He got pencil and paper and worked out his finances. He had seven thousand in the hotel safe here, maybe another ten thousand in bank accounts and hotel safes scattered across the country. The seven thousand was plenty to live on for a while, but ten thousand was too low for a reserve fund. He couldlet it slide a few more months, on what he had, but it might be safer in the long run to stoke up the reserve fund now, when he had the chance.
He was making excuses for himself, and he knew it. But he needed to be working, he needed to have something to think about, even more than he needed to build up his reserve cash supply.
He could look into the job, anyway. It might not be any good. Just about half the jobs he was invited on looked good to him. The rest had something wrong with the set-up, or the personnel, or one thing and another, and he stuck around only long enough to hear the story. So there was an even money chance that he wouldn’t be taking this job anyway, but at least he’d have something to think about for a couple of days.
He got to his feet and changed from robe and trunks to slacks and sport shirt, and then left the room again. He took one of the front elevators this time, rode down to the lobby, and left the hotel. A call like this one wasn’t made through a hotel switchboard.
He crossed the boulevard and took a side street away from the beach. The hotels on the inland side of the boulevard were a little smaller and a little grayer than the beach-front hotels; behind them stretched a declining expanse of tourist courts and efficiency apartments and motels. After a while there were supermarkets and liquor stores and bars.
Parker went into a bar and got five dollars in change from the bartender, then went to the phone booth in back to make his call. When he closed the booth door, a little fan went on over his head, but it didn’t do much good. He began to sweat right away.
It took a while to get the call through, and then he had to pump quarters and dimes into the box before he could talk. He said, “Charles Willis here.”
“Good to hear you, Chuck.” Sheer had an old man’s voice, with something cheerful in it. “How’s the weather down there?”
“Hot.”
“Still on vacation, eh?”
“I’d go back to work if anything came along.”
“I was talking to a fella in your line the other day. Paulus, you know him?”
“Sure.”
“Him and Wycza and some others, they’re opening a branch office in Jersey City. Maybe they could use another field man.”
“The main operation going to be in Jersey City?”
“No, I don’t know where the head office is. That’s just a branch, to get organized.”
“I might send them a resume. What’s the address?”
“Three nine nine Crescent, four A.”
“Are they open for business yet?”
“You probably ought to call first and check. The number’s 837-2598.”
Parker was writing it all down. “I wouldn’t call long distance,” he said. “I’d just send them a resume. What do they pay, do you know?”
“That I don’t, Chuck, sorry. Ought to be good wages, though, the way Paulus was talking.”
“Is he the sales manager?”
“No, I don’t think so. There’s some sort of regional manager setting things up, the way I get it.”
“I might look into it. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“Any time, Chuck. Send me a bathing beauty.”
Parker left the booth, had a beer to get rid of some change and to cool off a little, and then walked back to the hotel. He phoned down to have his bill made up, made a reservation on a jet flight to Newark, and packed. He left the hotel room, and five hours later he walked into the hotel room in Jersey City. Then he met Edgars and heard the proposition.
Knock over a city. A whole goddam city.
It was so stupid it might even work. But it would have to be planned right. This one would have to be planned right on down to the shoe leather.
If Edgars wouldn’t louse it up some way.
If they had every communications outlet in town figured.
If they could work out a sensible getaway route to a reliable hideout.
If they could get the right men.
If they could think of every possibility.
Right now, it was still just an idea, not a job yet. Maybe it never would be a job. He’d sleep on it.
4
“Fire department,” said Parker. “They got to be in touch with other fire departments around the state.”
Edgars frowned around his cigar. “God damn it,” he said. “I forgot about that.”
They were sitting around the dining-room table again, the five of them. Paulus was taking notes. The screen was up, at the far end of the room. The projector stood slightly up-angled on the table like a naval gun, but they weren’t using it right now, so the spaceship ceiling light was on.
Wycza said, “That’s another man. To sit by the phone in the fire house. And now we got firemen to keep on ice. Firemen, policemen, gate guards, telephone girls, the whole goddam town.”
Parker nodded. “There’s too many angles.”
Paulus looked up from his note-taking. “Why not just take the payroll? In and out fast. We five right here could do it, keep it simple and neat.”
Edgars shook his head. “No good at all,” he said. “Don’t you remember that map?” He put his hands down on the tabletop. “Here’s your payroll, with a cliff in back, a cliff on the right, a cliff on the left, and the whole city spread out in front. You couldn’t get through the city in the first place, and if you did there’s still only one road out.”
“Past that goddam state police barracks,” said Wycza.
Edgars said, “That’s right. Nobody’s ever even tried to steal that payroll, because it just can’t be done.”
Parker said, “It’s no good trying for any one thing in that town. The payroll or a bank. You’ve got to hit the whole town, or nothing.”
“What about the fire department?” asked Paulus. “That’s an eleventh man.”
Grofield said, “Not necessarily. Give them a diversion.”
Wycza looked at him. “A what?”
“A fire.”
They all looked at him. Grofield grinned and shrugged, then turned to Paulus, sitting next to him on the right. Still grinning, he drove his left fist at Paulus’s face. Paulus cried out and threw his hands up. Grofield’s left stopped in mid-air, and his right hand dug painfully into Paulus’s ribs. “Feint,” he said. “Feint and attack. Give the boys of the fire brigade a real rip-snorter to think about, in a quiet corner of town where they’ll see no evil, hear no evil, get wise to no evil.”
Paulus said, “You keep your hands to yourself, buddy.” He’d dropped the pencil he was taking notes with, and stooped over to get it.
Grofield grinned at his back. “Just a graphic illustration of the point, dear heart,” he said. “Essence of theater.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Edgars.
Parker shook his head. “A six-hour fire? They’ll be done before we are.”
Wycza said, “We need an eleventh man, that’s all.”
“We need one, anyway,” Parker told him. “We need one man loose, to trouble shoot any place something unexpected comes up. If we need another one for the fire department, that’s twelve.” He turned to Edgars. “Where’s the firehouse?”
“Across the street from the police station.”
Paulus said, “So we’ve gotto cover them. Twelve men. We’re going right back up to twenty-five again.”
Edgars took the cigar out of his mouth and looked insulted. “Why? Twelve men, what’s so bad about that? Twelve men to take a whole city.”
“Maybe we’re not done yet,” Paulus told him.
“Night people,” said Grofield, “that’s what we’ve got to think about. Who are the night people? Cops, firemen, telephone girls, we’ve got them. What about milkmen?”