The Hoods (60 page)

I made a mental note that this guard was plenty alert.

Butch returned the greeting, “How're yah, Mack? Yeh, I got a new man today.”

I didn't notice, but evidently the outside guard gave some sort of signal to the men inside. The steel doors slowly opened. There were four guards with .45s strapped around their waists, standing right inside the door. Their close scrutiny gave me an uneasy feeling. They gave Butch the go-ahead signal. He drove in. The heavy doors closed behind us. We were in a ceilinged enclosure half the size of a city block. A guard gave Butch the signal to park his truck out of the way. There was no room to back into the unloading platform at the other end. I got out and stood by the side of the truck. There were about fifteen guards strolling around. They all had big .45s in holsters strapped onto their Sam Brown belts.

Backed up to the platform were many armored trucks unloading money bags on little wooden platforms. One armored truck was unloading bars of dull yellow gold on wooden skids. By the effort they put into lifting a bar of gold, I estimated the weight of a bar to be about fifty pounds. About three skids were full, waiting to be pulled away to the vaults downstairs. I walked a few steps closer to the platform to get a better view. A guard was beside me immediately. He tapped me on the shoulder.

He said politely, “You have to stand by your truck, mister. No walking around permitted.”

Butch laughed.

He called out to the guard, “He's a new helper, Mack; let him go over and take a few samples for himself.”

The guard smiled drily, “Today ain't sample day.”

Butch got off his seat and sat down on his running board. I joined him.

“I'll bet there's about ten million bucks on that platform today,” he said.

I whistled my amazement.

Butch whispered importantly, “That's nothing. The other day a guard told me they had handled fifty million bucks.”

“That's a lot of cabbage,” I agreed.

“Yeh, and they got that cabbage well guarded.” Butch nodded toward the walls. “You notice all them peepholes?”

I looked around the walls of the indoor yard. There were about fifty peepholes all around.

“There are twenty guards with machine guns on a platform up there. Besides, there's a guy up there taking moving pictures all day.”

“Moving pictures?” I said in dismay.

“Yeh, yours and mine, right now, and everybody else's in the joint.”

“Boy,” I exclaimed as I tried to hide my face.

An armored car had finished unloading. The driver slammed the doors of his truck and pulled away.

“Okay, Butch, back in,” a guard called out.

He backed in. We unloaded the grocery order of ten bags of flour and about twenty cases of assorted groceries.

I stood on the platform watching the money trucks unloading as an employee of the downstairs cafeteria checked and signed our delivery receipt. We drove slowly outside. Right then I knew it would be absolute suicide to attempt to heist this place.

I made one more delivery with Butch. Then I said, “I got an awful headache. You'll have to go it alone, pal.”

I jumped off.

“You got four hours pay coming to you, Jack,” he called after me.

“You collect it and keep it,” I said.

“Thanks, Jack,” he waved.

I took a cab to Fat Moe's.

As I walked in, two expressmen were walking out, carrying little flat-wheel trucks. They had just delivered four safes and four big trunks which were standing right in the middle of the room. Pat and Cockeye were examining them.

Maxie saw me. He pointed to the safes.

“Fine, this is just fine, Noodles.”

“What's it for?” I asked.

“To put our dough in,” Max said. “We got to hide it.”

“Hide it? Why?” I asked.

“Yes, yes,” Max said impatiently. “We got to hide it. Frank got it direct from his source in the Bureau of Internal Revenue. There's going to be a thorough national income tax investigation.” He threw his chewed-up stub on the floor, lit a fresh Corona and continued. “They already got the case prepared against Capone. It looks like the bastard may have to ride.”

Capone's trouble seemed to give Max satisfaction.

“You think the income tax people will bother with us?” I asked.

“I'm no fortuneteller. I don't know. And the main office don't know for sure. The instructions are to get our dough out of our bank accounts and safety deposit boxes, and be on the safe side.”

“And put them in trunks?” I asked.

“What the hell, we can't carry our dough around all day in valises,” Cockeye said sharply.

“You need a big trunk for your bundle, Cockeye,” Patsy jibed.

“Talk for yourself, Patsy, you ain't exactly broke either,” Cockeye answered.

“Yeh, I made all you guys paupers with a lousy two hundred grand or better salted away,” Maxie said boastfully.

Patsy and I exchanged glances. So Maxie took personal credit for our success in the rackets. This was a new quirk.

I said, “Kind of risky leaving so much dough in a trunk, up in a hotel room or anywhere else.”

“Yep, you're right, Noodles,” Maxie agreed.

Then he continued in a churlish, superior manner.

“This is the general idea, the way the big guy sent the word around to do it. And that's the way it's going to be done. We each got a small safe. Then we put our dough in the safe.”

He stopped. Slowly, and with an air, he flipped his ashes to the floor.

He went on, “Then we put the safe in a trunk.” Maxie took a sip of his hooker. I waited. “Then we put the trunk in a vault in one of the big fireproof and burglarproof storage warehouses. The four trunks all in one warehouse?” I asked.

“Yep. I don't see why not,” Max snapped at me. “All in the same warehouse is okay, but a private storage room for each trunk, how about it, okay with you, Noodles?”

Max was just a shade sarcastic. He looked arrogantly at me.

I said, “We each have a different safe combination, and a different key to our own storage room?”

“Yep, don't worry, Noodles,” Maxie said drily.

“Hey, Noodles,” Maxie scoffed, “ain't you ever been in a Warehouse where they store valuable paintings, silver and stuff?”

I shook my head.

“Tish, tish.” Maxie made chiding noises with his tongue. “A smart guy like you. Let me describe it. In the first place, the buildings are made out of concrete and steel. They're fireproof. They have watchmen day and night. Besides, electric alarms are connected to the outside, like the Holmes protective service. Each room is a vault in itself. Solid concrete, with a heavy steel door and burglarproof lock that I think even Jake couldn't open.”

I smiled weakly. “It sounds okay.”

“Yeah, it is okay,” Max said with finality.

“Can't the Feds check the warehouse and uncover our hidden dough?” Patsy asked.

“I guess the general idea is to put the trunk in storage under assumed names, right?” I asked.

“Yep, you're right, Noodles,” Max said with a condescending air, “that's the general idea, and the sooner we get our dough stashed away, the better.”

“It's that urgent?” I inquired.

“Yep, the quicker the better. The Feds are checking.”

“Yeh, a pretty good setup, this trunk and safe combination,” Cockeye said.

He had opened a safe and was fiddling with the combination.

Max said, “You look like a helper on a truck all right.” He slowly lit a cigar and spit on the floor. “Well, what did you find out?”

I said, “The heist is no good, Max. You got to get the Federal Reserve Bank out of your head. It's a job for lunatics, not us.”

The minute I said it, I knew I had made a mistake. It was the wrong approach. It sounded as if I was calling Max crazy.

“Who's a lunatic, you bastard?” he blurted out angrily.

“Take it easy, Max.” Patsy was holding his right arm. “Noodles didn't mean it that way, did you, Noodles?”

“Yeh, he did, Max. He always thought he was the smartest guy in the world.” That Cockeye bastard was trying to steam Max up more.

I said, “No offense, Max, all I meant that it was too tough a job for us or any other mob to undertake.”

“I'll be the judge of that, and I don't need your goddamn advice on anything,” he shouted angrily, “and its going through as planned.” He was working himself into a maniacal rage.

Soothingly I said, “Okay, okay, Max, you're the doctor.”

He sat there red-faced and white-lipped, muttering to himself.

Moe came in with a tray of doubles.

Max barked at him. “Goddamn you, don't come in here unless you're told.”

Moe put the tray on the table with a look of hurt surprise. He went out quickly. Pat and I sat down at the table.

He whispered, and it was barely audible, “That Maxie, he's cracking up.”

I nodded over my drink.

Cockeye played a couple of tunes on his harmonica. Max sat quietly smoking for awhile. Then he got up and walked over to the trunks. He opened one and twirled the combination. He sat down at the table with a sigh and reached for a drink.

After he drank it down, he smiled at me. “I'm sorry I flew off the handle, Noodles.”

I nodded and said, “That's okay, Max.”

He rubbed his head.

“I don't know what the hell's the matter with me,” he smiled weakly. “I guess I need a vacation. I'm a little on edge.”

“I think we can all do with a vacation,” Patsy said.

“Yeh, after this job, we'll let up a bit.”

Pat and I looked at each other significantly.

“Hey, Cockeye,” Max called out, “come here and have your drink.”

Cockeye obediently stopped playing and went over. He sat down and sipped his whiskey slowly.

“Well, we may as well get through with stashing our dough away, like the office advised us to,” Max said.

“You picked out a storagehouse, Max?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he answered listlessly. “We'll decide tomorrow. There are quite a few good places I had in mind. Well, anyway, the quicker we get the dough out of the banks, the less we got to worry about the income tax people. You guys bring your dough down tomorrow morning and we get it over with, okay?” Max sounded a little like his old pleasant self. We nodded in agreement. “The dough will be in a safe place. At least we'll have that out of our minds,” Max puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. “That'll give me a clear head to concentrate on the Reserve job. We only got a couple of days to smooth a few angles out.”

“We going to heist the joint so soon?” I made a last try. “Listen, Max, it's foolish for guys in our position to go out on a heist.”

“Why? What makes you think it's foolish? Originally we were heist men, weren't we?” He looked at me coldly. “We were the best in the business, no?”

“Yeh, but now it's different,” I pleaded. “We're making a good buck, aren't we? For years we've been on the payroll of the Combine for five hundred bucks a week apiece.” I took my little notebook out and counted up, “And between the 'speaks,' slots, the funeral parlor and a few odds and ends we net close to a hundred grand a year apiece. That ain't tin, you know. Why take chances? That ain't being a good businessman, Max.”

“Who the hell said I was a businessman? If I wanted to play it safe all the time, where the hell would I be? And the rest of you guys? Helpers on laundry trucks,” he snapped angrily at me.

He stood up and paced up and down the room. Then he sat down on his thronelike chair. Immediately, it gave him a feeling of confidence and superiority. He expanded in the big chair. He leaned back and crossed his legs. He looked up at the ceiling, blowing smoke into the air. He looked down on us.

“As far as I'm concerned, the two hundred grand I'm going to stash away in my trunk tomorrow is horseshit, and besides, it took us too many years to get.” He leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. “And we took chances, don't forget that.” He pounded his chest, “And don't forget that I, and nobody else, planned everything successfully, just as I'm planning this. Goddamn it, since when the hell do I have to explain or apologize to you for anything I want to undertake?”

He glared wildly at me. I swear, or did I imagine it, that he snapped his fingers at Cockeye as a signal to begin playing? Anyway Cockeye took his harmonica out and began playing crazily.

He fidgeted furiously in his chair, then he pointed at me. “You— you, Noodles—are getting too damn cocky with me. You take orders from me—”

I stood up; I was uncertain how to act. I felt small in my shabby truck driver's clothing. The goddamndest idea came over me, as if Maxie expected me to kneel in front of the chair and apologize. What gave me that idea I wondered? Was it the effect of the chair? Or was it Maxie's imperial air? I shrugged off that ridiculous idea, but I caught myself standing before him with bowed head and apologetically mumbling, “Okay, okay, you're the doctor, Max. I'd like to go up to my place and change out of these dirty work clothes.”