The Longest Second (16 page)

I doubted it. However, I laughed politely, then penned the question which I had come to ask him. He read my note and looked thoughtful. Finally be said, “Yes, you did look different the night you were brought in. You had a small, closely trimmed military mustache. It’s a rule of the hospital not to permit mustaches except when patients can care for them, and obviously you couldn’t. But more important, you had lost so much blood that it covered your face and hair. Consequently, we had to clip the hair from your forehead and temples.”

After further discussion, I realized that my appearance had been altered, somewhat, through the shaving of my mustache, the closer cropping of my hair, which I had continued to follow since leaving the hospital, and my own loss of weight. Although, to be accurate, I was again gaining pounds and broadening.

Bianca kept her word, and acting promptly mailed a letter to the post office which I picked up the next day. She had enclosed two short notes Rosemary Martin had written her; one asked Bianca not to wait up for her as she would be late, and the other had been in connection with a birthday gift. Fortunately, there were enough lines and words for me to piece out the spelling of the name Nell C. O’Hanstrom. Wherever possible, I compared the letters and selected the most naturally written ones. I then had photostatic copies made, and cutting out the individual letters pasted them next to each other to form the two names and the initial. I had a capital “N” and “H,” but no “C” and no “O.”

After many false starts, and a great amount of effort, I finally wrote and approved a specimen of the name, the letters linked together as they might have been written by Rosemary Martin. I did not use the middle initial “C” as I had nothing to follow in the capital use of this letter, and decided that I would be safe to gamble on dropping it. The letter and capital “O” I could not drop and this caused me difficulty; eventually I selected a simple script with a slight ascender near the top.

Because Bianca had been to the bank with me, and might be remembered, it was not advisable that I should return with her. Yet I needed help. I trusted no one else, and knew no one unless it was Margarite, the girl who had brought me the marijuana at the Castillo. I did not trust her, although I felt that her temporary loyalty could be purchased. And, because of her own personal activities, she would hesitate to turn to the police. Finally, of course, and most conclusively there was no one else I could ask. She had given me her phone number, and I arranged with a bellboy at the Arena to call her and have her come to my room at the hotel.

AT
one o’clock in the afternoon, Jensen had decided to go home to get some sleep. After leaving Burrows, he checked back in his office at Homicide Manhattan East, located on East Thirty-fifth Street. There, however, a message was awaiting him from the Bureau of Identification. After completing a call to Centre Street, in reply to the message, he returned to the Eighth precinct to see Burrows again.

When Jensen walked into his office, Burrows said, “I thought you were calling it a day.”

“So did I,” Jensen replied. His eyes were red rimmed from lack of sleep. “Something new turned up and I thought I’d better pass it on to you…”

“I was just leaving too,” Burrows groaned. “What is it?”

“I got a message from Turner in the fingerprint bureau to call him. So I did. He’d just reported on duty at noon, and running through last night’s reports thought the name Pacific rang a bell.”

“So,” asked Burrows, “they goofed up on it?”

“No. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t have any prints on record. What happened was this. Turner remembered picking up an ID through Washington a long time back. He remembered the name, that’s all, and he decided to check it against the files. He did, and the name is there on the master file, but the print card is gone.”

“Gone?” Burrows was surprised.

“Sure. Gone!”

“Why’d it be gone?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know.”

“But,” Burrows objected, “no one can buy his card out of those files. Pacific, even if he’d been a big shot, couldn’t have gotten it.”

“Maybe Pacific isn’t Pacific at all.”

“It’s got to be Pacific. Look, everything changes in this world except one thing ... fingerprints.”

“Yeah, but why’d the card be gone?”

Burrows shook his head. “J. Edgar Hoover couldn’t put on enough pressure to lift that card,” he said.

“I know that. Anyway,” said Jensen, “Turner checked on the duplicate file and it’s the same guy all right.”

“Victor Pacific?”

“Yeah. Victor Pacific.”

“I got an idea,” said Burrows. “Stick around a few minutes. Let me check up on something else. I got an idea. I want to see.”

WHEN Margarite knocked on my door, I opened it. She walked into the room carrying the same large handbag she had carried the last time. “You wanted to see me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She lounged indolently across the room and seated herself on one of the hard wooden chairs. I looked her over carefully. Margarite’s skin was olive in color; her features were good and were in no way grotesque. In a sullen, knowing way she might be called attractive. But there was no question regarding her appearance; she looked like a chippy ... clothes too tight, too gaudy, heavy make-up, a brazen, half-defiant air. I felt discouraged; she looked nothing like Rosemary Martin had looked, and I was filled with doubts regarding my ability to carry through my plan. Yet I had no alternative, and could only hope that Rosemary Martin might not be remembered at the bank where hundreds of customers appear daily.

At first Margarite was wary when I explained to her. . . laboriously ... that I wanted her to learn to forge a signature, and she must learn to sign it quickly and easily in public.

“No, thanks,” she told me bluntly, “I got enough troubles without looking for more.”

I described to her the safe deposit box and told her that it had belonged to my wife who had since deserted me, that it contained some important papers which I needed badly, and there was no other way to get them.

“Where’s your old lady now?” Margarite asked me.

I told her that I didn’t know where she was.

“In New York?”

“No, not in New York.”

“How much is it worth to you?”

I told Margarite that it was worth a hundred dollars.

She considered this new piece of information thoughtfully. “All I got to do is go down to the bank with you and sign a card with the name Nell O’Hanstrom? That right?”

“That was correct.” I also instructed her that if anyone asked her, she was to say that her middle initial was “C.”

“And there’s no chance jamming up against the cops?”

“No chance.”

Although at last she agreed reluctantly, once she had given her word, she entered into the scheme heartily. I handed her the piece of paper on which I had carefully copied the compiled signature of Nell O’Hanstrom, and she promised to practice it and return to see me the next day.

After she had gone, I went through the items which I had collected from Rosemary’s past. The significance of the newspaper clipping, concerning the early collegiate rowing races, eluded me. The date 1895 was important evidently, and the numerals could be a reminder of many things—a street address, a telephone number without the exchange, or it could be the number to the deposit box. As I considered the different sides to the problem, I reached the conclusion that it was a round-about, too elaborate a concealment for anything as simple as an address or telephone number, but for a safe deposit box, it might be an excellent reminder. It would be necessary for Margarite to give the bank attendant the number of the safe box; she could use 1-8-9-5, and if it was wrong, she could then pretend that she had forgotten. The bluff might work.

The next day when Margarite returned I handed her a sheet of paper and instructed her to write. She wrote rapidly the signature of Nell O’Hanstrom. Picking it up, I compared it with the one I had pieced together. It wasn’t too good, but it wasn’t poor either.

“How’d I do?” Margarite asked.

I shook my head, and wrote, “You must do better.”

“All right,” she agreed sharply, petulant because I hadn’t praised her. “I’ll try. When do you want to go to the bank? Today?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Okay, I’ll practice some more.” Before she left, I carefully explained to her how I wanted her to dress. “Sure,” she told me, “I got a coat. It’s sort of old, but it’s plain and made out of cashmere.” That was the one I wanted her to wear.

When we appeared at the bank, Margarite came as close to looking like a lady as she might ever do. Before leaving the hotel, I had insisted that she remove most of her make-up, leaving only her lipstick. She wore a plain casual coat and medium pumps; her hair was groomed, glistening beneath a small hat. We had rehearsed, step by step, the procedure to be followed at the bank. Margarite assured me that she understood her part perfectly, and I believed that she possessed the self-confidence to carry it through.

As we walked down the winding narrow stairs of the bank to the lower level, I slipped her the key to the safe deposit box. Outside the grilled door, I pressed the electric bell and we were buzzed inside. For this trip, I had purchased a pair of glasses, with plain lenses, and a new hat which I wore solidly on my head. I hoped that no one would recognize me from my previous visit with Bianca. No one did. The attendant who had met Bianca Hill was occupied with other clients of the bank, and to the one who checked with us Margarite said firmly, “I want to get into box 1-8-9-5.”

The attendant gave her a card and a ball point pen. “Please sign here,” he said.

Casually Margarite scrawled the signature of Nell O’Hanstrom, and handed the card, together with the key, to the attendant. Holding the card, he stepped to a file case and checked the signature. For a second he hesitated, and I could feel myself tense. Then he asked Margarite, “What is your middle initial?”

“C,” she replied, “as in Charlotte.”

“Thank you.” He motioned us to follow him within the heavy round door, and stooping slightly inserted first his master key, then the key handed him by Margarite. He opened an oblong-shaped metal door and removed a steel box. “Come this way,” he told us.

We followed him into a corridor which had a number of private rooms opening off it. Each room contained a desk, chair, light, and writing equipment. The attendant placed the box on the desk and, leaving the room, closed the door behind him. I could hear it lock.

“Here we are,” said Margarite.

“Yes.” I handed her a hundred dollars, and motioned for her to stand in the far corner of the room, facing the wall. When she had done this, I opened the box while shielding it with my body.

Inside was a stack of ten-thousand-dollar U. S. government bills ... ten of them, a hundred thousand dollars. In a large Manila envelope were a series of bankers’ acceptances varying in amounts from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars. They were made out to Howard Wainwright and were good for credit in any bank in the United States, or around the world. These acceptances were issued by several banks, for a total of nine hundred thousand dollars. As issued, they would not show up in the books of any bank as an account. Traditionally they are used by importers and exporters.'

We left the room and Margarite returned the box and key to the attendant. He relocked the box, and gave back the key. Without another word, we left the bank. “Well, honey,” she asked me, “did you get what you wanted?”

I didn’t know. I now had a million dollars which had belonged to Wainwright, and which might not do me any good. A ten-thousand-dollar bill is not considered currency, and it is not easy to cash. To cash such a bill, the person must be known and identified at a bank. Bills of such size are used primarily for the transfer of funds by large corporations, exchange of credit in the stock market, and other commercial purposes.

“It must have been awful important,” Margarite continued. “You seemed to be taking a lot of papers.” I didn’t attempt to reply, but kept on walking a little faster, and she hurried to keep step with me. Panting from the exertion, she said, “If it was really so important, a hundred dollars isn’t much money. Maybe you could give me a little more.” Her voice carried a professional whine.

We were passing a subway entrance, and I stopped suddenly. Drawing her to one side, so we were partly concealed by the covered doorway, I reached in my pocket and withdrew a twenty-dollar bill. Holding the bill in my hand so she could see it, I slipped the knife into my other hand, the blade protected by the sleeve of my coat.

Margarite looked at the bill, then slowly she turned her eyes to see the hilt nestled in my palm. I stood that way until she raised her gaze and looked me in the face. Trembling she drew the coat closely around her. There was no need to say anything; the message was quite clear; she understood. Taking the twenty dollars, she ran down the steps of the subway and disappeared.

Back at the Arena Hotel, I regarded my face in the mirror. Since my last visit to see Minor at the hospital, I had decided to regrow my mustache. Only three days had elapsed; not enough time to do more than shadow my lip. Carefully I shaved around the line of growing hair, then darkened it with a wax pencil. The mustache seemed to leap, nearly full grown, into being. I observed it carefully, attempting to determine the amount of change it produced in my appearance. A mustache will not disguise a person if his features are well known; it will, however, change the impression of his face.

The phone rang, which surprised me, as no one except Margarite knew where I was staying. I picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?”

“Hello, Pacific?” It was Santini’s voice. “I’m down in the lobby, and I’m here to see you. I’ll be up, don’t try to run!”

I had no intention of running and hung up the phone. Within a few minutes, I heard the elevator door slam, and his footsteps approached my door. I opened it. “Well,” said Santini, “it’s real nice seeing you again, Pacific.” His voice, however, was not friendly, and the meaning behind his words was twisted. He came into the room and sat on the bed without removing his hat or coat. It seemed that he was perched there, like a bird of prey, and he moved his head slowly from side to side as he looked around. “Nice place you got here,” he said. “Mind if I look around?”