WE LEFT the suitcases with the Mole in his junkyard and split up. We didn't make our move for a few weeks-the mobsters were too busy murdering each other to answer anonymous telephone calls. I don't know if they dusted the driver and his partner or not-probably kept them alive long enough to make sure they were telling the truth, and then started looking. But they weren't looking outside the family. Me and Max and the Prof were sitting in Mama's restaurant when we read the headline in the Daily News.-"Torched Building Was Gangster Tomb!" It seems someone had wiped out a whole meeting of the heroin syndicate and then set fire to the building-the Fire Department hadn't discovered the bodies for a couple of days, and it took another few days for the cops to make positive identifications. That kind of massive hit didn't sound like it was connected to our little hijacking, but we didn't know who we could ask.
The Prof looked up from the paper. "Sounds like Wesley's work to me," he whispered.
"Don't ever say that name again," I snapped at him. Wesley was a guy we had done time with before-if I thought he was operating in New York, I'd move to the Coast.
Anytime you pull a snatch-and-switch, the last part is the hardest. You can grab the goods easy enough-the mark isn't expecting the move-you just disappear and let them look in their own backyard. But when it gets down to exchanging the goods for cash, you got major troubles. It's easy enough to do if you don't mind losing some of your troops along the way, but our army was too small for that kind of sacrifice.
We agreed to wait another two weeks. It was fine with the Prof. Max looked unhappy. I spread my hands, asking him "What?" He just shook his head. He'd tell me when he was ready.