Holy Terror Page 3

  And I haven’t? thought Conor, remembering the night beneath the Brooklyn Bridge when the Pratolini brothers had stamped on the small of his back and almost paralyzed him for life.

  * * *

  Salvatore went out to deal with the Brinks-Mat delivery and Conor made a call home. It took Lacey over a minute to answer.

  ‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ she said. ‘I was right up on top of the stepladder, painting the ceiling.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad that one of us doesn’t mind climbing stepladders, otherwise our walls would only be painted halfway up.’

  ‘You know, you should talk to Bryan about your vertigo. Do you know that he counseled the Great Bardini once, when he lost his nerve on the high wire?’

  ‘I must be the only person I know who needs a lifestyle counselor to remodel his home.’

  ‘Oh, no, you’re not. Jennie Feinstein does Tantric meditation before she chooses her cushion covers.’

  ‘I thought Tantric meditation was all about sex.’

  ‘It is. And you should see her cushions.’

  Conor pried opened the lid of his lunchbox and looked at his apple. He was starting to feel hungry again. Lacey said, ‘How did you get on in court?’

  He told her. She listened, but all she said was, ‘That woman, I don’t know.’ She didn’t give him any sympathy about Fay. She knew that it hurt too much, like poking a loose filling.

  He said, ‘Listen, I’ll see you at six. I thought we could eat out tonight, seeing as you’ve been painting all day.’

  ‘No, let’s stay in. I’m cooking French tonight.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Rare entrecôte steak with potatoes baked in cream, and rum baba for dessert?’

  ‘Unh-hunh. Chard stalks in cheese sauce, followed by organic rhubarb yogurt.’

  ‘You’re going to kill me, with all this healthy food.’

  He was still talking when Salvatore reappeared in his office doorway. Salvatore’s eyes were wide and his face looked sweaty and colorless and tight, like a shiny gray balloon.

  ‘Sal?’ said Conor.

  ‘Um, put down the phone, sir,’ said Salvatore, clearing his throat.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Please put down the phone, sir. Don’t say one more word.’

  Conor hesitated. He could hear Lacey saying, ‘Hello? Conor? Conor, what’s happening?’ He could sense that something was badly wrong. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and slowly returned the telephone to its cradle. Then he sat back, keeping both hands on the desk.

  Salvatore stepped into the office. Right behind him came a wide-shouldered black man in a khaki Brinks-Mat uniform that barely buttoned up over his chest. He reminded Conor of Mike Tyson, but with tinier eyes and inkier skin and an ethnic haircut with swirly patterns shaved into the sides. He was holding a huge nickel-plated .44 automatic up to the back of Salvatore’s head. He pushed Salvatore across to the chair in front of the TV monitor screens and said in a thick, slow, gravelly voice, ‘Sit down. Don’t move. Don’t say jack shit.’

  Chapter 4

  Salvatore awkwardly sat down. The black man prodded his forehead with the barrel of his gun. ‘You want to stay alive, you stay right where you are. And you—’ he said, turning to Conor, ‘you don’t get cute with me, pushing no alarm button or nothing. We hear one siren outside, we see one single cop, this guy’s brain’s going to be wallpaper.’

  ‘We?’ said Conor.

  ‘Me and my associate. He’s on his way right now.’ The black man’s forehead was studded with pearls of sweat and he was in a state of strongly suppressed panic, like an actor with stage fright.

  ‘You got a name?’ Conor asked him. ‘My name’s Conor, and this is Sal.’ First and immediate rule of survival in a hostage situation: personalize yourself, make it more difficult for your captor to shoot you because he knows who you are.

  The black man said, ‘You want my name? You’re putting me on. You want my address and my telephone number, too?’

  Conor said, ‘I hope you realize that the chances of your getting away with this are just about zilch. Look over there. You’re on Candid Camera.’

  ‘We know what we’re doing, man. You look after the security and we’ll take care of the robbery. First thing you can do is give me your gun. Take it out ultra careful with two fingers and lay it on the floor.’

  Conor did as he was told. His heart rate had quickened, but he was trying to keep calm. He kept a pump-action shotgun taped to the underside of his desk, and three more revolvers in various hiding places around the office. It was a precaution he had always taken, ever since the days of the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club. His grandfather had always told him: they don’t give out medals for inferior firepower.

  The black man kicked Conor’s gun out of reach.

  ‘Now you going to do something, man. You going to call the other guy, the guy you need to open the strongroom door. You going to sound cool, man. You going to sound so laid back. You going to say, come down here, man, there’s some rich old bitch who wants to check out her jewels.’

  Conor said, ‘I have to warn you, this is very badly advised. If you steal any one of those safety-deposit boxes, you’re going to have people after you who can afford five million dollars just to have you tracked down, and their property returned, and your body minced up and fed to every pig in Iowa.’

  ‘Just do what you’re fucking told,’ said the black man, and screwed the muzzle of the pistol into Salvatore’s ear.

  Conor picked up the phone and punched out Darrell’s number. He had to wait nearly thirty seconds before an irritable Darrell picked up. ‘Yes? What? I’m in the middle of a display meeting here.’

  ‘Darrell, Mrs Hammerlich just came in. She needs access to the strongroom.’

  ‘Jesus on a bicycle, Conor. Didn’t she make an appointment?’

  ‘I don’t think the wife of the owner of the third largest petroleum refiner in the United States needs an appointment, do you?’

  ‘All right, all right. Give me a couple of minutes, will you?’

  ‘It has to be now, Darrell.’

  There was a moment’s pause. The black man cocked back the hammer of his automatic and gave Conor a look which said: Don’t push me to do this, because I just might.

  Darrell said, ‘O-kay, then, if old Ma Hammerlich is making a song and dance about it.’

  ‘Song and dance? Believe me, Darrell, Showboat has nothing on this.’

  Conor put down the phone. ‘He’s coming. Give him a couple of minutes to get down here.’

  ‘I’m warning you, man. If he don’t come, and if he don’t come quick … your deputy here is going to be losing his head.’

  The door swung open again and a thin, bespectacled white man came in, wearing a matching Brinks-Mat uniform. He had cropped blond hair and oddly colorless eyes and his face could have been seraphic if it hadn’t been so scarred and knocked about. A shop-soiled Angel Gabriel. He was carrying an Uzi sub-machine pistol close to his chest.

  ‘Good job, Ray,’ he told the black man cheerfully. ‘How long before the lardass gets here?’ He had a whispery, cigarette-parched voice, with a strong north-eastern accent. Boston, or Lynn, or even Marblehead.

  ‘Give him time,’ Conor volunteered. ‘He’s coming down from the fifth floor, and he’s not exactly a natural athlete.’

  The Angel Gabriel peered at him, and then a grin cracked across his face. ‘You’re the guy, right? You’re the guy who bust all those cops. I ought to shake your hand.’

  The black man Ray looked at his watch and then he looked at Conor. ‘Two minutes, you got it? That’s all I’m going to give him.’

  ‘Hey – don’t tell me your former colleagues in the police department haven’t put a price on your ass,’ said the Angel Gabriel, circling the office. ‘What do you reckon they’d pay me if I shot you now?’

  ‘You won’t shoot me now because you’d never get into the strongroom.’

  The Angel Gabriel s
at on the edge of Conor’s desk and jabbed the muzzle of his Uzi into Conor’s breastbone. His breath smelled of tobacco and something strange, like licorice root. The only indications that he was stressed were his widely dilated pupils and his quick, shallow breathing. ‘I have a little list here,’ he said, reaching left-handed into the breast pocket of his uniform and producing a folded sheet of paper. ‘And I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. As soon as the lardass shows, we’re going to open up the strongroom. Then we’re going to remove all of the safe deposit boxes on my little list, and we’re going to wheel them out to our truck. After that we’re going to drive away, and we’re going to be taking your deputy with us. If we don’t get clear away, your deputy is going to be dead meat. And don’t try complaining to Brinks-Mat. This particular collection is what you might call unauthorized.’

  Conor looked him straight in the eye. ‘Don’t sweat it. You won’t catch me trying to stop you.’

  ‘Oh, really? I thought you were supposed to be the chief security officer around here.’

  ‘I am. But what do I care if some rich old widow loses a million or two? Not worth getting killed for.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound at all like the man who broke the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club.’

  ‘There’s a subtle difference, my friend. The man who broke the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club was a cop. Being a cop, that’s a calling. Being a security officer, that’s a job.’

  ‘Well, I guess. But some people take their jobs more seriously than others, don’t they? How seriously do you take your job, Mr O’Neil?’

  The black man Ray checked his watch yet again. He was standing directly in front of Conor’s desk, and Conor had thought of discharging his shotgun right into his knees. But the chances of missing were too high, and Ray still had his automatic an inch away from Salvatore’s ear. Apart from that, Conor would never be able to reach the .22 in the drawer beneath the TV monitor screens before Gabriel cut him to bits with his Uzi. Six hundred rounds a minute.

  The door opened and Darrell came bustling in, looking annoyed.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here, Conor? Where’s Mrs Hammerlich?’

  Gabriel stood up and lifted his Uzi so that Darrell could see it clearly. ‘Mrs Hammerlich couldn’t make it so we came in her place. My friend and me would like to take a look inside your strongroom, if you don’t mind. Just to make sure that Mrs Hammerlich’s property is locked up good and tight, where no unscrupulous thieves can get at it.’

  ‘Conor, what’s going on here?’ said Darrell, in disbelief. ‘Is this a robbery?’

  Conor nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Darrell. I guess it has all the makings.’

  ‘Well, what – well, what—’

  ‘I can’t do anything,’ said Conor. ‘Neither can you. We’ll just have to co-operate, that’s all.’

  ‘But what – the strongroom! The stuff we’ve got in there! Uncle Newt’s going to—! Bearer bonds! Uncut diamonds!’

  ‘Darrell… one human life is worth any amount of bearer bonds or uncut diamonds. And why don’t you give these guys a shopping list, while you’re at it?’

  ‘But for Christ’s sake, Conor, what’s it going to do to the business? Who’s going to leave any of their property here if we allow these, these, these—’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ said the Angel Gabriel. ‘You might annoy me and I might have to blow your head off, too. Now move that oversized butt and let’s have that strongroom opened up.’

  ‘Conor?’ Darrell appealed. But Conor grimly shook his head. It took perfect timing to deal with a hostage situation, and this wasn’t the time. He turned to the Angel Gabriel and said, ‘I have to get the strongroom keys out of the wall-safe.’

  ‘Go ahead. But let me see where your hands are; and take it real, real easy.’

  The Angel Gabriel backed away from Conor’s desk. He crossed the office and without hesitation he took down the Norman Rockwell print and propped it against the wall. Conor approached the safe and punched out his four-digit number immediately but Darrell stayed where he was, his arms folded, his lower lip sticking out, looking belligerent.

  ‘Come on, lardass,’ said the Angel Gabriel. ‘You only have sixty seconds and then the safe locks itself for good.’

  ‘And then what will you do? Kill me?’

  ‘You’ve got it in one. Now come over here and finish up the goddamn code.’

  Darrell stayed defiant. But Conor said, ‘Darrell … believe me, I have experience of situations like this. If we don’t open this safe, they’re going to shoot us.’

  ‘That’s right, Darrell,’ the Angel Gabriel added. He pulled back the Uzi’s cocking-handle and pointed the muzzle directly at Darrell’s face. ‘Just think about it. That stuff in the strongroom, it’s only stuff, and it’s not even your stuff. Do you really want to die for it?’

  Darrell looked at Conor, and Conor gave him an encouraging nod. With only nine seconds to spare he stepped up to the safe and punched out the remaining numbers. Then he stepped back again and said, ‘Uncle Newt’s going to have me gelded for this. I mean gelded.’

  Conor opened the safe. He took one key and passed the other to Darrell. He didn’t say anything but he gave Darrell a long, serious look which warned him not to treat these men lightly. He didn’t think they were sudden, psychopathic killers; but you never knew what could happen under extreme tension.

  ‘Come on, move,’ the Angel Gabriel snapped.

  Ray stayed in the office with Salvatore. Conor and Darrell accompanied the Angel Gabriel down to the strongroom door. The closed-circuit television camera turned to watch them as Conor punched out his numbers. The Angel Gabriel must have noticed it but he didn’t make any attempt to hide his face. Darrell tapped his numbers as slowly as he could, and he hesitated before he turned his key. ‘Come on, lardass,’ the Angel Gabriel urged him. ‘I don’t have the rest of my natural life to do this.’

  ‘Will you please stop calling me that? I had enough of that at school.’

  The strongroom door swung open. They stepped inside and their footsteps echoed. ‘Wheel that trolley over here,’ the Angel Gabriel ordered. ‘Yes, you, lardass.’

  Darrell brought over the small green trolley which they used for pushing safety deposit boxes around. ‘OK,’ said the Angel Gabriel. ‘I want you to stack the following number boxes onto the trolley. And do it quick.’

  He rapidly read out a list of fifteen numbers. Conor and Darrell located the boxes, pulled them out, and loaded them onto the trolley. Conor hadn’t been working at Spurr’s long enough to know the owner of every box, but there was one that he remembered from his very first week. Box number 334, which had been visited by Davina Gambit, who was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce from her husband Jack Gambit, the property billionaire. The box was very light, which probably meant that it contained letters, or bonds. In fact all the boxes were very light. The Angel Gabriel probably knew exactly what he was looking for.

  When they were finished, Darrell pushed the trolley out of the strongroom. It had one squeaky wheel. Conor closed the strongroom door behind them and relocked it. ‘Now it’s out to the truck, gents, and we’ll be saying muchas gracias and adiós.’

  Conor thought: heart rate’s up. Adrenalin’s beginning to surge. I don’t have very much longer to stop them from getting away. At the same time, I daren’t risk anybody’s life.

  They reached his office. Ray was still standing there with his automatic pressed against Salvatore’s ear.

  ‘You ready?’ he asked, jumpily.

  The Angel Gabriel laid his hand on Conor’s shoulder with unexpected intimacy. ‘What the plan is now, we walk out through the store and you stay close to make sure that everything goes right. When we leave the store, you come back here to your office and you sit here for one hour exactly and you don’t call nobody, not even your proctologist. When we’re free and clear, I’ll call you; and tell you where you can pick up your deputy safe and well.

  ‘But don’t try to be smart. We
don’t want Salvatore to end up as menudencias, do we?’ Menudencias was Spanish for variety meats.

  Darrell wheezed, ‘My uncle’s going to have your nuts, you know that. You know how much money he’s got? You’re going to be eunuchs after this!’ Conor was amazed at his nerve.

  The Angel Gabriel patted Darrell’s fiery cheek. ‘Che sarà sarà, lardass. Now let’s get going.’

  Conor opened the security door, and stepped out first. Darrell followed him, pushing the trolley. The Angel Gabriel came next, his Uzi loosely concealed inside his unbuttoned tunic. Then came Salvatore and Ray.

  ‘Come on,’ said the Angel Gabriel.

  They began to walk between the shining displays of Nina Ricci and Guerlain. The air was chilly but heady with perfume, and in the background the store’s music system played a loud and glutinous version of ‘Moon River’.

  ‘Keep going,’ said the Angel Gabriel. ‘Not too fast.’

  They were passing the Giorgio counter when Doris Fugazy flapped out, ‘Chief O’Neil! Chief O’Neil!’

  ‘Who the fuck’s this witch?’ hissed the Angel Gabriel.

  ‘Chief O’Neil, what I was going to tell you was, we’re holding a charity cookout Sunday afternoon and I was so hoping that you and Mrs O’Neil would care to come along – well, I’m so sorry, not Mrs O’Neil but your lovely significant other. It’s going to be so much fun, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourselves, both of you.’

  ‘Get rid of her. For Christ’s sake get rid of her now.’

  ‘Doris …’ said Conor. ‘I’m kind of tied up right now. Let me talk to you about it later.’

  ‘You will do your best to come, won’t you? It’s all in aid of the Gulf War Veterans’ Fund and the children’s playgroup.’

  ‘Get rid of her, will you?’

  ‘Doris … this is kind of a difficult time. These guys have to get these safety deposit boxes out to their armored truck. You know, security stuff.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. But I thought if I told you now it would give you and Mrs O’Neil – well, I could bite off my tongue, not Mrs O’Neil but—’