A specific reference compelled Linus to lunge, putting an end to Ambrose Van Wyck’s harangue: “It’s like that day on Heart’s Meadow all over again.” The glass of milk fell to the carpet. It would not be accurate to say that the two men fought or wrestled. “More like they gripped each other’s upper arms and shook.” Linus held back so as not to hurt the old man, and the old man despite his fury was too old to give the conflict much gas. It was a low-key battle, a mutual trembling. Freddie crept past them into the hallway. In a limp rush, Linus overcame his reticence, pushed, and the old man tumbled into a large, red leather club chair, panting.
At 9:41 p.m., Linus and Freddie ran down the back stairs.
At no point did Ambrose Van Wyck acknowledge Freddie’s presence.
The riots hadn’t started yet but the night was full of sirens. A scuffle on a subway platform, kids running wild in a cafeteria: the preface to the next night’s unrest. In the original plan, Linus’s family wouldn’t know of the theft until the next day at the earliest. They wouldn’t immediately tie it to their rascal son, so the thinking went. Now the head start was gone.
They packed up some clothes at the Ninety-Ninth Street apartment. “Where to?” Linus asked.
Freddie thought of the Eagleton first thing. Miami Joe had asked him to pick up a gun from one of the residents once, for a job. He didn’t tell Freddie what it was, but its heft in the brown paper bag made an announcement. Freddie shook all the way down the stairs—and out on the street. The Imperial was right there. “We used to hang there every day,” Freddie said.
“The rats,” Carney said.
“Loving that popcorn.”
The association with the old movie palace made the SRO stick in Freddie’s head. It was a natural place to lam it. Freddie got the bed. Linus slept on the floor, with the briefcase and his wadded-up robe for a pillow. When Freddie woke the next morning, Linus was gone, with the briefcase. Had he gone to score? Back to his family to beg forgiveness? Either way Freddie was too jazzed to stay inside. The Unsinkable Molly Brown was the first ad he saw in the movie section on the way downtown. Plus it had Debbie Reynolds. Freddie had already told Carney the rest—Saturday night, the first night of the riots.
Back at the Eagleton, Linus was on the nod, leaning against the wall, sitting on the briefcase so that he’d wake if anyone tried to grab it. In the run-up to the robbery, Linus had talked of his grandmother’s diamond necklaces, gem-encrusted bracelets, a box full of gold coins, a variety of pirate treasure that had passed through the safe. The only notable item they’d walked away with was the emerald necklace, and between the cops, the crazies, the protest days, unloading it was unworkable. The emerald was too big for the fences Freddie knew, Abe Evans and the Arab. “I wasn’t going to bring you in, don’t worry.”
They had to lie low until the heat was off. And 171st and above felt safe—from rioting Negroes with pitchforks, cops, and “my father’s men,” which Linus had never mentioned before. Private detectives? Ex-army guys? “They do work for him, make sure things get done.” After a brief scout, Freddie and Linus found an Irish bar on 176th that catered to marginal clientele, and a Greek diner with decent grub and broken tabletop jukeboxes. They made forays.
Monday afternoon, Freddie had an itch at the back of his mind and called Janice, their next-door neighbor on Ninety-Ninth. She was relieved to hear from him—Linus’s apartment had been broken into and robbed. The subway roared in the earpiece as it passed outside Janice’s place, like suspense music—crazy violins—in an action picture. The super had called the cops after discovering their front door hanging on one hinge. Freddie told her they were behind on their installment payments to the Britannica company, they play for keeps.
The submarine’s hull failed beneath the tons of pressure. Seawater geysered from joints, the depth gauges cracked and died, the whole vessel lit by a sickly red light: going down. The breakin freaked out Linus, still panting from the robbery and the fight with his father. They needed a safe place to stash the briefcase, he said, and had already chosen where: Carney’s. “Hell no,” Freddie said. “I wasn’t going to get you involved, but he said it was the best play.” He smiled reluctantly. “He liked you. Whenever I complained about some shit you said to me, or some fight we had back in the day, he’d say you were only looking out for me. And that he wished he had someone like that.”
Freddie got choked up and went into the bathroom. Carney checked out the showroom again. No one had seen Freddie enter the store. Or they had seen him, had called for reinforcements, and were waiting to break in or to snatch Freddie when he walked out.