Firebreak

Meany licked his lips. His elbows were twitching back and forth from the strain of holding his hands together on top of his head. 'One of the owners,' he said. 'A guy that can make the offer.'

'What's his name?'

Meany didn't like doing this, but knew he had no choice. 'Joseph Albert.'

Parker looked at Arthur. 'Do you know that name?'

'I never knew any of the owners,' Arthur said.

Meany said, 'There's five guys have an interest in Cosmopolitan. Albert's the one I know, the one put me here.'

'We'll try it,' Parker decided, and glanced toward the window, with its view of the aisle and the stacked boxes. Sooner or later, someone would walk by out there. He said, 'Arthur, get up and take a lace out of one of Meany's shoes.'

'Right.'

'You on the floor,' Parker said, 'get up.'

The man scrambled to his feet, looking back and forth between Parker and Meany.

Parker said, 'Move your friend against the wall under the window, then sit in that chair over there.'

When the body was moved where Parker wanted, it couldn't be seen from the aisle outside. Parker turned back to Arthur, who now stood with a shoelace in his hand. 'Good,' he said. 'Meany, put your hands in front of yourself like you're praying.'

'I am praying,' Meany said. He put his palms together.

Parker said, 'Arthur, tie his thumbs together. Tight. Meany, is that a speakerphone?'

'Sure.'

'Done,' Arthur said, and stepped back from Meany.

There was one other chair in the room. Parker backed to it, saying, 'Arthur, put the guns in the waste-basket. Meany, sit at the desk. Arthur, stand beside him and dial the phone. Copy down the number he calls.'

Meany awkwardly fitted himself into his desk chair, cumbersome without the use of his hands. 'Mr. Albert isn't gonna like this,' he said.

'Tell Arthur the number.'

It was a Manhattan area code. Arthur wrote it on Meany's desk pad, then pressed the speakerphone button and dialed. They all listened to two rings, and then a woman's voice said, 'Enterprises, good afternoon.'

'Mr. Albert, please.'

'Who shall I say is calling?'

'Frank Meany.'

'One moment.'

Enterprises' on-hold music was Vivaldi. Through it,

Meany said to Parker, 'Saying things on the phone isn't easy. You know what I mean, anybody listening in.'

'You'll figure it out,' Parker said.

'I'm motivated, you mean,' Meany said.

They listened to Vivaldi for four minutes. Then the woman came back on the line to say, 'Mr. Meany?'

'Yeah.'

'If you're in the office, Mr. Albert will call you back in ten minutes.'

'Now,' Parker said, and the woman, confused, said, 'What?'

'Tell Mr. Albert,' Meany said, 'it's kind of urgent. He can talk to me from right there.'

'One moment.'

Vivaldi again. Meany, apologetic, said, 'He was going to another phone. You know, so it wouldn't be in the office.'

'I'm not gonna spend much more time here,' Parker said.

Meany looked down at his tied-together thumbs. 'I'm calling him,' he said. 'I'm doing all I can do.'

Vivaldi answered him, for another half-minute, and then a new voice, heavy, guarded, came on, saying, 'Frank?'

'Hello, Mr. Albert.' Meany sounded nervous in a different way now. Parker was an immediate lethal problem, Mr. Albert a longer-term problem, maybe also lethal. 'I'm sorry to interrupt you,' he said, 'but I got a decision to make, and I need your okay.'

'What decision?'

'Well, sir,' Meany said, hunched forward over his praying hands while small lines of perspiration ran down either side of his face, 'you remember we had an arrangement with a Mr. Parker after we stopped dealing with Mr. Charov.'