'He isn't careless,' Felton said. 'He-'
'I don't like working with a man who can't separate his professional and private lives.'
'Not everyone's as fanatical about that as you are,' the old man said. 'Lots of guys have been in the business for years and years, not separating anything, and they haven't taken any falls. I can name dozens.'
'Sooner or later they'll get bitten,' Tucker said.
'Then you aren't interested in this?' Felton asked.
'I'm interested,' Tucker said. He had to be interested because he needed the money. He took a note pad and pen from his jacket pocket and copied down Frank Meyers' address.
'I'm sure you'll like the setup once Frank explains it to you,' Felton said. 'If you don't? Tell Frank to let me know if you aren't interested. I know I can find someone else for him.'
'I'll do that,' Tucker said.
'It really is a sweet job, Mike.'
'I hope so. I need it right now. Otherwise, I wouldn't even give this one a second thought.'
'He's good. I guarantee it.'
'Give Dotty my love,' Tucker said as the young couple stopped at the telephone next to his.
'Good luck, Mike.'
'Sure,' Tucker said, hooking the receiver in its cradle. He smiled at the girl, nodded at the boy, and walked back toward the main stairs.
The apartment house on Seventy-ninth Street was not yet unfit enough to be slated for demolition, but it was getting there. The front steps were badly cracked and hoved up, the concrete eroding away as if it were not much sturdier than loose sand. Scarred, badly weathered, the outer foyer door was centered with a sheet of heavy, cracked, grime-smeared glass. The foyer itself, dirty and dimly lighted, boasted a rather complex mosaic floor, but more than a hundred of the tiny tiles were missing.
Tucker checked the mailboxes against the address that Clitus Felton had given him: Meyers, 3C. He did not have to ring Meyers to get inside the building because the security lock on the inner door was broken. Anyone could walk in and out as he pleased. Tucker went in and climbed the steps to the third floor.
The man who answered the door of 3C looked more like cheap muscle than an idea man. He was about six feet, weighed maybe two-twenty, giving him three inches and sixty pounds on Tucker. His face was square and hard, framed by short yellow hair and enlivened by a pair of intensely blue eyes.
'Meyers?' Tucker asked.
'Yeah?' His voice was low and rough. Tucker knew the sound of it and what it meant. Someone had once stomped on the big man's throat, giving him an Andy Devine imitation for a voice. His neck was not inflamed or swollen, which meant it had happened a long time ago.
'I'm Tucker.'
Meyers blinked, surprised. He wiped one hand across his face, trying to pull off his confusion as if it were a mask. His bright blue eyes seemed slightly unfocused. 'But? You just called a couple of minutes ago.'
'I used the telephone booth on the corner.'
'Oh.'
Standing there in the shabby hallway where he might be seen by anyone entering or leaving another apartment, Tucker was getting impatient with Meyers. 'Do I have to say a secret password or something?'
'What?' Meyers asked.
'To get in. I need a secret word?'
'Oh, no. Sorry,' the big man said, stepping back out of the way. 'Didn't expect you so soon, that's all. You caught me off guard.'
Tucker was uncomfortably certain that it did not take much to catch Frank Meyers off guard. How in the hell had a sound head like Clitus Felton become involved with an ox like this?
He entered the apartment, sidled past Meyers, and went on through the dingy little reception area. The living room measured ten by twenty feet and had four large windows, yet it seemed like a closet. The walls had once been clean and white but had since yellowed and now were gradually turning brown at the edges as if subjected to a great and relentless heat. Like lumps of charred matter, the furniture was all dark and heavy and ugly. Everything was overstuffed, shapeless. And there was too much of it: a pair of squat gray sofas, three unmatched easy chairs, a low-slung coffee table, end tables, pole lamps, table lamps, a desk, a hutch, a television set? Tucker thought the place must have come furnished and that Meyers had added considerable belongings of his own to what the landlord provided.
'Sit down, sit down!' the big man said, motioning to the easy chairs. Tucker sat on one of the sofas. 'Can I get you something to drink?'
'No, thanks,' Tucker said.
'A beer? I've got Scotch, vodka, rum? How about a rum and Coke?' He rubbed his hands together incessantly. They were calloused and made a soft hissing noise.
He could see that Meyers was nervous-rather, curiously agitated. Though he did not want a drink at eleven- thirty in the morning, he was willing to take one if it would help to relax the other man. 'Vodka and ice. But a small one.'
'Sure,' Meyers said. 'Back in a second.' He went out to the kitchen, where he started rattling bottles and glasses.
Tucker studied the room more closely than he had been able to do when Meyers was there. He saw that the place was not only overcrowded with furniture but cluttered as well with dirty whiskey glasses, week-old newspapers, empty and crumpled cigarette packages? The worn maroon carpet had not been swept for weeks, perhaps not for months. The end tables, television, and coffee tables were sheathed in jackets of gray dust.
Could Frank Meyers possibly be an idea man, a group leader? The concept was ludicrous as far as Tucker was concerned. How could Meyers conceive, plan, and execute an intricate crime when he could not even manage to keep his own living room clean? What was wrong with Clitus Felton? Why would he work with a man like this? Or was it possible that the old man had known Meyers years ago when he was something better than he seemed to be now?
Meyers, returned from the kitchen and gave Tucker his drink. He took his own whiskey over to one of the easy chairs and, holding the small glass in both hands, sat down.
For the first time Tucker saw that the man reflected his sloppily kept apartment. His trousers were unpressed, his white shirt a rumpled mess. He had not shaved in a couple of days, and his yellow whiskers were beginning to cast soft shadows over his face.
'You aren't what I expected,' Meyers said.
'Oh?'
'I thought you'd be older.'
'I'm twenty-nine,' Tucker said.
'That's awfully young.' Meyers sipped his whiskey and watched Tucker over the rim of the glass. His eyes were wide and slightly bloodshot.
'You?' Tucker asked.
'Forty-one.'
'You aren't that far ahead of me.'
'How long you been in the business?'
'About three and a half years,' Tucker said.
'Pulled my first job more than twenty years ago.' He sounded faintly nostalgic, like a high school jock recalling his biggest game, as if he longed to relive those early years.
That was a bad sign. When a man began to yearn for the past, he was not doing very well in the present. And when a thief longed for the past, it also meant that he expected to get nailed by the cops in the near future. It meant he was losing faith in himself and that he could not be fully trusted.
Tucker knew he should stand up and get out of there. He could see that Meyers was trouble.
But he did need the money? His share from the hijacking of a Mafia cash collection, split only three months ago, had run out even though it had been a substantial sum. He lived extremely well, and he wanted to keep living extremely well, wanted to keep the Park Avenue apartment, the art work, all of it
