The Outfit: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels) Read online

  Bronson smiled grimly. “They'd tear your heart out,” he said, enjoying the image.

  “Of course. And why? Because they're crooks. They're outlaws, crooks. They don't think of themselves as part of society, they think of themselves as individuals, alone in a jungle. Therefore, they are always on the defensive, always ready to protect their own. They'll never call for the police, never put in a claim in their fire and theft insurance, never look to society to protect them or repay them or avenge them. Shouldn't people who work for the syndicate think the same way? But they don't. The people at Club Cockatoo don't think of themselves as crooks at all, they think of themselves as average working stiffs. Therefore, they let two robbers come in and walk all over them. Whereas, if they thought of themselves as do our hypothetical crapshooters in the park, they would have torn those robbers' hearts out.”

  “You mean the Outfit's getting soft?”

  Quill smiled, pleased with himself. “I mean the Outfit is being civilized, is being absorbed into the culture. The organization is getting too highly organized.”

  “Is that right?” Bronson was no longer certain whether he should be angry at Quill or agree with him. “What do we do about it? You got any ideas?”

  “I don't think anything can be done about it. If you managed to convince the employees of the Club Cockatoo that they are crooks after all, nine out of ten of them would quit on the spot and go get jobs some place else. They don't want to be divorced from society.” Quill smiled and spread his hands. “A result of prosperity, I suppose. During the Depression, there was no such problem.”

  Bronson was tempted to ask How would you know? but he kept his mouth shut, asking instead, “What else, then? Don't you have any ideas at all?”

  “Yes, I do.” The lecture finished, Quill became brisk. “You may have noticed, as I did, the one glaring weakness in the Club Cockatoo's defense. That door from the men's room to the cashiers' space.”

  “If they gotta go, they gotta go.”

  “Of course. In pairs. And there should always be an armed man at the door, on the cashiers' side.”

  Bronson glanced down at the blueprint. “Sure, why in hell didn't they think of that?”

  “They did. Fifteen or twenty years ago, that was the rule. Cashiers went to the men's room in pairs. There was an armed man constantly on duty in the cashiers' space. But nothing ever happened, and over the years they grew lax. It slowed down the action to have two cashiers away at once so the armed man took to sitting in the office, where the safe was, and where he could chat with the manager.”

  “The goddamn fools!”

  “Of course. Because a robbery had never been attempted, they no longer considered one a possibility.” Quill shrugged. “Well, I think we may have learned from this.”

  “And the others?”

  “I'd heard there'd been some more.”

  “Eleven more! I want you to check them out, just like you did this one.”

  “I imagine I'll find the same problems.”

  “You got any answers?”

  “Suggestions only, Mr. Bronson. First, every organization operation which normally or occasionally has custody of large sums of money should be informed of these robberies, so they'll be reminded a hit can happen. Second, every operation should know whom to call so trained armed men can get on the job immediately in case a robbery does take place. Third, if a robbery occurs and is successful because of sloppiness among organization employees, such employees should be punished, perhaps by taking a cut in pay to help make up the loss.”

  “A cut in pay! What the hell do you think this is, a kindergarten?”

  Quill smiled sadly. “Yes, Mr. Bronson, I'm afraid that's exactly what it is. If what I saw at the Club Cockatoo is an accurate sampling, most organization employees are simply average workers, as apathetic and uncommitted on questions of law and order as any of their neighbors. If General Electric threatened to kill any employee who did badly in his work, the workers would think somebody had gone crazy. They wouldn't believe it. A garnishee on their wages, they would believe. I'm not thinking now in terms of proper punishments or sufficient punishments, but effective punishments.”

  Bronson rubbed a hand across his face, feeling lost and confused. He was too far up the ladder; it had never occurred to him that the rank and file had turned into a bunch of nine-to-fivers. What the hell kind of world was this? Next thing, they'd be wanting a union. Or a guild. They probably thought of themselves as white collar workers. Sweet Jesus!

  “All right,” he said. “All right, Quill, that's good. You did a good job.”

  “There's more, Mr. Bronson.”

  “Yeah, I bet there is. Save it. Tomorrow morning. We'll go over it some more in the morning, and I'll give you the list of the other places that got hit.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Bronson.”

  “Yeah, good night.”

  Left alone, Bronson sat at his desk, brooding. What the hell had happened? He could remember the twenties, and it was nothing like this. Did anybody in the Outfit go around then with a briefcase full of statements?

  “We were the Parkers then.” He said it aloud, surprising and angering himself. He got up from the desk, went to the window, and looked out at the park, thinking of Quill's crapshooters. Were there any Outfit people in that game? A few, maybe, but just a few.

  That bastard Parker belonged in that game. Bronson could see him now, getting out of that blue Olds over there and going into the park, not giving a damn about anybody. Hell, half the Outfit people wouldn't go into that park at night.

  He wondered where Parker was, right this minute. He wondered if those four bodyguards were any damn good—they'd never had to show their stuff. He felt a slight chill in his spine.

  When he turned away from the window, the hall door was open. There was a man standing there. Bronson had never seen him before in his life, but he knew right away it was Parker.

  He wasn't even surprised.

  FOUR

  1

  Two days after knocking over The Three Kings, Parker sat in his darkened room in the Green Glen Motel just north of Scranton and looked out the window at Route 6.

  It was eight-thirty, Thursday night; Handy was due in half an hour.

  He heard footsteps coming along the cement walk and leaned back, waiting for whoever it was to pass his window. But the footsteps stopped and there was a rapping at his door. Madge's voice called, “Parker? It's me.” Parker shook his head and got to his feet. He'd have to talk to her.

  Madge ran the Green Glen Motel. She was in her sixties now, one of the rare hookers who'd retired with money in the bank. Running this motel brought her a modest living, gave her something to do, and, indirectly, kept her connected with her original profession, for most of the units were rented by the hour. Because she could be trusted, her motel was also used sometimes as a meeting place by people in Parker's line of work. The only thing wrong with her was that she talked too much.

  Parker opened the door and she came in carrying a bottle and two glasses. “Turn the light on, Parker. What the hell are you, a mole?”

  Parker shut the door and switched on the ceiling light. “Sit down,” he said, knowing she would anyway.

  Madge was bone-thin, with sharp elbows and shriveled throat. Her hair was coarse white, cut very short in the Italian style. It was cold outside but she hadn't bothered to put on a coat for the walk from the office. She was wearing brand-new black wool slacks with shadow-sharp creases and a white blouse with large black buttons down the front. Triangular turquoise Indian earrings dangled from her ears, and black thonged sandals revealed her pale feet and scarlet toenails. Her eyebrows had been completely plucked, and redrawn in satanic, black lines. Her fingernails were long, curved, and blood red. But she wore no lipstick; her mouth was a pale scar in a thin deeply lined face.

  She put the glasses down on the bureau and held up the bottle for Parker to see. Haig & Haig. “Just off the boat,” she said, and laughed. She had glea
ming white false teeth. Inside the young clothes was a young woman. Madge wouldn't let herself be old. It was 1920 and she was as young as the century—the Great War was over, Prohibition was in, money was everywhere. It was a grand thing at the very beginning of the Jazz Age to be alive and young and a high-priced whore. It would be 1920 around Madge till the day she dropped dead.

  “You want ice?” she asked him. “I can go get some ice if you want.”

  “Never mind,” said Parker. He wanted to get it over with, get the talking begun and done. Handy was due soon.

  She splashed liquor into both glasses, handed him one, and said, “Happy times!”

  He grunted. The liquor, when he tasted it, was warm and sour-sharp. He should have had her go for the ice.

  She went over and sat on the bed. “What a sourpuss. I just can't get used to that new face, Parker. You know, I think it's even worse than the old one.”

  “Thanks.” He went over and looked out the window again. When Handy got here, he'd have an excuse to throw Madge out.

  “Did I tell you Marty Kabell was here last summer? He had some blonde with him, Christy or something. He had a mustache, too. . . .”

  She talked away at his back as he stood looking out the window. She told him whom she'd seen in the last year, whom she'd heard about, where this one was now, what happened to that one. She was full of information. Some of the names she mentioned Parker didn't recognize, Madge thought all the people she knew also knew one another. One big happy family. It was part of her still being twenty years old.

  A car turned in from the highway and Parker interrupted her. “You got a customer.”

  “Ethel's minding the store.” Ethel was a cow of a girl, about twenty-five, somewhat retarded. She lived at the hotel and worked for Madge, cleaning the units when they were vacated, sometimes taking over in the office. Where she'd come from and what connection she had with Madge, Parker neither knew nor cared. Some people thought she was Madge's daughter.

  Madge kept talking. Every once in a while she'd pause or ask a question, and Parker would have to rouse himself and reply. Madge liked to talk too much, but she was valuable, and it was worthwhile to put up with her. Hers was the safest place in eastern Pennsylvania.

  Ethel passed by the window, carrying a key, followed by a teen-age couple with their arms around each other's waists. The girl looked frightened; the boy looked intense. After a minute, Ethel came back alone, headed for the office. Behind Parker, Madge still talked. She was asking questions now, trying to store up more information on comings and goings to pass on to the next friend who stopped by. Parker answered in monosyllables: “In jail.” “Out in California some place.” “Dead.”

  At last another car pulled in from the highway. Parker finished the warm liquor and said no to a second drink. He half-listened to Madge, and half-listened for footsteps on the walk. He heard them and waited, and then there was a knock at the door.

  Handy. But, just in case, he said to Madge, “Answer it for me, will you?”

  “Sure. You in trouble, Parker?”

  “No.”

  Madge shrugged, still in a good humor, and went over to open the door. “Hello, Handy! Come on in.”

  “What say, Madge?” Handy was tall and lean as a one-by-twelve, with knobby wrists, a bony face, and stiff, dark hair graying over the ears. He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and when he took it out it was badly lipped, brown tobacco showing through wet gray paper.

  “It's real good to see you, Handy,” said Madge. “Hold on, I'll get another glass.”

  Parker said, “Later on, Madge.”

  “Business,” Madge replied. “It's always business with you, Parker.” She put a hand on Handy's arm. “Come on over to the office later, we'll get drunk.”

  “Sure thing, Madge.” Handy grinned, and held the door open for her. She went through and he closed the door and turned to Parker. “She's a good girl.”

  “She talks too much. How've you been?”

  “So-so. Never any static on that armored car job. You read the papers on it?”

  Parker shook his head. That was three months ago, he and Handy and two others had taken an armored car in New Jersey. If it wasn't for this Outfit thing, he'd still be in Florida, living on the take from that job. He and Handy had split it down the middle, because the other two had tried a cross and it hadn't worked for them.

  “They never even got a beginning,” Handy said. He went over to the bureau and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. It sizzled. Then he pulled a box of small-sized wooden matches from his pocket, got one out, and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. Between cigarettes, he always sucked on a wooden match. He turned back to Parker and said, “You remember what I told you after that job? I told you it was my last one. I'm retiring.”

  Parker nodded. Handy quit after every job—he'd been doing it for ten years or more.

  “I mean it this time,” Handy told him, as though he knew what Parker was thinking. “I been up in Presque Isle, Maine. They got them an air force base up there, and I'm buying in on a diner, right across the road from the main gate. Open all night. I short-order a good egg when I put my mind to it, so I'll work the nights myself.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Damn right.” Handy moved over and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I been in the business too long. I'm a lucky man, Parker. You, too. Both of us, too damn lucky. But there's no string goes on forever, and I figure mine's just about played out. I'll settle down in Presque Isle and short-order a few eggs and let the rest of the world go by.” He nodded, and prodded at his teeth with the match.

  Handy was wearing gray corduroy pants and a red-and-black hunting jacket. Parker looked at him and could imagine him running a diner, but, at the same time, he knew Handy would come back in whenever he was offered a seat in the game. All the diner meant was that Handy would be going back to the same place every time from now on. But he wouldn't be turning down any jobs that looked good. He'd driven down to see Parker knowing nothing of the reason for the summons, and his presence here was proof that he wouldn't be short-ordering eggs every night for the rest of his life.

  Parker pulled the blind down over the window and crossed the room to sit in the easy chair by the bureau. “This isn't a job I called you about,” he said. “Not the regular kind, anyway.”

  “What kind, then?”

  Parker filled him in on what had happened, the killer who'd missed, the letters to the pros, taking care of Menner, and knocking over The Three Kings.

  Handy listened to it all, poking at his teeth with the match, and when Parker was done he said, “I been thinking. Out of the people I know, there's at least eight'll be real happy to get that letter of yours. Theyl'l go right out and do jobs they been thinking about all these years.” He grinned and nodded. “This Bronson and his friend, I bet they're hurting right now.”

  “They'll hurt more.” Parker lit a cigarette. “Anyway, I know where Bronson is. I'm going there.”

  “What else?”

  “I could use a man beside me. I'm not in this one for the dough, so I'll give you the take from the poker game and The Three Kings. Forty-two hundred. Plus whatever we pick up in Bronson's house.”

  “I wasn't in on those two. Why give me the dough from them?”

  “Make it worth your while. Bronson may not have much on him.”

  Handy shrugged. “Keep the dough, Parker. We known each other for years. We'll split the take from Bronson, and call the rest for old time's sake.”

  Parker frowned. He didn't like it that way. He said, “A split all the way, then. Twenty-one hundred for each of us, plus Bronson.”

  “Why?” Handy left the match in his mouth while he fumbled for another cigarette. “Why you want to give money away all of a sudden?”

  “I'm not giving it away. I'm making it worth your while. You don't want to do a job for nothing.”

  Handy watched himself light the new cigarette. He leaned over to drop the match into an a
shtray and then shrugged. “All right,” he said. “A split all the way.” He lipped the cigarette, then grinned and looked over at Parker. “I could use the money, anyway.”

  “For the diner.”

  “Sure, for the diner.” Handy settled back on the bed, relaxing. “When do you want to go after this Bronson?”

  “Early next week. By then, the Outfit'll have been hit a few times. I want to be sure this guy Karns won't be in any hurry to cause trouble when he takes over.”

  “When do you want to go to Buffalo?”

  “Tomorrow. We can use the time getting set up. How's your car? Hot?”