For himself, Will Hoskins didn't like the hard cases. Brawn instead of brains, violence instead of good planning. He didn't like them, didn't trust them, didn't want to have anything to do with them. He'd avoided them all his life, and if this boodle weren't so damned big he'd have avoided them this time as well.
Particularly after Walker had done that hanging-out-the-window trick. Marten and his playmates had acted rough and mean, but they didn't hold a candle to Walker.
If that was his name, which Hoskins doubted. He was calling himself Lynch this time in town, and that was probably another flag. But whatever he called himself and whatever his real name, Hoskins wanted nothing to do with him. He was just as pleased, he told himself, that Walker wouldn't come in with him. He was better off playing a lone hand. He'd played a lone hand before, though never with strong-arm types involved.
Wilfred Hoskins had worked a lot of non-violent rackets in the course of his life, everything from hustling bridge on Long Island to roping for a wire store in Houston. He'd never turned down a chance to wangle a dollar in his life, and when that spade Gonor showed up with his burglary night-school idea, Hoskins immediately saw there was a way in there to promote for himself the sweetest piece of cake of his lifetime. And he still thought so.
He'd been keeping track of Walker since the window episode, keeping well out of Walker's sight but keeping pretty close tabs on him just the same, and when he and Gonor spent almost an hour in that African museum this afternoon he'd told himself it had to mean something. They weren't in that place for fun. When Walker and Gonor split after the museum, it was Walker that Hoskins followed back to his hotel. And then nothing happened for so long that Hoskins was about ready to call it a night, when there was Walker again, coming out of the elevator, coat on, Aaron Marten at his side.
It was nine o'clock. Hoskins watched the two of them, followed them from the hotel, saw them walk a block and a half and then go into a German restaurant on Forty-sixth Street, saw them sit down to dinner together, and then he knew all he needed to know.
First, Walker hadn't wanted to throw in with Hoskins because he'd already thrown in with Marten and that crowd. Birds of a feather, of course. And no doubt Walker, a violent man himself, had been impressed by the tough manner of Marten and his friends.
But second, the more important, if Walker and Marten were meeting like this it could only mean one thing: that the robbery was set for tonight. And if the robbery was going to be tonight, after Walker and Gonor had spent this afternoon at that museum, then the museum was where the robbery would take place. That had to be where the Kasempa brothers were hiding out.
It all tied together. The only question was, what was Hoskins going to do about it?
In a way, he knew that what he should do about it was nothing. He should clear out of this affair right now; it wasn't where he belonged. Walker, Marten, Gonor, the Kasempas—they were all of them men of violence, and he was a man of reason. And they were all banded into groups; he was the only lone agent. If he were sensible, he'd go straight back to Los Angeles tonight.
But he couldn't do it. There was too much money at stake; it was too great an opportunity. If he could bring it off he'd be on easy street the rest of his life.
He didn't stick around the restaurant once Walker and Marten had settled themselves. He hurried to Sixth Avenue where his rented Ford was waiting in a parking garage, got it out, and drove down to East Thirty-eighth Street. He drove down that block once, slowly, and there were lights in the top-floor windows of the museum. So he'd been right.
He went around the block, came back, and parked near the corner of Park Avenue and on the opposite side of the street from the museum. He cut the engine, adjusted himself comfortably, and waited to see what would happen.
For a long while nothing at all happened, and when the truck parked across the street, in front of the museum, Hoskins at first thought that meant nothing, too. But he kept watching the truck and he saw that it had turned out its lights and there was no more puff of white exhaust at the back, and yet no one had gotten out of it. He didn't understand what that meant, but he was sure it had something to do with Walker and Gonor and the diamonds, and when eventually he saw Gonor's two young partners crawl out of the back of the truck and carry a lot of stuff into the building next door to the museum he'd known his hunch had paid off.
Nothing happened then for a long while until he heard a muffled sound like thum. It was more concussion than sound, and if he hadn't had his window open a little to let out the cigarette smoke he wouldn't have heard it at all. He frowned out through the windshield, wondering what it meant or if it had anything to do with the robbery, and then he saw the top floor of the museum starting to light up again, lights first in one window, then in two, then in all. And another thum.
Should he move now? Something was happening over there. Should he make his move or should he go on waiting and watching? Move here, or follow the truck and see where the diamonds went next?
Before he'd decided, the curb-side door of the truck opened. He couldn't see it from where he was, but he saw through the window on the near side that the interior light had lit. He waited and watched, and the light went out, meaning the door had shut over there, and a few seconds later he saw Gonor walking on the sidewalk.
Strolling along up toward Park Avenue as though just out for an evening's walk, taking the air, nothing on his mind at all. With those yellow lights gleaming in the top floor of the museum.
Hoskins watched, and he knew when Gonor saw him. He'd hoped it was dark enough in the car here, but Gonor's halted posture was unmistakable. He saw that break in the stride, then saw Gonor try to pick it up again, try to act as though he hadn't seen a thing. But Hoskins was sensitive to nuances where his own safety was concerned, and he knew he'd been seen.
He watched Gonor walk back toward the truck, and he wondered what he should do now. Maybe start the engine, leave the lights off, make a sudden dash for it. Wait till the light down at the corner there had been green for a while, just before it was ready to change.
But Gonor didn't stop at the truck. What was he up to? Hoskins watched him walk all the way down to the corner, then cut across and disappear down Lexington Avenue, and he thought: Oh-ho, circling my flank. He got out of the rented car at once and walked up to the side entrance of the church on the corner and stood in the darkness there, and in a little while he saw Gonor walk by and go down and look in the car.
Hoskins followed him, walking directly up behind him, his own gun in his hand, and he didn't plan what he was going to do or think about what he was going to do. He just moved forward. And when Gonor spun around and stared at him it was the most natural thing in the world to push the gun forward and pull the trigger.
So it was all going to work out after all. Gonor was lying on the curb beside the car, so Hoskins rolled him into the gutter and then shoved him part-way under the car where he would be less likely to be seen. Then he went down to the truck, saw that it was indeed empty, and got into it himself. Those other black boys would be getting a surprise when they came out.
But it was a longer wait than he'd anticipated, nearly twenty minutes, and now that he'd actually done something this inactivity was hard to take, which is why he made his error. He saw the museum door open and then shut, he saw the two black figures hurry down the walk and open the gate and start across the sidewalk toward him, and he fired about three seconds too soon.
Not too soon to hit; he shot twice, and the one he'd aimed at flipped backwards and didn't move after he landed. But the other one had time to dive for cover, and the cover of the iron fence was close enough, and he managed to leap over it before Hoskins could get a good bead on him. Hoskins fired anyway, and the shot pinged away in a ricochet.
Damn! Hoskins shoved the truck door open, knowing he had to get over there and finish that one off before he could get himself organized, and he jumped out on to the sidewalk, took two steps, and a voice called, “Hoskins!”
<
br /> He turned his head, and to the left along the sidewalk was Parker running toward him. In a panic of haste, Hoskins tried to turn around, or point the gun at Parker, or run away, or keeping going the way he'd been moving, all the contradictory impulses slowing him long enough for Parker to stop running and raise his arm.
Hoskins tried to duck the bullet.
Four
1
Parker was in a bind. He had too much to do and too little time to do it in. And fools like Hoskins didn't help.
Formutesca came out from behind the fence. He looked bewildered. He said, “What happened?”
“That's the question,” Parker said. “Where's Gonor?”
“He's supposed to be in the truck.”
“Look in the back,” Parker said. He himself went down on one knee beside Hoskins. He was dead.
Parker got to his feet and looked up and down the street. Formutesca said, “Not in there.”
“Come on,” Parker said. There was a car parked across the street and up a ways, and Parker went over there and looked inside, but there was nothing in there. Then Formutesca said, “Underneath,” and that was where they found Gonor.
Parker dragged the body on to the sidewalk, and Formutesca said, “Is he hurt bad?”
“He's dead. Take his feet.”
“What?”
“Take his feet. We can't leave him out here.”
“Oh.” Formutesca went down to Gonor's feet, but then said, “He's face down. Shouldn't we turn him over?”
“No,” Parker said. He bent and took Gonor under the arms. “Come on, Formutesca.”
Formutesca shook his head trying to clear it. “I'm sorry,” he said. He lifted Gonor by the ankles. “His feet are skinny,” he said.
They crossed the street and went up to the entrance of the museum. Parker held Gonor propped up while Formutesca unlocked the door; then they carried the body in and set it down on the floor. Looking down, Formutesca said, “What a waste. What an awful waste.”
“Go move the truck,” Parker told him. He had to keep Formutesca moving; he was the only one left who could be used.
Formutesca looked at him vaguely. “Move the truck?”
“Put it down in the next block and then hurry back here. Goon, move.”
Formutesca nodded, still vague, but when he went out he did move fast. Parker followed him out, and as Formutesca got into the truck Parker went to the two bodies lying on the sidewalk. He grabbed Hoskins as he'd carried Gonor and dragged him up the walk and into the museum. He left the body beside the other one and hurried back out to take a look at Manado.
The boy was alive but unconscious. He'd been hit twice, once in the left side just above the waist, once high on the left shoulder. It looked as though neither bullet was in him. The lower wound was still bleeding, and his hands were cold.
Parker picked him up in his arms and carried him into the museum. There was a padded bench along the side wall and Parker put him down there. He turned as Formutesca came trotting in.
Parker said, “Shut the door.”
Formutesca did, and said, “What now?”
“We'll take Manado upstairs. It'd be best to take the whole bench.”
“All right.”
The bench was heavy, and it was slow work carrying it with Manado on it the length of the building to the elevator. Once they got it inside and were on their way to the fourth floor, Parker said, “Do you have a doctor you can trust?”
“Major Indindu is a doctor.”
Parker was surprised. He said, “Your candidate for president?”
Formutesca smiled. “Yes,” he said. “We still need Renais- sance men in Africa. Major Indindu is a military man, a politician, a physician and a teacher. He has also worked for a shipping line and been a journalist.”
“Call him when we get upstairs,” Parker said. “Is the phone still working?”
“Oh, yes. Things went beautifully, just the way you said they would.” He shook his head. “In here, I mean.”
“Hoskins couldn't keep away,” Parker said.
“How did he know to be here?”
They were at the fourth floor. The door slid back. Parker said, “He must have followed somebody.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Later,” Parker said. “We take care of Manado first. Lift.”
Formutesca wanted to go on asking questions, but he shrugged and lifted his end of the bench instead. They carried it down the hall and into the first bedroom they reached.
Parker said, “Take a look in the medicine cabinet. We need something to stop the bleeding. Then call Indindu.”
“All right.”
Formutesca left, and Parker moved Manado from the bench to the room's double bed. He opened Manado's clothing, then stuffed a pillow against the wound in the side. Manado made a small noise in his throat, and his head moved slightly.
Parker looked at his watch. Quarter to four. An hour and fifteen minutes to get everything cleared away and organized.
There were sirens. He went to the window and looked down and saw two police cars come to a stop in the middle of the block. The occupants got out, walked around, looked up at the buildings, looked into the few parked cars, talked to one another. They didn't seem to know what to do. Nobody came out of any of the buildings to tell them anything.
After a minute they got back into their cars and, without sirens, drove away.
2
Major Indindu came into the living-room. “He'll be all right,” he said. “He's in shock, of course, and he's lost a lot of blood, but he'll survive.”
“Good,” Formutesca said. He was obviously too nervous to sit; he'd been pacing back and forth for twenty minutes now. Parker, having made himself a pot of coffee in the kitchen, had been sitting by the window drinking the coffee and watching the street. Nothing had happened since the police had left and Major Indindu had arrived. It was now twenty minutes to five.
The Major said, “Is there more of that coffee?”
“A pot in the kitchen,” Parker told him.
“I'll get you some,” Formutesca said.
“Thank you.”
As Formutesca hurried from the room, the Major walked over to Parker and said, “Frankly, I don't understand where you fit into all this. Things seem to have gotten more confused than poor Gonor indicated to me.”
“Gonor did some things wrong at the beginning,” Parker said. “They came back to bite him at the end.”
The Major looked doubtful. “Was it as simple as that?”
“Yes. He went to Hoskins, he told Hoskins the story without first finding out if Hoskins was the right man, and after that Hoskins couldn't keep away. He'd been told how much gravy there was here and he couldn't help himself; he had to try for it.”
“Couldn't you have done anything?”
“I did. I leaned on him. I told him to go away. I hung him out my hotel window.”
“You should have dropped him,” the Major said.
Parker shook his head. “No. He was an irritation to me, that's all, so I made sure he wouldn't hang around me and bother me. I didn't have to kill him for that, and Gonor didn't hire me to do any killings for him. I told Gonor that Hoskins was hanging around, that he could be trouble. If Gonor had wanted him dead he should have done it himself.”
“Did you know Hoskins would try something tonight?”
“No. I thought he'd been convinced.”
“Perhaps Gonor did too.”
Parker shrugged. “We were wrong.”
“You're supposed to be the professional at this,” the Major said.
“Not at people. Nobody's a professional at people. Hoskins was a con man, nothing else. He'd never made a direct offensive move in his life. There was no reason to suppose he'd act that way tonight. You can use hindsight and make it make sense, but you couldn't have called it ahead of time. Besides, Gonor was over by Hoskins' car, on the other side of the street, so it looks as though Gonor went to him and
forced the issue. Hoskins might have been figuring on just hanging around, watching, following them after they left here, hoping for a time when he could pull a sneak on them.”
Formutesca came in with the Major's coffee. “Here you are, sir. Cream, no sugar.”
“You remembered. Thank you so much.”
Formutesca said to Parker, “You know, I was thinking. It's a good thing you came back. I couldn't have taken charge out there. I'd have fallen apart. I'd have just stood around shaking in my boots till the police showed up.”
The Major said, “I'm sure you would have done well, Bara.”
Formutesca smiled weakly and shook his head. “I'm sure I wouldn't.”
The Major sipped at his coffee, then said to Parker, “How is it that you did appear? I was under the impression you had left for good this afternoon.”
“I did. But other things happened.”
“For instance?”
“Sit down,” Parker told him. “This'll take a while.”
3
Parker said:
My woman was supposed to be waiting for me in Boston. When I left Gonor I went to my hotel to check out and take the shuttle flight to Boston. In my room was one of Goma's white troops, one of the three that had tried to muscle me into keeping out of this. He told me he and his friends had taken my woman and they had her in a safe place. When they got the diamonds I could have her back.
I said there wasn't any way I could get the diamonds away from you people by myself, and he said his group would take care of getting them—all I had to do was tell him what was going on tonight, where you people would be, what the plan was.
I told him I wanted to think it over, I needed some time. Mostly I didn't want to tip things too early; I didn't want his bunch breaking in here before you people. So we sat around my room for a while, and then we went and had dinner, and then I gave him a story.
I told him the Kasempas were holed up out on Long Island on a small estate on the north shore. I told him I'd only been out there once—we didn't want to make ourselves conspicuous hanging around, so I was vague about where the place was. I said we worked out our attack plan from a map of the property Gonor had made plus blueprints of the house. I said I thought the house belonged to the UN mission of one of the other African countries near Dhaba, but I didn't know which one.
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