according to the color of stones! So, I’d relieved her of all of her rubies, because, carat for carat rubies were always more valuable than diamonds.

On my way out, I’d made a cursory search in her wardrobe and discovered several thousand dollars worth of cash stuffed into her clothes hamper. It always amuses me how many people think that a hamper is an original hiding place.

Danny’s was the name of the store, and it was in a slightly seedy part of town. There were streetwalkers hanging around on the corners, junkies squatting on front stoops, and winos lying in the various alleyways sleeping off bottles of rye or Thunderbird. The pedestrians looked over their shoulders a lot, but that didn’t stop them from passing through the store’s front entrance on a regular basis. I caught the door as a blonde exited and walked in.

“Isaac!” said Danny, the eponymous owner, using my street-name. He turned over the counter-duty to a clerk and motioned for me to follow. I tailed him into the back of the store, and down a flight of steps into his private office. He waved me to a seat and pulled out a flask of brandy. I waved it away, and he shrugged and poured himself a glass. I saw that it was a very expensive brand. Danny was treating himself; I must have pleased him.

“It was that good, huh?”

“Isaac, it was better than good, this was superb! I have not seen finer stuff in years. I Fed-Exed a couple of the better ones to New York, and they were ecstatic! Even after re-cutting and re-faceting the stones will still fetch premium prices.” He raised his glass to me. “Are you certain you won’t work for the Organization?”

I shook my head. “I like being my own boss. You got my scratch?”

He passed me a thick envelope. “One hundred fifty grand for the rocks, Isaac, and there’s an offer in there.” He raised a hand. “Don’t say no until you’ve seen it, and don’t ask me to return it. This was a freebie from my boss. If you choose to throw it away, that’s your lookout. I just promised that I’d pass it on, and that’s what I’m doing.”

I looked inside the bulging yellow envelope, and saw a smaller white envelope. It was sealed with wax which had been imprinted by a personal seal. I broke it and reached inside. It was a note on heavy bond paper, and contained a brief message. After reading it, I glanced up and saw Danny looking at me. “Is this offer good?”

“Absolutely,” he said, saluting me with his glass again. “And there is no expiration date. Use it when you please: one gratis night in a Mob safe house.” He smiled and laid a finger against the side of his nose. “Even the best need a place to hide out now and then and there’s no obligation involved.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Can’t hurt to save it for a rainy day, I guess.”

“Smart boy,” he said, and raised the brandy bottle again.

“All right,” I said. “But just a small one; I need to keep my wits about me.”

“You’re ambitious,” Danny said, producing a second glass and pouring in about two jiggers. “I heard that the mayor’s attending the task force meeting tomorrow to catch the Blink Burglar. Don’t you think you’ve scared people enough?”

“Whatever gave you the idea that I’ve got anything to do with that?” I asked, sipping from my glass. The liquor was thick and potent.

Danny’s dimples grew red as he laughed. “Isaac, give me some credit. I’ve known you less than a year, and you’re already my best customer. My bosses are very impressed with your work, which is why we’d like to have you on the team.”

“Not today,” I said, sipping at my glass again. “Who’s hosting the task force, out of curiosity?”

“The police chief, of course,” he said, swirling his brandy around in his glass and inhaling the aroma. “Apparently the mayor’s good buddy, Hieronymus Delco was robbed, and the poor bastard was stripped naked and chained spread-eagle face-down on his own bed.”

“That’s absolutely tragic,” I said, shaking my head. Ordinarily I would never have done something like that to the owner; in and out in ten minutes is my rule. But Delco had caught me in the act and tried to club me with a fire-poker. Simply knocking the fellow down and tying him up wasn’t enough, so I figured he needed to be taught a lesson. Word had it that his maid had found him, and spread the story via text and i********:.

“The word on the street is that the mayor needs to retain that fellow’s friendship if he wants to run for governor. So, he’s leaned on the cops for a special task force. So, if you need a place to hide…” he nodded again at the envelope.

“Tell them thank you from me,” I said, and started to get up.

“Isaac,” he said, holding out a restraining hand. “If you won’t consider joining up, then would you consider a job or two on commission?”

My eyes widened, but I waved a hand, motioning him to continue.

“There’s a guy that…left the fold, I guess you could say.”

“I don’t kill people, Danny.”

“No, no, we don’t want him dead. They just want to be sure that he doesn’t start flapping his lips.”

“Intimidation’s not my racket, either. Hire some other skell for that.”

He ran a hand across his face and set his glass down. “Jeez, I’m bad at explaining myself, today. Look, here’s the scam: Sammy the Fish took a dive a few years back for the Old Man. He did three years in the can. While he was inside, he decided he’d paid his dues and wanted to go semi-legit. After he got out, he moved down into L.A., West Hollywood, running a vending machine business; sixty machines spread out through a slew of shopping centers and apartments. He pulls in about eighty grand a year, net.”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked, leaning back in my chair, sipping at my drink now and then.

“Hollywood is crawling with producers, directors, writers, you name it. My boss is worried that the vending machine business won’t be enough for him. There’s a rumor that he’s planning to pull some wild-eyed movie cat aside and tell him a big story about his life, and two years from now there’ll be another Mob movie on the big screen.”

I finished my brandy, and shrugged. “So what? There’ll be a hundred schmucks lining up to join the Organization. It’s good for business, isn’t it?”

“Isaac, the name of the Organization is ‘Our Thing’; ours, not Hollywood’s.”

“Okay, so what would you want me to do?”

“Sammy’s most prized possession is a shark’s tooth that he wears around his neck on a gold chain. We want you to steal it from him. Two weeks later, we’ll Fed Ex it back to him with a note explaining that if we can get that close to him without him knowing, then he should think really hard before he starts singing.”

“What’s my cut?” I asked.

“A pegno,” he said, and leaned over to refill my glass. “The Don offers you a solemn pledge that the Organization will do anything in its power on your behalf; anything at all. You name it, and we’ll do it, free of charge; no obligations, no strings attached. Like the other offer, there’s no expiration date, either.”

A queer sort of thrill coursed through my body, and my hands began to shake. The power of the Mafia would be at my disposal? The possibilities were endless!

“One time only, Isaac,” he said, and smiled at my reaction. “Any more than that and you’ll have to join up.”

The silence stretched on for several minutes.

“Just say that I did this little job,” I said, and licked my lips. “Would I need to look over my shoulder? I’ve already said I’m not interested in joining up…”

“You’re an associate, Isaac, nothing more; a connected guy. We can respect that.”

I noted the ‘we’. I took a long sip of my brandy and carefully considered the positives and the negatives. One of the rules that I had made for myself was not to get involved with the Mob. They were vicious, uncompromising, and the meanest SOB’s in the world of crime. Despite the genteel manner that Danny used when he spoke, I knew for a fact that he had at least four notches on his pistol. But, the Mob controlled the fences in my town, and thus far they had been good customers. Having them at my back might be a good insurance policy, especially if my control of the police chief slipped. She might just decide that revenge wasn’t enough, and fall on her black-lace sword, especially to trap the most wanted man in town.

I took a long breath, and then nodded once. “What can you tell me about the target?”

He smiled and took a manila envelope off his desk and handed it to me. “Everything you need to know is in here. Just get his necklace and bring it back here. We’ll take care of the rest.”

I finished my brandy. “Nice doing business with you, Danny.” I stuffed the envelopes into my inner jacket pocket and headed for the exit.

At a different bank I dropped off the bulk of Danny’s payment into the hands of a quiet teller, but kept back five hundred dollars for myself. Then I picked up some supplies at several different stores and went home where I spent the next several hours buzzing and shaving my head. I’d only done this once before in my life (on a bet) and I’d forgotten how weird it felt. Nevertheless, it had to be done if I wanted to succeed in my plan.

Next, I spent some time looking at various disguises and pictures online. After I printed up the color pictures I spent a couple of hours making myself up. I inserted bright blue contact lenses into my eyes. The effect was eerie, but I was only halfway done. Next, from the various theater supplies I’d bought, I selected a red handlebar mustache and carefully treated the back with spirit gum—the same stuff that actors use to hold false hair on their face. After a couple of false starts, I got it on, and then looked at myself in the mirror. The effect was everything I had hoped for. I was now a new man, someone whom Chief McCarthy would know as her new lover, and possible ally.

Cleaning up the mess in the bathroom I resolved to pay her a visit tonight and set the ground rules for our new relationship. Best to do that quickly, before she had time to second-guess herself, or realize how close she was standing to complete ruin; a woman like that was liable to do something stupid, like try to apprehend me.

I bribed a postman to special-deliver a message to her apartment superintendent. I would know whether the message had been delivered.

Then, with several hours to kill, I went to Thad’s Bar & Grill and watched two intoxicated merchant seamen try to put the moves on the same woman. The band took in what was happening, and went into a lively rendition of What Can You do with a Drunken Sailor? The sailors never caught on to why everyone was laughing.

At seven o’clock, I walked past the Chief’s apartment building and saw an American flag flying from her balcony. That was the signal. I crossed the street and went in the front door and asked the doorman to ring her apartment and tell her that Mr. Random had arrived. After a moment, he buzzed open the door for me, and I went up to the apartment.

As I knocked, I hoped that she had not planned to meet me with a drawn pistol, or several armed cops.