“Just change our names,” Wiedstein said.
“Change us completely,” Janet said.
I began to get interested. “For twenty-five thousand?”
“That’s right,” Procane said.
“A complete story about the theft, using your name but not theirs. Everything else factual.”
“Correct.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“I want a professional job from a disinterested observer.”
“When’d you come up with this idea?”
“I’ve been toying with it for some time,” Procane said. “But I couldn’t decide how to approach a writer.”
“If you’d mumbled something about the twenty-five thousand, there’d have been a line of them halfway down the block inside of an hour.”
“I need a discreet one.”
“Twenty-five thousand will buy that, too.”
“Aren’t you interested?”
“Sure, I’m interested. If you’re still alive when it’s all over, just give me a ring. You can either tell me about it or tape it. I’ll write it up and even furnish the leather binding. Morocco would be nice.”
“I admired your style when you wrote your column,” Procane said. “I’m sure you could do an excellent job.”
“Something like the one that was done on Robin Hood.”
“I don’t want a — what is it called — a puff piece.”
“Of course not. You want a straightforward, factual account.”
“I want a little more than that, Mr. St. Ives.”
“What?”
“I want an eyewitness report.”
“My eyes?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Quite serious.”
“What am I supposed to do, peep around your shoulder while you jam a gun into somebody’s ribs and note the deadly earnestness of your tone when you say, ‘Okay, pal, this is a stickup’?”
“It will be quite a story, won’t it?”
“Somebody else can write it.”
“There’s more to it than the little I’ve told you.”
“You’ve already told me too much.”
Procane smiled. “This will be my final operation.”
“‘The Last Score.’ I’ll give you the title free.”
“What will happen to the money could be quite interesting.”
I felt myself weakening and hated it. “What?”
“I don’t really need it, of course,” Procane said. “I’m quite wealthy, so half of it — less the expenses I’ve already incurred — will go to Miss Whistler and Mr. Wiedstein as a kind of a bonus that will mark our severed relationship. After this final operation, they’ll be on their own.”
“And the other half million?”
“I’m not sure you’ll believe me, so you have my permission to have our mutual lawyer, Mr. Greene, confirm it. I think he should have completed the paper work by now.”
“Paper work for what?”
“There’s an organization up in Harlem that works with drug addicts.”
“So?”
“Some time next week it’s going to get a half-million-dollar contribution from an anonymous benefactor.” He paused and said, “Me,” and then grinned and licked his lips a little as if he found the irony of it all delicious.
13
I agreed to do it, of course. At first I told myself that it was because I needed the money. When that wore thin I tried to blame it on the junkies up in Harlem who needed a helping hand. But after I admitted that half a million dollars wouldn’t even help cure Harlem’s sniffles, although a few billion might make a small dent in its problems, I stopped kidding myself and faced the real reason. It wasn’t pretty, but it was simple. The real reason that I said yes was because I wanted to be in on a million-dollar steal.
I suppose that basically Procane and I were something alike. He wanted to steal a million. I wanted to watch. Perhaps I wanted to watch him do it as much as he wanted to do it. There’s something voyeuristic about all newspapermen, even those who leave the trade and go on to better things, such as embezzlement and loan sharking and public relations. Nobody held a gun on me. Nobody threatened me with exposure. All they did was offer me the chance and after I got through protesting enough to make it seem decent, I grabbed it.
I decided that Procane’s story was just farfetched enough to have some truth in it. I long ago had given up any illusions I might have entertained about finding the good thief, yet I couldn’t help but rate Procane a notch above the others I had dealt with although that was probably because he stole only money that had already been stolen in one way or another. Also his manners were better, which demonstrated, I suppose, that there wasn’t much of the egalitarian in me as I had thought.
So it was a mixture of normal greed and abnormal curiosity that made me agree to become a thief. There was no point in calling myself anything else. It was a long way from Sherwood Forest and besides nobody can tell me that the Merrymen joined up because of a stricken social conscience.
Procane looked surprised when I said yes. He probably thought that it would take at least another five minutes to convince me and he may even have been a little disappointed that I didn’t give him the chance to use up all of his arguments.
“So you agree?” he said.
“I think that’s what yes usually means.”
“And the terms are satisfactory?”
“Almost. You said twenty-five thousand. I’ll take half now.”
That didn’t bother him at all. He opened a desk drawer and took out a square gray-metal box, the kind that you can buy at the drugstore for $1.98 to keep important papers in. He counted out $12,500 on to the desk in fifties and hundreds. They made a tidy little pile about an inch high. The three thieves looked at me. I thought Wiedstein had a faint sneer on his face, but it could have been only a sad smile. Nobody said anything. Finally, I rose, leaned over the desk, and picked up the money. As soon as I had it in my hands, I wanted to give it back. But I didn’t. I made a roll of the bills and stuffed them into a trouser pocket. Then I sat down again.
“Well, now,” Procane said. “I won’t ask for a receipt.”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
“No, I shouldn’t think so.”
“You’re in now, St. Ives,” Wiedstein said. “All the way.”
“Not quite,” I said.
The three of them looked at each other, once again demonstrating how nicely they could get along without words. Procane’s face lost its normally bland expression. His mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed, and something happened to his chin. It seemed to grow harder. He suddenly looked like a thief. A mean one.
“I think you’d better explain that,” he said, his tone matching his look.
“Sure. I’m in, just like Wiedstein says, but I’m in for only what I was hired to do and that’s watch. Nothing else. I’m not the utility man. If somebody gets shot, don’t expect me to be the substitute getaway driver or carry the money or shoot back or anything else. I’ll be an observer, but that’s all. And if I think that’s going to get me shot up or killed, I won’t even be that. In other words, don’t count on me for help of any kind.”
Procane’s face relaxed. “That’s all we expect of you.”
“Anything else and you’d just get in the way,” Wiedstein said.
“Fine,” I said. “Where will it be and when?”
“It will be tomorrow night as I mentioned earlier,” Procane said. “As for where, I can only tell you that it will be in Washington.”
“Oh,” I said and there must have been something in my tone or my expression because Procane frowned and said, “I refuse to be more exact, Mr. St. Ives.”
“Washington is exact enough.”
“Is there something about Washington that bothers you?”
“I’ve had a little bad luck there. But so have a lot of other people.”