"Where did you work, Arthur?"
Arthur leaned back, thoughtful, looking from Parker to Lloyd and back to Parker. "I don't believe I know you two," he said.
Parker said, "You worked on the wrong side of the law."
"Maybe we could leave it at that," Arthur said.
"This fella— You still in touch with him?"
"Hadn't heard from him in eight years."
"Gives you a call, offers you a job, money's good enough but not great, you aren't doing anything else, the wife says it might make a nice change, you say okay."
"That's about it."
'This fella isn't a close friend," Parker suggested.
Arthur shrugged. "We always got along. Never close, you know."
"I know." Parker leaned forward, elbows on knees, watching Arthur's face. "When you left to come out here," he said, "this fella gave you something you
were supposed to leave behind, for the people who'd take over after you made the phone call."
Arthur frowned at him. "I don't know where you're heading here," he said.
Parker leaned back. "Did they tell you what the surveillance was for?"
"A fella used to be with them," Arthur said, "they think flipped for Customs, then he disappeared. They want to know what he gave them, what they have to change."
"Talk to him. That what you believe?"
Arthur shook his head. "I don't know what's likely to happen after the conversation," he said. "That's not my department. But I believe it starts with talk, yes, so they know what their exposure is. Maybe it all turns out to be a misunderstanding, no problem after all." Arthur spread his hands, beginning to look baffled. "It's you we're talking about, after all," he said. "Don't you know what's going on?"
"I'm beginning to," Parker said. "I never worked for or with these friends of yours, Arthur. I don't have anything to do with Customs. These people have a contract out on me, a straight hit. So somewhere around here there's a shooter, waiting for your call. Right?"
"If it's just a contract," Arthur said, "then, sure, I suppose there is."
" You were never a hit man."
"Good God, no!"
"I didn't think so," Parker said. "So the shooter's somebody else. But why isn't he in this room, watching that TV?"
"Well, you would have found him, wouldn't you," Arthur said, "about five minutes ago."
"Arthur," Parker said, "he isn't here because you are it. When you dial that number, there's a house about a quarter mile from here that blows up."
Lloyd said, "Of course! That's the way to do it."
"How would you feel, Arthur," Parker asked him, "if you were watching the TV and dialing the number and that house blew up, close enough to wake your wife?"
"That wasn't the deal," Arthur said. He looked offended. "Right in the neighborhood? The cops could be on me, first thing you know."
"You know them," Parker said, "but you're not tight with them. They don't have to waste some useful guy's time here, they can just leave you and your wife in this house they rented in your name, and if I never do come home then after a while they pay you off and that's the end of it. But if I do come home, and you see me, and you dial that number, and you see and hear the house go up, why would they want to keep you around?"
Arthur watched him, eyes wide and jaw clenched.
Parker said, "Let's have a look at that package, Arthur, the one you were supposed to not open, just leave behind here after you go away."
4
"I always mistrusted that rotten bastard," Arthur said.
Lloyd said, "Parker, do you think so? Two bombs?"
"You'll tell me," Parker said, "as soon as Arthur gives you the package."
They both looked at Arthur, who started to get up, stopped himself, almost said two or three things, then sat back and said, "Give me a second here."
Parker watched him. "For what?"
"I never did like it when things got sudden," Arthur told him, "and I like it even less now. People talk fast, you go along, sure you say, sure, and all of a sudden you're someplace you don't want to be."
Parker sat back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. 'Take your time," he said.
"We trotted through this pretty good," Arthur explained, "but now I got to back up and remind myself, nobody needs to kill me"
"Nobody needs to keep you alive, either," Parker told him. "What use are you?"
"Some little use," Arthur said. "I sit here and wait for you to come home. Then I dial that number there. Why isn't that to somebody else near here, ready to move in on you? This way, you can get to me, but you can't get to him."
'Through that number, I can."
Arthur looked at the numbers written on the sheet from the memo pad. 'That's true."
"And now they'd have to go set up another whole household, twenty-four hours a day, ready to go when you ring their phone. How many shooters? They'd need somebody awake, whenever the call came."
"That's also true," Arthur said.
"It's simpler to blow me up," Parker told him. "But then they still have you here, a witness, too close to the scene, you'll never get away before the law arrives, your name is probably all over this rental."
"It is," Arthur agreed.
"Why would they want to leave you around," Parker asked him, "to decide for yourself if you'd rather answer questions or spend the rest of your life in the can?"
Arthur slowly nodded, then turned toward Lloyd. "It's in the kitchen," he said. "Under the sink."
Lloyd stood. "I'll get it."
"Just a box wrapped in brown paper," Arthur told him. "Cigar box size."
Lloyd went into the kitchen, and Arthur looked at Parker. 'The fella's name," he said, "is Frank Meany."
'That recruited you."
That's right."
Lloyd came back with the box, holding it flat in both hands. "Give me a minute with this," he said. He went back to the sofa, put the box on the coffee table, sat down, and spent a while merely looking it over, not touching it.
Arthur said, "I worked forty years for those people. Driver, then boss. I organized and ran two routes north, one through New York, one through Maine to Halifax."
'You said Customs before," Parker said. "So you were smuggling."
"Cigarettes north, out of DC, where you don't have the state and local taxes," Arthur said. "Whiskey south. It isn't a crime against people, it's a crime against the tax man, the closest thing you got to a victimless crime. No violence, or at least usually. Good profit. I don't see where killing has to come into it at this late date."
Lloyd had taken a penknife from his pocket, and carefully sliced away the brown paper and brown packaging tape. Inside it actually was a cigar box, with pictures of flamenco dancers on the lid and sides. Lloyd lifted the box away from the brown paper, put it down by itself, brushed the brown paper to the floor, and leaned close to study the box.
Parker said* "I'm trying to remember a name. An outfit in Bayonne."
Arthur gave him a sharp look. "What kind of outfit?"
"Cosmopolitan, that was it," Parker said. "Cosmopolitan Beverages."
"Wait a minute," Arthur said, beginning to have doubts again. "If you're nothing to do with Customs, nothing to do with Cosmopolitan, how do you know about it?"
"The first hitter they sent," Parker told him, "was a Russian with a cover at Cosmopolitan. The people in the office there never heard of him, but he had papers on him showed he worked for them, had his green card, could travel anywhere he wanted."
"Here goes nothing," Lloyd said, and lifted the lid.
The other two looked at him. Absorbed, he gazed into the box. "Cigars," he said.
Parker stood and crossed over to look into the box. Slender long cigars, dark brown leaf, lay in a neat tight row, packed edge to edge in the box, flattened slightly along their upper surfaces from the pressure of the lid.