The Handle

by Donald E. Westlake

  The other one said, “We don't seem to have a first name to go with Parker. Or is Parker the first name?”

  Parker said, “You two are interested in names, you must have some of your own.”

  The one with the briefcase said, “Oh, I am sorry. I'm Mr. England and this is Mr. Carey.”

  Parker pointed at England and said, “Law.” He pointed at Carey and said, “Accounting.”

  England smiled. “Very good, Mr. Parker,” he said. “Bull'seye on both counts.”

  Carey said, “You should have hired Heenan.”

  Parker looked at him. “He was yours? Then I did right.”

  “No,” said England. “If you had taken him on, Mr Parker, we would not have had to come and see you today. In fact, you would never have had occasion to see us at all.”

  The water was boiling. Parker turned the flame off and said, “This isn't a pinch.”

  “Not a bit of it,” said England. “Murder and robbery do not interest us in the slightest.”

  “We're specialists,” said Carey. “Those things are outside our specialty.”

  Parker poured water in the cups and then sat down at the table. “I could of left this room three times already,” he said.

  England said, “Why didn't you?”

  “I want to know what's happening. What's your specialty?”

  England said, “Baron von Altstein.”

  “Who?”

  “Baron Wolfgang von Altstein.”

  Carey said, “You probably know the name Wolfgang Baron. Everybody's got extra names,”

  “The island,” Parker said.

  They both nodded. England said, “We want Von Altstein. We want him very very badly. I don't think you can imagine how badly we want him.”

  Parker said, “But he won't come in where you can grab him.”

  “No, he won't. It frustrates us.”

  Carey said, “We want him so bad, we'll take him instead of you.”

  Parker shook his head. “I don't follow.”

  England said, “We're onto the game, Mr. Parker. You've been asked to raid the Baron's island. You are currently assembling a group for just that objective.”

  “Wrong.”

  Carey said, “You deny everything, we know that, it's understood. Just let us say our say, all right?”

  Parker said, “Fine. Tell your fairy tale.”

  “Here it is,” said England. “You and your partners are going out to raid the island. You intend to come back with all the money you can lay your hands on. We want you to come back with the Baron, too.”

  “Do what?”

  “We want the Baron,” England said again. “You bring him in where we have jurisdiction and you'll have no problems. You won't be breaking any of our laws this time anyway.”

  “The helicopter,” Parker said suddenly.

  They both looked at him. Carey said, “What was that?”

  Parker shook his head. “I've been trying to figure how you guys got in. It was that helicopter, the first time I went out to the island. You've been keeping a steady watch on the island, that's how you got onto me.”

  England seemed surprised. “Well, of course,” he said. “How can we get the Baron if we don't watch the island he lives on?”

  Parker said, “So what's Heenan got to do with it?”

  “He was to have gone along, doing his assigned tasks in the robbery just as you would plan it, but in addition he would see to it that the Baron was brought in where we could get our hands on him.”

  Carey said, “It would simplify things if you'd reconsider hiring Heenan.”

  Parker shook his head. “He's no good.”

  “We know,” said England apologetically, “but he was the best we could come up with on such short notice. We got him released from his jail term, you know.”

  Parked nodded. “He was too white to have been out a week, not down here.”

  Carey said, “The other choice is, you take me.”

  Parker looked at him. “I do what?”

  “Bring me into the operation to do the job Heenan would have done. I'll do my part, and when it's all over I'll go my way with the Baron and you'll go your way with the loot.”

  Parker couldn't believe it. He said, “You're out of your mind.”

  “We mean it,” Carey said.

  England said, “It's one less man to split with, because Carey won't want any of the profits. Makes more for each of the rest of you.”

  “I'm supposed to tell the others about Carey?”

  England frowned. Carey said, “It probably would be best if you didn't. It's up to you.”

  “You two,” Parker told them, “are just bright enough to do stupid things with smart details.”

  Carey said, “You're talking like a man with a choice.”

  “I've always got a choice.”

  “No. Not this time.”

  “Show me.”

  It was England who answered. “We want the Baron, as we said, badly enough to let you go in trade. But if we don't get him we'll take you as a consolation prize. It's as simple as that.”

  “We could have had you,” Carey said, “any time in the last few days.”

  “Either time you went out to the island, for instance,” England said. “Or when you went to the Tropical Palm Lounge in Houston to arrange for guns. You're a better driver than Yancy, by the way.”

  “We have the manpower,” Carey said, “and we have the interest. We've had you in sight from the beginning; we could have picked you up any time. We still can.”

  “If you refuse to help us,” England said, “or if you try to leave the area without going through with the robbery, we will pick you up.”

  Parker said, “Drink your coffee. Let me think.”

  England shrugged. “Go right ahead.”

  Parker got to his feet, went over to the kitchen sink, turned the cold water on, and doused water over his face and head. He dried off with paper towels, then went through the cabinets over the sink until he found a can of mixed nuts. He sat back down at the table, drank his coffee, ate handfuls of the mixed nuts, and thought it out.

  The alternatives were three: Clear out of here right now. Go along with Carey and England all the way. Work some sort of compromise.

  His instinct hold him to go for number one. England and Carey were sloppy, because they were sure of themselves. He could overpower them any time, then look the situation over and find a way out of the building past the reserve troops that were bound to be outside. Go north and east, get far away from this part of the country and lie low for a while.

  The main thing wrong with that, he wouldn't be able to alert Grofield and Salsa, so the law would naturally take them as a consolation prize for him.

  So maybe a combination of one and two. Promise to go along with Carey and England, then get the word to Grofield and Salsa, and the three of them wait for a good time to clear out of here.

  Which wasn't good either. Most of the time, a lone man can break free of surveillance if he wants to badly enough and if he has some experience, but with three men trying it all at once the odds are too high, at least one of them will get grabbed.

  Besides that, Parker was in this operation because he needed the money. His cut would be forty thousand, guaranteed, and forty thousand would give him the cushion he needed right now. If there was any safe way to keep the operation alive, he'd do it.

  Then maybe alternative number two; go along with Carey and England all the way. Except that Carey and England were stupid. Trying to get a bad risk like Heenan in on the job, and now even trying to get one of themselves in with him. As though this weren't a profession, as though a job like this didn't need personnel who knew their business and could be counted on no matter which way things went. It was obvious Carey and England had no understanding of Parker's line of work, and that meant, if he did go through with the job, he'd have to keep control of it out of their hands.

  Which came to alternative number three, the compromis
e. Work out an arrangement with Carey and England that would get them what they wanted and him what he wanted. It was possible they could come to some sort of middle ground even though neither of them trusted the other. Carey and England mistrusted Parker because he was outside the law, and Parker mistrusted them because he was convinced at the end of everything they'd be trying for Baron and himself both. If they could put the arm on him, they'd be crazy to let the chance go by, and he didn't think they were crazy.

  Finally he said, “All right. A proposition.”

  Carey said, “I don't think you're in a position to bargain.”

  Parker told him, “I'm looking to see if I can get an arrangement where it would be safer for me to stay with this job than to try to make a break for it right now. The way you two are handling it, it's safer for me to make the break.”

  England held a hand up, saying, “All right, we'll listen. We're reasonable men.”

  Carey glanced at his partner, but he didn't say anything more.

  Parker said, “What you want is Baron. You don't care how you get him, so the details don't—”

  “We want him alive,” England said hastily. “Don't get us wrong, we won't be satisfied with proof of his death or anything like that. We want Von Altstein very much alive.”

  “There's a trial waiting for him,” Carey said. “A big public trail, and a rope at the other end of it.”

  “I don't care,” Parker said. “You want him alive, that's all you care about. The Baron, or Von Altstein, or whatever you call him, you want him in on dry land where you've got jurisdiction. So I'll go along with you, I'll bring him in for you. But that's all of it. I don't have any law or any pigeons working with me. You people leave me strictly alone to do my own job my own way, and when my job is done you'll get your piece of it.”

  They looked at each other, both of them doubtful. England said, “What sort of guarantee—”

  “No guarantee. You say you've got me in a bind, you're watching me so close with so many troops I can't get away from you no matter what: So you guarantee the job yourself.”

  Carey said, “We could consider it.”

  “You mean you want to check with somebody higher up. Use the phone in the bedroom, it's quicker that way.”

  They looked at each other again, and then England nodded and said, “I'll go. I won't be long.”

  Parker said to Carey, “You want more coffee?”

  Carey watched England leave the room, then turned to Parker. “No, thanks.”

  “I do.” Parker went over by the sink again, opened cupboards, closed them, opened drawers, closed them, palmed a steak knife and went back over to the table. Suddenly his left hand had a grip on Carey's hair and his right hand was holding the knife to Carey's throat. “Don't move,” he whispered.

  Carey wasn't that stupid. He stayed where he was; only his eyes had widened a little.

  Parker let go his hair and used that hand to frisk Carey, finding his revolver, a businesslike S&W .38 Special, in a belt holster on his right hip. Parker backed away, holding the revolver, and put the steak knife back in its drawer. He faced Carey, keeping the revolver where Carey could see it without its being exactly aimed anywhere in particular.

  Parker said, “England comes back in here, I disarm him. That's easy. The three of us go out, we flag a cab. None of your troops follows because there's two of you and one of me so they figure I'm well covered. Then blocks away I shoot you and England and the cabby, drive the cab to Houston, take a plane. Any problems?”

  Carey said nothing.

  Parker walked back across the room and put the revolver down on the table. “That's your guarantee,” he said. “I could do that, and I won't. I need this operation, and if you and your friends don't screw it up I'll run it off as scheduled.”

  Carey picked up his revolver, looked at it a second, then put it away. His voice mild, distracted, he said, “I'm not a specialist in people like you.”

  “You're lucky,” Parker told him.

  Carey studied Parker as though making up his mind whether or not to buy him. “Maybe I will,” he said. “When this is over, when we've got Von Altstein and you go off your own way, maybe I'll put in for a transfer. Maybe we'll meet each other again some other time.”

  Parker doubted it, but he knew why Carey was saying it. It was a way to get some of his pride back. So Parker just shrugged and sat down at the table and said, “Maybe so.”

  England came back a couple minutes later. “They want some sort of assurance,” he said.

  Carey said, “It's all right. We've got the assurance.”

  “We do?”

  “Mr. Parker just took my gun away, held it on me, and explained exactly how he could kill the two of us and a passing cabdriver and get himself out of this situation, if he wished to do so. It was plausible, particularly with him holding my gun on me while he explained it all.”

  England was frowning, looking back and forth at the two of them. He said, “Then what?”

  “Then he gave the gun back to me,” Carey said.

  England said, “I don't get it.”

  “I do,” Carey said. He got to his feet. “It's all yours, Mr. Parker,” he said. “You won't see us again till you come back to shore with Von Altstein.”

  Not even then, Parker thought. Aloud, he said, “I'll see you then.”

  5

  “If the deal is queer” said Grofield, “it's queer. I say we get the hell out while the getting is good.”

  “Anything they'll make on you,” Parker told him, “they've already made. From now till the job's done they'll keep their distance.”

  Salsa said, “What about after the job?”

  “It's a big coastline.”

  The fourth man in the room, Ross, said, “Up to now they haven't made me at all, is that right?”

  Parker nodded. “That's right.”

  Ross was the boatman; Salsa had turned him up. He was big, stocky, florid, with heavy pale eyebrows and thick pale hair and thick freckled hands. He said, “I could leave this building right now, the same way I came in, just as careful, and they'd never make me at all.”

  “That's right.”

  “But if I stay, it's fifty thousand dollars guaranteed minimum.”

  “That's right.”

  “If I stay,” Ross deliberately, “I'll be very careful they never do make me.”

  Parker nodded. “That's sensible.”

  “Even if it complicates the work,” Ross said. “I want you to know that. This adds another element, this makes the situation tricky. If I agree to do something, and then it turns out I can't do that something without tipping my mitt to your friends, you're just gonna have to count me out.”

  “I already figured that,” Parker told him.

  Ross said, “I just wanted to make it clear.”

  Grofield said, “Parker, I've never seen you anything but cautious. How come you're still in this? The job is tipped to the Federal law, why aren't we all the hell out of here?”

  Parker told him, “About this job, this island thing, from a law standpoint they don't give a damn. It's not their jurisdiction, not their fight. That island is Cuban territory, so it's up to the Cuban cops to get after us, and right now the Cuban cops and American cops don't get along too good. About anything else, anything they might have on me or you from the past, they aren't interested because it isn't their department.”

  Grofield said, “They can send an interoffice memo.”

  Parker nodded. “I know that. That's why we say we'll play along but when the job is done we find some other piece of coast to land at.”

  Grofield said, “They've got helicopters, they've got a whole goddam Navy, not to mention the Coast Guard and the Air Force. Why should they let us go there and come back without them watching?”

  Parker said, “No reason. They'll be tailing us the best they can.”

  “It'll be a pretty good best.”

  “Not good enough. It'll be at night, and the island wi
ll be going up in flames, and there'll be thirty boats heading away from there at once, maybe more, all Baron's customers getting the hell out. The Federals know we mean to knock over the island, but they don't know we mean to knock it all the way out, and that's our edge.”

  “I like wide edges,” Grofield said. “That one looks narrow to me.

  “If you're in,” Parker told him, “we'll talk about it. If you're out, what difference does it make?”

  Grofield frowned, thinking about it. He said, “Salsa, what about you? You still in this?”

  Salsa said, “I think about it. What do they have now, so far? My name. My fingerprints, I suppose, from something in the motel. But they don't have me, and they won't come to get me till after this job. So what do I care? Police have had my name, my fingerprints, a hell of a long time. They'll be looking for me after this job, but once more what do I care, they've been looking for me already half a dozen years.”

  Grofield said, “They've been tapping our phones. That's the only way they could have known I'd be trying to get in touch with Heenan. They heard me talk to Wymerpaugh, heard him say Heenan. They checked Heenan fast, found him in stir already, put a band on his leg and sent him to us.”

  Parker said, “We've got to find safe phones, call back everybody we called before, tell them what's up so they can protect themselves.”

  Ross said, “What about this bird Heenan?”

  “I already called Wymerpaugh,” Parker said. “He'll take care of that.”

  Grofield said, “If we can widen that edge, make it surer we'll get out from under any watch they'll have on us, then I'm still in.”

  Salsa said, “One thing we could do.” When they all looked at him, he said, “Every night we lose our shadows. Right after dark every night. We get new places to stay at night, and we don't come back where they can pick us up again until the morning.”

  Grofield said, “What good does that do?”

  “We do it five, maybe six nights,” Salsa told him. “The fifth night, the sixth night, we go out to the island. Every night they have to guess we are going to the island, and they watch the island. Night after night. The fifth night, maybe the sixth night, they're getting a little careless. Could be we get there and start the fuss before they even know it, catch them by surprise. They don't know when we got there, how we got there, so they don't know when or how we'll leave.”