take care of a few other areas, and one of my areas is policy. You know, the numbers.”
Parker nodded. “I know.”
“Policy has never been a major source of income in this city,” Simms said, “because we just don’t have enough poor people. We’re above the national average in family income, and in employment rate. We don’t have the large sections of low-income housing that you need if you’re really going to run a large-scale policy operation.”
“Go ahead, Nate,” Lozini said. “Parker doesn’t need all that.”
“I wanted him to understand,” Simms said, “that I’m not running a huge operation there.” Back to Parker again, he said, “An accountant is what I am. If policy were big in Tyler, someone else would be in charge.”
“I get the point,” Parker said.
“So,” Simms said, “I can only talk from one small area of interest. But from my area of interest, this is a bad time to get involved in anything that could cause a great deal of trouble and expense and public involvement. Policy is down, it’s been down for the last three years and getting worse every year. We don’t have the cash reserves we once had, and we don’t have as secure a hold on the legitimate side as we once had.”
Lozini said, “I already said all that. Trouble coming in from everywhere, and Parker is what made me see it.”
“That was good,” Simms said. “I don’t deny that, Al, the stirring up was a good thing, it made us all aware of problems that had been creeping up on us with nobody paying any attention. What I’m saying is, we don’t want —”
The phone rang. Parker, looking at his watch, said, “That’s for me.”
Lozini gave an angry-ironic hand gesture, inviting Parker to pick up the receiver himself. He said, “Tell him it’s okay now, will you?”
Parker answered, saying, “Yes.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yes,” Parker said. If things had been wrong—a gun to his head, for instance—he would have said
“Good,” Grofield said.
“This won’t take much longer,” Parker said. “I’ll see you where and when we talked about.”
“Right.”
Parker hung up, and turned back to Nate Simms. “You were making a point.”
“That we can have too much of a good thing,” Simms said, “and then it isn’t a good thing any more. A little stirring up, that was good, it made us aware. Too much stirring up and the general public is going to get aware, and that isn’t good any way at all.”
“That’s why we’re all being friendly together,” Lozini said. “Parker and us, all chums. We’ll stay nice and quiet from now on, just dealing inside our own organization. Because that’s where the trouble is. O’Hara was one of ours, whoever he went to for help was one of ours, and whoever got the money had to be connected with us, one way or another. Had to be.”
“I just want us to wait,” Simms said. “Wait till after the election, that’s only Tuesday, only three days away.”
“No,” Lozini said. “After the election I could be in worse shape than I am now. I want to know what’s happening, I want to know who has to get weeded out.” He gestured at Parker. “And why should he wait?”
“I won’t,” Parker said.
Simms turned a reasonable face to Parker, saying, “Why not? It’s to your advantage, too. If we cause too much disruption, we’ll have police authorities in here that we can’t deal with or work our way around, and you could wind up in as much trouble as the rest of us.”
Parker said, “Pressure is the only thing I’ve got on you people. Lozini wants to do some housecleaning, fine, but he doesn’t need me to help. The only way I get my money is if I keep pressure on. I won’t call time-out for three days, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Simms’ face screwed up in a combination of disappointment and hard thinking as he worked that out. “I suppose so,” he said reluctantly. “I suppose I can see it from your side.”
Harold Calesian, smiling in a patronizing way, said, “You did your best, Nate.”
Lozini said, “That’s right, Nate. What you’re saying is smart from a nice calm accountant’s point of view. But that’s not where we’re at. Where we’re at is halfway across the rope with no net. This is no place to stop.”
Simms shrugged, displaying resignation. “I guess that’s the way it’s got to be,” he said.
Lozini said, “All right. What we’re going to do is, Ted and Frank, you’re going to take a look at everybody that was in on the amusement-park thing two years ago. Maybe the cop corrupted one of my people, you never know. I want to be sure they’re clean, every last one of them.”
“Fine,” Faran said, and Shevelly said, “When do you want it by?”
“Do it tomorrow,” Lozini told him. “I gave you the list of names, you get together with Frank and work it out.”
“Okay.”
Calesian said, “I’ll check into O’Hara’s partner, the old one.”
Parker told him, “And any other cop O’Hara might have talked to. Anybody he knew that well.”
“That’s a tall order,” Calesian said. “Particularly without anybody noticing what I’m doing. Running a check on one patrolman is easy, I can slip it into routine business, but when you get to ten or fifteen men, it gets
