“Anyway, the police were around the next day. Checking up on me and on my car. They sure asked a million questions.”
“They would,” Rogers said. “They don’t miss much, you know. After all, there was a quarter of a million in jewels lifted. That ain’t hay.”
“Do you think they’ll turn up?” Gerald asked.
“They usually do,” Rogers said. “We have offered the usual reward-a hundred thousand dollars in this case. Yes, they usually turn up.”
“A hundred thousand!” Gerald whistled.
Rogers shook his head, looking sad.
“The reward won’t bring them in this time,” he said.
“No?”
“No. You see-this is off the record of course-in most cases like this a deal is made sooner or later. There’s a cooling off period and then, sooner of later, someone contacts us. Usually the contact is a perfectly respectable front, either a lawyer or something like that. We pay the reward and we get the jewels.”
“You mean the police…”
“Well, let’s put it this way. The police undoubtedly know that a deal is made. Sometimes the mob throws them a fall guy, and sometimes not. But the big thing is getting the stuff back. After they’ve had their crack at it and if they fail to produce, well, then we go to work on it. Of course we are in on it from the beginning, as far as that goes.”
“Then you mean that sooner or later you’ll recover the quarter of a million in jewels they got away with?”
Rogers shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No, not this time, I’m afraid.”
Hanna looked up at him, his head twisted in curiosity.
“Not this time?”
“Not a chance,” Rogers said. “You see, this is a little different. This isn’t just a simple heist or stick-up. Two cops were shot. Shot and killed. As far as the jewels are concerned, we’re just as much interested as we’d ever be. But this time it’s different. We don’t have the freedom to move that we’d have normally. A robbery is one thing. Even a robbery and a murder or two. But not this time. Not when they kill a cop. The police aren’t partial to cop killings.”
“Then you mean that the thieves…”
“Well, they got three of them, I understand. But the jewels are missing and that means there are others. Or at least one other. Although I would bet my right arm there’s an organized mob in back of it. Anyway, no deals can be made now. Not after they shot those two cops. The police would never stand for that. They don’t care about the jewels now. All they want to do is get the guys who are responsible for those two murders.”
“And so, you mean, you people get stuck then. That the reward won’t bring in…”
“We still offer the reward of course. There’s always the chance that someone may have some knowledge. Maybe one of the mob itself will turn rat. A hundred thousand is a lot of money. But frankly, I wouldn’t count on it. We may or may not get the stuff back, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think the reward will have much to do with it. No, this one will be cracked by the cops themselves. As I say, they don’t like to have people going around knocking off their men. They’ll go to work on this and they’ll stay with it. Sooner or later they’ll crack it. They almost always do. When a cop is killed.”
They finished their lunch and Gerald asked Rogers if he didn’t want a second iced tea. Rogers refused.
“No thanks,” he said. “Ate too much as it is,” he added, patting his belly and looking sadder than ever.
Gerald insisted on picking up the check. He walked back as far as the door of the building where Rogers had his office.
“Well,” he said, “it must be damned interesting work. And thanks a lot for lunching with me. I was really pretty interested, you know, with the police being around and all.”
Rogers grunted.
“Not too interesting,” he said. “After all, we turn it over to a private detective agency and they really do the investigating from their end. I just sort of keep track of things.” He belched and held out his hand.
“Nice to see you,” he said. “By the way, is that poker game that you and Bill have every week open to strangers?”
“Glad to have you-any time at all,” Gerald said. “But you want to watch the boys; you know how these percentage players are. Especially guys with insurance companies.”
“I’ll give Bill a ring,” Rogers said. “Be seeing you.”
Gerald, hurrying through the noonday crowds on his way back to the office, was torn by mixed emotions. A hundred thousand reward. Great. Couldn’t be better. But then he remembered what Rogers had told him. This time it would be different. This time two policemen had been murdered. This time it wouldn’t be a case of the loot being returned and a hundred thousand dollars being paid over and things allowed to be quietly forgotten. No, this time the police were going to stay right with it. Right up until the end.
As he pushed his way through the streets, he mulled the thing over in his mind. Finally, nearing his office, he slowly nodded, smiling to himself in quiet satisfaction.
He knew what he would have to do. He knew the answer. It was ticklish, devilishly ticklish. But he wasn’t licked. Not by a long shot.
At three o’clock that afternoon, Gerald knocked at the door of the private office of his supervisor.
“And so if it’s all right,” he said, “I’d like to get away a little early. I’ve got everything pretty much cleared up on my desk and I feel a little bit under the weather. Probably a virus or something,” he said.
The supervisor told him to go on home, to take it easy and if he still didn’t feel all right in the morning, not to come in. Gerald thanked him and within twenty minutes had left the office.
He had returned to his desk only long enough to type out the note.
He went directly to Penn Station and took the train out to Long Island. In Manhasset he got into his car and drove to Roslyn. The trip, actually, wasn’t at all necessary. But he couldn’t resist the temptation to stop by at the apartment. He wanted to make sure that the envelope had arrived.
It was in the mailbox and Gerald breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the white of the paper through the air holes. He didn’t open the box but instead returned to the car which he had left at the curb with its engine running. It was probably because he was concentrating on what he was about to do, that he failed to notice the taxi which pulled up behind him as he was putting the Chevvie into gear.
Maryjane Swiftwater leaned forward on the leather seat and stared through the side window of the taxicab.
“Well!” She took a long breath and slowly expelled it.
“What did you say, Miss?” The driver looked over his shoulder.
For a second she stared at him blankly. And then her eyes focused, staring at him in anger.
“That car,” she said. “The Chevrolet which just pulled away. I want you to follow it.”
“Follow it?”
“Yes. Follow it. That’s what I said. I want you to follow that car. I don’t want you to let the driver know…”
“I’m no private detective, Miss,” the cabbie said. “I don’t want to get mixed up in no divorce case or nothin’ like that.”
If she had had a minute to think about it, she would never have been able to do it. But Maryjane moved without thinking and her hand shot into her bag and she found the tightly rolled-up bills, the money she’d been secretly saving for months now not putting it in her savings account, not letting anyone know about it. The dollar and five dollar bills which she changed into larger denominations as the sum built up and which she always carried with her. It was her own private hoard, held out from her frugal and careful life. Money she was going to use someday to buy the fur coat she’d always dreamed of and always wanted.