Nobody Runs Forever

Parker shook his head. “No,” he said.

Now Beckham looked more frustrated than worried. “Still no? Why? I’ve got the emotional one out of it, I’ve got my own alibi, you guys are big boys and can take care of yourselves, work out your own cover. The job is good, Mr. Parker, I know it is, that target is good, that armored car full of cash.”

“Yes, it is,” Parker agreed. “That part is all right, that’s what got me here. If it was just that, we could do it and no problem.”

“You still see problems,” Beckham said.

“Two, to start with,” Parker said. “In the first place, it’ll take the cops about twenty minutes to work out the link between you and the doctor.”

Beckham looked bewildered. “Why are they gonna look?”

“Because you’re the one they’re going to want for the job, from the start,” Parker told him. “The minute it happens, they’re going to be looking for you, and there you are in a hospital. Hospital? Who put you in this hospital? What’s the connection between you and this doctor? If another doctor looks you over, because the police want to know what the story is here, what’s he gonna find?”

Beckham shook his head, a man bedeviled by gnats. “But why are they gonna just think about me?”

Dalesia said, “Let me tell him that part.”

“Go ahead,” Parker said.

Dalesia said to Beckham, “Parker’s right, the job’s all clouded up because of emotions. Including yours, Jake.”

Beckham reared back on the examination table, his feet floating above the floor. Clutching at his chest, he said, “Mine?”

Dalesia said, “The husband— What’s his name?”

“Jack Langen, the little prick.”

“There you go,” Dalesia said. “You just said it yourself.”

Beckham spread his hands. “Said what?”

“Jack Langen isn’t the little prick,” Dalesia told him. “He’s the angry husband. He knew you were putting it to his wife from the very first.”

“He doesn’t know his ass—”

“That’s why he pressed charges on you the first time,” Dalesia told him. “Overrode his father-in-law, put it to you because he knew you were putting it to the missus. And the minute you got out, he knew when it started up again. Part of this bank merger deal is to get back at the wife and not be the young nobody brought into the family business any more.”

Parker said, “And the second this job goes down, he’ll know it’s you, with her help. He’ll right away start saying your name to the cops, and telling them why it has to be you, and why his own wife has to be the insider. You’re all they’ll look at, and that’s why they’ll see through the doctor alibi in a heartbeat.”

Dalesia said, “Jake, all you wanted was to feel contempt for the husband, like he didn’t matter, like you were that much smarter than him. That’s called underestimating your enemy, Jake.”

“Shit,” Beckham said. “You mean, it still can’t be done?” Turning to Parker, he said, “You said yourself, without the emotions in it the job is good. I really want to do this, Mr. Parker, I need the stake, I need to get my life together. Do you see any way at all we could still pull it off?”

“One way,” Parker said. “I was thinking about it while Nick was telling you things. There’s one way you might get the cops to stop looking at you.”

“I’ll do it,” Beckham said.

“We’ll see.”

“Why?” Beckham looked a little alarmed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Violate parole,” Parker said.

6

Violate—” Beckham stared at Dalesia, then at Parker: “What are you talking about?”

“How often you have to report in?”

“Twice a month. But I don’t see—”

“When’s your next time?”

“Next Tuesday,” Beckham said. “Ten in the morning. But—”

“You don’t show up,” Parker said. “What you do—”

“The hell I don’t show up!” Beckham was so agitated he actually hopped off the examination table and stood with one hand pressed on the table behind him. He wasn’t angry; he was just staggered by the idea. “The whole thing I been doing since I got out,” he said, “is build a record, no violations. Same as when I was in, got full good- behavior time credit.”

Dalesia said, “Listen to him, Jake.”

Beckham didn’t want to. He shook his head, then folded his arms and glowered at Parker, waiting.

“What you do,” Parker told him, “the day you’re supposed to report, you fly to Vegas. That’s Tuesday. Saturday, you turn yourself in to the Vegas cops, you’re a parole violator, you don’t know what came over you, met a woman, got drunk, flew away with her, you know you’re in trouble, nothing like this ever happened before, you just want to