Carlow said, “Maybe it isn’t a boat job, maybe it’s an armored car job.”
“My inside man can only help me with the boat,” Parker said. “In Albany, that’s where the money comes off, it’s like a three-block run from the dock to the bank, all city streets, heavily guarded.”
“Forget I said anything,” Carlow said. “Anybody else want another?”
They did. Carlow distributed more ice and more bourbon, sat back down and said, “We can’t do a switch with the guards, the outer guards, the rent-a-cops. It wouldn’t help us. Anyway, the big thing is, how do we get into the money room.”
“Parker’s fire,” Wycza said. “Set the fucking boat on fire, they’ll open that door in a hurry.”
“I don’t want to be on a burning boat,” Parker said. “That wasn’t the idea, about the fire, I just meant something small, to keep everybody looking forward when we do something at the back.”
“Three questions we got,” Carlow said. “How do we get on, with the guns? How do we get into the money room? How do we get off again?”
Wycza said, “Who can carry a gun onto the boat? Legit, I mean. The guards. Anybody else?”
“A cop,” Parker said. “An off-duty cop, he could be carrying, they’d probably leave him alone.”
“Maybe,” Wycza said. “Or maybe they’d be very polite, thank you, sir, if you don’t mind, sir, we’ll just check this weapon for you until you leave the boat, sir. They’re not gonna let people carry guns unless there’s a reason.”
“Bodyguards,” Carlow suggested, and turned to Wycza to say, “Does this boat have entertainment? Shows? Would celebrities come aboard?”
“They got shows,” Wycza said, “but not what you’d call headliners. Not people you been reading about in the National Enquirer.”
“Bodyguards,” Parker said. “There might be something there. Wait, let me think.” He turned his head to look out the window at tan Denver.
Wycza said to Carlow, “You been racin much?”
“I totaled a Lotus at a track in Tennessee,” Carlow told him. “Broke my goddam leg again, too. I need a stake to build a new car.”
“I gotta quit wrestlin for a while,” Wycza said. “I get tired of bein beat up by blonds. In capes, a lot of them.”
Parker turned back. “Either of you know a guy named Lou Sternberg?”
Wycza frowned, then shook his head. Carlow said, “Maybe. One of us?”
“Yes.”
“Lives some funny place.”
“London.”
“That’s it.”
Wycza said, “An Englishman?”
Parker told him, “American, but he lives over there. Only he never works there, he always comes to the States when he needs a bankroll.”
“He was on a bank thing I drove,” Carlow said. “In Iowa. Jeez, seven, eight years ago. I came in late, the guy they had first got grabbed on a parole violation, so I didn’t get to know the rest of the string very much. Just the guy, Mackey, that brought me in.”
“Ed Mackey,” Wycza said. “Him we all know. Him and Brenda.”
Carlow said to Parker, “What about Sternberg?”
“Remember what he looks like? How he talks?”
“Sure. Heavyset, sour most of the time, talks like a professor.”
“Can you see him,” Parker said, “as a state legislator? One of the anti-gambling crowd, coming for an inspection.”
Wycza laughed. “And we’re his fucking bodyguards! ” he said.
Carlow said. “An assemblyman, with bodyguards? Are you sure?”
“He’s had death threats,” Wycza explained. “Cause he’s such an uncompromising guy. So he’s got us to guard him.”
“Armed to the teeth,” Parker said.
7
“Hello?”
“I’m looking for Lou Sternberg.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, he’s gone out. May I tell him who rang?”
“Ed Lynch.”
“Does he know the subject, Mr. Lynch?”
“Not yet, not until I tell him.”
“Does he know you, Mr. Lynch?”
“We were in the art business together one time. Buying and selling art.”
“Oh, I believe he’s mentioned that. It wasn’t a very profitable business, was it, Mr. Lynch?”
“No profit at all.”
“And are you still in the art business, Mr. Lynch?”
“No, I gave that up.”
“Probably just as well. What business are you in now, Mr. Lynch?”
“Politics
Hello?”
“You surprise me, Mr. Lynch.”
“Things change.”
“So I see. May I ask Forgive me, but I know Mr. Sternberg will ask me,so I should know the answers.”
“That’s okay. I thought he might like to run for state assemblyman.”
“Mr. Sternberg?”
“Yes.”
“But Mr. Sternberg lives in London.”
“That’s where I’m calling him.”
“Wouldn’t he have to be resident in the United States?”
“For a little while.”
“Oh, I see. This wouldn’t be a full term, then. Completing someone else’s term, something like that.”
“Something like that. My friends and me, we think Mr. Sternberg has the right look, he could inspire confidence in people.”
“Probably so. Well, I have no idea if Mr. Sternberg would be interested. May I have him ring you when he gets in?”
“When would that be?”
“I expect him, oh, in ten minutes.”
“I’m calling from the States.”
“Yes, I assumed that.”
“The number here’s two oh one five five five nine nine one three.”
“And is that a business or residence?”
“It’s a gas station.”
“Ah. Petrol, we call it here. If Mr. Sternberg is interested, he’ll ring you within fifteen minutes. If he doesn’t ring back by then, you’ll know he isn’t interested.”
“We say ‘call back’ here.”
“Yes, I know. Goodbye, Mr. Lynch.”
Parker sat in the car next to the phone booth and watched the customers pump their own gas, then pay the clerk in the bulletproof glass booth. Nine minutes later, the phone rang.
8
Claire made meals for herself when Parker was away, but when he was at home they always ate out. “You wouldn’t want what I eat when I’m here by myself,” she told him once. “No man would think it was dinner.” So they’d drive somewhere and eat.
Tonight’s place was competent and efficient and, like a lot of country restaurants, too brightly lit. Claire waited until the waitress had brought their main courses, and then she talked about Cathman: “He’s a bureaucrat. He’s exactly what he says he is.”
“Then he doesn’t make any sense,” Parker said, and carved at his steak.
Claire took a small notebook from her bag and opened it on the table beside her plate. “He’s sixty-three,” she said. “He has an engineering degree from Syracuse University, and his entire adult life he’s worked for state government in New York. He was in some sort of statistical section for years, and then he moved on to fiscal planning. Two years ago, he retired, though he didn’t have to. I think what it is, he disagreed with state policy.”
“About what?”
“Gambling.”
Parker nodded. “That’s where it is,” he said. “Whatever’s thrown him out of whack, the gambling thing is where it is.”
“You mean that would make him change his spots.”