Parker shook his head. “That’s not my kind of work.”
“Wait a minute, now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to runthis deal, for Christ’s sake.”
“You give a good imitation.”
“I’ve been setting it up, that’s all. I’ve been trying to get a group of professionals together to work withme on this, without getting a fast shuffle for me out of it.”
“Sure,” said Parker. “You had a problem, I see that.”
“So what else could I do?”
“Stay all the way out, or come all the way in. Half and half doesn’t do it.”
“How can I come all the way in until I know what I’m getting myself into?”
“Then stay out.”
Edgars shook his head stubbornly. “There’s too much at stake.”
“Not my problem.”
Edgars gnawed his lip. He had the cigar unwrapped now but hadn’t lit it. He rolled it back and forth between his fingers. After a minute, he shrugged heavy shoulders and said, “All right. All the way in. I’ll give you the setup and then I’ll do whatever you say.”
Parker considered. “Paulus is in there,” he said, “and Wycza. Who’s the third?”
“Grofield.”
“All right. They’re all all right. This is a five-man operation?”
“Oh, no. These are just the department heads.”
Parker stared at him. “The what?”
“It’ll take probably twenty-five or thirty men,” Edgars told him.
Parker looked at him as though he were crazy. “You don’t have anything at all,” he told him. “Twenty-five or thirty men? If a job takes more than four or five men, it’s no job. You can put that down as a rule.”
“This is a special case.”
“Sure it is. Goodbye, Edgars.”
“Will you God damn it stop leaving?”
Parker didn’t like to do a lot of superfluous talking, but he took the time now to tick off the points for Edgars: “You got an operation needs an army, and the more men in a job the more chances it’ll go sour. You got an operation set up by an amateur, for personal reasons. Amateurs get their ideas from the movies, which means flashy and impractical, and personal reasons are no good in a job because they get in the way of clear thinking. Forget it, Edgars.”
“God damn it, Parker, you’re the man I’ve been waiting for.” Edgars was smiling happily now. He said, “I knowthis is a good solid deal, but I want a professional to tellme so, and you’re it. All you have to do is hear me out. When I’m done if you don’t think it’s workable, then I’ll give up the whole idea and I’ll pay your fare back where you came from. Fair enough?”
Parker studied him. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell you it’s no good, and then go do it on my own?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why not? I’m no saint.”
“No, but you’re a good businessman.”
“What gives you that idea? You don’t know anything about me at all.”
“I’ve got a hunch, that’s all. Will you listen to the deal?”
Parker thought about it. He didn’t see any way an operation requiring twenty-five or thirty men could be workable, and he didn’t see any way an operation Edgars was connected with could be workable, but he was here already so he might as well listen. He nodded. “All right.”
“Fine. Come on in. You want a beer?”
“All right.”
“I’ll get it.” They crossed the living-room, a square sparsely furnished room lit by pole lamps, and Edgars pointed at a door just off the hallway. “They’re in there. I’ll be right in.”
They separated at the hallway, Edgars going for the beer, Parker going into the room with the others. It was a long narrow room with another spaceship ceiling light. The walls were tan, with lighter squares where paintings had once hung, and there was a wall-to-wall green carpet on the floor. Paulus and Grofield and Wycza were sitting around a dining-room table. There was a slide projector on the table and a screen set up at the far end of the room.
Paulus gave him a nervous smile. Wycza, a huge bald man who did professional wrestling when times were bad, waved a beer can in greeting. Grofield, an intense, lean, handsome man who sometimes acted in summer stock theaters, said, “Hail, Parker. Long time no see.”
“How are you, Grofield?”
Paulus said, “Are you in, Parker?”
“I don’t know, yet.”
Grofield said, “Herr Edgars is a mysterious type. Did he tell youwhat the job is?”
“Not yet.”
Edgars came in, then, with a double handful of beer cans, and Grofield said, “All fools in a circle.”
Edgars laughed. “I hope not, Grofield,” he said, and passed the beer around. Then he checked his slide projector, turned it on, and said, “Paulus, would you get the light, please?” He was full of confidence again.
Paulus got up and switched off the light. The projector was beaming a harsh white light at the screen, and it reflected back to give the five men pale faces and vague outlines.
There was a clicking, and the blank face of the screen was replaced by a black and white map. Edgars’ voice said, “There it is. Copper Canyon, North Dakota.”
Parker looked at the map, trying to make sense out of it, but it was just geometric confusion. He lit a cigarette, and waited.
Edgars moved around the table to the front of the room. He had a pointer with him now, like a geography teacher. “This wavy line,” he said, and the pointer ran along a U-shaped irregular line that edged the town on three sides, “is the cliffs. The city is built inside a box canyon, with vertical cliffs on three sides, too steep and too tall to be passable. The only way in or out of town is here” the pointer tapped “at the open side of the canyon. State road 22A comes in here, and this here is a spur line of the Dakota and Western Railway. The one road and the railway line are the only means of entry to the town.”
Parker silently shook his head. Everything Edgars said made the deal sound worse. You don’t go into a box with only one exit, never.
Edgars kept moving the pointer, tapping here and there. “It’s a one-industry town,” he said. “Copper. The mine entrances are at the rear of the canyon here, and the refinery is spread along here. Twelve buildings, storm fencing along here, two gates here and here, both with armed guards day and night, though the plant is working only during the day. There are two banks, here and here, in about the middle of town, opposite each other on Raymond Avenue, the continuation of 22A. There are three jewelry stores, here and here and here, all on Raymond Avenue. The police station is here, on Caulkins Street, near the east gate to the plant.”
Parker waited for him to get to the point. He kept telling them about things, banks and jewelry stores and factory gates, but he hadn’t gotten around yet to telling them what he thought they were going to hit. The fan in the slide projector made a humming sound, and Edgars kept on pointing at things.
“The telephone company building,” he was saying, “is over here on Blake Street, a block from Raymond. There’s a local radio station, with studios here on Whittier Street, but it shuts down operation between midnight and six-thirty in the morning, and there’s no one on duty there during the night. The Nationwide Finance and Loan Corporation has offices on the second floor of the Merchants’ Bank building. Most stores and other commercial operations are centered along this four-block stretch of Raymond Avenue, with the banks and jewelry stores.” The pointer was removed, and Edgars’ pale face turned to them. “That’s it,” he said.
Wycza said, “That’s what?”
But Parker already had it. “You’re crazy,” he said.
“Am I?” Edgars was grinning, pleased with himself. “There are three men on duty in the police station at night; two out in the patrol car and the third in the station to take calls. The plant security force at night is also three, one man on each gate and one man in the front office of the main building to take calls. The banks and jewelry stores and so on have no night security of their own at all. The telephone company has three woman employees on duty at night, and the door to their building isn’t even kept locked. After midnight, the radio station isn’t broadcasting. There is one road and one railway line to watch, to keep townsmen in and reinforcements out. Due to vandalism of juvenile delinquents, there’s been a midnight curfew in town for the last four years.”