Ormont nodded heavily. “Tomorrow afternoon. Two o’clock. I won’t be having office hours then, just ring the bell.”
“Will do.”
They all got to their feet. Ormont said, “Good to see you again, Parker. The face is a very good job.”
Parker nodded again. There wasn’t anything to say; he’d never been any good at small talk.
Ormont said, “Sorry to keep you waiting the way I did. But we’ve got to keep up appearances. My nurse isn’t in on it.”
“That’s all right.”
They went out. When they were back in the car, Grofield started laughing again. “This office isn’t bugged! Parker, if you had a sense of humor you’d bust a gut right now. This office isn’t bugged! I wouldn’t take a million dollars for that man.”
Parker lit a cigarette and waited for Grofield to get over it.
2
Twelve men made the dining-room uncomfortably full. Edgars had set up folding-chairs for the extras and had distributed beer. Then he and Parker and Paulus had taken turns filling the new men in on the operation. Edgars had run his slides, showing them the map, and also the photos of Raymond Avenue and the banks and the two gates to the plant and the police station and everything else. The room had filled with smoke, even with both windows open.
Handy McKay was the only one selected who hadn’t chosen to come in at least to listen. The rest were all there. Wiss and Kerwin, the other two safe and vault experts, both small, narrow men with an intense and concentrated look. Wiss had brought, to work with him, a rangy fortyish man named Elkins, with whom Parker had worked in the past. Chambers was there, a big awkward-looking hillbilly with a brother in jail for statutory rape. And Pop Phillips, an old guy who looked like Hollywood’s idea of a night watchman. And Littlefield, a stocky man in his fifties who looked as though he made his living selling gold-mine stock. And Salsa, in his late thirties, tall and slender, who looked like a gigolo and used to be one.
When the talk and the slide show was finished, and when Edgars had distributed more beer, Paulus asked if there were any questions. Wiss said, “One. What’s the split?”
“Even,” Paulus told him. “Every man a twelfth.”
“That’s not the regular way.”
Parker said, “This isn’t the regular job. It’s more men than usual, and more things to do.”
Wiss shrugged. “It don’t matter to me. What’s a twelfth of two hundred fifty grand?”
“That’s minimum,” said Edgars, “just a minimum.”
Paulus said, “A little over twenty thousand.”
Wiss said, “Twenty thousand’s all right.”
Littlefield, looking like a man at a board meeting, said, “You got financing yet?”
“Picked it up yesterday,” Grofield told him.
“How much?”
“Four G’s.”
“That’s eight thousand off the top. You couldn’t cut it any closer than that?”
Parker said, “You heard the setup. You got any way to shave it?”
Littlefield shook his head. “I guess not. But eight thousand’s a big bite.”
“Less than seven hundred a man,” Paulus told him.
Elkins, the man Wiss had brought with him, said, “How long you figure to stay out at this mine?”
Wycza laughed. “Till it cools,” he said.
“Maybe three, four days,” Parker told him. “We can stash cars there ahead of time, make our split there.”
Chambers, the hillbilly, stretched his long legs out and said, “What’s the chance of aerial surveillance? What if the state boys throw helio-copters out?”
“Helicopters,” said Paulus.
Edgars said, “There’s sheds there, and trees back a ways from the ravine edge. We can all get under cover.”
Chambers nodded and scratched his chin. “The truck, too?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
Chambers looked at him sideways. “Pretty sure? Pretty sure don’t cut it.”
“If we can’t hide it up top,” Edgars told him, “we can always take it down into the ravine. There’s an overhang on the south side, we can stick it in under there.”
“Just don’t like helio-copters.”
There was silence then. Parker looked around. Kerwin and Pop Phillips and Salsa hadn’t asked anything, but all three of them looked as though they were thinking hard. Parker said “Everybody in?”
Pop Phillips shook his head. “I’m not quite sure, Parker,” he said. “It strikes me as being a pretty ostentatious sort of proposition.”
Kerwin said, “How many safes?”
Edgars answered him. “The two bank vaults, the loan company, the three jewelry stores, maybe ten or twelve other stores that’d be worth it.”
“How you want to do it, noisy or slow?”
Parker looked at Edgars. “Any people live along Raymond Avenue?”
“No, it’s all commercial. There’s no homes less than a block away.”
“So you want juice,” said Kerwin. “That’s a hell of a lot of juice to carry around.”
Paulus said, “Why not drill? Blow the vaults, but drill the others.”
Wiss, the other safe man, said, “Drilling’s just as loud, and slower.”
“You got a hell of a lot of safes there,” Kerwin said.
“But three men doing it,” Parker told him. “You hit the payroll, while Paulus and Wiss start on the banks. Then the three of you take the rest of the town.”
Kerwin nodded. “Maybe so. You got to blow the vaults, no choice there. But I don’t like blowing everything, that’s too much juice to carry around.”
Paulus said, “Drilling doesn’t take long. It might even be, a couple of those safes, all you’ll need is a sledge on the combination.”
Wiss said, “I don’t mind drilling. But you want speed on this job.”
Professionals bickering about their specialty; it was taking them away from where they ought to be. Parker said, “You three work it out later. Any way you want to do it is okay.”
Elkins, Wiss’s partner, said, “What about alarms?”
“What about them?” Edgars asked him. “We’ll have the police station sewed up.”
“I meant bells. You don’t want the main street sounding like New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh. There aren’t any bells.”
“None at all?”
“Every business along Raymond Avenue is hooked up to a burglar alarm system at police headquarters. Trip the alarm in one of the banks or a store, and a bell rings in the police station, and a light comes on to show the man on duty where the break is.”
Elkins nodded, and said, “That’s all right, then.”
Salsa spoke up for the first time. He had a trace of accent in his voice. “How soon do you plan to do this?”
“Couple of weeks,” Parker told him. “Depends how long it takes to get set.”
“What do we do in the meanwhile?”
“We’ll get to that. First, is everybody in? Anybody want to drop out? Phillips?”
Pop Phillips shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” he said. “This looks all right to the rest of you, eh? I can’t help but feel we’re biting off more than we can chew, but if you’re all convinced it’s feasible, then I imagine that’ll have to be good enough for me.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Parker told him.
“That’s just his way, Parker,” Wycza told him. Phillips had been suggested by Wycza. “If he says he’s in, he’s in. Right, Pop?”
“I rely on your judgment,” Phillips told him. He looked like a rummy night watchman, baggy pants and all, but sounded like a retired schoolteacher. He’d taken two falls in his lifetime and had done a lot of reading in prison.
“I guess we’re all in,” said Paulus.
“All fools in a circle.”
“Shut up, Grofield.”
“You men give me confidence. This is going to be easier than I thought.”
“I only wish Erni
e could be here to see this. He hateslittle towns.”
“It’ll be pleasant, I must admit, to be in uniform once again. I sometimes think I missed my calling.”
“More beer?”
They all wanted more beer. When Edgars brought it back and distributed it, Parker got to his feet and said, “We’ve got some setting up to do. Paulus, you and Wiss ought to take a run out to Copper Canyon and look it over. See if there’s any problems we haven’t covered.”
Wiss said, “I don’t like showing my face.”
“We’ll sell insurance,” Paulus told him. “Don’t you worry, I’ve done this before. I’ve got identity cards and brochures and everything. All you do is do a bad job selling insurance, and in between you look around.”
Parker said, “If Wiss don’t want to, he don’t have to. Kerwin?”
Kerwin shrugged. “All right by me.”
“Wycza, you and Salsa go out there and take a look at this mining place. But don’t stay in Copper Canyon.” He turned to Edgars. “What’s some other town nearby, bigger than Copper Canyon?”
“Madison.”
“All right. Stay at Madison. Chambers, you pick us up a truck, right?”
“I surely will.”
“The biggest they make.”
“That’s the one I’ll get, all right.”
“Wiss, get together with Paulus and Kerwin before they leave, work up a list of the supplies you need. Then you and Elkins go get the stuff.”
Elkins nodded. Wiss said, “Who’s handling the cash?”
“Grofield.”
“Treasurer and disburser, at your service.”
“Littlefield, pick yourself up a car. You and Phillips drive on out there to Madison and start moving groceries out to the mine. Enough for twelve men for a week, just in case. We’ll need water, too. Edgars tells me the water there’s polluted.”
Littlefield said, “Is this the car we’ll use in the job?”
“Right. So stay away from Copper Canyon. Arrange with the boys for when any of them wants to bring a car out to stash at the mine, so you can drive them back. The back money pays for your car and the truck and that’s it.”
Salsa said, “What about the lookout’s car? I’m lookout, town line.”
“Get yourself a car in town, when we start the operation.”
Salsa nodded. “That’s good.”
Parker told him, “What you want to do right away is pick us up walkie-talkies. Four of them, for you, me, Wycza and Grofield. Grofield’ll be at the telephone company, and he can get in touch with anybody else by phone. Wycza and Elkins will be coming together at the truck all the time, so they only need one walkie-talkie between them.”
“Four walkie-talkies,” said Salsa. “Very good.”
“Buy them here in the East.”
Salsa nodded.
Edgars said, “What about me? What do you want me to do?”
Parker shook his head. “Just stay loose. You’ll have things to do later.”
“Well, what about you? What are you going to do?”
“Guns.”
Phillips leaned across the table and said, “Let me have some of that notepaper, will you, Paulus? And does anyone have a pencil? Then we’ll make arrangements for rendezvous at the mine, for those of you with cars to leave there.”
Wiss said, “Kerwin, Paulus, let’s go out in the kitchen and talk.”
Littlefield turned to Grofield. “We’ll have to work out expenses,” he said. “The car, and food, and living expenses.”
“No living expenses,” Grofield told him. “We shaved that much out already.”
Littlefield pursed his lips. “If you think it works better that way.”
Grofield grinned at him. “You want me to go get some more? And you pay it back double, so that way you pay your living expenses twice.”
“That’s the way my income tax will read,” Littlefield told him.
“Income tax?” Grofield stared at him. “You pay income tax?”
“On every penny.”
“I bet yourreturn shakes them up.”
“I account for every penny of income,” Littlefield told him, “but I am forced, of course, to invent my sources.”
“Why bother?”
Littlefield leaned closer to him. “You’re a young man, you can still learn. Pay attention to this. You can steal in this country, you can rape and murder, you can bribe public officials, you can pollute the morals of the young, you can burn your place of business down for the insurance money, you can do almost anything you want, and if you act with just a little caution and common sense you’ll never even be indicted. But if you don’t pay your income tax, Grofield, you will go to jail.”
“Oh, sure,” said Grofield. “Sure thing.”
“Parker knows I’m right. You pay tax, don’t you, Parker?”
Parker nodded. Under the Charles Willis name he owned pieces of a few losing businesses here and there and they gave him the background to cover his income on his tax return.
Grofield shook his head. “I don’t get it. You’re putting me on.
“Income tax is Federal,” Parker told him.
“So’s a bank, for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t mean Federal offense, I mean Federal, whose money it is. A bank is stockholders, but income tax is government money.”
Pop Phillips said, “Those are words of wisdom, Grofield. I only fell twice, and once it was income tax. I got three years, and I’m still paying the back taxes. Why do you think I’m not retired?”
“I’ll put you on to my accountant,” Littlefield said. “He’ll get you straightened out.”
Grofield got to his feet, looking agitated. “That’s a lot of crap. Don’t talk to me about that. Income tax!”
Littlefield shrugged. “You’ll go to jail,” he said.
Parker saw Grofield getting mad, and said, “Back to business. We got a lot to set up tonight.”
3
“Machine guns,” said the blind man. “They’re expensive, machine guns.”
“I know,” said Parker.
“And hard to come by.”
“I know.”
“The government tries to keep tabs on them. It’s tough to find one without a history.”
“I need three. And three rifles. And eight handguns.”
“Rifles, handguns,” said the blind man. “No problem. Machine guns, that’s a problem.”
Parker shook his head in irritation, though the blind man couldn’t see it. He’d come to the blind man because he was the one to talk to if you wanted machine guns. Parker would have preferred to go to Amos Klee, in Syracuse, but Klee was only good on handguns. It was the blind man, called Scofe, who should be able to supply the machine guns.
Parker said, “You don’t have them? You can’t get them?”
“Sit,” said the blind man. “Sit, sit. Let me think.”
Parker sat, and let him think.
They were in the filthy back room of a cluttered hobby shop on Second Avenue in Albany, New York. Scofe owned the hobby shop, and it was run by a sloppy woman with red hair who didn’t trust anybody. The filth and the clutter and Scofe’s blindness and the woman’s surliness combined to keep customers at a minimum. Scofe didn’t need much to support himself anyway and he got most of his income from guns. He was good with his hands, could disassemble and reassemble a rifle faster than most men with eyes, and was even a good shot. He fired at sound targets, a small bell hung up in a breeze or his favorite kind of target a child’s toy of the click-click type.
Scofe scratched his chin. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, and his fingernails made a harsh dry sound against his beard stubble. He said, “Shotgun no good? I got good shotguns, sawed-off or what you want.”
“Machine guns. Three.”
“You know what the Germans call a machine gun? Kugelspritz. Bullet squirter. All noise, no accuracy.”
“Three.”
Scofe shrugged, and made a motion as though washin
g his hands. “Not my affair. I got a Schmeisser, a burp gun. Old, but in good condition.”
“That’s one.”
Scofe chuckled, his shoulders rising and falling. “Parker,” he said. “Parker, Parker. I hear you got a new face, but your voice don’t change, or your style. You don’t like me, do you, Parker?”
“I don’t give a damn about you.”
“You don’t like the dirty old blind man. He smells bad. Yah, Parker?”
“Maybe I’ll go to Amos Klee.”
“For machine guns? No, Parker. For machine guns, you come to Scofe. You want the burp gun?”
“Let me see it.”
Scofe pointed. “Over there you see a shelf. Long boxes on it, battleship models. Bottom box, second from the left. Bring it here.”
Parker got the box. The ones he had to move were light, but the one he wanted was heavy. He started to open it and Scofe said, “I’ll open it, Parker. Bring it here.”
Parker brought it over to him. Scofe was sitting in a squeaky kitchen chair next to a table, an old scarred worktable with nothing on it. Parker handed him the box and Scofe put it on the table, half-turned to be closer to the table, and took the top off the box. It was full of parts. Scofe’s hands touched the parts, his long fingers moving like worms in a garden. Parker watched him as he put the parts together, feeling in the bottom of the box for screws, using a small metal screwdriver he took from his hip pocket. He put the parts together, and when he was done there was a burp gun on the table. “There,” he said. “You like it?”
Parker picked it up. There was rust on it, a little, not much. It was an old gun, but it looked to be in good shape. The places where it was rusted were where identification marks had been filed away, leaving the metal rough.
“Well?”
“How much?”
“I don’t haggle, Parker, you know I never haggle.”
“How much?”
“One twenty-five.”
Parker put the gun back down on the table. “What else you got?”
Scofe chuckled again. His hands reached out and found the gun and he disassembled it again, putting everything back in the model battleship box. When he was finished, he put the top on the box again and said, “You want to put it back? You’re not interested?”
“Leave it out a while. What else you got?”
“You take the burp, I can let you have two Tommys, a hundred apiece.”
The Score p-5 Page 5