Flashfire p-19 Read online

  When both men were facedown on the floor, arms behind them, Parker put the Colt away and took from his back pocket a small roll of duct tape. He taped their wrists and ankles, Oliver first, then got Jack’s keys from his pocket. He made sure he had the right key to get back into the shop, and left to walk up the block toward the Taurus.

  There was still almost no morning traffic around here. Parker drove the Taurus down to AAAAcme, went back inside, and found Oliver and Jack where he’d left them. Jack was breathing like a whale. When he heard Parker move around, he said, ‘Willya call 911, for chrissake?’

  ‘Somebody will,’ Parker told him, and went through the metal door to the rear part of the shop, where the two metal cases stood unopened on the floor. He lifted their lids and found the stacks of bills he’d expected.

  Looking around, he saw an open safe, which Oliver must have just unlocked for the start of the day. Inside were more stacks of bills, and on top of the safe was a lockable gray canvas money sack. Parker put the bills from the safe in the sack, then opened the cash drawers under this side of the counter, and found more bills. There was change, too, which he left.

  The two boxes and the sack were now full. Parker carried everything through to the front door. Oliver kept twisting around to glare at him, but Jack merely lay there, eyes closed, cheek on the floor, mouth open, wheezing.

  It took two trips to get everything from the store to the Taurus. Parker propped the store door slightly open, so the first customer would be able to get inside and find Oliver and Jack and make that 911 call, and then, at seven minutes to nine, he drove away, looking for the signs to Interstate 65.

  7

  In this part of Memphis, integration was complete. There were as many white junkies in this neighborhood as there were black. A number of old-fashioned drunks wandered around here, too, and that’s what Parker was passing himself off as.

  For nine days, while getting to know this territory, he’d been living in a small bare room in a motheaten residence hotel, blending in with the misfits and losers, paying cash, one day at a time. The Taurus, with most of AAAAcme’s thirty-seven thousand dollars in the door panels, was stashed in the long-term-parking lot out at Memphis International. Parker kept a bottle of fortified wine sticking out of his hip pocket, and sat around on the sidewalks with the other boozers, though he wasn’t the friendly type. He was the sort that kept to himself.

  The problem with snooping in a neighborhood like this is not that people will think you’re a heister, but that they’ll think you’re a cop. Whatever might be going on at higher levels, at the street level the cops around here were on the job, not on the take. The drug dealers had lookouts to warn them when legal trouble was near, and all at once the bazaars would disappear, into alleys and doorways and the back seats of rusted-out cars.

  If these people were to decide that Parker was undercover, marking them, they would be determined not to let him live. But he needed to be curious, he needed to trail them, identify them, he needed to follow the money.

  It was the scarcity of cash again. AAAAcme had been fine, very easy, but he couldn’t keep doing that. If he cut a swath of check-cashing heists across the Southeast, the law would scoop him up before he had anywhere near the amount of money he needed. Every job had to be different, in order to lay no trails, leave no patterns. He didn’t want anybody even to think there might be one man out there, doing his work, aiming at something.

  So here he was, living on the street in Memphis, letting his beard grow, looking and acting like a stumblebum drunk. It was drug money he wanted now. The dealers are swimming in cash; they concentrate it on and around their persons. But they’re constantly getting ripped off, sometimes killed, because that much cash attracts attention, and because everybody knows a robbed drug dealer isn’t going to complain to the law. So they’re not easy to get at.

  On these streets, it seemed as though there were as many dealers as users, and while the dealers are mostly young and combined the cocky with the furtive, the users came in all kinds, from twitching hobos handing over wrinkled dollar bills they’ve just panhandled to men in suits driving into the neighborhood in Lotuses and Lexuses, pausing for a conversation out a window and an exchange of package for cash.

  But it wasn’t the street dealers Parker was interested in, not money at that level. What he wanted was higher.

  The last nine days, he’d started to work out the delivery system. There were two cars he’d marked, one a black TransAm with fire streaks painted on the hood, the other a silver Blazer with Yosemite Sam brandishing his revolvers on the spare wheel cover. Each would come around two or three times a night, starting and stopping, and the dealers would come out of their holes, and this time the exchange of package for cash would be in reverse: money into the car, package out.

  There were at least three people in each of those cars, and Parker was sure there were others as well, scouts who moved ahead of the deliveryman and trailed along behind, looking for law, looking for trouble. Some of the scouts carried walkie-talkies, and all of them were suspicious of every single thing they saw, stumblebum drunks included.

  It was the Blazer he started following, on the ninth night, moving away from the area where he’d been hanging out, shuffling six blocks to where he’d seen the Blazer turn onto a side street, then going one block down that side street.

  This was a somewhat better neighborhood, but at eleven-thirty at night he didn’t look totally out of place. He sat on the sidewalk, back against the front wall of a closed drugstore, and half an hour later the Blazer went by, not moving too fast. Parker watched it, and it ran at least a dozen blocks in a straight line before it went over a small ridge and disappeared.

  Different neighborhood; different style from now on. Parker shuffled back to his fleabag, shaved everything but the mustache, which hardly existed yet, and dressed in somewhat better clothes; good enough to hail a cab. Then he packed everything into the small dirty canvas sports bag he’d bought at a pawnshop, left the hotel, walked half a mile, and caught a cab out to Memphis International. Collecting the Taurus, he checked into an airport hotel and paid cash for one night. After room-service dinner and a long shower, he felt more like himself.

  The next afternoon, he checked into a motel closer to the city, paying cash for one night. At eleven, he drove into Memphis and parked where he’d last seen the Blazer.

  It went by him at twenty after twelve, and kept the straight line for another eight blocks before turning left. When it was out of sight, he started after it, expecting it to be gone and ready to come back to the next post tomorrow night, but when he turned that corner the Blazer was parked at the curb, two and a half blocks away.

  He drove slowly by. There was only the driver in the car, and he watched Parker, blank-faced. The Blazer had stopped at a storefront church, its windows blocked with white paper on which was printed outsize biblical quotations. A bright light was over the door, and benches on the sidewalk in front of the windows, and half a dozen hard men on the benches, watching everything; at the moment, watching Parker. He kept going and drove back to the motel.

  He set the alarm for five, got up then moved out of that room, found an all-night diner for breakfast, then drove back to park in the block before the storefront church, which was now dark, the benches in front of it empty.

  There was a service at seven-thirty, the congregation mostly old women who had trouble walking, then nothing happened until a little after eleven, when a dark blue Ford Econoline van stopped at the church. A big man got out on the passenger side, looking in every direction at once, and walked into the church.

  A minute later he was back out, to open the sliding door of the van. A second man came out after him, carrying two pretty full black trash bags. They were heaved into the van, the second man went back into the church, and the first one slid the door shut. He got in on the passenger side, and the van drove off.

  For the next three days, Parker leapfrogged the van, the way he’d done w
ith the Blazer. Every night he checked into a different motel, paying cash for one night. Then, the fourth day, he watched the van drive into the basement garage under a downtown office building. It was a commercial garage, open to the public, so he drove in after it, collecting his ticket at the barrier, seeing the van stopped near the elevators. When he drove by, the passenger was on a cell phone. So these people didn’t carry the cash up; someone up there would come down and get it. Probably in something more upscale than trash bags.

  There were no parking places free on the first level. He spiraled down to the second, found a spot, left the Taurus, and went over to take the elevator up to the lobby. He stood there by the sidewalk, as though waiting for someone, and watched the display lights on the elevator bank. Three elevators were going up. None went to the first parking level for the next five minutes, so the exchange had already been made while he was parking the Taurus. He took the elevator down to the first level himself, and the van was gone. He walked on down to the Taurus.

  The next day, he was there early, standing on the sidewalk in front of the building when the van drove in. He walked into the lobby, waited there, and in a minute saw an elevator descend to the first parking level. It held there for a minute while Parker crossed to the elevators and pushed UP.

  The elevator arrived, and Parker boarded. Already in there were two white men in suits and a large black wheeled suitcase. The 9 button was lit; Parker pushed 11.

  As they rode up, he watched the numbers light above the door. When 7 came on, he took out the Sentinel and shot the nearer man in the arm, then pushed him into the other. ‘It isn’t your money,’ he said, holding the gun high for them to see, and they stared at him, shocked, too startled to know what to do, both of them still in the process of realizing that one of them had been shot.

  Parker waited for the door to slide open at 9. If they had a third guy up here, in the hall, he’d have no choice but to kill them, but he’d prefer not to. Death draws more police heat than wounding.

  The ninth-floor hall was empty. Parker pushed DOOR CLOSE, and the unwounded man said, ‘Do you know who owns this money?’

  ‘Me,’ Parker said.

  The man said, ‘They’ll stuff your nuts in your mouth, and they’ll make you watch your children die.’

  ‘I can hardly wait,’ Parker said, and the door opened at 11. ‘Bring that,’ he said, gesturing with the Sentinel at the wheeled suitcase.

  They came out into the hall, the wounded one holding his arm and watching Parker with a wary look, the other one pulling the suitcase and watching for his chance to make a move.

  The hall was empty. A sign said the stairs were to the left. Parker said, ‘You know I don’t want to kill you, or you’d be dead already, but you know I will if I have to. You both have pieces under your coats, and you’ll leave them there. Let’s walk to the stairs.’

  They walked to the stairs. A sign on the door there said ‘No Reentry.’ In checking the building this morning, Parker had noticed that security arrangement. In case of fire, people could get to the staircase on every floor of the building, but only the door at the lobby level would open from the staircase side.

  He’d also looked at the company names on the building directory in the lobby, and Vestro Financial Services on 9 was one of the three outfits that had seemed likely. ‘You’ll get back to Vestro in a little while,’ he told them, ‘with a story to tell. Leave the case in the doorway.’

  They did, propping the door partly open, and the three of them stood close on the concrete landing. The stairwell was bright yellow and had an echoing quality.

  Parker took a pair of shoelaces from his pocket, still in their paper band, and gave them to the unwounded one, saying, ‘Use one to tie your pal’s thumbs together. Behind him.’

  The wounded one said, ‘Man, don’t do that. I can’t move this thing.’

  ‘He’ll help you,’ Parker said.

  The other one hefted the shoelaces on his palm. ‘You can still walk away from this,’ he said.

  ‘I’m in a hurry,’ Parker told him. ‘Do I have to do this the very fast way?’

  The guy shrugged and said, ‘Sorry about this, Artie.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Artie said, and hissed through his teeth when the other one moved his arm.

  Parker watched, and the unwounded one tied the knot well enough. Then he turned to Parker and said, ‘I suppose you want this one back.’ He extended the shoelace, but it dropped through his fingers.

  He’d been expecting Parker to be distracted by that, as his hand darted in under his jacket, but Parker was not; he stepped forward and shot him in the gut, just above the belt buckle.

  The man grunted, folding in on himself, the revolver coming in slow motion out from inside the jacket. Parker plucked it from his hand and pushed his chest; as the man toppled backward down the stairs, he turned to Artie and said, ‘That makes it easier.’

  ‘Ididn’t do anything! I’mno trouble!’

  Parker put his new revolver on top of the suitcase, reached under Artie’s jacket, and found its twin. He tucked both guns under his belt, beneath his shirt, and put the Sentinel back into its holster.

  Artie watched him, fearful but not pleading. Parker turned away from him, wheeled the suitcase back out to the hall, and the No Reentry door snicked shut behind him.

  8

  When he rented the post office box in Pasadena, an industrial suburb southeast of Houston near NASA’s manned space center at Clear Lake, Parker used the name Charles O. St. Ignatius. He paid for the first six months and pocketed the small flat key. Then he drove into Houston, where he bought the black suit and the clerical collar he wore when he went to the banks.

  ‘We’ve started a fund drive at our church,’ he told the first banker. ‘We are in desperate need of a new roof.’

  The banker didn’t yet know if he was about to be hit up for the fund drive, so his expression was agreeable but noncommittal. ‘That’s too bad, Father,’ he said.

  ‘The Lord has seen fit to give us three near-misses the last several years,’ Parker told him. ‘Two hurricanes and a tornado, all just passed us by.’

  ‘Lucky.’

  ‘God’s will. But the effect has been to loosen the roof and make it unstable.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  ‘Our fund drive is doing very well,’ Parker told him, and the banker smiled, knowing he was off the hook. ‘Well enough,’ Parker went on, ‘so we’ll need to open a bank account, just temporarily, until we raise enough money for the repairs.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Parker pulled out the two white legal envelopes stuffed with cash. ‘I believe this is four thousand two hundred dollars,’ he said. ‘Is cash all right? That’s the way the donations come to us.’

  ‘Of course,’ the banker said. ‘Cash is fine.’ And under five thousand dollars meant that none of it would be reported to the Feds.

  Parker handed over the envelopes, and the banker briskly counted the bills: ‘Four thousand two hundred fifty dollars,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Parker said.

  There was a form to be filled out: ‘In what name do you want the account?’

  ‘Church of St. Ignatius. No, wait,’ Parker said, ‘that’s too long. Signing the checks

  ‘

  The banker smiled in sympathy. ‘Just St. Ignatius?’

  ‘All right,’ Parker said. ‘No, make it C. O. Ignatius, that’s the same as “Church of.”’

  ‘And the address?’

  ‘We’ve opened a post office box for donations, so let’s use that.’

  ‘Fine.’

  A little more paperwork, and Parker was given a temporary checkbook and deposit slips. ‘My deposits will be in cash, of course,’ he said.

  ‘We recommend you don’t mail cash.’

  ‘No, I’ll bring it in.’

  ‘Fine,’ the banker said, and they shook hands, and Parker went on to the next bank.

  That day, he opened accounts in nine Houst
on banks, never going to more than one branch of the same firm. When he was finished, thirty-eight thousand dollars was now in the banking system, no longer cash, with nearly eighty thousand still in the side panels of the Taurus.

  After the last bank, he drove on down to Galveston and spent the night in a motel with no view of the Gulf. In the morning, he rented a post office box under the name Charles Willis, for which he carried enough ID for any normal business scrutiny, then went to a bank not related to any of the ones he’d used in Houston. As Charles Willis, and using checks from two different St. Ignatius accounts, he opened a checking account with fifteen hundred dollars and a money market account with four thousand, giving the post office box in Galveston as his address. Then he took the free ferry over to Bolivar Peninsula and headed east.

  9

  The six theaters at the Parish-Plex out at St. Charles Avenue had a total seating capacity of nine hundred fifty, ranging from the largest, two hundred sixty-five, where the latest Hollywood blockbusters showed, to the smallest, seventy-five, where art films from Europe alternated with kung fu movies from Hong Kong. When Parker put down his eight dollars for the final screening of Drums and Trumpetson Sunday night, it was the fourth time he’d paid his way into this building this week; it would be the last.

  Three runs per movie Friday night, five on Saturday, and five on Sunday. First thing Monday morning, the weekend’s take would be delivered to the bank, but right now it was still in the safe in the manager’s office. The entire multiplex had run at just under eighty percent capacity this weekend, which meant that, once Parker’s eight dollars and the rest of the final intake were added, there would be just under seventy-eight thousand dollars in the safe, which was opened only when the cashier brought her money tray up from the box office.

  The first time he’d come here, Parker had watched how the system worked for moving the money. When the box office closed, the cashier brought that low flat open tray full of cash upstairs to the manager’s office. The manager then closed and locked the door, and about five minutes later she unlocked and opened it again; that would be the time the safe in there stood open. Tomorrow, the cashier would bring starter cash for change back down to the box office in that metal tray.