The Man with the Getaway Face: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels) Read online

  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.

  7

  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 gray 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 raised 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 setup 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 setup,” 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 said.

  “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 onto 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 toward 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 teeth 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 setup. 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 he
ard 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.”

  Handy grunted. “Saved you the trouble, huh?”

  Parker shrugged. He'd wanted to kill her, to even things, but when he'd seen her he'd known he couldn't. She was the only one he'd ever met that he didn't feel simply about. With everybody else in the world, the situation was simple. They were in and he worked with them or they were out and he ignored them or they were trouble and he took care of them. But with Lynn he hadn't been able to work that way.

  He'd felt for her what he'd never felt for anybody else or anything else, not even himself, not even money. She had tried her level best to kill him, and even that hadn't changed anything, the way he felt about her or his helplessness with her. He didn't want that to happen again, ever, to feel about anybody that way, to let his feelings get stronger than his judgment. Oddly enough, he missed her and wished she were still alive and still with him, even though he knew that sooner or later she would have found herself in the same kind of bind again and done the same thing.

  Ahead of him, the green Dodge turned into a driveway next to a small faded clapboard house. This was an old section here: all the houses were small and faded—most of them with sagging porches.

  There was no garage. The green Dodge turned into the backyard and stopped, Parker pulled up beside it, and he and Handy got out. Alma and Skimm were waiting for them, by the back door. There were three warped steps up, and a small back porch half the width of the house. The kitchen door had masking tape over a break in the window. Skimm lived in places where broken things were patched with masking tape.

  They all went into the kitchen and Alma told Skimm to open up some beer.

  “Sure,” said Skimm. He wasn't nervously happy anymore, he was sullen now.

  Alma told the others to come on into the living room. She'd argued most of the belligerence out on the drive. She was sure of herself now, and in charge.

  They went through the dining room, going around a scarred table. The house was one story high, with a living room and a dining room and a kitchen and two bedrooms. One bedroom was off the dining room and the other one was off the kitchen. The bathroom was off the kitchen on the other side, next to the steps to the basement.

  Alma clicked a wall switch and a ceiling light went on, four forty-watt bulbs amid a cluster of stained glass. Alma led the way into the room. “Look at this lousy place. Just look at it.”

  It wasn't very good. The sofa was green mohair, worn smooth in some places and spiny in others. The two armchairs both rested the weight of their springs on the floor, and one of them had an old deep cigarette burn in one overstuffed arm. The rug was faded and worn, showing trails where people had done the most walking, to the front door and the dining room archway. There was an old television set with an eleven-inch screen and a wooden cabinet with a folded match-book under one leg.

  Alma pulled the wrinkled shades down over the three living room windows. “Sit down.”

  Parker and Handy took the armchairs. Skimm came in, carrying four cans of beer, and passed them around. Then he and Alma sat on the sofa.

  Alma started. “Skimm tells me you don't like the plan.”

  “Did he tell you why?” Parker asked.

  “I don't mean the tear gas,” she said. “The rest of it.”

  “Which rest of it?” Parker asked.

  “We need five men,” she said. “We can't do it with less. For God's sake, it's an armored car.”

  “You want to lay a siege and starve them out?” Parker asked.

  “Don't be a wise guy.”

  Handy didn't have a cigarette going, he had a match poked into his mouth. He took it out and said, “Who's running this operation?”

  Nobody answered him. Parker looked at Skimm, and Skimm looked at the floor. Alma looked at Handy.

  Handy pointed the wet end of the match at Alma. “You're the finger.” He pointed the match at Skimm. “You brung us in. You running it, Skimm?”

  Skimm looked up, reluctantly. “I never worked an armored car before.”

  “I ain't running it,” said Handy. “I'm not the type. So that leaves Parker.”

  Parker said, “I don't like this situation. More and more, I don't like it. The finger sitting in, doing a lot of talking. I just don't like it.”

  “I've got a stake in this too, you know,” Alma said. She was getting hot again, a slow flush creeping up her face.

  “Skimm, who's running this operation?” Parker asked.

  Skimm was even more reluctant to answer this time. When he finally spoke, it was to Alma. “Parker knows this kind of job.”

  Alma said, “Let's hear what he has to say.”

  “It's simple. Three men. One in a uniform like the guards wear. We get the two trucks, and one car. One of the trucks we rig up so we can lock the guards in it, keep them cooled for a while. The driver and the guard from the back go in first. While they're in the diner, we get in position. When they come out, we grab them at the back of the armored car, where the other guard in the cab can't see us. We wait till they open the back door. Then we grab them, and the one in the uniform takes the driver up to the cab. The guard inside opens the door when he recognizes the driver, and the other one—that's one of us—hangs back, so the guard'll just glimpse the uniform out of the corner of his eye. He opens up, and we've got him, too. We sap all three of them and lock them in the truck. Then we transfer the cash and take off in the car. We leave the trucks there because we don't need them anymore.”

  “That's what I don't like,” said Alma. “That's the part I don't like.”

  Parker drank some beer and looked at her.

  “They're going to see your car,” Alma said. “It's going to be at the back of the U, blocking vision, so they're going to see it. That's why I wanted the trucks to be in it, too. We'd have vehicles going off in all different directions and they wouldn't know which way to go to look for us.”

  It didn't matter which way they went, or how many people saw them go. Parker knew that but he didn't say anything about it. This Alma was a busher, a new fish, she didn't know how this kind of operation was handled. Parker knew this, because this was his line of work, but he didn't say anything about it. All he said was, “Tractor-trailers don't outrun police cars. We leave them at the diner.”

  “I still want cars going off in different directions.”

  Parker nodded. He knew why she wanted it, but she didn't know he knew. He said, “So what's your idea?”

  “My car,” she said, “my car, that's the Dodge out there. It'll be parked behind the diner, like always. When you get the money out of the armored car, you put it in my car. Then you take off on route 9, going south, and circle around back to Old Bridge. When I know the job's finished, I'll get in my car and take the back road. Then we meet at the farmhouse outside Old Bridge. That way, even if you get stopped they've got nothing on you because you aren't carrying the money.”

  Parker glanced at Skimm. He was studying the carpet, lines of worry creasing his forehead. Parker said to Alma, “I don't like it. That leaves you holding the cash, and the rest of us holding the bag. I know Skimm, and I trust him, and I know Handy, but I don't know you.”

  “So one of you rides with me,” she said. “Skimm. He can ride with me. All right?”

  It was bad. The whole idea was stupid. It was sloppy, it was bad business.

  But Parker nodded. “That's all right. Just so one of us goes along with the money.”

  If he let her keep her original plan he could be sure of getting the money back. If he forced her to change by making the grab more sensible, then maybe he wouldn't be able to figure out her cross in time. He'd had to argue so she wouldn't get suspicious. The only one he had to worry about was Skimm. Skimm, if he was thinking sensibly, had to know the two-car scheme was nonsense. He would have to wonder why Parker was going along with it. If Alma had talked him into her plans, that w
ould make him dangerous because he'd realize that Parker was onto the cross. But it made more sense that Alma was playing a lone game, that she was figuring to cross Skimm, too.

  “What about bankrolling?” Handy asked.

  “I got it,” Parker said. “Three grand.” He pulled a long white envelope from his jacket pocket. “I brought five C with me,” he said, “in case there was any need for it.”

  Handy nodded. “You going to equip us?”