Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy. Len Deighton
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of tobacco that was in his teeth. ‘Sure I agreed but I didn’t do it.’ He removed the strand of tobacco with a delicate deployment of his little finger. ‘These guys in the lobby: they didn’t ask for cash, wrist-watch or his gold tie-pin, they asked for his wallet. They wanted to check – they were nervous – they wanted to find something to prove he was really Bekuv.’
I shrugged. ‘Wallet … bill-fold … a stick-up man is likely to ask for any of these things when he wants money. What about the Fulton County number plate?’
‘Do you know how big Fulton County is?’
‘On a black Mercedes?’
‘Yes, well we’re checking it. We’ve got the guy from the Department of Motor Vehicles out of his bed, if that makes you feel any better.’
‘It does,’ I said. ‘But if we’d found that “ancient little snapshot of Bekuv” amongst these personal effects that would make me feel even better still. Until we’ve got something to go on, this remains a simple old-fashioned New York hold-up.’
‘Just a heist. But tomorrow, when we tell our pal Bekuv about it, I’m going to paint it to look like they are gunning for him.’
‘Why?’
‘We might learn something from him if he thinks he needs better protection. I’m going to tuck him away somewhere where no one’s going to find him.’
‘Where?’
‘We’ll get him out of here for Christmas, it’s too dangerous here.’
‘Miami? or the safe house in Boston?’
‘Don’t be a comedian. Send him to a CIA safe house! You might as well take a small-ad in Pravda.’ Mann rolled the body back into the chilled case. The sound set my teeth on edge. ‘You take the back-up car,’ Mann told me. ‘I’ll drive myself.’
‘Then where will you put Bekuv?’
‘Don’t make it too early in the morning.’
‘You’ve got my sworn promise,’ I said. I watched him as he marched through the rows and rows of cold slabs, his shoes clicking on the tiled floor and a curious squeaky noise that I later recognized as Mann whistling a tune.
I suppose Mann’s insouciant exit attracted the attention of the mortuary attendant. ‘What’s going on, Harry?’ He looked at me for a few seconds before realizing that I wasn’t Harry. ‘Are you the photographer?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Then who the hell are you?’
‘Seventeenth Precinct know about me,’ I said.
‘And I’ll bet they do,’ he said. ‘How did you get in here, buster?’
‘Calm down. I saw your colleague.’
‘You saw my colleague,’ he mocked in shrill falsetto. ‘Well, now you’re seeing me.’ I noticed his hands as he repeatedly gripped his fists and released them again. I had the feeling he wanted to provoke me, so that he had an excuse for taking a poke at me. I was keen to deprive him of that excuse.
‘It’s official,’ I said.
‘ID, feller,’ he said and poked a finger at my chest.
‘He’s all right, Sammy.’ We both turned. The other mortuary attendant had come in by the centre door. ‘I talked to Charlie Kelly about him. Charlie says OK.’
‘I don’t like guys creeping around here without my permission,’ said the pugnacious little man. Still murmuring abuse, he studied his clip-board and wandered back upstairs with that twitchy walk one sees in punchy old prize-fighters.
‘Sorry about that,’ said the first attendant. ‘I should have told Sammy that you were here.’
‘I thought he was going to put me on a slab,’ I said.
‘Sammy’s all right,’ he said. He looked at me before deciding that I should have a fuller explanation. ‘Sammy and me were cops … we joined the force together, we were both wounded in a gun battle near Delancey, way back in the ’sixties. Neither of us was fit enough to go back into the force. He’s a good guy.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ I said.
‘Saw his fifteen-year-old kid brought in here one day – hit by a truck coming out of school – that happens to you once and you remember. You start getting dizzy every time you unzip a body bag.’ He turned away. ‘Anyway, it was all OK for you, was it? I hear you were right in the middle when the shells started flying.’
‘I was lucky,’ I said.
‘And the third guy took off in a black Merc.’ He was reading it all on the report. ‘You get the plate number?’
‘FC,’ I said. ‘They tell me that’s a Fulton County registration.’
‘Well, at least you didn’t get suckered by the Fulton County plate.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, any cop who’s been in the force a few years will tell you the way those people from Fulton County used to come into the city and double-park all over Manhattan. And no cop would ever give them a ticket. Jesus, the number of times I saw cars … would you believe treble-parked on Madison, jamming the traffic … and I just walked on and forgot about it.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Well you wouldn’t, being from out of town, but a Fulton County plate is FC and then three numerals. Not many cops noticed any difference between that and three numbers followed by FC … I mean, a cop’s got a lot on his mind, without getting into that kind of pizzazz.’
‘And what is it about a car with a registration plate that has three numbers followed by FC? What is it that makes it OK for him to treble-park on Madison Avenue?’
The mortuary attendant looked at me sorrowfully. ‘Yeah, well you’ve never been a patrolman, have you. Three digits FC, means a car belonging to a foreign consul … that’s an official car with diplomatic immunity to arrest, and I mean including parking tickets. And that’s what all those smart-ass drivers from Fulton County were betting on.’
‘Got you,’ I said.
He didn’t hear me; he was staring into the ’sixties and watching one of those nice kids we all used to be. ‘Midnight to eight,’ he said. ‘I liked that shift – no dependants, so what’s the difference – and you make more money, overtime and payments for time in court. But it was a rough shift for a cop in those days.’
‘In those days?’ I said.
‘This was an all-night city back in the early ’sixties – bars open right up to the legal 4 a.m … all-night groceries, all-night dancing, all-night you-name-it. But the city got rougher and rougher, so people stayed home and watched TV … You go out there now, and the streets are dark and empty.’ He picked up a piece of cloth and wiped his hands. His hands looked very clean but he wiped them anyway. ‘Streets are so empty that a perpetrator can take his time: no witnesses, no calls to the cops, no nothing. Midnight to eight used to be a tough shift for a cop …’ He gave a humourless little laugh. ‘Now it’s a tough shift here at the morgue.’ He threw the rag aside. ‘You should see some of them when we get them here … kids and old ladies too … ahh! So you’re from out of town, eh?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Three thousand miles out of town.’
‘You got it made,’ he said.
Outside the night was cold. The sky was mauve and the world slightly tilted. Around the access points for the city’s steam supply the crust of snow had melted so that the roadway shone in the moonlight, and from the manhole covers steam drifted as far as the cross-street, before the wind whipped it away. A police car siren called somewhere on the far side of the city.