Firebreak p-20

by Richard Stark

  Parker pointed to the sofa, and told Lloyd, "Sit there. Listen for the wife. Or anything else."

  "You don't like this setup, do you?" Lloyd asked.

  Parker crossed to the kitchen, took a wooden chair from there, brought it back to the living room, placed it where he could sit in front of the man but off-center, so Lloyd could still see them both. He said, "Tell me your name."

  "Hembridge. Arthur."

  "Arthur or Art?"

  Another rueful smile. "I used to be Art. I seem to be Arthur these days."

  "You took a strange job here, Arthur," Parker said.

  "I don't get much of anything to do any more," Arthur said. "It's good to have a little extra in your kick."

  "How come it's your job? Who hired you?"

  "Fella I used to know in my working days," Arthur said.

  "Where did you work, Arthur?"

  Arthur leaned back, thoughtful, looking from Parker to Lloyd and back to Parker. "I don't believe I know you two," he said.

  Parker said, "You worked on the wrong side of the law."

  "Maybe we could leave it at that," Arthur said.

  "This fella— You still in touch with him?"

  "Hadn't heard from him in eight years."

  "Gives you a call, offers you a job, money's good enough but not great, you aren't doing anything else, the wife says it might make a nice change, you say okay."

  "That's about it."

  'This fella isn't a close friend," Parker suggested.

  Arthur shrugged. "We always got along. Never close, you know."

  "I know." Parker leaned forward, elbows on knees, watching Arthur's face. "When you left to come out here," he said, "this fella gave you something you

  were supposed to leave behind, for the people who'd take over after you made the phone call."

  Arthur frowned at him. "I don't know where you're heading here," he said.

  Parker leaned back. "Did they tell you what the surveillance was for?"

  "A fella used to be with them," Arthur said, "they think flipped for Customs, then he disappeared. They want to know what he gave them, what they have to change."

  "Talk to him. That what you believe?"

  Arthur shook his head. "I don't know what's likely to happen after the conversation," he said. "That's not my department. But I believe it starts with talk, yes, so they know what their exposure is. Maybe it all turns out to be a misunderstanding, no problem after all." Arthur spread his hands, beginning to look baffled. "It's you we're talking about, after all," he said. "Don't you know what's going on?"

  "I'm beginning to," Parker said. "I never worked for or with these friends of yours, Arthur. I don't have anything to do with Customs. These people have a contract out on me, a straight hit. So somewhere around here there's a shooter, waiting for your call. Right?"

  "If it's just a contract," Arthur said, "then, sure, I suppose there is."

  " You were never a hit man."

  "Good God, no!"

  "I didn't think so," Parker said. "So the shooter's somebody else. But why isn't he in this room, watching that TV?"

  "Well, you would have found him, wouldn't you," Arthur said, "about five minutes ago."

  "Arthur," Parker said, "he isn't here because you are it. When you dial that number, there's a house about a quarter mile from here that blows up."

  Lloyd said, "Of course! That's the way to do it."

  "How would you feel, Arthur," Parker asked him, "if you were watching the TV and dialing the number and that house blew up, close enough to wake your wife?"

  "That wasn't the deal," Arthur said. He looked offended. "Right in the neighborhood? The cops could be on me, first thing you know."

  "You know them," Parker said, "but you're not tight with them. They don't have to waste some useful guy's time here, they can just leave you and your wife in this house they rented in your name, and if I never do come home then after a while they pay you off and that's the end of it. But if I do come home, and you see me, and you dial that number, and you see and hear the house go up, why would they want to keep you around?"

  Arthur watched him, eyes wide and jaw clenched.

  Parker said, "Let's have a look at that package, Arthur, the one you were supposed to not open, just leave behind here after you go away."

  4

  "I always mistrusted that rotten bastard," Arthur said.

  Lloyd said, "Parker, do you think so? Two bombs?"

  "You'll tell me," Parker said, "as soon as Arthur gives you the package."

  They both looked at Arthur, who started to get up, stopped himself, almost said two or three things, then sat back and said, "Give me a second here."

  Parker watched him. "For what?"

  "I never did like it when things got sudden," Arthur told him, "and I like it even less now. People talk fast, you go along, sure you say, sure, and all of a sudden you're someplace you don't want to be."

  Parker sat back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. 'Take your time," he said.

  "We trotted through this pretty good," Arthur explained, "but now I got to back up and remind myself, nobody needs to kill me"

  "Nobody needs to keep you alive, either," Parker told him. "What use are you?"

  "Some little use," Arthur said. "I sit here and wait for you to come home. Then I dial that number there. Why isn't that to somebody else near here, ready to move in on you? This way, you can get to me, but you can't get to him."

  'Through that number, I can."

  Arthur looked at the numbers written on the sheet from the memo pad. 'That's true."

  "And now they'd have to go set up another whole household, twenty-four hours a day, ready to go when you ring their phone. How many shooters? They'd need somebody awake, whenever the call came."

  "That's also true," Arthur said.

  "It's simpler to blow me up," Parker told him. "But then they still have you here, a witness, too close to the scene, you'll never get away before the law arrives, your name is probably all over this rental."

  "It is," Arthur agreed.

  "Why would they want to leave you around," Parker asked him, "to decide for yourself if you'd rather answer questions or spend the rest of your life in the can?"

  Arthur slowly nodded, then turned toward Lloyd. "It's in the kitchen," he said. "Under the sink."

  Lloyd stood. "I'll get it."

  "Just a box wrapped in brown paper," Arthur told him. "Cigar box size."

  Lloyd went into the kitchen, and Arthur looked at Parker. 'The fella's name," he said, "is Frank Meany."

  'That recruited you."

  That's right."

  Lloyd came back with the box, holding it flat in both hands. "Give me a minute with this," he said. He went back to the sofa, put the box on the coffee table, sat down, and spent a while merely looking it over, not touching it.

  Arthur said, "I worked forty years for those people. Driver, then boss. I organized and ran two routes north, one through New York, one through Maine to Halifax."

  'You said Customs before," Parker said. "So you were smuggling."

  "Cigarettes north, out of DC, where you don't have the state and local taxes," Arthur said. "Whiskey south. It isn't a crime against people, it's a crime against the tax man, the closest thing you got to a victimless crime. No violence, or at least usually. Good profit. I don't see where killing has to come into it at this late date."

  Lloyd had taken a penknife from his pocket, and carefully sliced away the brown paper and brown packaging tape. Inside it actually was a cigar box, with pictures of flamenco dancers on the lid and sides. Lloyd lifted the box away from the brown paper, put it down by itself, brushed the brown paper to the floor, and leaned close to study the box.

  Parker said* "I'm trying to remember a name. An outfit in Bayonne."

  Arthur gave him a sharp look. "What kind of outfit?"

  "Cosmopolitan, that was it," Parker said. "Cosmopolitan Beverages."

  "Wait a minute," Arthur said,
beginning to have doubts again. "If you're nothing to do with Customs, nothing to do with Cosmopolitan, how do you know about it?"

  "The first hitter they sent," Parker told him, "was a Russian with a cover at Cosmopolitan. The people in the office there never heard of him, but he had papers on him showed he worked for them, had his green card, could travel anywhere he wanted."

  "Here goes nothing," Lloyd said, and lifted the lid.

  The other two looked at him. Absorbed, he gazed into the box. "Cigars," he said.

  Parker stood and crossed over to look into the box. Slender long cigars, dark brown leaf, lay in a neat tight row, packed edge to edge in the box, flattened slightly along their upper surfaces from the pressure of the lid.

  Arthur had stayed where he was, but was curious. "It's cigars?"

  "On top," Lloyd said, and pointed to the end of the last cigar on the right. "See that wire?"

  Parker had to lean close to see it; another hair-thin wire, like the one to trigger the camera at Claire's house, except this one was coiled around the end of the cigar.

  Arthur had come over. "What is it?"

  "A little wire," Lloyd said, and pointed at it.

  Arthur took off his glasses with both hands, folded the wings, and bent close to look where Lloyd was pointing. "Son of a bitch," he said, and straightened, and put his glasses back on.

  Lloyd said, 'This is as deep into this box as I want to

  go."

  "We don't have to go any more," Parker said. "We all know what the story is now. Don't we, Arthur?"

  Arthur sighed. "I would have called that number," he said.

  They all looked at the row of cigars in the open box. Then Lloyd lifted his head. "I haven't heard snoring for a while," he said.

  Arthur said, "Well, she doesn't snore all the time."

  "Look," Parker said.

  Lloyd nodded and got to his feet and left the room.

  "She's a heavy sleeper," Arthur insisted.

  They waited, and Lloyd came back. "She's gone."

  "Damn!" Arthur cried. "She must of woke herself up, she wakes herself up sometimes with the snoring, rolls over, goes back to sleep."

  "Heard voices," Lloyd suggested.

  "Probably looked in here from the hall," Arthur said. "Recognized you from the description."

  'There's a bedroom window open," Lloyd said. "Wasn't open before."

  "She's got to be in robe and slippers," Arthur said.

  He looked anxious, bewildered. "Where's she gonna go}"

  Parker turned to answer him, and saw the television on. 'There," he said, pointing.

  They all looked. The set had switched on, to show them an interior too dark to clearly make out. There seemed to be movement there.

  Arthur said, "She went to your place? What's she doing there?"

  Parker said, "Looking for the phone."

  5

  Picking up Arthur's phone, punching out Claire's number, Parker said, "Does your wife know this number on the paper?"

  "She should," he said. "The both of us have been looking at it for days, that's why I put it under the phone. You calling your place?"

  In Parker's ear, the ringing began.

  Lloyd said, 'You're showing her where the phone is."

  "She'll find it anyway," Parker said. The ringing kept on. Turning, he extended the receiver to Arthur, saying, "When she picks up, talk to her."

  "I will." Arthur listened to the earpiece.

  Lloyd said, "What if she picks it up just for a second, then breaks the connection so she can make her own call?"

  "Arthur talks fast," Parker said.

  Parker and Lloyd watched Arthur, whose forehead now showed a whole new array of creases. They waited, and Lloyd said, "Maybe I should—" and Arthur yelled, "Joyce!"

  He blinked. He looked at Parker. "She hung up."

  Parker turned to push the cutoff, then redial, then turned back. Arthur listened, and listened, and sagged. Lowering the phone, he said, "Busy."

  Parker took a step backward, away from the phone. Lloyd looked at Parker as though he thought some instructions would be coming now. Arthur put the receiver back in its cradle, then looked at it. "What did I hang it up for?" he asked.

  They waited, listening to nothing. Arthur took his glasses off, folded the wings, put the glasses in his shirt pocket. He rubbed his eyes with thumb and first finger of his right hand. He looked tired.

  "I saw this movie," Lloyd said. "I didn't like it much."

  Nobody answered.

  When the phone rang, all three jumped. Arthur grabbed for it, yelled into it, "Joyce!"

  "I started to dial that other number," Joyce Hem-bridge explained, sitting on the sofa in her bathrobe and slippers. "I got about halfway through it, but then I realized it was Arthur's voice I'd just heard, so I should talk to him first. I could always make that other the second call."

  After Arthur had talked to her on the phone, Lloyd had taken the Volvo to go bring her back, while Parker talked with Arthur, saying, 'Tell me about this Frank Meany."

  "He came there a few years before I retired," Arthur said.

  'To Cosmopolitan?"

  "He was supposed to be a salesman." Arthur shrugged. "Cosmopolitan has a lot of under-the-counter stuff. Like me with the cigarettes and whiskey. Other fellas in the company didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't know what they were doing, and that was fine with everybody."

  "But you got to know Meany."

  'There was always somebody I was supposed to call," Arthur explained, "if there was any trouble on the routes. A bent cop coming unbent, a driver dipping in for himself, any of the little things that can happen. I'd call the guy and he'd take care of it. The last few years I was there, the guy was Meany. We took a couple trips together, Plattsburgh once, Bangor once, we got along. I knew he was muscle, but that was the job, and he was pleasant with me, liked to talk sports, and he never made me know anything I didn't want to know."

  "Where does he live?"

  'That I don't know," Arthur said. He glanced over at the phone. "At this point, I wish I did."

  "You've got a way to get in touch with him, though," Parker suggested. "Other than that phone number."

  "But I don't," Arthur said. 'The way it worked, he called me, we met at a diner on route forty-six, he told me about this place, the setup, the story he was telling. He gave me the real estate agent's card and the cigar box and some cash, and I went and signed the lease, and it was as easy as that." Arthur looked surprised, then smiled. 'They were setting me up, weren't they? From the get-go. No name on the lease but mine. And I never had a bit of trouble with anybody on the job."

  'They didn't need you."

  Arthur nodded. "I think I need them," he said. "You have it in mind to go talk with Frank?"

  'Yes."

  "I'd like to talk to him, too," Arthur said, and Lloyd returned then with Joyce, a rangy woman not many years younger than her husband, with a depleted paleness in the flesh of her face that she would normally hide with makeup. She'd thrown a bandana over her head before going out the window here, but steel-gray swatches of wiry hair stuck out from underneath.

  When Arthur told her what was going on, she looked around at them, a faint flush on her face, and said, "They were going to kill us. Just like that."

  "Explosions are very good," Lloyd told her, "for getting rid of evidence. And you two were going to be evidence, I'm afraid."

  She said, "Arthur? What are you going to do about it?"

  "Mr. Parker and I were talking about that," Arthur said, and turned to Parker. "I don't know how to find Meany myself, but I've been thinking about it and there's another guy I can reach who'll know where he is."

  "Who?"

  "Fella named Rafe Hargetty. He took my place when I left there, I broke him in. We talked on the phone sometimes, the first few years. I could still find him."

  "Where?" Parker said.

  Arthur shook his head. "He'll talk to me, he won't talk to you."

/>   Parker thought it over. Arthur had his own dreams of revenge, which would have to be controlled, but it was true Hargetty was likelier to talk to Arthur than some hard stranger. "Come along, then," he said, and turned to Lloyd. "I can't have a bomb stashed in that other house," he said.

  "Not a good time," Lloyd agreed, "for a wrong number."

  "Arthur and I will see this Hargetty," Parker said, "and then I'll go on and clean up this business. You stay here, get rid of that cigar box, find the one at the other house and get rid of it."

  Lloyd nodded. "Can do."

  "When I get back," Parker said, "maybe we can get to Montana at last."

  6

  "That's it there," Arthur said. "I'll just find a place to park."

  Parker looked at the building as they drove by it in Arthur's Volvo. A squat two-story brick commercial structure on Hudson Street, just a few blocks north of the Holland Tunnel, most of its downstairs facade was taken up by two wide metal garage doors, painted a dull rust color, with a row of squarish large windows upstairs. To the right of the garage doors was a gray metal door with company names painted on it in gold, and to the right of the building itself was a pale concrete parking area, as broad as the building, half full of delivery vans, sealed at the back and the other side by the dark gray walls of much taller old factory buildings, and fronted on the street side by a chain-link gate in a chain-link fence topped by razor wire.

  Arthur drove slowly, looking for a clear space at the curb, and Parker said, "None of that says Cosmopolitan." The names on the door had been All-Nite Delivery, Boro-Cab, and Stronghold Sentries.

  "I used to be All-Nite Delivery," Arthur said. 'They've got a lot of brand names." Looking around, he said, 'Just a minute, maybe on a side street." He turned onto Leroy Street and said, "There's my parking place, right up there. Cosmopolitan's got a lot of other companies and shells of companies tucked inside it," he went on. "Some of them act like they're completely independent, and some are empty, just brand names in case they happen to need something."