When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

WE didn't wait ten minutes as instructed. We got out of there in a hurry, Skip lugging the books in the laundry bag, me with the gun still clutched in one hand. Before we could cross the street to the Chevy, Kasabian had put his car in gear and roared down the block, pulling up next to us with a great screech of brakes. We piled into the backseat and told him to go around the block, but the car was already in motion before we got the words out.

We took a left and then another left. On Seventeenth Avenue, we found Bobby Ruslander hanging on to a tree with one hand, struggling to catch his breath. Across the street, Billie Keegan took a few slow steps toward us, then paused to cup his hands around a match and light a cigarette.

Bobby said, "Oh, Jesus, am I out of shape. They came tearin' out of that driveway, had to be them, they had the case with the money. I was four houses down, I saw 'em but I didn't want to run up on 'em right away, you know? I think one of 'em was carrying a gun."

"Didn't you hear the shots?"

He hadn't, nor had either of the others. I wasn't surprised. The dark-haired gunman had used a small-caliber pistol, and while the noise was loud enough in a closed room, it wouldn't have been likely to carry very far.

"They jumped into this car," Bobby said, pointing to where it had been parked, "and they got out in a hurry and left rubber. I started moving once they were in the car, figuring I could get a look at the plate number, and I chased 'em and the light was rotten and-" He shrugged. "Nothing," he said.

Skip said, "Least you tried."

"I'm so out of shape," Bobby said. He slapped himself across the belly. "No legs, no wind, and my eyes aren't so good, either. I couldn't referee a real basketball game, running up and down the court. I'd fuckin' die."

"You could have blown your whistle," Skip suggested.

"Jesus, if I'd had it with me I might have. You think they would have stopped and surrendered?"

"I think they'd probably have shot you," I said. "Forget the plate number."

"At least I tried," he said. He looked over at Billie. "Keegan there, he was closer to them and he didn't budge. Just sat under the tree like Ferdinand the bull, smelling the flowers."

"Smelling the dogshit," Keegan said. "We have to work with the materials at hand."

"Been working on those minibottles, Billie?"

"Just maintaining," Keegan said.

I asked Bobby if he got the make of the car. He pursed his lips, blew out, shook his head. "Dark late-model sedan," he said. "They all look alike these days anyway."

"That's the truth," Kasabian said, and Skip agreed with him. I started to form another question when Billie Keegan announced that the car was a Mercury Marquis, three or four years old, black or navy blue.

We all stopped and looked at him. His face carefully expressionless, he took a scrap of paper from his breast pocket, unfolded it. "LJK-914," he read. "Does that mean anything to any of you?" And while we went on staring at him, he said, "That's the license number. New York plates. I wrote down all the makes and plate numbers earlier to keep from dying of boredom. It seemed easier than chasing cars like a fucking cocker spaniel."

"Fucking Billie Keegan," Skip said with wonder, and went over and hugged him.

"You gentlemen will rush to judgment of the man who drinks a bit," Keegan said. He took a miniature bottle from a pocket, twisted the cap until the seal broke, tipped back his head and drank the whiskey down.

"Maintenance," he said. "That's all."

Chapter 17

Bobby couldn't get over it. He seemed almost hurt by Billie's ingenuity. "Why didn't you say something?" he demanded. "I could have been writing down numbers the same time, we could have covered more of them."

Keegan shrugged. "I figured I'd keep it to myself," he said. "So that when they ran past all these cars and caught a bus on Jerome Avenue I wouldn't look like an asshole."

" Jerome Avenue 's in the Bronx," somebody said. Billie said he knew where Jerome Avenue was, that he had an uncle used to live on Jerome Avenue. I asked if the pair had been wearing their disguises when they emerged from the driveway.

"I don't know," Bobby said. "What were they supposed to look like? They had little masks on." He made twin circles of his thumbs and forefingers, held them to his face in imitation of the masks.

"Were they wearing beards?"

"Of course they were wearing beards. What do you think, they stopped to shave?"

"The beards were fake," Skip said.

"Oh."

"They have the wigs on, too? One dark and one light?"

"I guess. I didn't know they were wigs. I- there wasn't a hell of a lot of light, Arthur. Streetlamps here and there, but they came out that driveway and ran to their car, and they didn't exactly pause and hold a press conference, pose for the photographers."

I said, "We'd better get out of here."

"Why's that? I like standing around in the middle of Brooklyn, it reminds me of hanging out on the corner when I was a boy. You're thinking cops?"

"Well, there were gunshots. No point being conspicuous."

"Makes sense."

We walked over to Kasabian's car, got in, and circled the block again. We caught a red light, and I gave Kasabian directions back to Manhattan. We had the books in hand, we'd paid the ransom, and we were all alive to tell or not tell the tale. Besides that, we had Keegan's drunken resourcefulness to celebrate. All of this changed our mood for the better, and I was now able to provide clear directions back to the city and Kasabian, for his part, was able to absorb them.

As we neared the church, we saw a handful of people in front of it, men in undershirts, teenagers, all of them standing around as if waiting for someone. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the undulating siren of a blue-and-white.

I wanted to tell Kasabian to drive us all home, that we could come back tomorrow for Skip's car. But it was parked next to a hydrant, it would stand out. He pulled up- he may not have put the crowd and the siren together- and Skip and I got out. One of the men across the street, balding and beer-gutted, was looking us over.

I called out, asked him what was up. He wanted to know if I was from the precinct. I shook my head.

"Somebody busted into the church," he said. "Kids, probably. We got the exits covered, the cops coming."

"Kids," I said heavily, and he laughed.

"I think I was more nervous just now than I was in the church basement," Skip said, after we'd driven a few blocks. "I'm standing with a laundry bag over my shoulder like I just committed a burglary and you've got a forty-five in your belt. I figured we're in great shape if they see the gun."

"I forgot it was there."

"And we just got out of a car full of drunks. Another point in our favor."

"Keegan was the only one who was drunk."

"And he was the brilliant one. Figure that out, will you? Speaking of drinking-"

I got the scotch from the glove compartment and uncapped it for him. He took a long pull, handed it to me. We passed it back and forth until it was gone, and Skip said, "Fuck Brooklyn," and tossed it out the window. I'd have been just as happy if he hadn't- we had booze on our breath, an unlicensed gun in our possession, and no good way to account for our presence- but I kept it to myself.

"They were pretty professional," Skip said. "The disguises, everything. Why did he shoot the light out?"

"To slow us down."

"I thought he was going to shoot me for a minute there. Matt?"

"What?"

"How come you didn't shoot him?"

"When he was aiming at you? I might have, if I sensed he was about to shoot. I had him covered. As it stood, if I shot him he would shoot you."

"I mean after that. After he shot the light out. You still had him covered. You were aiming at him when he went out the door."

I took a moment to answer. I said, "You decided to pay the ransom to keep the books away from the IRS. What do you think happens if you're tagged to a shooting in a church in Bensonhurst?"

"Jesus, I wasn't thinking."

"And shooting him wouldn't have recovered the money, anyway. It was already out the back door with the other one."

"I know. I really wasn't thinking. The thing is, I mighta shot him. Not because it was the right thing to do, but in the heat of the moment."

"Well," I said. "You never know what you'll do in the heat of the moment."

THE next light we caught, I got out my notebook and began sketching. Skip asked me what I was drawing.

"Ears," I said.

"How's that?"

"Something an instructor told us when I was at the Police Academy. The shapes of people's ears are very distinctive and it's something that's rarely disguised or changed by plastic surgery. There wasn't a hell of a lot to see of these two. I want to make sketches of their ears before I forget."

"You remember what their ears looked like?"

"Well, I made a point of remembering."

"Oh, that makes a difference." He drew on his cigarette. "I couldn't swear they had ears. Didn't the wigs cover them? I guess not, or you wouldn't be drawing pictures. You can't check their ears in some file, can you? Like fingerprints?"

"I just want to have a way to recognize them," I said. "I think I might know their voices, if they were using their real ones tonight, and I think they probably were. As far as their height, one was around five-nine or -ten and the other was either a little shorter or it looked that way because he was standing farther back." I shook my head at my notebook. "I don't know which set of ears went with which of them. I should have done this right away. That kind of memory fades on you fast."

"You think it matters, Matt?"

"What their ears look like?" I considered. "Probably not," I granted. "At least ninety percent of what you do in an investigation doesn't lead anywhere. Make that ninety-five percent- the people you talk to, the things you take time to check. But if you do enough things, the one thing that does work is in there."

"You miss it?"

"Being a cop? Not often."

"I can see where a person would miss it," he said. "Anyway, I didn't mean just ears. I mean is there a point to the whole thing? They did us a dirty and they got away with it. You think the license plate will lead anywhere?"

"No. I think they were smart enough to use a stolen car."

"That's what I think, too. I didn't want to say anything because I wanted to feel good back there, and I didn't want to piss on Billie's parade, but the trouble they took, disguises, sending us all around the barn before we got to the right place, I don't think they're gonna get tripped up by a license number."

"Sometimes it happens."

"I guess. Maybe we're better off if they stole a car."

"How do you figure that?"

"Maybe they'll get picked up in it, some sharp-eyed patrolman who looked at the hot-car list. Is that what they call it?"