a neat litle moustache on Bekuv and send him up to Saks Fifth Avenue for a 400-dollar suit, grey his temples a little and feed him enough chocolate sodas to put a few inches on his waistline, and what have you got?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing. What are you trying to say?’
‘Mister snap-shooting goddamn intruder alarm – that’s who you’ve got, stupid.’
I considered for a moment. There was a faint superficial resemblance between Bekuv and the intruder alarm man. ‘It’s not much,’ I said.
‘But it might be enough, if you were a trigger-happy gorilla, waiting in the lobby there – very nervous – and with just an ancient little snapshot of Bekuv to recognize him by.’
‘Who’d think Bekuv would be with us at Tony Nowak’s party?’
‘Greenwood and Hart: those guys wanted him there,’ said Mann.
I shook my head.
Mann said, ‘And if I told you that thirty minutes after we left Washington Square last night Andrei Bekuv was in his tux and trying to tell the doorman that I had given him permission to go out on his own?’
‘You think they got to him? You think they gave him a personal invitation to be there?’
‘He wasn’t duding-up to try his luck in the singles bars on Third Avenue,’ said Mann.
‘And you agreed?’ I asked him. ‘You told Hart and Greenwood and Nowak that you’d bring Bekuv to their party?’
‘It’s easy to be wise after the event,’ said Mann defensively. He used his tongue to find a piece 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
