The Rare Coin Score p-9 Read online

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Lebatard some questions. Phone him now and tell him we’ll see him in the morning.”

  She started to turn toward the phone, then looked back, saying, “In the morning?”

  “It’s up to you,” he said.

  “And if I say no, the deal’s off?”

  “Wrong. If you say no, you leave now and come back for me in the morning.”

  She seemed to consider, standing there near the phone.”That would be a lot of extra driving, wouldn’t it?”

  He got off the bed and reached for her. A while later she made the call.

  Seven

  “IT WON’T work that way,” said Billy.

  They were all in the backyard, at about ten-thirty in the morning. There was a small stone fireplace at the rear of the yard, at which Billy was cooking hamburgers. The wood he’d used wasn’t completely dry, and was smoking badly.

  Lempke was sitting on the bottom step of the back stoop, a beer can in his hand. He was wearing an old straw hat, and squinting against the sun. Claire, in blue slacks and white top, was sitting in a ribbed lawn chair, the only piece of furniture back there. Parker, restless and intent, was prowling around the scruffy yard like a panther in an outdoor enclosure at the zoo.

  Parker said, “What’s the problem? Why won’t it work?”

  “You take valuable coins,” Billy said, gesturing with the spatula, “you just drop a lot of them in a canvas sack, carry them off someplace, dump them out on a table, you know what you’ve done?”

  Parker said, “Tell me.”

  “You’ve lowered their value,” Billy told him, “by maybe twenty-five per cent. Coins are more delicate than you might think. They rub together, knock together, the value goes right down. You go from unc to VF just like that.”

  “Billy,” Claire said wearily, “they don’t know those terms.”

  “I’ve got the idea,” Parker said. “The point is, we’ve got to pack them up, right?”

  “Time, Parker,” Lempke said. “Time, time.” Having had an extra night to think things over, Lempke had turned pessimistic and was now being discouraged and gloomy about the whole project.

  Parker said, “It all depends.” He turned back to Billy. “You say there’ll be a hundred dealers there.”

  “About that. Maybe a few more, a few less.”

  “You don’t want everything they’ve got.”

  “Not a bit,” said Billy. “Some of the coins are too rare, I wouldn’t dare to try to sell them without being able to show where I got them.”

  “And some,” Parker suggested, “aren’t worth enough to take.”

  “Foreign coins,” Claire said.

  “That’s right,” said Billy. “We don’t want foreign coins, except maybe Canadian and Mexican. Mostly American we want.”

  Parker said, “So what’s that cut it to? Half of the stuff there?”

  “Oh, less than that.” Billy thought, squinting in the smoke from his fire. “Maybe a third,” he said. “Maybe only a quarter.”

  Lempke said, “Your burgers are burnin’ up.”

  “Oh!”

  Parker watched Billy, his head down in the smoke, turning his hamburgers. When he was done, Parker said, “How long would it take to pack up one dealer’s stock?”

  “How long?” Billy moved away from the smoke, waving the spatula in front of his face to clear the air. “I can do mine,” he said, “I can do mine in, oh, three minutes.”

  “About thirty dealers. An hour and a half. Figure two hours, to be on the safe side.”

  “That’s too much time,” said Lempke. “In and out, that’s the only way, Parker, you know that yourself. You hang around, hang around, you’re asking for the collar.”

  Parker didn’t bother answering him this time. He prowled around the yard, thinking it out, trying to see if there was a way to do it. More to himself than the others, he said, “Have to work a switch on the Pinkertons. One for one, one for one. Too many men.”

  Lempke said, “Parker, it isn’t in the hand. You were right last night, you knew what you were talking about.” He threw his empty beer can away across the lawn, and Billy looked pained.

  “Maybe. Maybe.” Parker wasn’t as set on this job as Lempke and the others thought; it was still merely just a way to occupy his mind for a while, an exercise, a playing around with professional theory.

  Claire said to Lempke, “There’s a way. And he’ll find it.”

  Lempke looked from Parker to Claire and back again, then shrugged elaborately and got to his feet and went into the house for more beer.

  Parker went over to Billy and said, “That means you’re in it all the way, you know. Not just the fence, but inside. There for the heist. We need you to point out which ones we take.”

  Billy was plainly feeling both excitement and terror, trying unsuccessfully to hide both. “I’m willing,” he said. “It’s worth a lot to me, too, after all.” He cast a quick glance toward Claire, then tried to look as though he hadn’t.

  “Two things,” Parker told him. “One, you do what you’re told. Two, you leave your bazooka home.”

  “But won’t I—”

  “No, you won’t. Leave it home.”

  “If you say so,” Billy said, looking troubled.

  Lempke came back out onto the stoop, carrying a fresh can of beer, and called across the lawn, “Parker, how you going to do this thing?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Parker said, and started toward the driveway, saying, “Claire, come on.”

  In surprise, Billy said, “Where are you going?”

  “Find a way to make it happen,” Parker said.

  “Now? But what about the hamburgers?”

  Parker didn’t bother to answer him, but Claire said, as they walked around the corner of the house, “Eat them yourself.”

  Eight

  “I MUST BE a masochist,” Claire said. She was sitting up in bed, knees up, arms wrapped around her legs.

  Parker, lying beside her, said, “I hadn’t noticed.”

  She gave him a quick smile, then looked away again saying, “I’m always attracted to men who are about to get killed.”

  “Not always,” said Parker. “Light me a cigarette.”

  “What, not you? You’re the worst of them all.” She took the cigarettes and matches from the night table, lit two cigarettes and gave him one. “The first boy I ever—ever went around with, drove in stock car races every weekend. His left leg was all scars from an accident.”

  Parker said, “Ashtray.”

  She put it on the sheet between them. “But all the others just tempted fate,” she said. “You tempt fate and fight society at the same time.”

  “Wrong. I don’t tempt anybody. I don’t fight anybody. I walk where it looks safe. If it doesn’t look safe, I don’t walk.”

  “This time?”

  He reached a hand up and stroked the long line of her back. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “You’ll do it,” she said. “I know your type. You talk safety, but when you smell the right kind of danger you’re off like a bloodhound.”

  She was describing a tendency in him that he’d been fighting all his life, and that he thought of as being under control. Also, it irritated him to be read that easily. With an abrupt movement, he got up from the bed, saying, “I’ve still got to look around, while it’s light.”

  “Don’t get mad at me,” she said. “You were this way long before I came along.”

  Parker looked at her and said, “You talk yourself out of a lot of things, don’t you?”

  For just a second she looked stricken, but immediately got control again. “All right,” she said, and shrugged. “We’ll go look around.”

  They dressed and went down to the mezzanine for another look at the ballroom. Workmen in white overalls were in here now, standing on tall spindly ladders, putting up pink and white bunting across the ceiling.

  Parker nodded at the wall opposite, the one cove
red in maroon plush. “What’s on the other side of that?”

  “I don’t know. A wall.”

  “Past the wall.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Wait here.”

  He walked through trailing streamers of pink and white to the maroon drapes, found a break in them, pushed them aside, and found a set of French doors with mirrored squares of glass. He looked at his silvered reflection, grim and intent, and beyond him Claire, standing across the room like a woman at an airport who knows it is impossible she will not be met.

  He tried the wall at two other points, and it was all the same. The entire wall behind the drapes was lined in mirrored French doors. None of the doors had knobs or keyholes, and all seemed to be securely fastened to the wall.

  Parker went back over to Claire and said, “Go stand by that window over there. I’m going out to the street. When I wave at you, come down and join me.”

  “All right. But what about—?” she motioned at the workmen.

  “We’re none of their business. Look at them, they don’t pay any attention to us.”

  She made a quick and rueful smile, saying, “You’re calmer about this than I am.”

  “I’ve been through it before.”

  He left, and went out to the street, turned right under the marquee, looked up, and saw Claire standing at the window. Just beyond that window was the end of the hotel, abutting another building, this one obviously much newer than the hotel. Between them, the hotel and the other building took up this entire block.

  Parker waved, and Claire left the window.

  The nearest window in the other building was about seven feet straight across from the one where Claire had been standing. This one had a cream-colored shade half drawn, was very wide, and had a small pot of African violets on the sill.

  Claire came out of the hotel. When she joined him, Parker put his arm through hers and they walked down to the entrance to the next building, over which, in engraved letters, was written: MID-REGION INSURANCE BUILDING. A cornerstone down to the right said MCMXLVII.

  Parker pointed at the date, saying, “What’s the number? I’m no good at that stuff.”

  “Nineteen forty-seven.”

  They went in and up to the second floor. The door that seemed to lead in the direction they wanted was marked, DIABLO TOURS, The Caribbean Our Specialty. Parker said, “We’re honeymooners, we don’t know if we want Bermuda or Jamaica.”

  “All right.”

  They went into a smallish square room cluttered with travel posters and bisected by a chest-high counter. A fluttery woman in white peasant blouse, wide flowered skirt, hoop earrings, curly dull-brown hair and several charm bracelets was sitting at a messy desk on the other side of the counter. There was no pot of African violets on the windowsill, and a door on the farther wall apparently led to an inner office.

  Under his breath, Parker said, “Get mad at her.”

  Claire nodded.

  The fluttery woman got up from her desk, smiling as brightly as a bird, and came over to the counter, wondering if she could be of help. Parker gave her the honeymoon story, said they couldn’t decide between Bermuda and Jamaica, and the woman assured them both islands were really very nice. She began pulling pamphlets and brochures out from under the counter, slapping them down in front of Parker and Claire, and then said, “And have you considered Puerto Rico? San Juan is really lovely, particularly if it’s your first time in the Caribbean.”

  “That’s the way you people always are,” Claire said, suddenly harsh and bitchy. “Push us off to someplace where you get a payoff, never mind what we want.”

  The woman blushed scarlet. “Oh, my dear,” she said, so flustered her hands were fidgeting in the brochures on the counter like pigeons after crumbs. “Oh, I hope you don’t really think that of us, not really.”

  “Really,” Claire said. “What are you people anyway but parasites? What good are you to anybody?”

  “Really!” said the woman, suddenly stung. “No one asked you to come in here, after all.”

  “Now, just a minute,” said Parker.

  “If you don’t want our services,” the woman told him, obviously keeping herself under control with an effort, “that’s entirely up to you. I wish you a pleasant voyage in any case.”

  “I don’t like the way you talked to my fiancee,” Parker said.

  “Well, really. I mean really, after all, I was provoked.”

  Parker said, “I think I better talk to the manager.”

  “Miss Ross is not in at the moment.”

  Claire said, “That’s what they always say.”

  Parker pointed at the door in the far wall. “That’s the office, isn’t it?”

  The woman was getting flustered again. “I tell you, Miss Ross is out, she really is out.”

  “We’ll see,” Parker said. He went down to the end of the counter, raised the flap, and said to Claire, “Come on, Mary, we’ll see about this.”

  “You can’t come in here like that,” the woman said, astonished and out of her depth. “You can’t just—you can’t—”

  Parker, followed by Claire, went over to the door, opened it, and looked in at an empty office dominated by a large desk cluttered with papers. A pot of African violets was on the windowsill.

  “You see,” the woman was saying, vindicated. “She isn’t there, she’s out, just as I told you.”

  “We’ll wait for her,” Parker said, and went over to the brown leatherette sofa and sat down. Claire started to follow him, but he gave her a quick headshake and frowned toward the door.

  She didn’t get it at first, and simply stood there, near the doorway, looking at him and trying to figure it out.

  “You can’t wait in there,” the woman was saying. “Really, this is too much. If you insist on waiting, there are quite comfortable chairs out here, on the other side of the counter.”

  “If my fiancee wants satisfaction,” Parker said, “she’ll get satisfaction.”

  Then Claire got it, and said, “Honey, let’s forget it.”

  He frowned at her. “You sure?”

  “We’ve got so much to do. And maybe I was a little hasty.”

  Parker acted like a man who doesn’t want to show how relieved he is, shaking his head and looking around and grimacing, while the woman stood in the doorway trying to decide what expression she should have on her face to help these people choose to go away. Finally Parker said, reluctantly, “Well, if you say so,” and got to his feet.

  The woman obviously didn’t trust the situation well enough to chance saying anything. She watched them in silence as they left the office, not responding when Claire waved and said, on her way out of the door, “Well, so long now.”

  Parker shut the door after them and said, “Bad. Always stay in character.”

  Grinning, Claire said, “I couldn’t resist it.”

  “Next time try harder.”

  She immediately sobered, saying a terse, “Sorry.”

  They left the building and Parker walked back and forth on the sidewalk a while, studying the street and the building facades and the buildings across the way. Claire stood under the hotel marquee and watched.

  When Parker was done with his look around, he and Claire went back into the hotel. In the lobby, he took out his wallet and handed her a five, saying, “Get me city and state maps and a pack of Luckies. Then call Lebatard from a booth, tell him we’ll be out there at nine tonight to talk.”

  “Will do.”

  “And tell Lempke to come in here now, with a camera.”

  Watching him closely, she said, “Are we really going to do it?”

  “And stop asking questions,” he said.

  Nine

  BILLY LEBATARD was in the hallway outside Parker’s room, looking pale and determined.

  “You’re an idiot,” Parker said, and brushed past him to unlock the door.

  “I want to talk to you,” Billy said, trying to sound belligerent. All he s
ounded was over rehearsed. “Just the two of us,” he said.

  Parker opened the door and said, “Get in here before you tell the world we know each other.”

  Billy came in obediently, still parroting his prepared speech. “We’ve got to get things straight between us,” he said.

  “When this is all over,” Parker said, shutting the door, “a couple of cops are going to come have a talk with you, they’ll want to know who you came to see here today. You won’t have an answer.”

  “Nobody I know saw me,” said Billy defensively. He was thrown off-stride, and was standing in the middle of the room looking confused and worried, like a man listening to something important that’s happening too far away for him to exactly make it out.

  Parker said, “I don’t care what happens to you, because they can’t get to me through you. I’m just pointing things out. This is your town, you’ve got to live here. You want to go leaving trails, that’s up to you.”

  “I won’t have to live here forever. After this job, I can live anywhere. Maybe Majorca.”

  Parker nodded. “You’re brilliant.”

  With an obvious effort, Billy got himself back on the track. “What I came here about—”

  “I know what you came here about. There’s only two things you can do about Claire. You can be the loser in her life, or you can cut loose. You can’t have her, because she doesn’t want you.”

  “That’s for her to decide.”

  “Right.” Parker went over and lay down on the bed.

  Billy had lost his place in his script again. He gestured vaguely a bit, then blurted, “I want you to stay away from her. I know you’re tough, I know you’re—”

  “Stop it, Billy.” Parker closed his eyes, and spoke into the grayness: “Claire does what she wants to do. You coming here to get your nose broken doesn’t change anything. She won’t like you with blood on your face any more than she likes you now.”

  “I know you can beat me up,” Billy said.

  “You came here to make me beat you up,” Parker told him. “Because the only thing you think you can hope for from Claire is pity.” He opened his eyes and sat up and looked at Billy. “You know how you make pity? One jigger guilt, one jigger contempt. But Claire’s got nothing to be guilty about over you.”