after the robbery, in hopes that Parker would then simply go away again and leave him with a clear path to Claire. How much of this he’d figured out for himself, and how much Claire had put into his head, Parker neither knew nor cared. Just so Billy stopped being a problem, that was all that mattered.
“Some people,” Billy was saying, picking up a black suitcase and opening it on the glass top of one of the display cases, “carry their things this way. I do, too, when I’m going to have a lot. One of the bigger conventions.”
The interior of the suitcase was all many-layered compartments. Billy demonstrated how coins were nested in these compartments, all of which were lined with felt. Parker, watching, saw it would be a long job for anyone not used to it, though Billy’s hands moved with practiced speed, filling each compartment.
“All right,” Parker said. “I got the idea. What’s the other way?”
Billy immediately moved away from the suitcase, saying, “Some people, if they don’t have too much, they might carry things this way.” He took a small wooden cabinet down from a shelf, carried it over to the mailing table, put it down there. From the way he carried it, it was heavy. About sixteen inches high, six inches wide, a foot deep, it was all narrow drawers, with tiny round drawerpulls down the front, making it look like the control panel in a Victorian elevator.
“The advantage of this,” Billy said, taking a drawer out and setting it down on the table, “is you don’t really have to unpack. You just spread the drawers out on your table.”
The drawers were lined with felt and full of coins. Parker said, “How careful do you have to be, carrying this kind of thing?”
“Well, you can’t drop it, of course, but the felt does hold the coins pretty well. I can drive over a bumpy road with this in the back of the wagon and not have to worry.”
“All right. Anything else?”
“Looseleaf fillers.” Billy went over to a shelf and took down a black filler, saying, “Some people keep practically all their stock in books like this. I just do for some high-turnover items, the kind of thing twenty different people might look at before somebody buys.”
Parker took the filler and leafed through it. The interior was double-thickness pages of clear plastic, with coins inside against a white paper backing. “These’ll be easiest,” Parker said.
“Oh, sure. We just pick them up and carry them out. But not many people have these.”
“What do most have?”
“The large cases,” Billy said promptly. “They’ll be partly unpacked into the display cases on all the tables.”
“Some of the stuff will still be packed?”
“Oh, sure. Up to, I don’t know, maybe a quarter of the coins there. A lot of dealers bring more coins than they can display all at once in the space they’re given.”
“Good. Anything else?”
Billy looked around, squinting under the fluorescent light. “I guess not. I can’t think of anything.”
“All right,” Parker said. “I have something. Money.”
“Money?”
“You’re financing this thing,” Parker reminded him.
“I’m going to need two grand.”
“Two thous— What for?”
“Supplies,” Parker said.
“But— Two thousand dollars!”
Claire said quietly, “Don’t be stupid, Billy.”
Billy flushed, his forehead gleaming pink under the light. Not looking at Claire, he said stiffly, “When do yon want it?”
“Now.”
“The bank’s closed by now.”
Claire said warningly, “Billy.”
Billy licked his lips, frowned, moved his hands vaguely back and forth. “I’ll have to— You’ll have to look the other way.”
Parker shrugged. “Which way’s the other way?”
“That way,” he said, pointing shakily toward Claire.
Parker and Lempke faced Claire, and listened to Billy getting at a safe at the other end of the room. Claire, leaning against the wall, arms folded, smiled faintly and sardonically at Parker the whole time.
Finally Billy said, “It’s okay now.”
They turned around and Billy was standing there, embarrassed, holding a white envelope in his hand. Extending it to Parker, he said, “I’m sorry about that. But you can—you can understand how it is.”
“Sure.” Parker put the envelope in his pocket. “You two go on upstairs,” he said. “Lempke and I want to talk.”
Lempke raised his head slightly at the sound of his name, then let it sag again. Billy gave him a troubled glance, then smiled nervously and said, “Okay. You want anything to drink?”
