Canada to Atlanta to Boston and to a provincial upstate New York town. Now it is in Washington. It has been stolen at least twice, and possibly three times, and now it is to be stolen again. A fascinating, fascinating history.”
“Yeah,” said Parker. He lit a cigarette and threw the match towards an ashtray. “The point is, you want me to get it for you.”
“Exactly. I will give you, of course, full particulars”
“What’s in it for me?”
“What? Oh.” Harrow looked puzzled for a second, but now he smiled radiantly. “Of course, you expect to be paid. You’ll get the gun, for one thing, and a certain sum of money.”
“What sum?”
Harrow sucked on his cheek, studying Parker’s face. Finally, he said, “Five thousand dollars. In cash.”
“No.”
Harrow raised his eyebrows. “No? Mr Willis, I consider the gun to be the major item of payment. Any cash would be in the nature of a bonus.”
“Fifty thousand,” Parker said.
“Good God! You aren’t serious?”
Parker shrugged, and waited.
“Mr Willis, I could buythe statuette for little more than that. I’ve told you, the present owner has no idea”
“You can’t buy it at all,” Parker said, “or you would.”
“Well.” Harrow pursed his lips, glanced with an aggrieved look at his daughter, sucked on his cheek again, drummed his fingers on the book in his lap. “I’ll go to ten thousand, Mr Willis. Absolutely my top offer. Believe me, the statuette is worth no more than that to me.”
“I’m not bargaining,” Parker replied. “Fifty thousand or get out.”
“And shall we go to the police, Mr Willis? Shall we go to the police?”
Parker got to his feet, went over to the closet, and took out a suitcase. He opened it on the bed and turned to the dresser.
Harrow said, “Very well. Twenty-five. Half now, and the balance when you get the statuette.”
Parker opened the top dresser drawer and began transferring shirts to the suitcase.
Harrow watched him a minute longer, and Bett watched them both. The father was frowning, the daughter smiling.
“Thirty-five.”
Parker started on the second drawer.
“Damn it, man, we have the gun!”
Bett said, “Give up, Dad, he won’t change his mind.”
“Ridiculous,” Harrow said. “Absurd. We have him over a barrel.” He frowned in petulance at Parker. “All right. All right, stop that asinine packing, you’re not fooling anyone.”
Parker started on the third drawer.
“I said you could stop packing. Fifty thousand. Agreed.”
Parked paused, “In advance,” he said. “The fifty thousand now, the gun after I get the statue.”
“Half now.”
“I told you I don’t bargain.”
Harrow shook his head angrily. “All right. The money now, the gun afterwards.”
Parker left the suitcase and went back to the chair by the writing table. “All right,” he said. “Come over here. Bring your chair. I want this Kapor’s address. You’ve been in his house, I want as detailed a ground plan as you can give me. I want to know what room the statue is kept in, and if he’s got more than one there I want a detailed description of the one I’m after. I want to know how many people are in the household, and what you know about the habits of each of them.”
It took a while. Harrow wasn’t an observant man, and his memory had to be prodded every step of the way. It took half an hour to get even an incomplete ground plan, with half the interior still terra incognita. As for the people living there, there was Lepas Kapor himself, and some servants. Harrow didn’t know how many, or if any of them lived in. Kapor was unmarried, but Harrow thought that occasionally a woman stayed in the house overnight.
When Parker finally had everything from Harrow he was likely to get, Harrow was put on the send for the fifty thousand. Bett wanted to stick around for bed games, but Parker wasn’t in the mood. He was never in the mood before a job, always in the mood right after.
After they’d gone, Parker went down to the bar and got Handy. Together they went over the ground plan and the sketchy information they had, and the next day, after Harrow had turned over the attache case full of cash and Parker had checked it in the hotel safe, they took off for Washington.
Kapor lived in a sprawling colonial brick house with white trim off Garfield, four blocks from the Klastrava embassy. A five-foot hedge surrounded the property. The two-car garage was behind the house, like an afterthought. A gravel driveway led in from the street through a break in the hedge, made a left turn at the front door, and then continued on around to the garage.
Parker and Handy took turns three days and nights watching the house, and by then they’d filled in some of the holes in Harrow’s information.
