Miami Joe directed the captives to the rug between the desk and the couch: Lie there with your eyes closed. Freddie covered them from the doorway. Freddie wasn’t a gunman, but Miami Joe figured he was jumpy enough that he’d get off a shot if anyone moved, it didn’t matter if he missed if it bought the rest of the crew time to put down an insurrection.
The team hit their marks. They wore thin calfskin gloves. Pepper in his bellhop uniform took up his station at the front desk. Arthur had unlocked the door to the vault and now he and Miami Joe stood before the bank of safe-deposit boxes. The brass-colored boxes were twelve inches tall and eight inches wide and deep enough for jewelry, bundled cash, cheap furs, and unsent suicide notes. Arthur said, “This is all Drummond. You said they were Aitkens.”
“That’s what I heard.”
Aitkens took three or four good whacks before there was enough purchase for a crowbar. Maybe that’s why they replaced them with Drummond, Arthur thought, which required six to eight whacks. The take had been cut in half, if they stuck to the timetable. Miami Joe said, “78.” Arthur got to work with the sledgehammer. The index cards recorded the box numbers, the name of the guests, the contents, and the day of deposit. The manager had sissy handwriting that was easy to read. Arthur got into box 78 after six blows and started on the next while Miami Joe cleaned it out. The contents matched what was on the card: two diamond necklaces, three rings, and some documents. He put the stones into a black valise and searched the cards for the next box to hit.
If the banging rattled Pepper, he didn’t show it. He was at the desk one minute when he concluded that working registration was a lousy job. Most straight jobs were, in Pepper’s estimation, which is why he hadn’t held one in many years, but this gig was spectacularly bad. What with all the people. The constant yipping and complaints—my room’s too cold, my room’s too hot, can you send up a newspaper, the street noise is too loud. Fork over thirty bucks and suddenly they’re royalty, ruling over a twelve-by-fourteen-foot kingdom. Shared bathroom down the hall unless you pay extra. His father had worked in a hotel kitchen, cooking chops and steaks. He came home stinking every night, in addition to the other worthlessness, but Pepper would take that work over desk duty any day. Talking to these fucking mopes.
Bang bang bang.
Pepper got the first call about the noise five minutes later. The switchboard buzzed and Freddie told the operator to get up and answer it. Anna-Louise put room 313’s call through. “Front desk,” Pepper said. It was the voice he used when he was telling a joke and making fun of white people. He apologized for the banging and said they were fixing the elevator but they’d be done soon. If you come to the front desk in the morning, we’ll give you a voucher for ten percent off breakfast. Negroes do love a voucher. The mezzanine floor was offices and a club room, shut now, and the Orchid Room occupied most of the third, or else they’d be getting a lot more calls. Mr. Goodall in room 313 had a voice like a chipmunk, whiny and entitled. Fry chicken all day in that kitchen heat over this goddamned job.
“Tell her to stay at the switchboard in case there’s more,” Miami Joe said. Freddie stood in the doorway of the manager’s office. He’d sweated through his shirt and into his black suit. The eyeholes in the mask made him think something outside his range of vision was about to clobber him. The men and women on the floor didn’t move. He said, “Don’t move!” anyway. His mother did that all the time—tell him not to do something right before he was about to do it, like he was made of glass and she could see inside. But so many things lived in his head that she never suspected, he hadn’t had that little-boy feeling in a long time. ’Til tonight. He’d jumped off the Hudson cliffs—but instead of hitting the river he kept falling. Freddie wasn’t able to pull the trigger, so he hoped the captives did what they were supposed to. At her station, Anna-Louise covered her face with her hands.
Bang bang bang.
The rug was freshly vacuumed, which suited the captives, who had their faces in it. The elevator passenger, the man from the twelfth floor, was named Lancelot St. John. He lived two blocks away and his occupation was sitting at the hotel bar until he lit upon a suitable lady from out of town. If his quarry picked up on his euphemisms, Lancelot straightened out the money before he undressed them; if not, afterward he mentioned a present he wanted to buy for his mother, but he was a little short this week. In the service industry you shift your approach depending on the customer. Tonight’s lady had flown in from Chicago to speak to a real estate lawyer about a brownstone she’d recently inherited. Her mother had passed. Perhaps that explained the tears. He’d walked into robberies before—he’d be in bed soon enough. It was almost time for the Theresa to wake to the day and the criminals had to wrap it up.