Why Me? (7 page)

Mologna: “Well, yes and no, Jack. We have the bunch that pulled the job out at Kennedy International Airport, but unfortunately we don't as yet have the ring.”

Mackenzie: “But arrests have been made?”

Mologna: “Definitely. We've held back the announcement, hopin to finish the case. The alleged perpetrators are aliens, apparently involved in the current troubles in Cyprus. We nabbed all four this mornin.”

Mackenzie: “So the theft of the Byzantine Fire was a political act.”

Mologna (
chuckles
): “Well, Jack, that may be the way
they
look at it. I'm a simple New York cop, and to me a holdup is a holdup.”

Mackenzie: “So these people will be tried like any common criminal.”

Mologna: “That's up to the courts, Jack.”

Mackenzie: “Yes, of course. Chief Inspector, if you are satisfied you have in fact apprehended the criminals, why is it the Byzantine Fire is still missing?”

Mologna: “Well, Jack, that's the reason I want to make a direct appeal to the public. The fact is, and this is why we've made no announcement till now, the ring was stolen
twice
.”

Mackenzie: “Twice?”

Mologna: “That's right, Jack. The original perpetrators intended to smuggle the ring out of the country, and in connection with their plans they left it in a jeweler's shop on Rockaway Boulevard in the South Ozone Park section of Queens.”

Mackenzie: “Off the tape here, do you have a color photo of this store? Otherwise I'll have to phone our people to get out there right away.”

Mologna: “Now, Jack, you know I take care of you. Turnbull here has everythin you need.”

Mackenzie: “Great. Back on the tape. Chief Inspector, you say the ring was left in a jeweler's shop?”

Mologna: “That's right, Jack. Due to some very good police work—and I want to say that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was very helpful in this part of the case—we'd rounded up the entire gang well before sunup this mornin. Unfortunately, durin that time the jeweler's shop underwent an entirely unconnected burglary. Some thief, as yet unapprehended, took away the Byzantine Fire along with the rest of his loot from the store.
This
is the man we are now lookin for.”

Mackenzie: “Chief Inspector, do you mean to say that some minor-league crook in this city is now in possession of the multi-million-dollar Byzantine Fire?”

Mologna: “That's precisely the case, Jack.”

Mackenzie: “Chief Inspector, may I ask what is being done?”

Mologna: “Everythin is bein done, Jack. Since the discovery of the burglary, I have put into effect an order to question every known criminal in the city of New York.”

Mackenzie: “A pretty large order, Chief Inspector.”

Mologna: “We're devotin our full resources to the job, Jack.” (Out of camera range, Sergeant Leon Windrift slid a piece of paper onto the desk in front of Mologna, who did not blatantly look at it.) “As of three o'clock this afternoon, in all five boroughs of this city, seventeen thousand, three hundred and fifty-four individuals have been picked up for questionin. The result so far of this blitz has been six hundred and ninety-one arrests for crimes and offenses unrelated to the disappearance of the Byzantine Fire.”

Mackenzie: “Chief Inspector, are you saying that so far today six hundred ninety-one unsolved crimes have been solved?”

Mologna: “That's up to the courts, Jack. All I can tell you is,
we're
satisfied with the results up till now.”

Mackenzie: “So, no matter what else happens, today's police blitz has been a definite plus from the point of view of the honest citizens of New York.”

Mologna: “I'd say so, Jack. But now we'd like to ask those honest citizens to give us their assistance.” (
turning directly to camera
) “The Byzantine Fire is a very valuable ruby ring, but it's more than that. As Americans, we were makin a gift of that ruby ring, all of us, to a friendly nation. As New Yorkers, I think we all feel a little ashamed that this has happened in our fair city. I am showin you a picture of the Byzantine Fire. If you have seen this ring, or if you have any information at all that could be helpful in this investigation, please call the special police number you now see on your screen.” (
turns back to Mackenzie
)

Mackenzie: “And in the meantime, Chief Inspector, the police blitz will continue?”

Mologna: “Absolutely, Jack.”

Mackenzie: “Until the Byzantine Fire is found.”

Mologna: “Jack, the criminal element in the city of New York will learn to regret the very existence of the Byzantine Fire.”

Mackenzie: “Thank you very much, Chief Inspector Francis Mologna.”

That ended the interview. Mackenzie and Mologna shook hands once more and exchanged a few words while Mackenzie's crew packed up. Then Mologna resat behind the desk to await the rest of the press—due now to arrive in about ten minutes—while Mackenzie hurried back to the TV station, there to pose against another Virgin-Mary-blue drape for reaction shots and a lead-in explanation of the story and better-organized phrasing of a couple of his questions. These shots were mixed with portions of the interview tape, plus a nice clear color photo of the facade of Skoukakis Credit Jewelers, plus another nice clear color photo of the Byzantine Fire on a background of black velvet, plus a superimposition of the special police number (which would be dialed by a lot of giggling 12-year-olds), and the whole thing was ready just in time for the six o'clock news.

A very attractive little scoop.

14

It's a pity Dortmunder watched the wrong channel. At six-oh-three, while Jack Mackenzie was describing Dortmunder's most recent exploit (anonymously) to several hundred thousand more or less indifferent viewers, his potentially most rapt audience was a bare few clicks away along the dial, watching something called “file film” of people in white dresses running around a sunny broad tree-lined street amid the pop-chatter of small arms fire, as a voice-over announcer stated that fighting between government troops and rebels had broken out yet again.
Where
this fighting had broken out Dortmunder wasn't sure, not having paid that close attention to the voice-over voice. On the other hand, he didn't much care, either; if a lot of people in white dresses wanted to run around a sunny broad tree-lined street while being shot at, that was up to them. Dortmunder was mostly brooding about his own problems: drinking beer, paying minimal attention to the six o'clock news, and brooding.

May came home while the sports news was being given its usual exhaustive airing, a subject in which Dortmunder's lack of interest was so profound that he hadn't waited until the commercial to go get another beer. Returning to the living room with the new beer, he saw May walk in the front door and switched off the TV set just as the post-sports commercial was starting. Which was also unfortunate, because right after
that
commercial the hot news about the Byzantine Fire was going to be broadcast by the (helplessly furious at both Mackenzie and Mologna) police beat reporter for this channel, a man blamelessly suffering because his Irish name— Costello—sounded Italian.

“Let me take one of those,” Dortmunder said, and took her left-hand grocery sack.

“Thanks.” The cigarette bobbled in the corner of her mouth.

It was May's belief that her activities as a cashier down at the Safeway made her in a way a member of the Safeway family, and how could the family begrudge her a little for herself? So every day she came home with a couple of full grocery sacks, which was very helpful for their domestic economy.

They carried today's groceries to the kitchen, with May saying along the way, “Somebody's passing fake food stamps.”

“Counterfeit?”

“It's the noncash economy you read about,” May said. “Credit cards, checks, food stamps. People don't deal in money any more.”

“Um,” said Dortmunder. The noncash economy was one of his major career problems. No cash payrolls, no cash deliveries, no cash anywhere.

“They're nice, too,” May said. “Very good plates. The only trouble is, the paper's different. Thinner. You can feel the difference.”

“Not smart,” Dortmunder said.

“That's right. Does a cashier look at all that paper? No. But you
touch
every piece that comes by.”

“Food stamps.” Dortmunder leaned against the sink, slurping at his beer while May put the groceries away. “You wouldn't think it'd be worth it.”

“Oh, no? With prices the way they are? You just don't know, John.”

“I guess not.”

“If I didn't have the job at the Safeway, I wouldn't mind some queer food stamps myself.”

“Big operation,” Dortmunder mused. “You've got your printer, you've got your salesmen on the street.”

“I was thinking,” May said. “I could maybe be a salesman. Right there at the register.”

Dortmunder frowned at her. “I don't know, May. I wouldn't like you to take chances.”

“Just to deal with customers I know. I'll think about it, anyway.”

“It'd be an easy pinch, is all.”

“I won't do it unless things get really tight around here. How'd you do with Arnie?”

“Um,” Dortmunder said.

May was putting two plastic-wrapped trays of chicken parts in the refrigerator. She gave Dortmunder a questioning look, closed the refrigerator door, and while folding up the grocery sacks said, “Something went wrong.”

“Arnie got arrested. While I was there.”

“They didn't take you with?”

“They didn't see me.”

“That's good. Wha'd they take him for?”

“It's a sweep. There was some big jewel robbery out at Kennedy last night.”

“I saw something about it in the paper.”

“So the law's busting everybody,” Dortmunder said, “looking for it.”

“The poor guy.”

“That took it?” Dortmunder shook his head. “He deserves what he gets, making all this trouble. It's the guys like Arnie I feel sorry for. Arnie and me.”

“Won't they have to let him go after a while?”

“Arnie's probably out already,” Dortmunder said, “but he won't be buying for a while. And I heard about another possible guy and went there, and the cops were grabbing him, too. I guess they're hitting particular on the fences because it's a jewel.”

“So you've still got the goods?”

“In the bedroom.”

May would know he meant the hiding place in the back of the dresser. “Never mind,” she said. “You'll have better luck tomorrow.” Fishing out a new cigarette, she lit it from the final coal of the old one, then flipped the ember into the sink, where it briefly sizzled.

“I'm sorry, May,” Dortmunder said.

“It's not your fault,” she said. “Besides, you never know what's going to happen in this life. That's why I brought home the chicken. We'll eat out tomorrow.”

“Sure.” As much to encourage himself as her, he said, “Stan Murch called. He's got something, he says. Needs a planner.”

“Well, that's you.”

“I'm seeing him tonight.”

“What's the score?”

“I don't know yet,” Dortmunder said. “I hope it isn't jewelry again.”

“The noncash economy,” May said, smiling.

“Maybe it's food stamps,” Dortmunder said.

15

When Malcolm Zachary got mad, he got mad like an FBI man. His jaw clenched so four-square and rock-hard he looked like Dick Tracy. His shoulders became absolutely straight and right-angled and level with the floor, as though he were wearing a cardboard box from the liquor store under his coat. His eyes became very intense, like Superman looking through walls. And when he spoke, little muscle bunches in his cheeks did tangos beneath the skin: “Mo-
log
-na,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “Mo-
log
-na, Mo
-log-
na, Mo-
log
-na.”

“I couldn't agree more, Mac,” said Freedly, whose manner when enraged was exactly the reverse. Freedly's eyebrows and moustache and shoulders became all slumped and rounded, as though gravity were overcoming him, and he got the look in his eye of a man trying to figure out how to get even. Which he was.

Zachary and Freedly had also failed to watch the right TV news at six o'clock, or in fact any news at all, because they were in conference at that time with Harry Cabot, their liaison from the CIA, a smooth fiftyish man with a distinguished handsomeness and an air of knowing more than he was saying. Fresh from suborning an overly enlightened Central American government, Cabot had been rewarded for a dirty job well done by being given this soft assignment in New York: funneling to the FBI some of the CIA's data on various foreign insurgent groups potentially involved with the Byzantine Fire. He was, in fact, just speaking about the Armenians, in an amused and dismissive but not entirely comprehensible manner, when the phone rang in Zachary and Freedly's small office here on East 69th Street, and the blow fell: Chief Inspector Mologna had given a statement to the press.

“Harry, we're going to have to look at this,” Zachary said. He had white spots beside his nose and the general air of a man whose parachute doesn't seem to be opening.

“I'll come with you,” Cabot said.

So the three of them went down to the monitor room, where news programs were watched and taped, and the tape of the Mackenzie-Mologna interview was run for them, and that's when Zachary's jaw became very square and Freedly's moustache became very drooped.

The part that galled the most was where Mologna thanked the FBI for its assistance in “rounding up” the jeweler Skoukakis and the arrested Cypriots, implying very clearly that it was the New York Police Department which had done the lion's share of the said rounding up. “They weren't even
in
the case!” Zachary cried. “They've
never
been in the case! Running around after second-story men!”