Parker wiped the gun butt on Stegman’s coat and got out of the car. He tucked the gun in under his belt and walked the rest of the way down the block to Glenwood Road and up to Rockaway Parkway and across the street to the subway entrance.
This was a strange stretch of subway, neither subway nor el. The tracks rode at ground level, with the station platform like a commuter-town railroad depot, except that the tracks came only as far as this platform, one set on either side, and then stopped. End of the line.
Off to the right were the yards, lined with strings of grimy subway cars. Beyond were new row houses, brick, two stories high, where the cab drivers lived, and farther away a bulky city project, seven stories high, where the elevator operators lived. The land was flat out here, all flat.
Two trains flanked the platform now, their doors open. A lit sign under the platform’s shed roof said next train, with an arrow pointing to the left. A heavy man in a corduroy jacket sat on the platform bench, reading the News, with a lunch bucket beside him.
Parker went over and sat next to the man. He picked up the lunch bucket and snapped it open and looked at the Luger nestled inside. The man dropped his News and reached for the bucket.
Parker shook his head, put the bucket on the bench on the side away from the Outfit man, and said, “You better get on your train before it pulls out.”
The man looked back toward the turnstiles and the change booth and the rest rooms, then shrugged and got to his feet. He folded his paper and put it under his arm and stepped onto the train.
Parker stood and walked down the platform, carrying the lunch bucket. The rest rooms were in a little separate clapboard shack on the platform, beyond the end of the tracks. There was an anteroom with a radiator, for waiting in wintertime, and the two green doors.
Parker went on into the men’s room. Two cowboys in flannel shirts and khaki pants stood there, doing nothing. Their shirt-tails hung outside their pants.
Parker opened the lunch bucket and took the Luger out and showed it to them. “Take off your shirts,” he said. “Don’t reach under them.”
One started to do it, but the other one blinked and smiled and said, “What’s going on?”
Parker waited, ignoring the opening. The one who had started on the top button hesitated, looking at his partner. The partner’s smile flickered and he said, “I don’t know what you want, buddy. What’s the problem?”
“No problem,” Parker told him. “Take off your shirt.”
“But I don’t want to take off my shirt.”
“I’ll pull the trigger when the train starts,” Parker told him. “If you want noise before that, jump me.”
The hesitant one said, “The hell with it. Do like he says, Artie. What’s the percentages?”
Artie considered, and shrugged, and started unbuttoning his shirt. They took off their shirts and stood holding them in their hands. They each had two small revolvers tucked into their trousers, in under their belts.
Parker said, “Turn around.” They did so, and he reached around them, taking the guns away, putting them in the sink. Then he said, “Your train’s going to leave in a minute. Better hurry.”
They put their shirts back on wordlessly and left the room. Parker dropped the four guns in a water closet and went back outside. He walked along the train that was to leave next and saw the two cowboys with the man in the corduroy jacket. The three were sitting hunched together, talking. They looked up and watched him go by.
Down at the other end of the platform was the dispatcher’s building, tall and narrow. Beside it was a Coke machine, and a man in a business suit carrying a briefcase and holding a bottle of Coke. He’d been there when Parker had put his token in the turnstile, and he was still there. Parker hadn’t yet seen him drink any of the Coke. He was looking out toward the trains in the yards.
Parker walked the length of the platform and stopped by the Coke machine. He said, “You got change of a quarter?”
“Of course,” said the man. He put his bottle of warm Coke on top of the machine, switched the briefcase to his other hand, and reached into his trouser pocket.
Parker opened the lunch bucket and tooft the Luger out. His back was to the platform. He said, “Show me what’s in your briefcase.”
“Of course,” the man said again. He seemed unsurprised. He released the two straps and turned the flap back. He started to reach inside, and Parker shook his head. The man smiled and pulled the briefcase lips apart instead. There was a long-barreled .25 target pistol inside.
“Close it up again,” Parker said. The man did so. “Put it down beside the machine, and go get on your train.”
He watched as the man walked down the platform and got on the same car as the other three. A few minutes later, the conductor and the engineer clattered down the metal outside staircase from the second floor of the dispatcher’s building and boarded the train.
The doors slid shut and the train pulled out. The lit sign switched, showing that the train on the other side was now next.
Half an hour later, at twenty past one, five more of them arrived, wearing flashy suits and carrying musical instrument cases. They got off their train and stood around laughing and talking loudly, and Parker waited for ten minutes by the Coke machine, wanting to be sure. When they still had made no move to leave, he was sure.
He went over and introduced himself and said, “You better hurry if you want to make your gig. Or you can make your play instead, right now.”
The other four looked at the one with the trombone case. That one looked at the train beside him, with the people on it, and the woman in the distant change booth, and the dispatcher’s building. Their car wasn’t outside yet, so they didn’t make their play.
At quarter to two, a woman got off a train and left an overnight bag on the platform bench. Parker caught up
