In Sunlight and in Shadow (85 page)

“Who thought of that?” Harry asked.

“Who do you think?” was the answer, meaning Vanderlyn. “He left lunch, too, figuring you might stay awhile.”

As they walked up a wide staircase built of heavy beams and planks, Bayer asked, “What is this place?”

Before Harry could answer, they reached the second floor. Half of it was partitioned off, but what remained was vast and dark except where it was lit by huge turn-of-the-century bulbs as big as champion squashes, with giant filaments, the size of buggy springs, glowing in solar yellow. The floor was a mosaic of end-grain, hard-cured oak dented with the use of a hundred years. It was warm inside because the brick had been soaking up the sunlight of the unusually intense Indian summer. Arrayed upon tables gathered together beneath one of the great gourd-like lights were carbines, magazines of ammunition, a light machine gun and box of belted cartridges, a bazooka with three rockets, a plinth made of five bricks of plastic explosive, fuses, a collapsible stretcher, a rubber assault boat with four paddles, four hand grenades, four individual medical kits, rations for light duty, and, on a different table, a lunch catered by Sardi’s, although it was doubtful that any Sardi’s employee came anywhere near the warehouse to lay it down.

The weaponry was as familiar to the four of them as a toothbrush or a pen. On one level it made them feel comfortable, but on another it did just the opposite. “You can’t buy bazookas and machine guns in a store,” Sussingham stated. “What is this place, and who supplied it?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Harry told them. “His name is Vanderlyn, someone I picked up on the road during a storm. His boat had sunk. He looked like a derelict, but he was wearing an airborne tunic. Because of that I couldn’t leave him out there, so even though my father-in-law—who wasn’t my father-in-law at the time—wouldn’t stop the car, I went back and got him. He’s quite a big deal, although I didn’t know it then.”

“Why would he do this?” Bayer asked, because in New York everything was either bought or sold.

“He’s returning the favor, I guess, and it’s a good thing to do. So far this year Verderamé has been connected to half a dozen murders, including that of a man who worked for me. The way it’s been is that we play by the rules, he doesn’t, he gets away with it, he becomes our master, and it goes on forever.

“In the war, the OSS made its own rules, and killed the wolves to protect the sheep. It gets touchy here, where we have law . . . and it’s dangerous, of course. But the way he put it to me was quite simple. He said, ‘Do we have law? Because if we do, I’ll go home and knit tea cozies. If we do not, in fact, have law, and just the unfulfilled hope of it, then how can what we do threaten something that doesn’t exist except partially or as an always unrealized hope?’”

“That’s simple?” Sussingham asked.

“For him.”

“Everything has a price,” Bayer added. “What do they want from us?”

“He wants nothing,” Harry said, “not from me, anyway. But you’re right. I don’t know who they are, but when they get started—and they’re starting something big—don’t be surprised if you get an offer of employment. I already did, and turned it down.”

“They went ahead anyway?” Sussingham asked.

“Decent of them,” Johnson said. “Do they know who we are? They know you, but do they know us?”

“
I
didn’t tell them,” Harry said, “but who knows?”

“They know,” Bayer announced. He had veered toward the lunch, and stood two feet away from the table, pointing at it. The others walked over. Near a kettle above a can of Sterno were a chafing dish, similarly warmed, and trays of sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres, and cookies. On four china plates cutlery was rolled in cloth napkins, and on each plate was a folded card with a single letter written on it: C, J, S, and B, for Copeland, Johnson, Sussingham, and Bayer. “They didn’t have to do that,” Bayer continued, “but they did. I suppose there could be a hundred reasons for it, but we’ll never figure it out.”

“I would think,” said Harry, “knowing him, that it was for fun. Where’s the blackboard? There was supposed to be a blackboard.”

“There,” Sussingham said. The blackboard stood apart from everything else and was hard to see in the shadows of the powerful lights. He and Bayer approached on either side, lifted it, and silently led it closer. They tilted it forward slightly, but not so much that an eraser and chalk would roll off its curled ledge. As it flew at them, they pulled up their chairs and Harry seized a piece of chalk.

“If anyone wants to go home, don’t worry about it and don’t hesitate. That you’ve come is way above the call: there is no call,” Harry said, and fell silent. After a few moments, with no response, he went on.

“Okay. Thank you. We’ve done this before, both together and separately. We trained for it, we exercised, but when we actually did it we sometimes threw it together in seconds, and never once as I recall had we the benefits we have now. What I proposed is illegal, but, in light of the target, law enforcement won’t hold us to account. I’ve always assumed, and now people I trust have affirmed, that other than showing up at the scene, making a conjecture or two, writing a report, and looking good in the press, the police don’t actually investigate attacks on criminals, which would be for them sort of like bailing out a sinking boat by putting the water back in. As they see it, their job is mainly to clarify and limit the interest of the public, which fades after a day. Who ever got indignant when a gangster was killed? If anything, people are quietly delighted. We might offend some who live strictly by principle were it known that the gangster wasn’t killed by other gangsters but by regular citizens. In other words, if the wolves kill the wolves, that’s no problem, but if the sheep kill the wolves, then you have holy hell. Vigilantism is dangerous, of course, but that’s not what this is. We’re not a parallel system of justice. We’re confined to one case, my own, responding to a mortal attack and the threat of others—just as I would were someone smashing down the doors of my house. The danger is imminent, although its timing is deliberately unpredictable. The threat is constant. Protection on the part of the state is nil. This is self-defense.

“I harp on this because it’s against our instincts and upbringing to do what we’re going to do. Certainly against mine, but my instincts and upbringing never took account of being the target of a killer who enjoys the favor of authority.”

“We’re okay,” Sussingham said.

“Good,” said Harry. “When we ambushed a German convoy, the people we killed were likely more innocent than our targets now. And half the force on the battlefield was determined to prevent it and to take revenge. Now, within a ten-mile radius of where we’re going to strike there may be a dozen cops with pistols and a shotgun or two, whereas then we had to look out for far more interested, motivated, and skilled Wehrmacht divisions, or even corps, and their tanks, artillery, heavy machine guns, grenades, and occasional air support. And we’re not going to come in contact with the police. We’ll be finished and away long before they know what happened. We’re on the same side: we can’t harm them. You never know which cops are on the take, but most aren’t, so rather than fight I’ll surrender to them if it’s necessary, but it won’t be.”

“No one has done this kind of attack, with these weapons, in civilian life,” Bayer said.

“It’ll be an item of tremendous interest for a few days. And here’s where we may provide a public service. When the other crime families hear of this, to protect themselves they’ll seek out similar weapons.” Harry swept his hand over the heavily laden tables. “Evidently, there’s a parallel arm somewhere ready to supply them. The dealers are federal agents, and when the buyers are arrested the charges will weigh heavily against them because of their prior records.”

“Are we acting for the government, or not?” Bayer asked. “Because if we are, why don’t they do it themselves? Okay, they can’t, but they’re part of it anyway, right?”

“It knows,” Harry answered, “or a part of it knows, but it will never acknowledge. As to what exactly it is, apparently even it doesn’t know yet. It’s brand new.”

“But with a lot of resources,” Johnson said.

“That’s how we won the war.”

“With blood, too.”

“I know,” Harry said. Then he moved it forward. “It’s a road ambush. The target is named Verderamé, a gangster, as you know. He’s a creature of habit. The only variation we’ve observed in his timing is due to traffic. We have about a ninety-minute window in the worst case, so we don’t have to wait there all day, and that reduces the chances of discovery. We’ll advance, arrive, execute, and retreat in darkness. The area is heavily wooded. One side looks out over the Hudson, which at that point is just under two miles wide, a lake-like stretch called Haverstraw Bay. Only one road leads to the house. These days they return home from the south. There’s a lot of mud on the north side, and I think they don’t want to dirty the cars.

“We’ll blow a tree ahead so it blocks the road, drop one behind before they can back up, put a rocket into each vehicle, rake them with rifle fire. The machine gun will be placed so that anyone running from the house to help won’t know what hit them. Let me stress. These are murderers. There could be a dozen or more in the cars and inside the compound. They’ve got a lot of pistols, shotguns, probably some Thompsons. Most of them will go down in the first seconds. If any remain to put up a fight, they won’t even see us. We’ll shift positions right after opening fire, so they can shoot at the spaces where our muzzle flashes were. They won’t panic, but they don’t know how to fight as a unit and they’ve never been confronted by this kind of force. It should be over in a couple of minutes. The cars can’t run off the road: it’s too steep and treed. If there are women and/or children in the cars—I’ve never seen it—no one fires a shot, and we go home.”

“Positions?”

“Facing west, I’ll take center, Bayer on the far left to cover the rear-blocking, Sussingham near left. Johnson, with the machine gun, off to the far right to cover the gate and the walls of the house. Let me draw a schematic.”

Harry went to the blackboard and mapped out the site, taking pains to draw well. As he worked, Sussingham asked why they would bother to fell trees across the road and rocket the cars. Wouldn’t automatic fire from three or four points be sufficient? “The tires will run flat, like agricultural tires,” Harry answered. “And the glass is bulletproof, so that means that the car is probably armored. It’s very heavy and rounds corners like a boat—wanting, unlike Verderamé, to go straight.”

“How’d you find this out?”

“I inspected the car in the parking lot near where Verderamé holds court.”

“No one was watching it?”

“A kid was. I pretended I was excited to see a Cadillac. I had to do it after I watched it drive, because either they were transporting pig iron or the thing was armored.”

When his diagram was completed, Harry continued his presentation. They would get there in the hay truck, two in front and two secreted with the weapons and the boat in the back. “The boat, do we really have to go across the river?” Bayer asked. They had all been wondering.

“After the attack we have to avoid police dispatched to the scene and to block the roads; possible reinforcements called in by someone in the house; and witnesses who might see us and the truck. We have to get back here and then disappear. We can’t just disperse, because there are very few trains at night going south. They sleep at the Harmon yards, ready to carry commuters to the city in the morning. This is by far the best way. All it is, is crossing a river, which we’ve done before.”

“We crossed, we never went back.”

“I know, but it’s the best option, we have only so much time, and that’s the way it is.”

“What if we’re stopped in the truck,” Johnson asked, “by a traffic cop?”

“I have a forged license,” Harry answered. “I’ll be driving. If I can’t drive, someone else will use it. Read it before we jump off.”

“We won’t have identification?”

“You’re farm hands. You won’t be expected to.”

“Draft cards.”

“The war’s over. No cop is going to ask you for your draft card or your orders. The roads are deserted on the east side of the Hudson. From a spot on the river between High Tor and Haverstraw, we’ll paddle over in the dark. To the right of the target about a quarter of a mile there’s a railway signal light that’s always on. That’s our reference point. It’ll take less than an hour to cross. We leave the boat, climb the bank—no one will be there at night—and when we’re done, paddle back, drop the weapons in the deepest channel of the river, where they’ll be scattered by the current and the tide, cut open the boat and sink it, and drive south with a truckload of hay and nothing else.”

“What if there
is
someone on the bank?” Bayer asked.

“Then we turn around. We don’t kill innocent people.”

“But he will have seen us.”

“It’s all right. We won’t have done anything. We’ll say we’re duck hunters.”

“Some ducks,” Bayer said, looking at the weapons. “And if it’s a goon?”

“If we can’t kill him quietly before he fires a shot or sounds an alarm, we’ll retreat.”

“Who’s gonna kill him quietly?” Johnson asked.

“I’ll have to” was Harry’s reply. “But I’m sure there won’t be anyone. I’ve been there.”

“And the people in the cars, exactly?” Sussingham wanted to know.

“His soldiers. They’re the ones who shoot people in the head, beat them to death, stab them in the temple with ice picks, kidnap children for ransom, and dismember bodies. That is, when they’re not burning down houses or raping young girls.”

“How do you know this?” Sussingham pressed.

“He reads the papers,” Bayer told him, “and he lives in New York. Their protection is supposed to go all the way up to O’Dwyer. Who knows?” To Sussingham’s puzzled look, Bayer responded, “The mayor.”

“He’ll be quite surprised,” Harry added, “if it’s true. But everyone will think it’s a gang war in which one side escalated.”

Using the diagram, they went over the plan second by second, which was not so difficult, as the action was supposed to run for no more than a few minutes. Each man knew his part, his place, and the part and place of the others. They weren’t nervous about forgetting the details, for not only were they practiced but they knew they could improvise as they had many times before. This led to a question, over lunch, that had to come up. Johnson was the one who raised it.