Kifka nodded. ‘Right. And the question is, can we get out? Right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘If we can get in, we can get out. We’ll have to work on it.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Parker said. ‘It’s been a long day. I need a place to stay while I’m here.’
‘With a woman or without?’
Parker hesitated, then said, ‘With.’ Not that he expected to want her, not just yet. Before a job he never had any interest in women, or in anything else but the job itself. But he would want her afterwards, when he would make up for lost time.
Kifka had gotten him Ellie. Not exactly a pro, hardly an amateur. She wasn’t sharing her place with anybody at the moment and she didn’t mind sharing with Parker so long as he came with an introduction from somebody she knew and was willing to pay for the groceries and incidentals. She seemed surprised when Parker let her know the first night that nothing was expected just yet, but she didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
That almost summed her up. In her clothing, her appearance, her apartment, her life, in everything, she didn’t care one way or the other. She was a good-looking girl, but Parker never really noticed it unless she was nude. She wore her clothing so sloppily that with it on she looked like a lesbian gym teacher on a cross-country hike. Her black hair was too long and too full and too infrequently combed. She daubed lipstick on from time to time, but otherwise she never used makeup. And she treated the apartment the same way she treated herself: negligently.
She had some sort of daytime job that didn’t require she be particularly neat. Parker never asked her what her work was, and she never volunteered the information. Her style was very much like Parker’s own, silent and self- contained. They spent hours in the same room without either saying a word.
Parker was pleased by her. She didn’t jabber away at him, and he never had to tell her anything twice. Kifka had done better than could have been expected.
The job pleased him too. In more sessions with the others, they gradually worked out a plan for getting themselves and the cash out of the stadium and safely in the clear. The final plan needed seven men, so they recruited three more, all pros they’d worked with in the past. Abe Clinger was a fast talker, could be a guard or a finance office employee or whatever you wanted. Ray Shelly and Pete Rudd were drivers and general strong- arms.
Kifka was actually running the job, though he wasn’t asking more than his seventh. But he arranged for the financing, and he was the one who’d seen the possibilities in the job to begin with, having worked at the stadium the year before. His apartment remained headquarters, where they met and worked out the details.
Financing ran steep. They wanted a minimum of five pistols and two machine guns, plus two cars and an ambulance and a truck. The only things that really caused trouble were the machine guns, unlicensed ownership of which is a Federal offence. But they got everything they needed in plenty of time.
They kept the vehicles in a closed-down gas station on a secondary highway out of town. The two cars were a seven-year-old black Buick, a fat monster that looked like something with gland trouble, and a little gray Renault Dauphine, which looked like something the Buick had just spat out. The truck was a gray GM van, four years old, with a rotten transmission. The ambulance was a smaller version of the van, the sort of ambulance used in wars and on airfields and at football games.
All the vehicles but the Buick needed work of one kind in another. The stunted rear seat of the Renault was pulled out to leave plenty of room for the two suitcases.
The van was given a company name on its doors - CITY SCRAP METAL CORP - and a bunch of old metal barrels were put in the back, lined along one side. Two long two-by-twelve boards were laid in on the floor.
The ambulance was the most work. It had been used as a grocer’s delivery truck most recently, so it had to be completely repainted, two coats of white sprayed on and then the red crosses painted in place. Lights that had been removed when it had stopped, being an ambulance were put back, and two boards like those in the van were put on the floor in back.
By Friday night they were ready. At nine-thirty all of them but Shelly and Rudd were in the Buick, parked by the North Gate. Kifka and Negli got out carrying folding chairs and brown paper bags full of sandwiches and look up their post by the gale. When the coast was clear, Kifka boosted Negli over the fence, then sat down on his camp chair and unfolded a newspaper to read by the streetlight. A couple of minutes later he folded the paper up again and stretched, which meant Negli had opened the door in the darkness to the right of the gate. Parker and Feccio and Clinger got out of the Buick, Parker carrying the two suitcases, Feccio and Clinger carrying blanket-wrapped parcels that were the machine guns.
The door was open, Negli inside waiting for them. They went through and shut the door and Negli took out a flashlight with electric tape over most of the glass in front, so when he flicked it on only a thin beam of light arrowed out to show them where they were.
Outside, Parker knew, Kifka would wait a few more minutes, then gather up his gear and get into the Buick and drive home. He and Shelly and Rudd wouldn’t have anything to do until tomorrow.
Inside, Negli led the way with the flashlight. They’d been over this route before, but this time it was easier because they had keys for all the doors. They settled into the finance office storeroom and waited for morning.
The day started early. Employees and guards dribbled in between seven and eight-thirty, and each was taken care of in turn. The guards were stripped of their uniforms, tied and gagged, and left in the storeroom with Negli holding one of the machine guns on them. With any operation of this kind, a machine gun’s main use was psychological. Nobody wanted to have to fire one of them, because of the mess and the racket they made, But merely showing a machine gun to a mark was usually enough to make him a lot more peaceful and agreeable than any other weapon could have.
After all the employees had arrived, the money started coming in. Feccio stood out of sight of the corridor door, holding the second machine gun on the employees seated at their tables. He and Parker, who answered the door every time more money arrived, were now dressed in guard uniforms. Clinger, now in shirt sleeves, played the part of an employee, accepting and signing for each delivery of money as it came in.
They had the employees stack the cash in the suitcases without counting it. The sacks of change that also came in were ignored, being too bulky and awkward for their value, as well as being almost impossible to spend.
Parker looked at his watch at eleven o’clock and knew the others were getting started on the outside. Rudd was getting the truck and driving it to a place seven blocks from the stadium, inside the city limits. Shelly by now
