Firebreak

by Richard Stark

  Parker looked around. There was nothing in this reception area but the desk and the wall display and the indifferent man in his maroon Cosmopolitan jacket. There was no seating area for visitors, no magazines laid out. Cosmopolitan did make some effort to look like a normal business, but the effort was halfhearted. Possibly they didn't know that business visitors were normally given a place to sit and wait; certainly they didn't care.

  In the silver wall, near the right corner, was an unobtrusive door, the same silver, which now opened and three men came out. Even before Arthur said, in a quick bark, "Frank," and the first one through the doorway frowned in this direction, Parker knew this must be Meany. He was tall and bulky, with a bruiser's round head of close-cropped hair that fists would slide off. He'd been dressed very carefully by a tailor, in a dark gray suit, plus pale blue dress shirt and pink-and-gold figured tie, to make him look less like a thug and more like a businessman, and it might have done a better job if the tailor'd been able to do something about that thick-jawed small-eyed face as well. The four heavy rings he wore, two on each hand, were not for decoration. He had a flat-footed walk, like a boxer coming out of his corner at the start of the round.

  But the second man through the doorway drew Parker's attention almost as much. He was another thug, less imposing than Meany, dressed in chinos and blue workshirt with the sleeves rolled partway up. There were white bandages on his forehead, right ear, right cheek, and the backs of both hands. He was the guy who'd gone through Larry Lloyd's picture window.

  Parker stepped closer to the desk, drawing the

  Beretta, knowing it wasn't enough in this large space against three, but having nothing else. The bandaged thug was reaching toward his hip, and so was the third man, a carbon copy without the bandages. Arthur was backing away, startled, ready to drop and roll into a corner.

  But Meany immediately held both arms out in front of himself, palms out, like a referee telling the teams the down is over. "Hold it!" he said, with the absolute assurance he'd be heard.

  Everybody stopped. Parker waited to see what would happen, the Beretta just visible to them all above the desk.

  Meany looked aside at his own people, to be sure they'd stopped, then looked at Parker and said, with impatience, "What are you gonna do with that Mattel toy? Give it to Norm, come on back to the office, we'll talk it over. You're Parker, aren't you?"

  "Yes," Parker said.

  "So we've got things to talk about," Meany told him, and the small eyes shifted. "Arthur, hello," he said. 'You might not believe this, but I'm glad to see you walkin around. Come on back, let's talk this over." He looked again at Parker: "Well?"

  "I'll keep the toy," Parker said, and put the Beretta away.

  8

  Behind the silver wall, the building was immediately a warehouse, long and broad, concrete-floored, pallets of boxes stacked nearly to the fluorescents hanging in garish white lines from the ten-foot ceiling. The space was full of the echoing sound of machinery, motors, some nearer, some farther off, all too loud for normal conversation.

  Meany turned right, Arthur following, then Parker, then the other two. They walked past long wide aisles made by the stacks of boxes, with workmen and fork-lifts visible some distance away. At the last aisle, Meany turned left, and partway along there the stacks on the right were replaced by a concrete block interior wall, spotted with gray metal doors and square windows of plate glass.

  They went past the first door and window, through which Parker saw four people seated at desks, working on computers. The second door and window led to a room with fax, copier, and storage, empty right now, and Meany opened the third door, into what had to be his office, functional but roomy.

  Meany went in first, then Arthur, then Parker, who stepped to his left. As the bandaged guy came in, Parker took out the Beretta, stuck it against the guy's ear, and fired. The sound was like a cough from a lion's cage.

  Before the body could fall, Parker stepped in to clasp it around the chest with his left arm, while his right hand dropped the Beretta on the floor and went to that hip holster the guy had reached for earlier. He came out with a snub-nosed .32, thumb finding the safety, and stepped back, holding the body close, as the others all turned to gape at him. Meany, disbelieving, cried, "What did you do?"

  Parker said, "Arthur, get their guns. Stay out of the line of fire."

  Arthur, understanding he didn't have the luxury of time to be shocked right now, gave a spastic nod and said, "Right. Will do." His voice trembled, but he moved.

  Parker shut the door with his shoulder and leaned against it, the body held against his chest, the .32 showing around the dead man's side. He watched Meany, knowing the other guy wouldn't move without instructions, and Meany watched him, with growing anger, his face reddening. He didn't react when Arthur patted him down, removing a pistol from beneath the well-tailored jacket, but kept staring at Parker.

  Parker said, "Put the guns on the desk."

  Arthur did, one pistol from each of them, and then Parker let the body fall, stepping away from it, saying, "Meany, put your hands on your head."

  "Or what?" Meany's voice was strangled, his throat choked with rage.

  "Or I gut-shoot you," Parker said, "and you live long enough to answer questions." He aimed the .32 just below Meany's belt buckle.

  'You come in here," Meany said, furious about it, but putting his hands up, lacing his fingers atop his head, "you pull this against three of us, in the middle of our operation! How are you gonna get out of here?"

  "That isn't your problem," Parker told him. "How you get out of here, that's your problem." Turning to the other one, he said, "Face down on the floor, over there, away from that chair. Clasp your hands at the back of your neck. Spread your feet apart. Farther." When the guy had obeyed orders, Parker said, "Arthur, use one of those guns. Just hold it on that guy down there. Don't shoot him unless he moves."

  Arthur tried to pick up the gun as though it were something he did all the time. He moved Meany's telephone so he could rest his hand on it, pistol pointing at the man on the floor.

  Parker said to Meany, "Brock and Rosenstein had a private grudge against me. You people dealt yourself in."

  "You killed a valuable asset of ours," Meany said.

  Parker nodded. He said, "How many assets you want to lose before you start to mind your own business?"

  Meany couldn't believe it. "You're threatening us?"

  "I'm nothing to do with you," Parker told him, "unless you push yourself into my face. Then I come here, and you start to lose assets."

  Meany shook his head. "How long before you run out your string?"

  "You think I'm here out of luck?" Parker stepped over to the man on the floor, went on one knee beside him, said, "Move your hands under your chin."

  The guy did so, and Parker laid the tip of the barrel against the side of his neck toward the rear, gun parallel to the floor. Meany watched him, blinking, not knowing what was supposed to happen now.

  Parker looked up at him, the gun held steady. He said, 'You got a good health plan, here at Cosmopolitan?"

  "What?" Meany was too bewildered now to remember to be outraged.

  Parker said, "If I shoot this guy across the back of the neck here, just here, it doesn't kill him. All it does is break his spinal cord, leave him paralyzed the rest of his life. You people gonna support him, another forty, fifty years, in that wheelchair?"

  "Jesus Christ," Meany said. The man on the floor was trembling, body rattling against the wood.

  Parker stood. "But why do it to him? He's just a soldier. I do it to you, that means you're alive, you can tell

  your pals at Cosmopolitan how I can be rough on assets. Face down on the floor." "You can't—Jesus—" "Down. Or do I put out your knee first?" Meany stared over at Arthur, as though for help, then squinted again at Parker. "Let's talk," he said.

  9

  Parker said, 'There's no promise you can make me, nothing you can say. Cosmopolitan decided to
come after me, Cosmopolitan has to decide to go away, so Cosmopolitan has to start hurting. On the floor."

  'They can back off right now," Meany insisted. He was trying to hold his dignity together, to be urgent without showing panic. "We don't have to do anything else about you at all."

  "Once I leave here," Parker told him, "if you're still an asset, you're gonna decide your pride is hurt, you'll want—"

  "Not me, pal," Meany said. "You come in here like this, you shoot George in the head just, what? Just attract attention? I'm not gonna pick any fights with you, wonder when you're gonna find out where I live. Cosmopolitan is out of this, as of now."

  Parker looked over at Arthur. "Can he make an offer like that?"

  "I don't think so," Arthur said. "He's just a guy works here, like I used to."

  "I'll carry the message," Meany said.

  'Yes, you will," Parker agreed. "On the floor."

  "I'll carry it now! I'll make a phone call!"

  "Who to?"

  Meany licked his lips. His elbows were twitching back and forth from the strain of holding his hands together on top of his head. "One of the owners," he said. "A guy that can make the offer."

  "What's his name?"

  Meany didn't like doing this, but knew he had no choice. 'Joseph Albert."

  Parker looked at Arthur. "Do you know that name?"

  "I never knew any of the owners," Arthur said.

  Meany said, "There's five guys have an interest in Cosmopolitan. Albert's the one I know, the one put me here."

  "We'll try it," Parker decided, and glanced toward the window, with its view of the aisle and the stacked boxes. Sooner or later, someone would walk by out there. He said, "Arthur, get up and take a lace out of one of Meany's shoes."

  "Right."

  'You on the floor," Parker said, "get up."

  The man scrambled to his feet, looking back and forth between Parker and Meany.

  Parker said, "Move your friend against the wall under the window, then sit in that chair over there."

  When the body was moved where Parker wanted, it couldn't be seen from the aisle outside. Parker turned back to Arthur, who now stood with a shoelace in his hand. "Good," he said. "Meany, put your hands in front of yourself like you're praying."

  "I am praying," Meany said. He put his palms together.

  Parker said, "Arthur, tie his thumbs together. Tight. Meany, is that a speakerphone?"

  "Sure."

  "Done," Arthur said, and stepped back from Meany.

  There was one other chair in the room. Parker backed to it, saying, "Arthur, put the guns in the waste-basket. Meany, sit at the desk. Arthur, stand beside him and dial the phone. Copy down the number he calls."

  Meany awkwardly fitted himself into his desk chair, cumbersome without the use of his hands. "Mr. Albert isn't gonna like this," he said.

  'Tell Arthur the number."

  It was a Manhattan area code. Arthur wrote it on Meany's desk pad, then pressed the speakerphone button and dialed. They all listened to two rings, and then a woman's voice said, "Enterprises, good afternoon."

  "Mr. Albert, please."

  "Who shall I say is calling?"

  "Frank Meany."

  "One moment."

  Enterprises' on-hold music was Vivaldi. Through it,

  Meany said to Parker, "Saying things on the phone isn't easy. You know what I mean, anybody listening in."

  'You'll figure it out," Parker said.

  "I'm motivated, you mean," Meany said.

  They listened to Vivaldi for four minutes. Then the woman came back on the line to say, "Mr. Meany?"

  'Yeah."

  "If you're in the office, Mr. Albert will call you back in ten minutes."

  "Now," Parker said, and the woman, confused, said, "What?"

  'Tell Mr. Albert," Meany said, "it's kind of urgent. He can talk to me from right there."

  "One moment."

  Vivaldi again. Meany, apologetic, said, "He was going to another phone. You know, so it wouldn't be in the office."

  "I'm not gonna spend much more time here," Parker said.

  Meany looked down at his tied-together thumbs. "I'm calling him," he said. "I'm doing all I can do."

  Vivaldi answered him, for another half-minute, and then a new voice, heavy, guarded, came on, saying, "Frank?"

  "Hello, Mr. Albert." Meany sounded nervous in a different way now. Parker was an immediate lethal problem, Mr. Albert a longer-term problem, maybe also lethal. "I'm sorry to interrupt you," he said, "but I got a decision to make, and I need your okay."

  "What decision?"

  "Well, sir," Meany said, hunched forward over his praying hands while small lines of perspiration ran down either side of his face, "you remember we had an arrangement with a Mr. Parker after we stopped dealing with Mr. Charov."

  There was a little pause, and then, 'That's right," Mr. Albert said.

  "Well, Mr. Parker's here with me now," Meany said, "in the office, and he'd like to end the arrangement, you know, just not have a relationship with Cosmopolitan at all any more, and I told him I thought that was the right thing to do, but we both know I got to get an okay from higher up, so he thought I should call you, and I thought that was a good idea."

  Mr. Albert said, "He's there with you now?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Parker said, "On the speakerphone."

  "Ah," Mr. Albert said.

  Parker said, "If you want, I could finish up with Frank here and come discuss it with you personally."

  "No, I don't think— I don't think that would be necessary, Mr. Parker."

  "But the other thing is," Parker said, "I'll need some way to get in touch with Paul Brock. I mean, if you and I are finished with one another, then that just leaves the Paul Brock situation, and I think I ought to deal with that myself. Not put you people to any more effort."

  There was a little pause, and Mr. Albert said, "Paul Brock is a valuable asset to our company, Mr. Parker."

  "I understand that," Parker said. "Like Frank here."

  "Ah. What it comes down to is, I have a choice to make."

  Parker waited. Meany said, "I think Mr. Parker's way is gonna work out best for us, Mr. Albert."

  "On balance," Mr. Albert said, "I believe you're right. So Mr. Parker needs a way to get in touch with Brock."

  Parker said, "Yeah, I need that."

  "Frank, you go ahead and give Mr. Parker Brock's address. I don't believe I have it here myself."

  "Okay, Mr. Albert," Meany said.

  Parker leaned a little closer to the phone. He said, "But you do go along with Frank's idea here, that we don't have any more business together."

  "Happily," Mr. Albert said. "To be honest, I always felt it was a diversification we shouldn't have gone into. We let... a certain proprietary sense cloud our judgment."

  "Everybody makes mistakes," Parker said.

  "Well, I'm happy we have the opportunity to correct this one," Mr. Albert said. "Frank, is there anything else?"

  "No, sir," Meany said, eager to get this finished, now that it seemed to be working out. "Just needed your okay to end the arrangement with Mr. Parker."

  "It's ended. Goodbye, Mr. Parker," Mr. Albert said, and the dial tone sounded until Arthur found the button to switch off the speakerphone.

  10

  Parker said, "Arthur, write Brock's address on the same sheet as that phone number."

  "You can trust Mr. Albert," Meany said.

  Parker waited.

  Meany turned to Arthur. "Brock and Rosenstein are over in New York, in Greenwich Village. It's four-one-four Bleecker."

  As Arthur wrote that down, Parker said, "Brock hired Charov for his own personal reason, but Brock was already connected here."

  "He's like a supplier," Meany said. "He doesn't work regular for us."

  "But he's another valuable asset. What makes him valuable?"

  "You don't know?" Meany was surprised. "Electronics. He does all our debugging, all the
phone lines in all our operations, comes through on a regular basis, like the exterminator. And specialty stuff. He made those bombs, set that up."

  Parker nodded. "Gave you people one more reason to help him get rid of me."

  Meany shrugged. "Seemed like it ought to be easy."

  Arthur said, "Is Albert going to warn Brock we're coming?"

  "No," Meany said. "We want no more of this. If Mr. Albert calls Brock, and Parker finds out about it, here he comes again."

  "No," Parker said. "I'd go see Albert."

  "He knows that, too," Meany said.

  Parker got to his feet, put the .32 away in his pocket, picked the Beretta off the floor. "You two walk us out to the car," he said.

  Meany held up his hands. "Still like this?"

  "I don't need you to wave goodbye," Parker said. "Come along."

  On Sixth Avenue, just into Manhattan from the Holland Tunnel, Parker said, "Let me off here."

  Surprised, Arthur said, "Aren't I coming with you?"

  "Not needed."

  "Oh. Okay."

  Arthur pulled to the curb by a fire hydrant. "I was getting used to going places with you," he said.

  "Now you're retired again," Parker told him, and got out of the Volvo. A block north, at a pay phone, he called Lloyd at home in Massachusetts: "Tell the others, I'm finishing up here, I'll see them out there after tomorrow."

  "Good," Lloyd said. "You're all done there?"

  "One last detail," Parker said.

  PART THREE

  1

  Horace Griffith was in Geneva, negotiating the sale of a Titian, when the e came from Paxton Marino: "Need to talk to you soonest. Give me a number I can call."

  Paxton Marino was a very good customer of Griffith's, a dot-com nouveau riche who judged his happiness level by how fast he could spend his money, but he was also a difficult and a cranky customer—a spoiled brat, in fact—who had already caused Griffith more gray hairs than he could afford at fifty-six.