“There’s a way,” she said, trying to sound as though she believed it. “There’s a way to do anything, if you look for it.”
“Sing that,” he said.
“Damn it,” she flared, “you’re supposed to be the professional, why don’t you think of something?”
“I have.” He went over to the bed and stretched out on his back, hands behind his head.
“You have? What?”
“We stay away from the security room. We hit the bourse room late Saturday night.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe there’s no job in it at all, but if there is one it’s in the bourse room Saturday night.”
“But everything’s all unpacked then,” she said.
“Good. We can pick and choose, just take the best stuff.”
She was half-smiling, half-doubtful, hopeful, uncertain. She said, “Do you really suppose it can be done that way?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Lebatard some questions. Phone him now and tell him we’ll see him in the morning.”
She started to turn toward the phone, then looked back, saying, “In the morning?”
“It’s up to you,” he said.
“And if I say no, the deal’s off?”
“Wrong. If you say no, you leave now and come back for me in the morning.”
She seemed to consider, standing there near the phone.”That would be a lot of extra driving, wouldn’t it?”
He got off the bed and reached for her. A while later she made the call.
Seven
“IT WON’T work that way,” said Billy.
They were all in the backyard, at about ten-thirty in the morning. There was a small stone fireplace at the rear of the yard, at which Billy was cooking hamburgers. The wood he’d used wasn’t completely dry, and was smoking badly.
Lempke was sitting on the bottom step of the back stoop, a beer can in his hand. He was wearing an old straw hat, and squinting against the sun. Claire, in blue slacks and white top, was sitting in a ribbed lawn chair, the only piece of furniture back there. Parker, restless and intent, was prowling around the scruffy yard like a panther in an outdoor enclosure at the zoo.
Parker said, “What’s the problem? Why won’t it work?”
“You take valuable coins,” Billy said, gesturing with the spatula, “you just drop a lot of them in a canvas sack, carry them off someplace, dump them out on a table, you know what you’ve done?”
Parker said, “Tell me.”
“You’ve lowered their value,” Billy told him, “by maybe twenty-five per cent. Coins are more delicate than you might think. They rub together, knock together, the value goes right down. You go from unc to VF just like that.”
“Billy,” Claire said wearily, “they don’t know those terms.”
“I’ve got the idea,” Parker said. “The point is, we’ve got to pack them up, right?”
“Time, Parker,” Lempke said. “Time, time.” Having had an extra night to think things over, Lempke had turned pessimistic and was now being discouraged and gloomy about the whole project.
Parker said, “It all depends.” He turned back to Billy. “You say there’ll be a hundred dealers there.”
“About that. Maybe a few more, a few less.”
“You don’t want everything they’ve got.”
“Not a bit,” said Billy. “Some of the coins are too rare, I wouldn’t dare to try to sell them without being able to show where I got them.”
“And some,” Parker suggested, “aren’t worth enough to take.”
“Foreign coins,” Claire said.
“That’s right,” said Billy. “We don’t want foreign coins, except maybe Canadian and Mexican. Mostly American we want.”
Parker said, “So what’s that cut it to? Half of the stuff there?”
“Oh, less than that.” Billy thought, squinting in the smoke from his fire. “Maybe a third,” he said. “Maybe only a quarter.”
Lempke said, “Your burgers are burnin’ up.”
“Oh!”
Parker watched Billy, his head down in the smoke, turning his hamburgers. When he was done, Parker said, “How long would it take to pack up one dealer’s stock?”
