There was a little pause, and then, 'That's right,' Mr. Albert said.
'Well, Mr. Parker's here with me now,' Meany said, 'in the office, and he'd like to end the arrangement, you know, just not have a relationship with Cosmopolitan at all any more, and I told him I thought that was the right thing to do, but we both know I got to get an okay from higher up, so he thought I should call you, and I thought that was a good idea.'
Mr. Albert said, 'He's there with you now?'
'Yes, sir.'
Parker said, 'On the speakerphone.'
'Ah,' Mr. Albert said.
Parker said, 'If you want, I could finish up with Frank here and come discuss it with you personally.'
'No, I don't think— I don't think that would be necessary, Mr. Parker.'
'But the other thing is,' Parker said, 'I'll need some way to get in touch with Paul Brock. I mean, if you and I are finished with one another, then that just leaves the Paul Brock situation, and I think I ought to deal with that myself. Not put you people to any more effort.'
There was a little pause, and Mr. Albert said, 'Paul Brock is a valuable asset to our company, Mr. Parker.'
'I understand that,' Parker said. 'Like Frank here.'
'Ah. What it comes down to is, I have a choice to make.'
Parker waited. Meany said, 'I think Mr. Parker's way is gonna work out best for us, Mr. Albert.'
'On balance,' Mr. Albert said, 'I believe you're right. So Mr. Parker needs a way to get in touch with Brock.'
Parker said, 'Yeah, I need that.'
'Frank, you go ahead and give Mr. Parker Brock's address. I don't believe I have it here myself.'
'Okay, Mr. Albert,' Meany said.
Parker leaned a little closer to the phone. He said, 'But you do go along with Frank's idea here, that we don't have any more business together.'
'Happily,' Mr. Albert said. 'To be honest, I always felt it was a diversification we shouldn't have gone into. We let... a certain proprietary sense cloud our judgment.'
'Everybody makes mistakes,' Parker said.
'Well, I'm happy we have the opportunity to correct this one,' Mr. Albert said. 'Frank, is there anything else?'
'No, sir,' Meany said, eager to get this finished, now that it seemed to be working out. 'Just needed your okay to end the arrangement with Mr. Parker.'
'It's ended. Goodbye, Mr. Parker,' Mr. Albert said, and the dial tone sounded until Arthur found the button to switch off the speakerphone.
10
Parker said, 'Arthur, write Brock's address on the same sheet as that phone number.'
'You can trust Mr. Albert,' Meany said.
Parker waited.
Meany turned to Arthur. 'Brock and Rosenstein are over in New York, in Greenwich Village. It's four-one-four Bleecker.'
As Arthur wrote that down, Parker said, 'Brock hired Charov for his own personal reason, but Brock was already connected here.'
'He's like a supplier,' Meany said. 'He doesn't work regular for us.'
'But he's another valuable asset. What makes him valuable?'
'You don't know?' Meany was surprised. 'Electronics. He does all our debugging, all the phone lines in all our operations, comes through on a regular basis, like the exterminator. And specialty stuff. He made those bombs, set that up.'
Parker nodded. 'Gave you people one more reason to help him get rid of me.'
Meany shrugged. 'Seemed like it ought to be easy.'
Arthur said, 'Is Albert going to warn Brock we're coming?'
'No,' Meany said. 'We want no more of this. If Mr. Albert calls Brock, and Parker finds out about it, here he comes again.'
'No,' Parker said. 'I'd go see Albert.'
'He knows that, too,' Meany said.
Parker got to his feet, put the .32 away in his pocket, picked the Beretta off the floor. 'You two walk us out to the car,' he said.
