The room was a room, with a view of Denver, a city that’s flat and broad. From a high floor like this, it looks tan, unmoving, a desert where people once used to live.
After Parker threw cold water on his face and unpacked his bag, he spread the two messages on the table beside the phone. Both gave him numbers here in the hotel. One was from Jack Strongarm and the other from Chuck Michaels. Jack Strongarm would be Dan Wycza, a big burly guy who was known to work as a professional wrestler when times were tough; the Strongarm moniker was what he used in the ring. Chuck Michaels would be Mike Carlow, a driver who was also a race-driver on the professional circuit; a madman on the track, but otherwise solid and reliable and sure.
Parker had no idea yet if this boat thing could be made to work, but if there was anything in it he’d need good pros to help put it together. He’d worked with both Wycza and Carlow more than once, and the best thing was, the last two times out with each of them everybody’d made a profit. So Wycza and Car-low would have good memories of Parker and reason to want to work with him again.
He called both message numbers, and both were answered by wary voices. “Is this four twenty-nine?” he asked each time, since his room was 924, and both said no. He apologized twice, hung up, carried the bucket away to get ice, and when he was headed back he saw Mike Carlow coming the other way. A narrow rawboned guy in his forties, Carlow was a little shorter than medium height; good for fitting into those race cars. He had the leathery face and pale eyes of a man who spends a lot of time outdoors. His nose was long and narrow, lips thin, Adam’s apple prominent. He got to 924 before Parker, and when Parker arrived he nodded and said, “Hello, Parker. A long time since Tyler.” That was the last place they’d worked together. They’d all done well in Tyler, better than twenty-five thousand dollars a man. The memory gleamed in Carlow’s pale eyes.
Parker unlocked them into the room. “There’s a bottle there, and the glasses, and here’s ice.”
Looking at the glasses, Carlow said, “Three of us.”
“Dan Wycza.”
“For the heavy lifting. Good.” Wycza had also been along in Tyler.
Carlow put an ice cube in a glass and poured enough bourbon to float it, then looked over at Parker, held up the bottle, and said, “You?”
“The same,” Parker said, and someone knocked with a double rap. “Make it two,” he said, and crossed to open the door.
Dan Wycza was a huge bald man with a handsome, playful face and heavy shoulders that he automatically shifted to an angle when he walked through doorways. He looked out at the world with amused mistrust, as though everybody he saw was an opponent in the wrestling ring who maybe couldn’t be counted on to stick to the script. There was a rumor he was dead for a while, but then he’d popped up again. He was also known to be a health nut, which wouldn’t keep him from accepting a glass of bourbon. He came in now, squared his shoulders, nodded a hello to Parker and said, “Mike. Long time.”
“Tyler,” Carlow said, and brought Parker and Wycza their drinks.
“I spent that money,” Wycza said. Before drinking, he looked at Parker: “We gonna get some more?”
“Maybe. Sit down, let me describe it.”
There were two chairs in the room. Parker sat on the windowsill and said, “It’s cash. It’s all in one place for several hours. I’ve got an inside man to give me the details. But there are maybe problems.”
Carlow said, “Is the inside man one of the problems?”
“Don’t know yet. Don’t have him figured out. My woman’s checking into him, his background, see what his story is.”
Wycza said, “What does he say his story is?”
“Retired from state government, New York. Consultant to governments. Gave me his card.”
Wycza smiled in disbelief. “He has a card?”
“He’s legit, his whole life long. Got a reputation you could hang your overcoat on.”
Carlow said, “So why’s he giving you this score?”
“That’s the question. But if it turns out he’s all right, there’s still problems, and the first one is, it’s a boat.”
Carlow said, “On the ocean?” The question he meant was: What do you want with a driver?
“On a river,” Parker told him. “A gambling casino boat, a trial period, no gambling on credit, all cash, they take the cash off every six hours.”
“Not easy to leave a boat,” Wycza suggested, “if all at once you want to.”
“That’s part of the problem.”
Carlow said, “How much cash?”
“The boat isn’t running yet,” Parker said. “So nobody knows what the take is. But a Friday night, five hours between ten P.M. and three A.M., it should be enough. I don’t think the money’s the problem, I think the boat’s the problem.”
Wycza said, “The boat isn’t on that river now?”
“It’s heading there. It used to be in Biloxi.”
Wycza grinned and said, “The Spirit of Biloxi?”
“It’s going to be the Spirit of the Hudsonnow. You know the boat?”
“You’re giving me a chance to get my money back,” Wycza said. “But, you know, they do heavy security on that boat. I did an automatic case when I was aboard, decided not to try it. They got rent-a-cops in brown everywhere you look. Cash goes straight down through a slot into some safe room down below. When you cash in your chips, they got a vacuum tube with little metal-like rockets in it, to send up just your money.”
Parker said, “How about security when you’re getting aboard?”
“Airport,” Wycza told him. “You go through a metal detector. No X-ray, but they eyeball bags.”
“So no way to bring weapons aboard,” Carlow said. “Unless
” He looked at Wycza. “Could you bring your own boat alongside?”
“Not without being seen. The dining rooms and other stuff is along the outside of the boat, gambling rooms inside. No windows when you gamble, windows all over the place when you eat a meal or have a drink or just sit around.”
“So that’s the second problem,” Parker said. “Guns. And the third problem is, getting the stuff off the boat.”
“And us,” Wycza said.
“That’s the fourth problem,” Parker said.
Carlow said, “The money’s easy. Throw it overboard, in plastic. You got a boat trailing. That’s me. I do boats as good as I do cars.”
Doubtful, Wycza said, “They light up that boat pretty good.”
“A distraction at the front end,” Parker suggested. “Maybe a fire. Nobody likes fire on a boat.”
Wycza said, “Idon’t like fire on a boat. And I also don’t jump in a river in the dark and wait for Mike to come by and pick me up. Nothing against you, Mike.”
“I don’t want people,” Carlow told him. “Not with a boat. Plastic packages I can hook aboard and take off the other way.”
“We don’t have this money yet,” Parker reminded him. “To get it, we need a way to get guns aboard. We need a way to get into the room where they keep the money.”
Wycza said, “This source of yours. Can he give us blueprints?”
“When I told him I’d think about it,” Parker said, “he gave me a whole package of stuff. Blueprints, schedules, staffing, I got it all.”
Carlow said, “What does it say about guards? I’m wondering, are weguards, is that how we get the guns on board?”
“You mean, hijack some guards,” Wycza said, “take their place. That’s possible, it’s been done sometimes.”
“I don’t think so,” Parker said. “You’ve got two security teams. Those rent-a-cops you saw when you were on the boat, they’re hired by the private company owns the boat. They’re regulars, they know each other. Down in the money room, the guards and the money counters are hired by the state government, they’re a different bunch entirely. The way it’s gonna work, a state bus picks them up, on a regular route, takes them to the boat all in a bunch, takes them home again the same way. They bring food from home, they don’t get food on the boat. They’re locked in at the start of their tour, unlocked again at the end when the money on their shift comes off the boat, surrounded by the money room crew plus armored car company guards.”