Parker frowned. He didn’t like it that way. He said, “A split all the way, then. Twenty-one hundred for each of us, plus Bronson.”
“Why?” Handy left the match in his mouth while he fumbled for another cigarette. “Why you want to give money away all of a sudden?”
“I’m not giving it away. I’m making it worth your while. You don’t want to do a job for nothing.”
Handy watched himself light the new cigarette. He leaned over to drop the match into an ash tray and then shrugged. “All right,” he said. “A split all the way.” He lipped the cigarette, then grinned and looked over at Parker. “I could use the money, anyway.”
“For the diner.”
“Sure, for the diner.” Handy settled back on the bed, relaxing. “When do you want to go after this Bronson?”
“Early next week. By then, the Outfit’ll have been hit a few times. I want to be sure this guy Karns won’t be in any hurry to cause trouble when he takes over.”
“When do you want to go to Buffalo?”
“Tomorrow. We can use the time getting set up. How’s your car? Hot?”
“Not a bit. Paid cash for it in Bangor. Absolutely legitimate.”
“Same name as with the diner?”
“Sure. My own.”
“We’ll use mine then. To be on the safe side. It can’t be traced back to me.”
“It’s a mace?”
“Yeah. I got it off Chemy, in Georgia. You know, the little guy with the brother?”
“Sure. It should be okay, then.”
“It is.”
“All right.” Handy got to his feet. “I’m gonna stop in with Madge for a while. Come along?”
“Not tonight.”
“See you in the morning, then.”
Handy went out, and Parker switched off the light. He sat by the window, smoking, and looking out at the highway. Handy was troubling him. Buying a car, buying it legitimate. Buying into a diner, and planning to work in it. And being willing to come into a job for nothing out of sentimentality.
It was a bad sign when a man like Handy started owning things and started thinking he could afford friendships. Possessions tie a man down and friendships blind him. Parker owned nothing, the men he knew were just that, the men he knew, not his friends and they owned nothing. Sure, under the name of Charles Willis he had pieces of a few businesses here and there, but that was for tax reasons. He stayed away from those places, had nothing to do with them, didn’t try to get a nickel out of them. What Handy was doing was something else again buying things to have them. And working with a man, not for a profit, but because he likedhim.
When a man like Handy started craving possessions and friendships, it meant he was losing the leanness. It was a bad sign.
2
SYRACUSE STARTED FLAT, with used-car dealers and junkyards. Then came stucco bars and appliance stores in converted clapboard houses. It was late Friday afternoon, with rush hour and weekend traffic starting to overlap. Parker pushed the Olds through the traffic, making the best time he could. South Salina Street. The stores got taller and older, the traffic heavier, till they were downtown, where all the streets were one way the wrong way.
“I hate this city,” Parker said.
“It’s a city,” Handy replied. “They’re all like this.”
“I hate them all, then. Except resort towns. Miami, Vegas, you don’t run into this kind of thing.”
“You’re like me, you like a little town. You ever been to Presque Isle?”
“No.”
“You should see the winters. Snow over your head.”
“Sounds great.”
Handy laughed. “I like it,” he said. “We turn at the next corner. You make a right.”
“It’s one way the other way.”
“Oh, yeah. Take the next right and circle around. I forgot about the one-way stuff.”
The next corner was no good either. The cross street was one way, in the same direction as the block before it. Parker ran on down another block in time to get stopped by the traffic light. Women in heavy coats carrying clothing-store boxes massed around the car in a herd. It wasn’t December yet, but the Christmas decorations were up. A few Thanksgiving decorations were still up, too; nobody’d remembered to take them down.
The light turned green and Parker made the right. The next cross street still was one way the wrong way. “They got any oneway streets in Presque Isle?”
“Maybe one or two. You can live there all your life and not have to worry about it.”
“Maybe I’ll go there some day.”
