At the corner of Seventh Ave, Carney heard his name. The intonation was that of a dispassionate clerk, engaged but too overworked to offer more than the perfunctory. “If you have a minute, Mr. Carney.”
The man was tall and thin, with sharp features—Carney thought of museum statues cut from cold white stone. Hermes, the God of Speed. Or was it Mercury? May had brought home a book on Roman gods from the library. This guy looked like he relaxed at home with a chalice and one of those laurel-wreath crowns around his head.
He shook Carney’s hand as if they’d been doing business for years. “The name’s Bench—Ed Bench. I’m with the law firm of Newman, Shears & Whipple.” He gave Carney his card. Heavy stock, dignified typeface.
Carney said he didn’t understand.
“I represent the Van Wyck family.” He tilted his head. “I’m here with Mr. Lloyd.”
Presenting Mr. Lloyd, the muscle, neck and head a solid column atop his barrel chest. Carney doubted he’d taken the bar exam. The man’s right hand was in his jacket pocket, pointing a revolver at Carney. He wore a fake, dumb smile to camouflage him as one of the tourists gee-whizzing at the Big City.
“Let’s walk, Carney,” Ed Bench said. Carney looked back at Mr. Lloyd, who kept pace, gun at an angle, same smile. Carney’s heart pounded and the street noise—the honking and backfiring and cussing—doubled in volume, as if by radio knob.
“How’s your cousin, Carney?” Ed Bench said.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“That’s unlikely. We hear you’re like brothers. Do anything for each other. Can I have that, please?”
Mr. Lloyd coughed for emphasis. Carney handed over his satchel.
Ed Bench performed a quick look-see for confirmation. He said, “The rest?”
“That’s it. If somebody’s saying something else, they’re wrong.”
“The other items. I’m referring to the other items.”
The dont walk sign at the corner of Forty-Ninth and Seventh kept them put. Carney tried to get a handle on what was happening. Had they followed him from uptown? Straphanging two feet away while he dreamed of wheeling and dealing? This Van Wyck lawyer—the one who handled their dirty stuff, he supposed—was more concerned with the other things Linus had swiped from the family safe. Carney had been so distracted by the fact of the emerald he hadn’t gone over the papers thoroughly.
“I don’t have them.”
“Carney,” Ed Bench said.
Mr. Lloyd jabbed the nose of the pistol into Carney’s back.
Ed Bench made a gesture and Mr. Lloyd backed off. The lawyer led them to the opposite corner. “A hundred years ago,” he said, “this was a cow pasture—all of this. Midtown. Times Square. Then someone had an idea, and built, and bought more land, and built. Some things pan out. Some things don’t. The Van Wycks didn’t build here on Seventh Avenue. They built there.” He pointed toward Sixth. “The one on the east corner. If this was a cow pasture, that was a mud puddle. Now look at it. You don’t have to be first. Second is fine. If you have an eye for what’s going to pan out, second is fine.”
Carney spied a patrolman across the street, drinking a Coca-Cola through a straw with bovine serenity. For a moment, he entertained the ridiculous proposition of a Negro calling a cop to complain he was being threatened by two white men.
Ed Bench saw the policeman give a sympathetic frown at Carney’s plight. “You’re a smart man, Carney. An entrepreneur. I wonder if you’ve recognized your current venture isn’t going to pan out.” The lawyer showed his teeth. “Have you considered what will happen? To you? Your family?”
Moskowitz had tipped off the Van Wycks and sold Carney down the river. They visit the jeweler’s store, brace him, and tell him to give a heads-up if the necklace appears. Because whoever has that emerald has the briefcase and the rest of its contents.
Back when Buxbaum got pinched, Carney and Moskowitz had sweated over whether or not he’d squeal. Buxbaum, weak sister or no, had kept his trap shut. He was still up at Dannemora, doing time. Moskowitz, the old gentleman, the professor, was the one who ratted him out in the end.
Fuck this.
Ed Bench said, “Hey!”
Johnny Dandy starring Blake Headley and Patricia De Hammond had been running on Broadway at the Divinity Theater since Memorial Day weekend. Critics had meted their blows and yet. The dialogue and action were so shrouded in euphemism, so opaque in meaning and intention, alternately dull and worrisome, that no one could decide what the play was about, if they understood it, let alone enjoyed it. Was this tragedy or farce? Such a faithful reflection of existence proved irresistible. Every night a pantomime of modern life unfurled before a sold-out house. Dandy’s run was cut short when Blake Headley slipped a disk; his understudy’s inert line readings broke the spell. The play was never produced again, save for an avant-garde attempt in Buenos Aires that closed during the first intermission （arson）。 Its author moved to Los Angeles and made a name in TV Westerns. Every afternoon the matinee ended at 3:42 p.m., ejecting hundreds of distracted theater mavens into an already congested Forty-Ninth Street.