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"Yes we do. "
Everybody looked at me.
I said, "I got very cocky last night, telling Skip here that we had them, that once we knew they pulled both jobs it was only a question of zeroing in on them. I think that was mostly some Wild Turkey talking, but there was a certain amount of truth in it, and today I got lucky. I know who they are. Skip and I were right last night, the same pair did pull both jobs, and I know who they are. "
"So where do we go from here?" Bobby wanted to know. "What do we do now?"
"That comes later," I said. "First Id like to tell you who they are. "
"Lets hear. "
"Their names are Gary Atwood and Lee David Cutler," I said. "Skip calls them Frank and Jesse, as in the James brothers, and he may have been picking up on a family resemblance. Atwood and Cutler are cousins. Atwood lives in the East Village, way over in Alphabet City on Ninth Street between B and C. Cutler lives with his girlfriend. Shes a schoolteacher and she lives in Washington Heights. Her name is Rita Donegian. "
"An Armenian," Keegan said. "She must be a cousin of yours, John. The plot thickens. "
"Howd you find them?" Kasabian wondered. "Have they done this before? Have they got records?"
"I dont think they have records," I said. "Thats something I havent checked yet because it didnt seem important. They probably have Equity cards. "
"Huh?"
"Membership cards in Actors Equity," I said. "Theyre actors. "
Skip said, "Youre kidding. "
"No. "
"Ill be a son of a bitch. It fits. It fucking fits. "
"You see it?"
"Of course I see it," he said. "Thats why the accents. Thats why they seemed Irish when they hit Morrisseys. They didnt make a sound, they didnt do anything Irish, but it felt Irish because they were acting. " He turned and glared at Bobby Ruslander. "Actors," he said. "I been robbed by fucking actors. "
"You were robbed by two actors," Bobby said. "Not by the entire profession. "
"Actors," Skip said. "John, we paid fifty thousand dollars to a couple of actors. "
"They had real bullets in their guns," Keegan reminded him.
"Actors," Skip said. "We shoulda paid off in stage money. "
I poured out more coffee from the insulated pitcher. I said, "I dont know what made me think of it. The thought was just there. But once I had it, I could see a lot of places it could have come from. One was a general impression, there was something off about them, some sense that we were getting a performance. And there was the very different performance at Morrisseys compared to the one staged for us Monday night. Once we knew it was the same two men both times, the difference in their manner became noteworthy. "
"I dont see how that makes them actors," Bobby said. "It just makes them phonies. "
"There were other things," I said. "They moved like people who were professionally conscious of movement. Skip, you commented that they could have been dancers, that their movements might have been choreographed. And there was a line one of them said, and it was so out of character it could only be in character- in character for the person if not for the role he was playing. "
Skip said, "Which line was that? Was I there to hear it?"
"In the church basement. When you and the one in the yellow wig moved the extra furniture out of the way. "
"I remember. What did he say?"
"Something about not knowing whether the union would approve. "
"Yeah, I remember him saying it. It was an odd line but I didnt pay attention. "
"Neither did I, but it registered. And his voice was different when he delivered it, too. "
He closed his eyes, thinking back. "Youre right," he said.
Bobby said, "How does that make him an actor? All it makes him is a union member. "
"The stagehands have a very strong union," I said, "and they make sure actors dont move scenery or do other similar jobs that would properly employ a stagehand. It was very much an actors line and the delivery fit with that interpretation. "
"Howd you get on to them in particular?" Kasabian asked. "Once you got that they were actors, you were still a long way from knowing their names and addresses. "
"Ears," Skip said.
Everybody looked at him.
"He drew their ears," he said, pointing to me. "In his notebook. The ears are the hardest part of the body to disguise. Dont look at me, I got it from the horses mouth. He made drawings of their ears. "
"And did what?" Bobby demanded. "Advertised an open audition and looked at everybodys ears?"
"You could go through albums," Skip said. "Look at actors publicity pictures, looking for the right pair of ears. "
"When they take your picture for your passport," Billie Keegan said, "it has to show both your ears. "
"Or what?"
"Or they wont give you a passport. "
"Poor Van Gogh," Skip said. "The Man Without a Country. "
"How did you find them?" Kasabian still wanted to know. "It couldnt have been ears. "
"No, of course not," I said.
"The license number," Billie said. "Has everyone forgotten the license number?"
"The license number turned up on the hot-car sheet," I told him. "Once I got the idea that they were actors, I took another look at the church. I knew they hadnt just picked that particular church basement at random and broken into it. They had access to it, probably with a key. According to the pastor, there were a lot of community groups with access, and probably a great many keys in circulation. One of the groups he mentioned in passing was an amateur theater group that had used the basement room for auditions and rehearsals. "
"Aha," someone said.
"I called the church, got the name of someone connected with the theater group. I managed to reach that person and explained that I was trying to contact an actor who had worked with the group within the past several months. I gave a physical description that would have fit either of the two men. Remember, aside from a two-inch difference in height, they were very similar in physical type. "
"And did you get a name?"
"I got a couple of names. One of them was Lee David Cutler. "
"And a bell rang," Skip said.
"What bell?" Kasabian said. "That was the first the name came up, wasnt it? Or am I missing something?"
"No, youre right," I told him. "At this point Cutler was just one of several names in my notebook. What I had to do was tie one of those names to the other crime. "
"What other crime? Oh, Morrisseys. How? Hes the one saloonkeeper doesnt hire out-of-work actors as waiters and bartenders. Hes got his own family to work with. "
I said, "Whats on the ground floor, Skip?"
"Oh," he said.
Billie Keegan said, "That Irish theater. The Donkey Repertory Company or whatever they call it. "
"I went there this afternoon," I said. "They were in final rehearsals for a new play, but I managed to drop Tim Pats name and get a few minutes of one young womans time. They have display posters in the lobby, individual promotional pictures of each cast member. Head shots, I think theyre called. She showed me posters for the various casts of the plays theyve staged over the past year. They do short runs, you know, so theyve put on quite a few shows. "
"And?"
"Lee David Cutler was in Donnybrook, a Brian Friel play that ran the last week of May and the first week of June. I recognized his picture before I saw the name under it. And I recognized his cousins picture, too. The family resemblance is even stronger when theyre not wearing disguises. In fact its unmistakable. Maybe that helped them get the parts, since theyre not regular members of the rep company. But they played two brothers, so the resemblance was a definite asset. "
"Lee David Cutler," Skip said. "And what was the other ones name? Something Atwood. "
"Gary Atwood. "
"Actors. "
"Right. "
He tapped a cigarette on the back of his hand, put
it in his mouth, lit it. "Actors. They were in the play on the ground floor and decided to move up in the world, is that it? Being there gave them the idea to hit Morrisseys. "
"Probably. " I took a slug of coffee. The Wild Turkey bottle was right there on the file cabinet, and my eyes were drawn to it, but right now I didnt want anything to take the edge off my perceptions. I was glad I wasnt drinking, and just as glad that everyone else was.
I said, "They must have had a drink upstairs once or twice in the course of the run of the play. Maybe they heard about the locked wall cupboard, maybe they saw Tim Pat put money into it or take some out of it. One way or another, it must have occurred to them that the place would be easy pickings. "
"If you live to spend it. "
"Maybe they didnt know enough to be afraid of the Morrisseys. Thats possible. They probably started planning the job as a lark, making a play out of it, casting themselves as members of some other Irish faction, silent gunmen out of some old play about the Troubles. Then they got carried away with the possibilities of it, went out and got some guns and staged their play. "
"Just like that. "
I shrugged. "Or maybe theyve pulled stickups before. Theres no reason to assume Morrisseys was their debut. "
"I suppose it beats walking peoples dogs and working office temp," Bobby said. "The hell, an actors got to make a living. Maybe I ought to get myself a mask and a gun. "
"You tend bar sometimes," Skip said. "Its the same idea and you dont need props for it. "
"Howd they get on to us?" Kasabian asked. "Did they start hanging out here while they were working at the Irish theater?"
"Maybe. "
"But that wouldnt explain how they knew about the books," he said. "Skip, did they ever work for us? Atwood and Cutler? Do we know those names?"
"I dont think so. "
"I dont either," I said. "They may have known the place, but its not important. They almost certainly didnt work here because they didnt know Skip by sight. "
"That could have been part of the act," Skip suggested.
"Possibly. As I said, it doesnt really matter. They had an inside man who stole the books and arranged for them to ransom them. "
"An inside man?"
I nodded. "Thats what we figured from the beginning, remember? Thats why you hired me, Skip. Partly to see that the exchange went off without a hitch and partly to find out after the fact who it was that set you up. "
"Right. "
"Well, thats how they got the books, and thats how they got on to you in the first place. For all I know they never set foot inside Miss Kittys. They didnt have to. They had it all set up for them. "
"By an inside man. "
"Thats right. "
"And you know who the inside man was?"