Comeback

The money situation at the moment was all right, but not perfect. There was cash here and there, stowed away. He could wait for something that smelled good. Even in a world of electronic cash transfers and credit cards and money floating in cyberspace, there were still heists out there, waiting to be collected.

When the phone rang the second time, Parker was in the enclosed porch that faced the lawn and the lake and the boathouse, standing there, looking out. The day was overcast, and looked colder than it was. He picked up the phone on the third ring and said, 'George?'

'I've got something.' The voice slurred a little, making a furry sound in the phone lines.

Parker waited. George Liss could have a lot of things, including a need to turn someone else over to the law to take his place.

Liss said, 'It's a little different, but it's profitable.'

They were all different, and they were all supposed to be profitable, or you wouldn't do it. Parker waited.

Liss said, 'You still there?'

'Yes.'

'We could get together someplace, talk it over.'

'Maybe.'

'You want to know who else is aboard.' And again Liss waited for Parker to say something, but again Parker had nothing to say, so finally Liss said, 'Ed Mackey.'

That was different. Ed Mackey was somebody Parker did know and had worked with. Ed Mackey was solid. Parker said, 'Who else?'

'It only takes three.'

Even better. The fewer the people, the fewer the complications, and the more the profit. Parker said, 'Where and when?'

They came together first in the parking lot of a lobster restaurant on Route 1 just south of Auburn, Maine, a place where a couple of rental cars from Boston's Logan Airport wouldn't look out of place. Parker left his Impala and crisscrossed through the parked cars to the Century Regal where Ed Mackey, blunt and taciturn, sat at the wheel with his girlfriend Brenda beside him and George Liss in the back seat. Parker joined Liss, a tall, narrow, black-haired man with a long chin, who nodded at him and smiled with the side of his mouth where the nerves and muscles still worked, and said, 'Have a good flight?'

This wasn't a sensible question. Parker said, 'Tell me about it.'

'It's a stadium,' Ed Mackey said, half-turning in the front seat, knees pointed at Brenda as he looked back at Parker. 'Usual stadium security. Twenty thousand civilians inside.'

Parker shook his head. 'All you walk out with,' he said, 'is credit card receipts.'

'Not this one,' Liss said, and the left side of his face smiled more broadly. A sharpened spoon handle had laid open the right side, in a prison in Wyoming, eleven years ago. A plastic surgeon had made the scars disappear, but nothing could make that side of his face move again, ever. Around civilians, Liss usually tried to keep himself turned partially away, showing only the profile that worked, but among fellow mechanics he didn't worry about it. With the slight slurring that made his words always sound just a little odd, he said, 'This one is all cash. Paid at the door.'

'They call it love offerings,' Mackey said, deadpan.

Parker tried to read Mackey's face. 'Love offerings? What kind of stadium is this?'

Liss explained, 'The stadium's the usual. The attraction's a guy named William Archibald. A TV preacher, you know those guys? Evangelists.'

'I thought they were all in jail,' Parker said.

'The woods are full of them,' Liss said, and Mackey added, 'Mostly the back woods.'

Parker said, 'He's preaching at this stadium, is that it?'

'To make a movie,' Mackey said, 'and show it on the TV later.'

'The people walking in,' Liss said, moving his hands around in the space between himself and Parker, 'they put down a twenty-dollar love offering, every one of them. No exceptions. Twenty thousand people.'

Brenda spoke for the first time: 'Four hundred thousand dollars,' she said in her husky voice, rolling her full lips around the words.

'Brenda does my math for me,' Mackey said.

'Plus,' Liss said, 'they got these barrels up front by the stage, you get inspired along the way, you want to help the preacher spread the word on the TV, you can go up and toss whatever money you want in the barrel.'

'On TV,' Mackey said. 'On the big screen up behind the preacher. I seen it work, Parker, it's like hypnotizing. These people love to see themselves on that big screen, walking right up there, tossing their cash in the old barrel. Then a month later, they're at home, TV on, there they are again. Live the moment twice. The day you gave the rent money to God.'

'We figure,' Liss said, 'that doubles the take.'

Brenda opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Mackey pointed at her and said, 'Brenda. He can work it out.'

Parker said, 'There's going to be more than the usual security, if it's all cash.'

'Archibald has his own people,' Liss agreed.

'But we got a guy on the inside. That's what made it start to happen.'