The Steel Hit p-2 Read online

  He watched her a while, seeing nothing to modify his opinion, then paid for his coffee and went out to the Ford. There was a Chevvy wagon parked in the spot where the armoured car always stopped. Parker looked up and down the highway, wandered once around the parking lot, then climbed into the Ford and backed it out of its slot. He turned the wheel and drove around behind the diner, and saw the double dirt track angle off away from the parking lot through stubby undergrowth and occasional trees. He turned the Ford that way and followed the tracks up a gentle slope and down the other side. The road was in better condition than he’d expected. A car could make time on that road, and this would be important.

  It was less than a mile north to the cross road, extravagantly called the Amboy Turnpike. Parker turned left and travelled a little more than five miles to Old Bridge. He didn’t know where the deserted farmhouse was supposed to be, so he turned around and drove back north on the Amboy Turnpike again. This time he bypassed the road from the diner and kept on northward. Another mile brought him back to route 9, about half a mile north of the diner.

  Less than five miles later, he left 9 on a long loop up to 440.

  Eastward on 440, it was three miles to Staten Island, via the Outerbridge Crossing. Parker stopped shy of the bridge, and pulled over against the curb. He smoked a Lucky as he watched the cars pass him and belt across the bridge. On the other side there was a toll-booth construction across the road, built in California Mission style. Fourteen miles from there was the Staten Island Ferry, either to Manhattan or Brooklyn.

  After a while he finished the cigarette, threw it out the window, and turned the car around. He went back to 9, back to the Amboy Turnpike, back to Old Bridge. He parked outside a bar and pulled the New Jersey roadmap out of the glove compartment.

  He studied it for a while, but there was no faster way to do it. In any kind of smash and grab, the object is to cross a state line as quickly as possible. The state where the crime took place is alerted first, with state police crawling over all the roads; it usually takes a while to get a neighbouring state on its toes. If the states get along as badly as New Jersey and New York, it takes even longer.

  He folded the map again, stowed it back in the glove compartment, and locked up the car. He went into the bar, drank draft beer for two hours, and then looked up at the revolving Budweiser clock. “For God’s sake,” he said, “I’ve got to get to Brooklyn. What’s the quickest way from here?”

  “For Brooklyn?” The bartender thought it over. “You go out of here and take this street here straight out, to the left. That’ll take you to route 9, and you take a left there till you see the sign for Outerbridge Crossing. That’ll take you to Staten Island, and then you cross the Island and take the ferry.”

  “What if I take the Holland tunnel?”

  “That’s the long way around for Brooklyn, mister. That’ll lead you into Manhattan.”

  “Then that’s the fastest way, huh? Go by Staten Island?”

  “If you’re going to Brooklyn.”

  “Thanks,” said Parker. He left the bar and drove back to Newark.

  Chapter 6

  ACROSS THE ROAD from the diner there was a discount store in a concrete-block building. At quarter after ten on Monday morning, Parker drove the Ford into the furniture store parking lot. There was cyclone fencing all around the blacktop parking lot, and Parker stopped the Ford with its nose to the fencing, facing the road. He could look straight out through the windshield at the diner across the way. He checked his watch, saw it wasn’t twenty after ten yet, and lit a cigarette.

  The armoured car was red, and so short it looked stubby. It jounced into the diner lot at seventeen minutes to eleven, and stopped where Skimm had said it would. A Pontiac convertible was already there, in the spot between the armoured car and the road.

  Parker lit a fresh cigarette and watched. The driver got out, on the near side, and carefully closed the door behind him. He walked back the length of the truck and unlocked the rear door. The guard climbed out and waited while the driver locked the rear door again. Then the two of them walked into the diner.

  Two minutes gone; fifteen minutes to eleven exactly.

  They came back out at three minutes to eleven, and they both went to the rear of the truck. The driver unlocked the door, the guard climbed back in, the driver shut and locked the door again. Then he went to the cab. The other guard opened the door for him from the inside, stepped down to the gravel, and the driver climbed up behind the wheel. The guard pushed the door closed and went into the diner.

  He didn’t take so long, probably because he didn’t have anybody to talk to. At eight minutes after eleven, he came back out and went around to the far side of the armoured car. The driver reached over and opened the door for him. He climbed in and the driver backed out of the space and bumped across the gravel to the concrete and headed south again on 9.

  Parker got rolling right after him, coming out of the furniture store lot and heading north a quarter mile to the next place where he could make a U-turn. He hit sixty-five for a couple of minutes, coming back southward, and when he saw the red of the armoured car far ahead of him he slowed down to fifty, matching the armoured car’s speed.

  The road was four lanes wide for a while, and then it narrowed down to two. There was very little traffic, only one Chevvy station wagon between Parker and the armoured car. The wagon turned off on 520, and Parker hung back farther. He was watching the sides of the road and the road itself, but he didn’t see anything that looked good. No blind turns, no hills, no valleys. The road was flat and straight, the curves wide and looping.

  Parker quit before they reached Freehold, and turned the Ford around. He drove north a couple of miles and pulled on to the shoulder of the road. He shut the engine and got out of the car and opened the hood. Then he went back and sat behind the wheel again and lit a cigarette. He made himself comfortable in the seat and watched the rear-view mirror.

  A little after noon, a state patrol car pulled on to the shoulder just ahead of him, and a trooper got out looking like a modernized cowboy, only better fed. Parker rolled the window down and the trooper looked at him through his sunglasses and said, “Any trouble here?”

  “She heated up,” Parker answered. “My brother took a walk up to the Esso station for some water.”

  The trooper nodded. “That’s all right, then.”

  “Thanks for stopping,” Parker said.

  The trooper hesitated, and then took one glove off. “May I see your licence and registration, please?”

  “I don’t drive,” Parker told him. “My brother drives. I’m just sitting over here till he comes back.”

  This was beginning to irritate him, but he didn’t show it. The hood being up was supposed to answer all the questions, was supposed to keep cops from stopping to ask what he was parked on the shoulder for. But it was a dull day and a quiet road and not much traffic, so they’d stopped anyway — for the hell of it, to break the monotony.

  “What about the registration?” the trooper asked.

  “He’s got that, too,” Parker answered. “He keeps them both in his wallet.”

  “It’s supposed to be in the car.” The trooper wasn’t suspicious or angry, just breaking the monotony. “He should have left it with you.”

  “I guess he didn’t think,” Parker said. He hoped the armoured car wouldn’t go by now, while he was bottled up with this idiot cop. “He was sore about the heating up and everything.”

  The trooper hesitated again, glancing through his sunglasses at the back seat. “How come he went for the water, instead of you? Seeing you don’t drive.”

  Parker said, “I’ve got a game leg. That’s why I can’t get a driver’s licence.”

  The trooper was suddenly embarrassed. He pulled his glove back on and said, “You tell your brother about the registration.”

  “I will,” Parker promised.

  The trooper walked back to his own car, still looking like an overfed cowboy.
He even had a rolling, slightly bow-legged walk. His black boots glistened in the sun. He got into the car and after a minute it pulled away and dwindled out of sight on the concrete road.

  Parker watched it till it disappeared, and then lit a new cigarette and frowned at the rear-view mirror.

  That shouldn’t have happened. To have a cop working the area of a job notice you, that was bad. The hood being up should have taken care of things; if the damn cop hadn’t been bored, it would have. From now on, he’d have to watch two things at once, the job and that state trooper car. It wouldn’t do for that trooper to see him driving.

  He touched his fingers to his face, over his upper lip. His beard had been coming in spotty since the plastic surgery — the doctor had said that would straighten out after a while — but the hair on the upper lip grew the same as always. It might not be a bad idea to grow a moustache. If the same cop stopped him again, he could be his own brother. Amazing family resemblance. Parker grinned sourly at the thought, still watching the rear-view mirror.

  He saw the red in the mirror at twenty after one, coming like a bat out of hell. He got out of the Ford and closed the hood and was getting back behind the wheel when the armoured car went by. He started the engine and took off after it. The armoured car was staying between fifty-five and sixty now; these guys were probably quitting work as soon as they reported in. Watching for the trooper’s car, Parker stayed with the red tin box, without getting too close.

  They went by the Shore Points Diner and over the Raritan River and straight on up 9 — four lanes all the way now — to Elizabeth. When the armoured car turned off, in town, Parker kept going straight, on up to Newark. He’d seen all he wanted to see. The diner was where it would have to be done. There wasn’t any place at all along the road where they could flag it for the toby, so that meant they’d have to use Alma.

  Parker didn’t like it. First Alma, and then the bored cop. It was beginning to smell sour. There were too many things to watch, all at once. But he needed the stake, so he’d go to the Green Rose tonight, but if the job got any more sour anywhere along the line he’d drop it. He was figuring on splitting half, plus the bankroller’s cut, and that made it a boodle worth going after.

  In Newark, he parked on a side street. He had time to kill, so he went to a movie. It was the fourth double feature he’d seen since Saturday.

  Chapter 6

  THE GREEN ROSE was oblong, and very dim. A trough high around the wall contained indirect lighting, alternate red and green lengths of fluorescent tubes. Some of the mechanical beer and whisky display ads on the bar back were lighted, and there was a light over the cash register, but the rest of the place was like a tomb.

  Coming in the door, the dark mahogany bar was to the left, extending back to the wall projection for the rest rooms. Booths with dark red leather seats and black formica on the tables were on the right. Parker walked down the line between the bar and the booths to the back, where there was a bigger booth across from the rest rooms. They were there, all three of them.

  Skimm and Alma sat facing the front of the bar, with Alma on the outside, so she’d been to the head already. They both had beer in front of them, a glass and a thin bottle and a glass and a thin bottle, and Alma’s glass and bottle were almost empty. Handy McKay was sitting on the other side, half-turned, with his back against the wall.

  He was long and thin and made of gristle, and his stiff dark hair was grey over the ears. He lipped his cigarettes so badly the brown tobacco showed through the paper for half an inch, and he used wooden matches, the little ones, not the big kitchen matches. Whenever he got cigarettes from a machine, he threw the pack of paper matches away. Between cigarettes, he poked at his teeth with the plain end of one of the wooden matches.

  “Hello, Handy. Move your knee.”

  Handy turned his head slowly and raided an eyebrow at Skimm. Skimm grinned, though otherwise he was acting nervous. “That’s Parker.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Handy thoughtfully. He moved his knee and watched Parker sit down. “Did a good job on you,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Alma said suddenly, “You were in the diner Saturday.” Her voice was harsh, but low.

  Parker looked at her. “That’s right.”

  Skimm was very nervous. “Parker, this is Alma. Alma, Parker.” He looked at them both as though he wanted to say, “Don’t fight.”

  Alma turned to Skimm, “We need more beer. How come he was in the diner Saturday?”

  “Looking it over,” said Skimm. “Here comes the bartender now. He had to look the set-up over first, ain’t that right, Parker?”

  Parker nodded. Skimm ordered four more bottles of Bud and the bartender went away.

  “It’s a good set-up,” Parker said.

  “Like I told you,” Skimm answered. He sounded relieved, but still nervous.

  “You figure just the four of us, Parker?”

  “It’s a small pie, Handy,” Parker replied.

  “I want to talk about that,” Alma said. She seemed ready for a fight about anything.

  “Not here,” Parker said.

  There was a cigarette in the ashtray that had been lipped very badly. Handy picked it up and said, “I haven’t seen you in a while, Parker.”

  “Few years,” Parker answered.

  “What do you hear from Stanton?”

  “He went to jail a couple years ago. Out in Indiana.”

  Handy puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette, holding it from force of habit in his cupped fingers so the light wouldn’t show. “How’d it happen?”

  “They shot his gas tank as he pulled away from the bank. It didn’t blow, but it drained out before he could make the switch. He tried walking to the other car, and they picked him up.

  Three of them, Stanton and Beak Weiss and one other guy.”

  Handy shook his head. “Bad.”

  “It wouldn’t of happened,” Parker said quietly, “but their driver ditched while they were in the bank. A kid, new at the game.” He glanced at Skimm, and back to Handy. “That held them up, having to start the car.”

  “You got to be careful who you work with,” Handy said. He put his cigarette out, bending the lipped end on to the ember, making a small fizzing sound.

  The bartender brought the new round and Skimm paid. He was more nervous than ever. They waited while he counted out change and added a bill. The bartender scooped it off the formica and went away, and Skimm said, bright and nervous, “This is a nice place, Parker. You picked a nice place.” Beside him, Alma was glaring, still ready for the fight.

  They sat there and drank the beer, and Parker and Handy talked about people they knew. Skimm sat stiff, elbows on the table, not quite bouncing up and down, with a nervous grin on his face. He wanted to talk with them, because he knew most of the same people, but he didn’t want Alma to feel left out, so he didn’t talk, just smiled and grinned and looked nervous.

  When they finished the beer, Parker said to Skimm, “You got a place in town?”

  “In Irvington. It ain’t far.”

  “We’ll go there.”

  They went outside to the sidewalk and Parker said, “You got a car?”

  Alma answered. “Over there, the green Dodge.”

  “I’ll follow you.” Parker turned to Handy. “You got a car?”

  “No.”

  “Ride along with me.”

  They walked down the street. Parker’s car was down at the end of the block, facing the wrong way. They got in, and he made a U-turn and waited till the green Dodge passed him. Alma was driving. They could see her mouth moving, angry talk, and Skimm looking worried. Parker pulled out behind the Dodge and followed it to Springfield Avenue and down Springfield towards Irvington.

  When they’d ridden a few blocks, Handy said, “She’s going to try a cross.”…> “I know that.”

  Handy nodded. “I figured you did.” He pulled a box of matches out of his pocket, took one of the matches, and poked at his teet
h with it. He held the box in his other hand and shook it a little, to make the matches rattle inside. “So then what?”

  “We split two ways,” Parker said.

  Handy grunted. “What about Skimm?”

  “Either she’s talked him over, or she figures to bump him.”

  “Why not do it without her?”

  “She’s the finger, she could finger us. Besides, we need her in the set-up. She blinds one side during the job.”

  Handy nodded, and kept poking at his teeth. “You got the cross figured?”

  Parker nodded. “I’ll take you over the route.”

  They rode a while longer, and Handy said, “You nervous, Parker?”

  “There’s too much to watch. I don’t like this Alma thing. If it gets worse, I pull out.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  They followed the green Dodge when it turned off Springfield Avenue. They drove along secondary streets a while. Handy lit a new cigarette, using the match he’d been poking against his teeth. “I been meaning to ask you about something.”

  When he didn’t go on. Parker said, “What?”

  “I heard you was dead. I heard your wife done it. Then Skimm told me you done your wife in, and the syndicate was after you.”

  “Outfit,” said Parker.

  “What?”

  “They call it the Outfit. I was in an operation that went sour. This guy Mal, you wouldn’t know him, he put Lynn in a squeeze. Either she dropped me or he’d drop her. She did her best, and this guy Mal thought it was good enough. Then he went to New York and used my share to pay off an old debt to the Outfit. They took him on in some kind of job, and when I got on my feet I settled him and got my money back from the Outfit.”

  Handy grunted again. It was the way he laughed. “They didn’t like it much, huh?”

  “I had to louse up their business day a little bit.”

  “What about your wife? Lynn. I heard you settled with her, too.”

  Parker shook his head. “I wanted to, but I didn’t. When she found she hadn’t done me, she killed herself.”