“You’re a liar.”
“He can get me guns. I wait a few days, that’s all. He’ll scout around for me.”
Scofe twisted his head back and forth. “If I could seeyou!”
“It’s all in my voice, Scofe.”
“I hate you like poison. Like poison.”
“I don’t like to deal with you, Scofe. You smell bad. What’s your price, the three Tommys?”
“Three-fifty. That’s it, that’s the lowest.”
“Deal.”
“Tell my woman to come in here.”
Parker went to the door and motioned to the woman. “Come in here.”
She came in, and Scofe said, “Every transaction cash. This transaction, you pay the cash, then we see what else you want.”
The woman said, “How much?”
“Three-fifty. For three road-racers.”
Parker took an envelope out of his jacket pocket, and counted three hundred and fifty dollars on to the table, while the woman watched.
When he was done, she said, “Okay.”
“You’re all right, Parker,” Scofe raised his head and smiled. He was filthy, and his eyes were covered by a white film, and his teeth were brown. When he smiled, he looked like a parody of something unspeakable. “You’re all right,” he said again. “You don’t mean all those things you say to me.”
Parker went over and got the sixth heavy road-racer box. He put it with the first two, and picked up all three. He said to the woman, “Come out with me and open the car door.”
Scofe said, “What about the other stuff you wanted?”
“Never mind.”
“You’re going to Klee?”
Parker ignored him. He said to the woman, “Come on,” and started for the front of the store.
“You scum! You vomit! You stinking cesspool!”
Parker walked through the store to the street, the woman coming behind him. She opened the rear door of the car, and Parker put the three boxes on the seat. He closed the door and nodded to the woman.
She said, “He’s getting worse.”
Parker hadn’t expected her to talk. He stopped and looked at her and said, “He’s stupid. There’s others in the same business.”
“He don’t get half the business he used to. You, too, you’re going somewhere else now.”
“Tell him, not me.”
“It’s because he’s blind.”
“He ought to be used to it by now.”
Parker went around and got behind the wheel. It was a one-year-old Mercury, painted blue and white, a mace he’d picked up yesterday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He’d drive it out to North Dakota, stash it at the mine, and drive away in it after the job. Then he’d get rid of it. The Pennsylvania plates and registration paper looked good enough if he stayed out of Pennsylvania. From the little mileage on it, he thought it had probably been taken right from a dealer. Even with planned obsolescence, it would last as long as he’d need it.
He made a U-turn on Second Avenue and went up the hill and over to the Thruway entrance. The way he’d originally figured, he’d go back to Jersey City and stay over tonight, then pick up Edgars in the morning and head west. But now, having to stop off in Syracuse to see Klee, he’d have to make better time than that, get Edgars to leave tonight. If everything worked out, they could maybe pull it next Thursday night.
He picked up the ticket at the Thruway entrance and headed south. He was impatient, but he stayed just under the speed limit. He didn’t want a trooper looking into the road-racer boxes on the back seat.
4
“This is Jean,” said Edgars. He seemed uncomfortable.
Jean wasn’t uncomfortable at all. She was a hard-looking blonde of about thirty, short, with hard, conical breasts. She was sitting on the sofa in the living-room of Edgars’ apartment, her legs crossed and skirt hiked up to show her tan.
Parker looked at Jean and then at Edgars. He said, “So what?”
Edgars swallowed. “She’s coming along,” he said.
“Since when?”
“Since always. She’s always been with me.”
“Always?” Parker looked at her. She wouldn’t be with anybody always, and especially not Edgars.
“She doesn’t have anything to do with the business arrangement,” Edgars said. “I always had her go out to a movie or something when we had a meeting. And she can wait for us in Madison or somewhere until we’re
