the professional and the victim. From either perspective the Skorpion passed muster.
'Nice work,' Imrie said.
'Yes.'
'They were proud of their product.'
Tucker held up the pistol, sighted along the barrel through the framework of the collapsed wire stock. 'It's ugly enough. But how accurate is it?'
'When it's a pistol, it's about as accurate as anything you've ever carried. At least it will be when I get finished with it.'
'And as a submachine gun?'
'Only half as good. But a submachine gun doesn't need to be as precise as a pistol, right?'
'Right.'
'And if you use it, you'll probably only want it as a pistol,' Imrie said.
'How much work do they need?'
Imrie looked at the three pistols, at the tools on his workbench, sucked on a tooth while he thought about it. 'Oh? I suppose I could have them ready for you around noon on Monday. How would that be?'
'Fine,' Tucker said. 'Ammunition?'
'I already have that,' Imrie said. 'It's all my own stuff, hand packed and guaranteed.'
Tucker put down the Skorpion he had been examining. 'How much do you want for them?'
'Remember,' Imrie said, 'I've got a lot of work to do to get them in shape. And I-'
'How much?'
'Don't forget, none of these pieces has a history, Tucker. They're all as clean as a baby's ass. You get nailed on this job, you won't have to worry that maybe you're carrying a gun that was used in a big heist or a murder or something.'
Tucker smiled. 'How much, Imrie?'
Imrie told him.
'Too much.'
They haggled for several minutes, exchanged tales of poverty and want, finally settled on a thousand dollars for the pistols and ammunition.
'When you come back on Monday,' Imrie said, 'we'll go down to the basement and use one of the Skorpions on the shooting range.'
Tucker frowned. 'Doesn't it handle about like any ordinary automatic?'
'Pretty much,' Imrie said. 'But it never hurts to know a gun, what it can and can't do for you.'
'Even when you don't expect to use it?'
'Especially then,' Imrie said.
Thinking about Oceanview Plaza, about the curiously agitated movements of Frank Meyers, Tucker nodded. 'I guess you're right.'
At three-thirty that afternoon, on the bottom floor of the Americana Hotel once again, Tucker pumped coins into the pay phone until the operator was satisfied. On the far end of the line another telephone rang, and Clitus Felton answered it.
'It's Mike,' Tucker said. 'You busy?'
'Pretty busy, yeah,' Felton said.
Tucker gave him the number of the phone he was using and hung up.
The hotel corridor remained deserted. Dishes clanked, silverware clattered, and voices rose in a sealike susurration from the coffee shop around the corner. The floor had recently been mopped down, for the hall smelled of pine and detergent; but the maintenance crew was nowhere in sight.
Each of the next five minutes felt like an hour, partly because Tucker was worried about getting unwanted company and being overheard on the line with Clitus-and partly because he was beginning to wonder if he had made a serious mistake by involving himself in this operation. The whole thing was a hair too daring, a shade too clever and complex. And he kept thinking of Frank Meyers: the way the big man lived, the way he dressed, the desperation in those bright blue eyes
He took a roll of Life Savers from his jacket pocket, peeled away the foil from the top, popped a lime-flavored circlet into his mouth.
Finally the telephone rang.
'Clitus?'
'You're throwing in with Frank Meyers, aren't you?' Felton asked, a playful note in his voice.
'That's right.'
'I knew you would,' the old man said. 'He's a damned good man, a real pro.'
Tucker tongued the candy wafer to the side of his mouth. 'Maybe he once was.'
'Oh?' Felton said guardedly. 'What's wrong with him?'
'For one thing, he's living in a dive. He doesn't clean up after himself anymore-nearly has the roaches tamed. He's sloppy, tired, and nervous. He's a man on the edge.'
'Why?'
'He says he let a woman take all his money away from him, and now he's broke.'
Felton sighed, a hollow ahhh that echoed down the line like the call of a spirit. 'It's happened to better men.'
'But I don't believe that's what's wrong with him,' Tucker said, swallowing lime saliva. 'I want you to ask around over the weekend. Contact anyone who's worked with him recently. See if you can turn up anything.'
'Like what?'
'I don't know,' Tucker said, wishing that he did. 'Anything that might help explain why he's let himself slide.'
Felton cleared his throat. 'Well? I'll try, Mike. But it's probably just a waste of time. If there was anything I should know about Frank, I'd already know it.' The old man respected Tucker, knew him to be one of the best in the business. At the same time, he thought he knew Frank Meyers; if not Tucker's equal, he was at least a sensible and reliable man.
'One other thing,' Tucker said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, switching the receiver from left to right hand. 'I'm going to need someone who's good with safes. I'd like to have Edgar Bates. He's here in the city somewhere, isn't he?'
'Sure,' Felton said.
'Get hold of him for me. Set up a meeting between us for tomorrow at the Museum of Natural History.'
'What time?'
'Let's say-noon. In the room where they have all of those Eskimo totem poles.'
'If I can't get hold of him?' Felton asked.
'I'll know it when he doesn't show up tomorrow,' Tucker said. 'I'll call you again on Monday to see what you've picked up on Meyers. Good-by, Clitus.' He hung up. He crushed the thinning Life Saver between his teeth and swallowed the tiny sugared fragments. The scent of sweetened limes rose in the back of his nostrils.
In front of the Americana he caught a taxi and was just as surly with the driver as the driver was with him. The ten-minute ride home required twenty-five minutes in the sluggish traffic-which gave him too much time to worry about Frank Meyers. He went through three more Life Savers.
At his apartment building on Park Avenue in the eighties, he was greeted by a minimally liveried doorman nearly twice his age. 'Beautiful day, isn't it, sir?'
'Just fine, Harold.'
'September and October are the only good months in this city,' the doorman said. On his black uniform the small brass buttons gleamed with early-October sunlight.
Inside, the hall man also wanted to talk about the weather. And the elevator man thought that autumn was his favorite time of the year in New York. Tucker smiled, nodded, and agreed with both of them while he thought about Oceanview Plaza
He entered his nine-room, tenth-floor apartment to the strains of Beethoven's Minuet in G as interpreted by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. The music was like a cool liquid spilling over him. Some of his
