Thefts of Nick Velvet (23 page)

“Where are you off to now?” she asked the following morning as he tried to dress in the darkened hotel room without awakening her.

“More business. I’ll be back before ten.”

“Nicky, this is supposed to be our vacation!”

“I know. But if I can make a little money at the same time, I should take advantage of it.”

She turned over and buried her head in the pillow. He sighed and finished dressing.

It was not yet eight o’clock when he reached the Potomac Arms, a white T-shaped apartment building near the river. He’d scouted it the previous day, making note of the service entrance at the side. He’d already decided there was little chance of getting by the doorman more than once, and tenants’ keys were needed for the other entrances.

He’d made certain purchases the previous day and hidden them from Gloria in the trunk compartment of their rented car. There was a pair of white pants with a jacket to match, such as milkmen usually wore. He changed into these in the car and brought out the wire milkman’s basket he’d also purchased. He filled this with a dozen cartons of milk he’d picked up on the way over. From past experience he knew that only milkmen and newsboys could gain admittance to these luxury apartment buildings, and he was too old to pass as a newsboy.

He entered through the service entrance, carrying his milk, and immediately came to a locked inner door with a buzzer. He pressed it and waited till the building superintendent made his appearance. “What’s this?”

“Milkman,” Nick said.

“Where’s Eddie?”

“I’m helping him out, learning the route. He’ll be along, too.”

The superintendent grunted and let him pass. Nick covered the first floor quickly, leaving cartons of milk at random doors. The incinerator room was at the center of the building where the wings joined in their T shape. He entered the oversized closet and found a small door set in the wall. It opened directly into the chute. He stuck his head in, hoping no one would choose that moment to drop something from above. The chute was metal, with curved sides, and he could smell the fire below.

He went up on the third floor, checking that incinerator room to make certain it was the same. Then he set to work. The time was 8:30.

Nick was downstairs at nine when General Norman Spangler descended in the elevator to pick up the morning mail. Though he wore civilian clothes, his slim boyish good looks and stiff military bearing were long familiar to television viewers. Like other generals who functioned as White House aides, Spangler was retired from active duty. He’d joined the staff as one of the Secretary of State’s assistants and had managed to stay on during the upheavals of the past year.

He smiled at Nick as he passed him in the hall, carrying a handful of mail back into the elevator. Nick took the next elevator to the third floor, checked the incinerator room once more, then used the fire stairs to climb to the next floor. He had taped the third-floor door so he could return that way.

On the fourth floor he opened the fire door just wide enough to see the door to Spangler’s apartment down the hall. He had only a few moments to wait. The general emerged carrying a brown paper bag of trash. He paused at the door to kiss a pretty dark-haired woman who seemed twenty years his junior. “I’ll be late tonight, dear,” he said. “Don’t wait dinner.”

“So what’s new?” She closed the door after him.

Nick let the door close silently and ran down the steps to the floor below. He made it to the incinerator room with just seconds to spare, closing the hall door so no light would shine into the chute in case Spangler looked down before dropping his bundle. He heard the incinerator door open on the floor above, waited an instant, then shoved the wire milk basket into the chute, effectively blocking it a second before the general’s trash dropped. The paper bag landed on the basket.

Nick held his breath, waiting to hear any sound from the floor above. But the general had more important tasks to do than listen to his garbage hit bottom. The chute door was already closed and he was on his way. Nick gingerly pulled in his prize and set it on the floor of the incinerator room.

There was no time to waste now. He stripped off his white coat and wrapped it around the bag. Carried just right, it looked like a laundry bag. He might have been a tenant going downstairs with his wash, and even the white pants didn’t look that odd. The cartons of milk had already been left at doorways. The wire carrying basket he left behind a stack of old newspapers in the third-floor incinerator room. With luck it would be there the following day. If not, it was no great loss. He couldn’t risk the milkman ruse two days running anyhow. Besides, maybe what Sam Simon wanted so badly would turn up in the first batch.

It didn’t.

Simon and Ronnie Arden carefully spread out each bit of the general’s trash on an office work table, but they were openly disappointed. Two empty beer cans, an empty wine bottle, some frozen food cartons, envelopes, crumpled shopping lists, junk mail—the usual daily accumulation of modern living.

“All right,” Simon said, reflecting his disappointment. “We couldn’t really expect to score the first day. But it would have been nice.”

“You want me to do the same thing tomorrow?”

“The same thing. Let’s hope for better luck.”

“If you’d tell me what you want, maybe I could get it from his apartment.”

“No.”

“All right,” Nick said with a sigh. “But if nothing turns up tomorrow, we’ll have to talk about more money.”

That afternoon he took Gloria down the Potomac to Mount Vernon and they basked in the spring warmth as they strolled across the great lawn to the house where Washington had lived.

“Nicky,” she asked, “what are you thinking?”

He didn’t really know how to answer the question. “Maybe just about how much simpler things were in George Washington’s day.”

“Things were much simpler just two years ago.”

“I know. We live in fast times. Not changing so much as fast, like a rocket headed toward a brick wall.”

She took his hand. “Nicky?”

“What?”

“I want you to know I know. About you.” She tried a little smile. “I guess I’ve known for years.”

“How?” That was all he could manage to say.

“Oh, a lot of little” things, I guess. All the trips you’ve taken, and the time you had to get me out of the house because someone was coming to kill you. And the time you were kidnaped for a couple of days. Your explanations don’t fool me any more, Nicky. Not after ten years.”

“I’m glad you know.”

“Will you be going out again in the morning?”

“Yes. For a little while.”

She squeezed his hand. “Nicky, be careful.”

That evening he took her to the most expensive restaurant he could find, and they talked no more of Nick’s work.

The following morning Nick approached the locked side entrance to the Potomac Arms with key in hand. He waited only a minute before a middle-aged lawyer type came out the door swinging his attaché case. The man smiled at him and held the door open. Nick raised his key in salute and walked in. The key was to his hotel room, and he dropped it back in his pocket.

The wire basket was gone, picked up with the rubbish, but Nick didn’t really need it. The easiest way was still the best. He watched General Spangler open his apartment door, kiss his young wife goodbye, and walk down the hall with the bag of trash. Nick retreated to the third-floor incinerator room, opened the door to the chute, and stuck his arms in. Seconds later the bag fell into them. As simple as that.

This day Sam Simon was alone in his office when Nick arrived. “Ronnie’s off on assignment,” the little columnist explained. “These are busy days on the Washington scene. Let’s see what we’ve got today.”

The assortment was much like the previous day’s haul. Two more beer cans, a milk carton, assorted wrappers and scraps of paper, a few dead flowers, some leftover food in a clear plastic bag, a crumpled letter from a distant relative, envelopes, soggy paper towels.

“Nothing here,” Simon remarked gloomily.

“Those apartments all have disposal units in the sink. Maybe he ground it up.”

“No, not this.”

Nick sighed. “It’ll cost you an extra ten thousand for another day. The risks keep increasing.”

“That’s a lot of money.” Sam Simon scratched his head. “You’re into me pretty deep already.”

“Isn’t it worth it?”

“I guess so, for one more day.”

“Want to tell me what we’re looking for?”

“When we find it.
If
we find it.”

“It’s the mail, isn’t it? Something he gets in the mail.” To Nick there seemed no other reason why he simply couldn’t enter the general’s apartment and steal whatever it was Simon wanted. “Or rather, something you’re expecting him to get in the mail.”

“You’re smart,” Simon conceded.

“But if it’s that valuable he wouldn’t just throw it away.”

“He’d throw away the envelope. That’s what we need.”

“I see.”

“Since you’ve guessed that much, Velvet, I may as well tell you the rest. It was Ronnie’s work, really, that uncovered as much as we already have. Remember Carter Malone?”

“Who doesn’t?” Carter Malone had been one of the figures in the Watergate investigation, a man who jumped bail and deserted his family rather than face the prospect of prison. He’d been missing for six months, despite an intensive search by police and press.

“You probably know that a few people have hinted from time to time of White House involvement in his disappearance. I think I’m on the verge of proving it.”

“The President?”

“No, not the President, but the one closest to him—General Norman Spangler. Ronnie’s information is that Spangler is in direct contact with the missing man. In fact, Malone writes him every week or so. Naturally the letters can’t go to the White House, so they’re addressed to the general’s apartment. That’s one reason he waits for the mail each morning before going to work. The letter goes into his pocket, and the envelope goes into the garbage bag which he personally drops into the incinerator.”

“The mood this town is in, that information would finish Spangler at the White House. The President would have to fire him.”

“Better men have already gone down.”

“All right,” Nick said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Gloria rolled over in the bed, feeling the sudden movement as he slid out. “What time is it, Nicky?”

“A little before seven.”

“Not again this morning!”

“Maybe I’ll wind it up today. Then we can take that tour of the White House.”

“I hope so.”

He went back to the Potomac Arms, using the same key ruse that had worked so well the previous morning. General Spangler, a man of military habit, picked up his mail exactly at nine and repeated his routine of the first two days. Nick was waiting with outstretched arms to catch the trash bag as it dropped down the chute.

He was just pulling it in when the door of the incinerator room opened. “Oh!” a woman said, startled by his presence.

“I—” Nick straightened, holding the bag of garbage. “The chute seems to be clogged. We’d better call downstairs.”

“Clogged?” She was studying his face uncertainly. “Perhaps we can poke it with a broom.”

“It’s too far down. Let the super worry about it.”

“Who are—” He was already pushing past her. “Do you live on this floor?”

“Down the other end,” he mumbled.

“Which apartment?”

He ignored her and kept walking. He knew if she investigated the chute for herself she’d see it was clear. As soon as he was out of sight he took the fire stairs at the other end of the building, then went out the side door to his car. It had been a close call. He didn’t think he could risk it another day.

But when Sam Simon went through the morning’s garbage bag he shook his head sadly. “Nothing here. Not a thing.”

Nick pointed to one crumpled envelope, with a California address in the corner. “How about this one?”

“From his brother.”

“Shall we give it up?” Nick asked, turning to Ronnie Arden.

Ronnie twisted at his mustache. “We can’t—not with thirty grand invested in you already.”

“Ronnie’s right, Velvet. We have to keep on now, for the rest of the week.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. Spangler’s schedule will be different.”

Simon shook his head. “He’s been working Saturdays lately when the President’s in town. He’ll leave at the usual time.”

“All right,” Nick agreed. “Another five thousand.”

“Give us a break, Velvet. We’ve paid you and you haven’t delivered yet.”

“I’ve delivered three bags of garbage, which is exactly what you ordered. But I’ll give you a break. Let me try one more day and see what I get. If I strike out, it’s free. If I come up with the envelope, you pay me another five thousand.”

“Fair enough,” Sam Simon agreed, and they shook hands on it.

On Saturday morning Nick encountered trouble from the beginning. He’d had no trouble pausing at the door, his own key in hand, to wait for someone hurrying out to work. But this day everyone was staying in or sleeping longer. The first one out might well be General Spangler himself, and then it would be too late. Then he remembered the mail pickup and went around to the front of the apartment.

At about ten minutes to nine a car pulled up and a young man yanked two mail sacks from the front seat. “Need a hand with those?” Nick asked.

“Thanks, I’ve got them.”

Nick hurried to open the unlocked front door before the uniformed doorman had a chance. Then, smiling a friendly greeting at the doorman, Nick calmly walked in beside the youth with the mail.

When the sorting began, Nick took the elevator to the third floor. And encountered more trouble.

The woman from the previous morning was standing in front of the incinerator-room door, chatting with a neighbor. If she saw Nick, she’d surely question his presence again.

He pushed the elevator button and descended to the floor below.

The incinerator room there was identical with the ones above, but it presented a problem to Nick. He was now two floors below the general. He could not watch him leave his apartment, because there would not be enough time to run down two flights of stairs. Also, the dropped bag of trash would hit his waiting arms with much greater force, and an especially heavy bag might even escape his grip or split open. But he’d have to gamble on General Spangler sticking to his routine, gamble on holding on to the bag as it slid down the chute.