Fusco said, “Maybe some ice water. Okay?”
“Go ahead.”
Fusco was medium height and very thin. His face was lined as though he worried a lot. Parker hadn’t seen him in ten years, but he didn’t seem to have aged at all. Having been inside had affected his stomach, and maybe was making him act so hesitant, but it hadn’t been bad for his appearance.
Parker waited while Fusco built himself a glass of ice water, and then he said, “You could of tried looking like a tourist.”
Fusco frowned like a man worried about constipation, his forehead laddering, and said, “Christ, Parker, not me. I put them Bermuda shorts on, hang a camera around my neck, I look like a pickpocket headed for Aqueduct. I got to stay who I am.”
Parker shrugged. “Anyway, you’re here.”
“I got the address from Handy.”
That was unnecessary to have said; Handy McKay was the only one Parker had given the address to. Parker had some of his drink and waited.
Fusco said. “I don’t like letters through the mails, you know? And telephone calls when it’s a complicated thing like this. So I figured I’d come down myself, personally, tell you about it.”
Parker sat there and waited to be told.
Fusco looked worried again. “Handy said you were looking for work. I wouldn’t of come down otherwise.”
Fusco had to have some kind of reassurance, or he’d never get to the point. Parker said, “I’m available.”
Fusco flashed a brief nervous smile of relief. “That’s good,” he said. “I’m glad.” But then he didn’t say anything more.
Parker prodded a little, saying, “You’ve got something on?”
“Right. You remember that wife I had? Ellen?”
Parker vaguely remembered hearing that Fusco had married, but it had been only five or six years ago, long since Parker’s last meeting with him. But it was simpler to nod and say, “Yeah, I remember.”
“I don’t know if you ever met her—”
“I didn’t.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Anyway, she divorced me when I got sent up. A little over three years ago. You know I got a daughter?”
Parker shook his head, not giving a damn. “I didn’t know that,” he said.
“Three years old,” Fusco said. “Four in July.”
Afraid Fusco was going to come out with baby pictures in a minute, Parker said, “What’s this got to do with the job?”
“I’m getting to it,” Fusco promised. “Ellen, now, after she divorced me she went back home to Monequois, that’s a little town in upstate New York, near the border. You know, the Canada border.”
Parker nodded, holding his impatience in check. The only thing to do with these run-off-at-the-mouth people was wait them out, they’d get it all said sooner or later. Try to rush them and they’d just get derailed and leave out half the things you should know.
“She lived with her folks for a while,” Fusco said, “but I guess they gave her a bad time. About me, or something. So she went off on her own and got a job at a bar outside of town there. See, there’s this Air Force base there, it’s huge, and across the road from the gate there’s all these bars, you know?”
Parker nodded.
Fusco said, “After a while she started shacking up with one of the guys from the base. Stan Devers, his name is. What the hell, I don’t blame her. She’s divorced in the first place, and I’m in stir, so why not?”
Where was all this leading? Parker couldn’t see a job anywhere in the story yet, and it was spreading out wider and wider all the time, getting more and more soap opera. Parker said, “What’s the point of all this?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Fusco said. “You got to understand the background, is all.”
Parker shrugged. “All right, Let’s hear the background.”
“The main thing,” Fusco said, “is this guy Stan Devers. He’s just a kid, you know, maybe twenty-three, twenty- four. Younger than Ellen, you know? But he’s okay. When I first got out, and went up to see Ellen and the kid, and there’s all these uniforms and things in the closet, I got mad, you know? Naturally. Also I was a little short, I didn’t have nothing stashed away when I took the rap. So I tried to lean a little on this Devers kid, and he was a real surprise. He’s a sharp kid, he knows his way around. He’s never been in on anything like our stuff, you know, but he’s cool.”
“You couldn’t badger-game him, you mean.”
Fusco shrugged, not seeing any humor in it. “It was worth a try,” he said, “but with Stan it wouldn’t work out. But we got to know each other, you know? Sit around, have a Coke or whatever, throw a little bull. He’s a good kid.”
Parker said, “So now you’re buddies. And he’s got an idea for a heist.”
”It was my idea,” Fusco said. “He wasn’t sure at first but I talked him into it and now he’s a hundred per cent. And I know what you’re thinking about amateurs, but not in this case. Stan’s as good as half the pros in the business.”
Parker said, “Half the pros in the business are in the big house.”
