Brenda spoke again, this time drily: “He noticed Mister Archibald was insincere.”
“He got hung up on the money,” Liss said. “How Archibald takes all the suckers for all this money, and it doesn’t go anywhere good. I dunno, Parker, it wasn’t the scam that got ol’ Tom riled up, it still isn’t. It’s what happens with the money after Archibald trims the rubes. He’d talk about all the good that money could do, you know, feed the homeless and house the hungry and all this, and then he wanted to know was there any way I knew that he could get a bunch of that cash. Not for himself, you see, but to do good works with it.”
Parker said, “It was his idea?”
“Absolutely. The guy’s a civilian, I only know him two years, and he’s tied to the parole board. Am I gonna say, ‘Hey, Tom, let’s pull a number’? No way.”
“But you went along.”
Liss shook his head. “Not at first. One of the few big words I know is entrapment. So at first I’d just nod and say well, that’s a real bitch, Tom, and all this. And when he finally came out with it—-‘Hey, George, let’s do it together, you with your expert background and me with my inside information’—I told him no, I told him I’m retired, it isn’t I’m reformed I just don’t want to go back inside. Which was almost the truth, by the way.”
Parker nodded. For a lot of people, that was almost the truth almost all the time.
“Also,” Liss said, “I told him I didn’t much care where money went that didn’t come to me, whether this money fed Archibald or fed some other people made no difference to me, and he said he understood. He understood for me it would be more of a business proposition. So he suggested we split fifty-fifty, and I’d put my share in my pocket and he’d give his to the poor.”
“Us poor,” Mackey said.
Parker knew what Mackey meant. Glancing at him, “If,” he said.
“Naturally.”
Liss went on, saying, “Finally I said I’d pass him on to somebody who was still active in the game, but he said no, he wouldn’t trust anybody but me, so then I figured I could take the chance. If he was out to trap somebody for the law, he wouldn’t care who he brought in, right? He’d let me pass him on to somebody else, work his number just as good. Since he didn’t do that, then he probably wasn’t pulling anything. So then we started to get kind of serious, talking it over, him giving me the details about the money, and I saw how maybe it could be done. And here we are.”
Parker said, “And the theory is, the inside guy takes half, and we split the other half. However many of us it is doing the thing.”
“That’s the theory.”
“Does he buy it?” Parker shook his head, rejecting his own question, rephrasing it: “What I mean, does he believe it?”
“That he’ll get his half?” Liss did his lopsided smile. “That’s the big question, isn’t it? He’s kind of hard to read since he changed, you know. Used to be, he was an easygoing guy, now he’s all tensed up. Relaxed guys are harder to fool, but tensed-up guys are harder to read.”
“Anyway, Parker,” Mackey said, “what’s he gonna do if he doesn’t believe it? We’re the takers, not him. Is he gonna take it from the takers? No way.”
Parker ignored that. He said to Liss, “How many parole guys does this fella have beer with?”
Liss half-frowned; that face of his took some getting used to. He said, “You mean, he puts together a backup crew to take it away after we get it? But what’s the point, Parker? If he’s afraid we’re gonna cut him out, what’s he gonna do about the second crew? Come up with a third?”
“What I think it is,” Mackey said, “I think the guy bought his own story. He’s not buying from us, he’s buying from himself.”
Parker said to Mackey, “You meet this wonder?”
“Not yet.”
“That can be arranged,” Liss said. “Easiest thing there is. I’ll call him tonight, say we’re—”
“No,” Parker said. “You say he goes out with this preacher on his crusades. When’s the next one?”
“Couple weeks. I figured that’s when we could pull it.”
“No. Where they gonna be? The whole tour.”
Liss’s face went out of whack again. He said, “Beats me. I guess I could find out.”
“Good,” Parker said. “Then somewhere along the way, without any invitations or planning or setting things up, we’re there, and we say hello. Mackey and me.”
“And Brenda,” Mackey said.
Parker looked at Brenda. “Naturally,” he said.
3
In a not-very-good restaurant in St. Louis, with old bored waiters and old-fashioned dark red-and-brown decor, Parker and Mackey and Brenda ate dinner, taking their time over it. Liss had said he’d get the pigeon here between eight and ten, and it was already nine-thirty. “I gotta go to the john again,” Brenda said, fooling with her coffee cup, “but I know, the minute I leave the table, they’re gonna walk in.”
“Then do it,” Mackey told her. “I’d like to see something make them walk in.”
“Only for you,” she said, and left the table, and a minute later Liss walked in with a sandy-haired nervous-looking guy in his late twenties, wearing tan slacks and a plaid shirt.
“There, you see,” Mackey said. “That’s why I keep Brenda around. She’s magic.”
Parker said nothing. He already knew why Mackey kept Brenda around—she was his brains—and his interest was in the guy over there with Liss. And also with whoever might come into the restaurant next.
Which was nobody. If Carmody was being watched, it was a very long leash. Watchers couldn’t have been planted in the place ahead of time, because Liss wouldn’t have told Tom where they were going until they got here. “This looks like a good place, Tom. I’m ready for dinner, how about you?”
And why would a watcher wait outside, when the whole point of keeping an eye on your bait was to see who came around and what happened? So Tom was not under observation. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t a Judas goat, only that, if he was, they were letting him float on his own. Not important to them, in other words, or not yet. Not until he starts to come home with somebody.
Liss had seated himself at the table in a chair where he could give the doddering waiter his good side, about which the waiter cared nothing. Tom Carmody, across from Liss, was quiet, low-key, ordering as though he didn’t care if he ate or not, then sitting there in a funk. Liss gave him a minute or two of cheery conversation and then ate rolls instead.
Brenda came back to the table and Mackey said, “Your magic worked.”
“So I see.”
While Mackey signaled to the waiter for the check, Brenda studied the guy sitting over there with Liss. Mackey repeated his hand gesture at the waiter—signing his name in the air—then turned back to Brenda to say, “What do you think?”
“He’s too gloomy.”
“I don’t want you to date him, honey.”
“I don’t want you to date him, either,” she said. “That’s what I mean, he’s too gloomy.”
Parker listened, while across the way Liss and Carmody got their salads. Liss tucked in, while Carmody pushed the lettuce and tomato slice around in the shallow bowl.
Meantime, Mackey said, “Explain yourself,” and Brenda said, “He already gave up. Look at him, Ed. He doesn’t care if anything good happens or not. You know what a guy like that does when there’s trouble? He lies down.”
“Good,” Mackey said. “He’ll give us traction.”
The waiter brought the check then, and stood around as Mackey brought out his wallet and, despite the hand signal, paid in cash. While he did that, Brenda said to Parker, “How’s Claire?”
Unlike Mackey, Parker didn’t bring his woman to work. “She’s fine,” he said.
“Will I be seeing her?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mackey left a little tip, and said, “Let’s go look at our boy up close.”
Parker let Mackey and Brenda go first; th
ey were better at the social niceties, like pretending to be happily surprised at the sight of Liss sitting there: “George! How you doing, old son?”
“Hello, Ed! How are you? And Brenda!” Liss rose, shaking Mackey’s hand, kissing Brenda’s cheek, giving Parker a bright-eyed look of non-recognition.
Mackey said, “George Liss, here’s a pal of ours, Jack Grant.”
“How you doing, Jack?” Liss said, grinning, extending his hand.
“Fine,” Parker said, shaking the hand briefly. Play-acting wasn’t what he did best.
On the other hand, Liss was having a good time. “And this is a pal of mine,” he announced, with a big wave at the pigeon. “Tom Carmody. Tom, this is Ed and Brenda Fawcett, and a pal of theirs.”
Tom Carmody had been raised as a mannerly boy; he got to his feet and managed a smile at Brenda, with his how-do-you-dos. Mackey squeezed Carmody’s hand, grinning hard at him, saying, “I’m a salesman, Tom, but I guess you can see that. Most people pipe me right away. You I don’t get, though. You teach?”
“Not exactly.” Carmody was clearly uncomfortable at having to explain himself. “I’m in rehabilitation,” he said.
Mackey did a good job of misunderstanding. Looking concerned, he said, “Hey, I’m sorry. Whatcha rehabilitating from?”
“No, I’m—I—” Carmody’s confusion made him blush. He finally managed to get it out: “I work for a preacher. We do rehabilitation work for, uh, people.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Mackey told him. “There’s a lotta people need that stuff.” With a big jokey grin he said, “What about old George here? You gonna rehabilitate him?”
Carmody began to stumble and stutter all over himself again, but this time Liss came to his rescue, saying, “Not me. I’m a hopeless case.”
“Us honest citizens shouldn’t be seen with the likes of you,” Mackey said, and whacked Liss playfully on the arm. “See you around, George.”
Everybody said good-bye, Carmody sat down with obvious relief, and Parker and Mackey and Brenda went out to the parking lot, where Mackey had a laughing fit, leaning over the hood of their car. When he got himself under control he said, “That was touching, Parker. Do you know that? He didn’t wanna blow the gaff on George being on parole. I call that touching.”
“He’s a very straight citizen,” Parker agreed.
Mackey leaned against the car, wiping his eyes, and said to Brenda, “Well? What do you think? Still too gloomy?”
“I think you can take a chance,” she said. “If everything else is okay. If Parker’s going in.”
“Yeah?” Mackey was interested. “How come the change of heart?”
“He isn’t a liar,” Brenda said. “He isn’t trapping anybody, or double-crossing anybody, or anything like that, because that fella couldn’t lie about what time it is without the whole thing showing on his face.”
“Well, that’s true.” Mackey nodded, thinking it over, then grinned again and looked at Parker. “Ever work with a guy on that recommendation before? He can’t tell a lie. Parker, we’re signing on with George Washington.”
4
They waited in the parking lot, and when Carmody came out with Liss half an hour later he stopped dead at the sight of them. Eyes round, he stared off toward the street for rescue, but before he could do anything foolish Liss took his elbow and said, reassuringly, “It’s okay, Tom. This means they like you.”
“What? What?”
Gently, Liss explained: “These are the people gonna help us, Tom. They wanted to see you first, see what they thought. If they figured you were okay, they’d wait here until we came out. And here they are.”
“You mean, the, the—”
Mackey said, “That’s right, Tom. The reverend’s millions.”
Startled, Carmody said, “Not millions!”
“I know, I know.” Mackey grinned at himself. “I was just exaggerating, Tom, it’s a bad habit I got. The number’s four hundred grand, am I right? Two for us, two for you.”
“Approximately,” Carmody said.
Mackey spread his hands, looking at Liss. “How can we not love this guy, George?” he asked. “He doesn’t want to mislead us or anything.”
Parker said, “Carmody, you’ll give George a list of the places where your preacher’s going to be doing his thing the next four or five months.”
Carmody said, “That long? I was hoping—”
“Maybe we’ll do it next week,” Parker told him, although he knew they wouldn’t. “Maybe not till later. We’ll do it when we got the right place, the right circumstances. You don’t want any risk, right?”
“That’s right,” Carmody said. He stared at Parker like an antelope looking at a lion. “Mr. uh, Grant, is it?”
“Yeah.”
“I never did anything like—”
“We know,” Parker said. “George told us what your idea is. You want to do good.”
“Whereas,” Mackey said, ‘W want to do well.”
Ignoring that, Parker said to Carmody, “If
something goes wrong, the cops won’t ask you what your motive was. You see what I mean?”
“Absolutely,” Carmody said.
“So we’ll pick the right time, the right place, the right circumstances,” Parker told him. “We’ll decide when it’s safe to make our move. And then we’ll say to you, now.”
5
The money room was long, low-ceilinged and windowless. There were bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the walls were off-white plasterboard, and a pale gray industrial carpet was on the floor, but even with all that lightness and brightness the place had the feeling of being a cave or a tunnel, far underground. Air conditioning produced a flat dry atmosphere, in which sounds became muffled and small. The hymn-singing could not be heard in here.
Parker and Liss and Mackey came into the room fast, ski masks on their faces, the shotguns pointing outward, slightly over the occupants’ heads, the blued-steel barrels moving back and forth as though looking for a target. Liss cried out, “Everybody stop! Stop now! Hands on desks! You! You’ll die!”
The fat man with the black necktie stopped reaching for the phone. He and the other five people in the room all became very still. Three of them—the fat man and two middle-aged women, all seated at desks with open ledgers and calculators and video terminals—were employees of the arena, and would calm down when they stopped to remember it wasn’t their money in any case. The other three, all slender short-haired young men in dark slacks and white shirts and narrow ties, were Reverend Archibald’s people, and might take a robbery more personally.
These three had all been on their feet, standing around the long tables piled with money, still only partially counted. Now they all stood bent slightly forward, palms flat against the counting table as their eyes darted around, glancing quickly at one another, at the money, at the shotguns, at the lights and the floor and everything in the room. All three were thinking about trying something, even against the guns.
Mackey stepped forward toward the money table, keeping to the side so he didn’t block Parker’s and Liss’s aim. He was jittery on his feet and bunching his shoulders up and down, giving them all kinds of body language about how wrought-up he was. His voice loud and ragged, full of tension, he yelled, “You three! Get away from the money!”
They stared at him, not moving. Mackey shook the shotgun in both hands. He bobbed on his feet. He yelled, “I gotta blow one of you bastards away! I gotta! So move!”
Liss angrily yelled, “Don’t get blood on the money!”
“Move away!” Mackey screamed at the three. “Move away!”
Now finally one of them found voice. Frightened, gasping through the words, he said, “What do you want to shoot us for?”
Parker stepped forward. “Ed, don’t do it,” he said. “Not unless they give you a reason.”
Mackey jittered forward close enough to touch the shotgun barrel against the white shirtsleeve of the one who’d spoken. “Give me
a reason,” he begged. “Give me a reason.”
Parker, as though he wanted to calm Mackey down as much as anybody, said to the trio, “Down on the floor. Right where you are. On your backs. Ed won’t shoot unless you’re stupid.”
The three went down fast, and lay blinking up at the ceiling. Like upended turtles, they felt more exposed and helpless on their backs than if Parker had let them lie face down, where they could have felt hidden and coiled. Between their position on the floor there and Mackey’s apparent blood-hunger, they wouldn’t be causing any trouble after all.
Parker had taken the bag of duffel bags from Mackey on the way in, to leave Mackey’s arms free for when he went into his act. Now Parker turned to the two women seated at their desks, trying to be invisible, and tossed the duffel at them. “Take the bags out and fill them. The faster you do it, the sooner we’re out of here.”
The women hurried across to the money table, stepping over the supine men. Awkward with haste, they stuffed money into the gray canvas bags, while Mackey kept pacing around, muttering to himself and rubbing the top of his head. Liss stood near the door, the shotgun in his hands moving in arcs, like a surveillance camera. Parker went past him and back out to the small anteroom, where they’d left Carmody, who was still out, lying on the floor where they’d dragged him. He went back inside and Mackey was fidgeting back and forth, pointing his gun at the men on the floor and mumbling incomprehensible things, while the two women kept sneaking terrified looks at him and filling the duffel bags as rapidly as they possibly could.
Parker went around the room, unsnapping the phone cords connecting all the phones to their jacks, then bringing the phone cords over to the money table and stuffing them into a bag that was already half full.
Liss said to the fat man, ‘You can make that important call now.”
The fat man was doing dignity; he sat, unmoving, head bent forward, gazing at a spot on the desk midway between his splayed-out hands. He pretended Liss hadn’t spoken.
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