all made your money.”
Hurley, looking satisfied, as though he thought maybe he finally did see that thumb resting on the scale after all, said, “What kind of a piece of work, Parker?”
Parker got to his feet, took the small white box from his pocket, took the top off it, and put the box on the coffee table amid the papers. Then he stood back and let them study it.
That wasn’t the butcher’s thumb; Hurley’s lips curled back in distaste and he said, “Who is it, Parker?”
“A guy named Grofield.”
Dan Wycza said, “Alan Grofield?”
“That’s right.”
Frank Elkins said, “Yeah, I remember him. He worked with us in Copper Canyon.”
“That’s right,” Wycza said. “He’s the clown brought the girl out with him. Telephone girl.”
Nick Dalesia said, “I worked with a guy named Grofield once. An actor.”
“That’s the one,” Wycza said.
Ralph Wiss said, “A very humorous type of fella.”
“Right,” Dalesia said.
“I don’t know him,” Hurley said. He made it sound belligerent, and his manner was aggressive as he looked around the room at the others. “Do I know this guy?”
Nobody answered him. Ed Mackey said, “I know him. We got together once on something that didn’t work out. Seemed like a good guy.”
Wycza said, “Wha’d he ever do with the telephone girl?”
“Married her,” Parker said. “They run a summer theater together in Indiana.”
“A love story,” Wycza said, and grinned.
Handy McKay said, “I know Alan. What happened to him? How’d he lose that finger?”
“He and I did a job here a couple years ago,” Parker said, and told them the story in a few quick highlights: the money in Fun Island, Lozini, Buenadella, Dulare. When he finished, Tom Hurley said, “I get it. These are mob places we’re hitting.”
“That’s right.”
Fred Ducasse said, “We put pressure on them, then you tell them to turn over Grofield and the cash or they’ll get hit again.”
Ralph Wiss had been sitting there paying no apparent attention to the conversation, seeming to be sunk in his own thoughts. Now he said, “That won’t work.”
“I know it,” Parker said. “That’s not what I have in mind.”
Ducasse, turning to Wiss, asked, “Why won’t it work? They’ll want their places left alone, won’t they?”
“I know this kind of people,” Wiss said. “They’re not used to losing a fight, they don’t know how to go about it. They’ll spend double the money to bring in more talent, guard everything they own, and start hunting for Parker.”
Stan Devers said, “While they send him a finger a day. That’s sweet.”
Hurley said, “So what do you want, Parker?”
“I want Grofield back,” Parker said, “and I want my money. And I want those people dead.”
Hurley gestured, wanting more. He said, “So?”
“So I set you people up with scores, you go do them, you’ve got good money you wouldn’t have had. You’ll all be finished, back here, by when? Three, four in the morning?”
Most of them shrugged in agreement. Hurley bobbed his head, saying, “Probably. Then what?”
“Then you come with me,” Parker said. “The twelve of us hit Buenadella’s house and get Grofield out of there. And if they moved him somewhere, we find out where and go hit that place.” He checked off names on his fingers, saying, “And we make them dead. Buenadella. Calesian. Dulare.”
His intensity had startled them a little. Nobody said anything until Handy McKay, speaking very quietly, said, “That’s not like you.”
What kind of shit was this? Parker had expected a back-up from Handy, not questions. He said, “What’s not like me?”
“A couple things,” Handy said. “For one, to go to all this trouble for somebody else. Grofield, me, anybody. We all of us here know we got to take care of ourselves, we’re not the Travelers Aid Society. You, too. And the same with Grofield. What happens to him is up to him.”
“Not when they send him to me piece by piece,” Parker said. “If they kill him, that’s one thing. If they turn him over to the law, get him sent up, that’s his lookout. But these bastards rang
Handy spread his hands, letting that point go. “The other thing,” he said, “is revenge. I’ve never seen you do anything but play the hand you were dealt. Now all of a sudden you want a bunch of people dead.”
Parker got to his feet. He’d been patient a long time, he’d explained things over and over, and now he was getting itchy. Enough was enough. “I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s like me or not. These people nailed my foot to the floor, I’m going around in circles, I’m not getting anywhere. When was it like me to take lumps and just
