Comeback

'Not one of us,' Parker said.

'Not for a minute,' Mackey said.

'He works for the preacher,' Liss said. 'And now he's mad at him.'

'Greedy? Wants a bigger slice?'

'Just the reverse,' Liss said, and half his face laughed. 'Ol' Tom got religion.'

'Just tell it to me,' Parker said.

Mackey patted the top of the seatback, as though calming a horse. 'It's a good story, Parker,' he said. 'Wait for it.'

People had to tell their stories their own way, with all the pointless extras. 'Go ahead,' Parker said, and sat back to wait it out.

Liss said, 'I had twenty-nine months' parole last time I got out. It was easier, just hang around and do it, then have a paper out on me the rest of my life. This guy Archibald, one of his scams is, his people volunteer to give this counseling to ex-cons. It's all crap and everybody knows it, it's just to find new suckers, and to get some kinda tax break.'

'A cash business,' Parker said. 'He's doing okay with taxes anyway.'

'Oh, you know he is. But William Archibald, he's one of those guys, the more you give him to drink, the thirstier he gets. So I drew this guy

Tom Carmody to be my counselor, once a week he'd come around the place I was living, and then when he'd fill out the sheet, that meant I didn't have to go in to the parole office. A good deal for everybody. And after the first few weeks, we pretty much come clean with each other, and after that we'd just watch basketball on the tube or something, or have a beer around the corner. I mean, he knew what I was and no problem, and I knew what scam he was on, so we just got on with life. Except sometimes he'd go on crusades, and —'

Parker said, 'Crusades?'

'When Archibald takes his show on the road,' Liss explained. 'Rents a hall, a movie house, a stadium, someplace big, does his act three, four times, brings in a couple mil, takes it all home again. Tom was one of the staff guys he brought along on these things, so then I'd get some gung ho trainee from the office instead, and I'd have to be real serious and rehabilitated and grateful as hell to Jesus and all this shit, and then when Tom came back we'd laugh about it. Only, then, about the last six months—yeah, two years we're dealing bullshit and we both knew it, and then the last six months he began to change it all around. Not trying to reform me or nothing. It was Archibald he got agitated about.'

Brenda spoke again, this time drily: 'He noticed Mister Archibald was insincere.'

'He got hung up on the money,' Liss said. 'How Archibald takes all the suckers for all this money, and it doesn't go anywhere good. I dunno, Parker, it wasn't the scam that got ol' Tom riled up, it still isn't. It's what happens with the money after Archibald trims the rubes. He'd talk about all the good that money could do, you know, feed the homeless and house the hungry and all this, and then he wanted to know was there any way I knew that he could get a bunch of that cash. Not for himself, you see, but to do good works with it.'

Parker said, 'It was his idea?'

'Absolutely. The guy's a civilian, I only know him two years, and he's tied to the parole board. Am I gonna say, 'Hey, Tom, let's pull a number'? No way.'

'But you went along.'

Liss shook his head. 'Not at first. One of the few big words I know is entrapment. So at first I'd just nod and say well, that's a real bitch, Tom, and all this. And when he finally came out with it—-'Hey, George, let's do it together, you with your expert background and me with my inside information'—I told him no, I told him I'm retired, it isn't I'm reformed I just don't want to go back inside. Which was almost the truth, by the way.'

Parker nodded. For a lot of people, that was almost the truth almost all the time.

'Also,' Liss said, 'I told him I didn't much care where money went that didn't come to me, whether this money fed Archibald or fed some other people made no difference to me, and he said he understood. He understood for me it would be more of a business proposition. So he suggested we split fifty-fifty, and I'd put my share in my pocket and he'd give his to the poor.'

'Us poor,' Mackey said.

Parker knew what Mackey meant. Glancing at him, 'If,' he said.

'Naturally.'

Liss went on, saying, 'Finally I said I'd pass him on to somebody who was still active in the game, but he said no, he wouldn't trust anybody but me, so then I figured I could take the chance. If he was out to trap somebody for the law, he wouldn't care who he brought in, right? He'd let me pass him on to somebody else, work his number just as good. Since he didn't do that, then he probably wasn't pulling anything. So then we started to get kind of serious, talking it over, him giving me the details about the money, and I saw how maybe it could be done. And here we are.'

Parker said, 'And the theory is, the inside guy takes half, and we split the other half. However many of us it is doing the thing.'

'That's the theory.'

'Does he buy it?' Parker shook his head, rejecting his own question, rephrasing it: 'What I mean, does he believe it?'

'That he'll get his half?' Liss did his lopsided smile. 'That's the big question, isn't it? He's kind of hard to read since he changed, you know. Used to be, he was an easygoing guy, now he's all tensed up. Relaxed guys are harder to fool, but tensed-up guys are harder to read.'