Harlem Shuffle(96)

Inside the unfinished elevator, a bare plate awaited the inspection certificate. Still time to turn around. “How do you know which bank?” Carney asked.

“Was wondering when you’d ask,” Pepper said. Weary. “You like this heat?”

Carney thought, Let Freddie lie in the bed he made. And then what? Raid the maybe bank accounts and run off to an island somewhere like Wilfred Duke? It was a short-lived fantasy, a brief excursion between floors: Elizabeth would leave his ass in a second when she found out about his crooked side. Call the cops herself if thugs came knocking on Leland and Alma’s door looking for them.

    The elevator produced a crisp, cheerful ping and opened its doors.

The hallway of the fifteenth floor was carpeted in red, sturdy pile and a series of faux-marble panels ran its length. The ceiling lights, Carney noted, were encased in those Miller globes that had caught on in office buildings. A thin brass arrow pointed to suite 1500.

“High up,” Pepper said. “The last time I was above the tenth floor…” He pulled out the Colt Cobra from his windbreaker. Carney had left his gun in the glove compartment after telling Pepper about it. He wasn’t going to use it so it didn’t make sense to bring it. In due course, the stupidity of this argument made itself evident.

The lights were on in reception. No one present. Ed Bench yelled, “In here, gentlemen,” from down the hall. It smelled of paint, so fresh that the pale green walls looked like they’d smudge on you from a foot away. Chest-high dividers cut the big rooms into individual work areas, but the desks, chairs, and everything else were missing. Businesses had moved into Pan Am before it was finished, Carney remembered. There was so much urgent business to be done that the buildings couldn’t keep pace, the money pushed on ahead. Next week these rooms and sub-rooms would be full of men in pinstripe suits barking into receivers.

A different sort of deal had to be concluded before that.

The door to the conference room was propped open, and inside waited Ed Bench and two men in gray flannel suits with skinny lapels. From Pepper’s description, the two men were the astronauts. Ed Bench was seated at the big oval-shaped table, a white telephone with an intercom system by his elbow. There were twelve empty seats. The table and chairs were from Templeton Office’s new fall line of business furniture. Not even out yet, as far as Carney knew. Outside the glass wall to the street, the new midtown skyline—ever changing—marched in silhouette.

    Pepper nodded in greeting to the two astronauts, who made no response. They flanked Ed Bench and had their guns trained on Carney and Pepper in the doorway. The astronauts were more at home in the tailored suits than the gas-company costumes; this corporate warren was their natural habitat.

From his reaction, Ed Bench had been briefed on the couch salesman’s bodyguard, but could not resist raising an eyebrow at his rustic attire.

Pepper kept his gun on the redhead. He had a particular dislike.

“My client was glad to have the necklace back,” Ed Bench said. “He’ll be pleased you brought the rest of his things.”

“Where’s Freddie?” Carney said.

Ed Bench gestured at the briefcase. “Everything inside?”

“The man asked you a question,” Pepper said. He checked the office behind him for party crashers. The partitions made it impossible. “Can we quit with the jibber jabber?”

The eyes of the two astronauts communicated that they waited on a pretext.

“You parked where I told you?” Ed Bench said, lowering the temperature.

Carney said, “Yeah.”

Ed Bench dialed a number. He said, “Okay,” and hung up. “If you go to the window, you’ll see.”

Pepper said, “Go ahead,” and kept his gun level. Carney moseyed over. His father’s truck was directly across the street.

“He’ll be along,” Ed Bench said.

“Van Wyck,” Carney said. “He must be broken up about his son.”

“Linus had a knack for getting into trouble. He hung out with a bad element.”

Below, two men emerged around Fifty-First Street. They carried a limp figure, which they deposited in the truck bed. They withdrew. Perhaps it was Freddie. The person did not move.

    “What’s wrong with him?” Carney said.

“He’s alive,” Ed Bench said.

The blond astronaut made a sound.

“Mr. Van Wyck took a dim view,” Ed Bench said.

Pepper said, “Fuck is that?”

“Introducing his son to narcotics. Laughing.”

Introducing—that wasn’t true at all. “What do you mean, laughing?” Carney said.

Ed Bench registered Pepper’s new posture. “When they robbed the apartment. Linus and Mr. Van Wyck had a scuffle and he fell. And Linus’s friend laughed.” He stroked his chin. “He took a dim view.”

For the first time the redheaded astronaut spoke: “So we tuned him up.”

Later, Pepper explained it was the principle of the thing: Let white people think they can fuck all over you and they’ll keep doing it.

That was two months after the night on Park Avenue. Summer had burned off and autumn crept in like a thief. They were in Donegal’s. Carney had stopped by to see how Pepper was enjoying the Egon recliner and pagoda standing lamp. Carney said, “You said with the riots, what was the point? Everything keeps on the way it is, so all the protests were for nothing.”