and then went back and made two phone calls, one to Mike Abadandi and the other to Artie Pulsone. Both were free, and he told them he’d be right by to pick them up.
He went to the kitchen next and said, “I got to go out for a while. On business.”
Rose looked around at him. “You’ll be home for dinner?”
“I’ll call you. If I can.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
He went back through the house to the front hall and opened the closet door there. He put on his black-and- white-checked hunting jacket and his brown-billed cap. Leaning against the back wall was his rifle, a lever-action .30-30 carbine, a weapon he was proud of. Thirty-eight inches and six and a half pounds, adjustable open rear sight, tapered post front sight, seven-shot capacity, a good reliable weapon. He had a Firearms International .22-caliber automatic in his jacket pocket, but should he take the rifle, too? Maybe he should have asked Mr. Lozini what was the situation, except he was always tongue-tied on those rare occasions when Mr. Lozini himself called, and besides, if Mr. Lozini had wanted to tell him the situation he would have told him.
So he’d take the rifle. Be on the safe side, take it along in the car.
There was an old pink blanket on the shelf, small and tattered. He took it down and wrapped the rifle in it, disguising it slightly, and carried it out to his car, a pale green Dodge station wagon. He put it on the back seat, got behind the wheel, and backed out the driveway to the street. Then he drove away to pick up Mike and Artie.
Five
CALIATO’S CIGAR was nearly done. The perfect round lengths of gray-white ash lay like tiny barrels in the glass ashtray on the desk, and the whole room was full now of the warm aroma of cigar smoke. Caliato carefully eased another length of ash from the tip, put the cigar back in his mouth, and glanced out the side tollbooth window again.
Three police cars had gone by in the last fifteen minutes, two out Brower Road in the direction O’Hara and Dunstan had taken and one back this way, toward Abelard Road. None of the cops had so much as glanced at the Lincoln parked beside the building here.
Benniggio was still perched on the edge of the other desk, looking out the window at the gates across the way. He’d been there over half an hour now. At first he’d tried to keep a conversation going, but Caliato hadn’t felt much like talking, and it couldn’t have been easy for Benniggio anyway, having to talk to somebody while keeping his back turned, so for the last quarter-hour they’d waited in silence.
Nothing had happened across the way yet, but that was only natural. It would take the guy in there a while to find out what kind of a box he was in. Would he then try to get out again? That would be the easiest, from Caliato’s point of view. Wait till he’d tossed his suitcase back over the gate and was climbing over after it. Then step outside and pot him. Pick up the suitcase, get into the car, drive away. Leave the body there. If it ever was connected to the robbery, it would just be a fourth man, not the one O’Hara and Dunstan had reported getting away with the swag.
But Caliato doubted it would happen that way. It depended on how much of an amateur he was, that guy over there, and Caliato had the feeling he hadn’t been an amateur for a long time. If he was a pro, that guy, he wouldn’t try to leave the park at all. He’d find a cozy place in there to hole up for a day or two until the outside world cooled, and then be out and on his way.
Was there any food in there now? Maybe in the kitchens of the restaurants, some staples, some canned stuff. Not much, though, if anything. The guy probably had a two-day limit before he’d have to come out.
Not that he’d be around for two days.
He wondered if the guy was pro enough to walk out when O’Hara called him. That was Caliato’s plan, to have O’Hara and Dunstan make themselves plain in their police uniforms, have them call to the guy to surrender himself. They had a loud-hailer in their patrol car, they could make themselves heard wherever he was hiding in the park.
A pro would come out. There hadn’t been any killings, just the robbery. A pro would know enough to come out and take a prison sentence rather than stay holed up and have to be shot.
But you could never be sure. The guy might panic, having his robbery go haywire might make him act stupid and unprofessional. Or he might be wanted for murder somewhere else, it might be pointless for him to give himself up. Which was why Caliato had said yes to Lozini’s offer of three men. He could spare three hundred dollars to have three men in reserve, just in case O’Hara and Dunstan failed.
Motion made him look out of his side window, and a pale green Dodge station wagon was just arriving. It stopped out in the street, and then backed around and in beside the Lincoln, where O’Hara’s patrol car had been. Caliato watched, wondering who Lozini had sent him, and looked at the three bulky men who got out of the car.
Tony Chaka. Good. Mike Abadandi. Fair. Artie Pulsone. Good.
Caliato said, “Open the door, Benny, we’ve got company.”
Benniggio started as though he’d been asleep. “Oh! Right.” He got up from the desk and stretched, groaning, then shook his shoulders inside his overcoat and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Let me put one of them to work on the window here, okay?”
“Naturally,” Caliato said.
Benniggio went over and opened the door and they trooped in, their breath steaming. Chaka came first, Pulsone second, Abadandi third. “Hi, Benny,” Chaka said. “Hello, Mr. Caliato.”
Caliato nodded hello. He waited till Benniggio had shut the door again and then said, “Did Lozini tell you the story?”
“No, sir, Mr. Caliato, he said you’d fill us in.”
Caliato said, “Benny, get on the window again for a minute.”
Benniggio raised his eyes to heaven, but grinned to show it was just a gag. He went back over to the window, but this time didn’t sit down. He stood there with one forearm on the window sill and looked out.
