“Can’t be done,” Parker said. “You’re talking about a major robbery, a hijacking of goods valued at around half a million dollars. It’ll be well guarded, it’ll be tough to get at. Three men can’t do it, not a chance in the world.”
Griffith was becoming petulant again. “This was all supposed to be taken care of,” he said. “We were supposed to have an understanding.”
“You do. With Mackey. But my—”
“I know, I know.” Griffith irritably patted the air. “Your price is forty. Try not to say that any more.”
Parker pushed away from the door he’d been leaning against, as though getting ready to leave. “If I’m wasting your time—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Griffith fidgeted as though mosquitoes were bothering him. “Let me think about this.”
Parker stood there, not quite against the door, neither fully committed to the room nor fully committed to leave, and Griffith chewed the inside of his face for a while, frowning at his desk, pushing pencils and stamp-holders around. From far away the rock music could be heard, more as vibration than sound; at this distance, it gave the room a timeless quality, a feeling like that of an aquarium, a place for afternoon naps.
Griffith sighed. Frowning up at Parker, he said tentatively, “I’ll tell you what.” Then he paused again, apparently still thinking over his proposition.
Parker said nothing. He waited.
Griffith cocked his head to one side. “Four men?” he asked. Parker shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “Depends how it lays out.”
“But it’s possible.”
“Maybe.”
“You could do it with four men,” Griffith insisted. “If the circumstances were right.”
Parker nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“Then I’ll tell you what.” Griffith smiled slightly, showing a surprising warmth and openness and friendliness, all patently false. “I’ll add another ten thousand to the main number,” he said, “making it a hundred forty. That way, if you do it with four men you’ll wind up with thirty-five thousand for yourself. How about that?”
“And I get the other five direct from you?”
For just a second Griffith looked really angry; then it subsided to his normal irritation, he said, “You know better than that. I’m talking about a compromise here, and you know damn well that’s what I’m talking about.”
“But I don’t compromise,” Parker said. “My price is forty thousand dollars. Not thirty-five. Not even thirty-nine and a half.”
Petulant, Griffith said, “Never? Never in your goddam life have you ever done anything for less than forty thousand?”
“This job,” Parker said, pointing straight down. “This job, my price is forty thousand.”
“Come off it,” Griffith said, as though suddenly he was desperate to be finished. “Come away from that number, how can I talk to you? I came up ten thousand, you won’t even come down five?”
“What if it takes five men? Then my piece is twenty-eight. You offering me the other seven thousand to bring it up to thirty-five?”
“No, God damn it,” Griffith said. “I’m saying I won’t make any separate deals, because once I do it with one, I’ll wind up doing it with everybody. I say to you all right, okay, thirty-five, and then one after another everybody else wants thirty-five, and then you do it with ten men. And where’s my profit?”
Parker shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t even give a damn,” Griffith said. “You stand there and you don’t care. Maybe the whole thing is, you don’t want to do the job at all, it scares you, but you don’t want Mackey to know you’re afraid of it, so you’re going through all this to have an excuse to run away.”
“Pay me forty thousand,” Parker said, “and I’m in. Don’t pay it and I’m out.”
“You won’t negotiate, damn it. How can I deal with you?”
“Maybe you can’t.”
Griffith chewed his lips and cheeks again for a minute, looking now very angry. Finally he said, “All right, I have another suggestion. You said it’s a possibility you could do it with four men.”
“Maybe. With luck.”
“All right, all right. Let’s both take a chance. I’ll go to one-sixty. That way, if you do it with four men, you get your price. If it takes more, you settle for less. And I’m paying you practically separate from everybody else, I’ve come up thirty thousand from what I already agreed.”
Parker looked doubtful. “I don’t know—”
“What don’t you know?” Griffith was on his feet all at once, trembling with annoyance. “I’ve broken my back for you, I’ve given you everything you want. What don’t you know?”
Being hesitant, a little reluctant, Parker finally nodded. “All right,” he said. “One-sixty, no matter how many men it takes.”
“At last.” Griffith said.
Four
Parker found Mackey down by the bar, talking with one of the bartenders about pro football. “I’m done,” Parker said.
“Sure thing.” Mackey knocked back the rest of his drink and put his glass on the table. “Tittle,” he said to the bartender. “I still say Tittle.”
The bartender gave a disbelieving shrug. “Maybe,” he said.
“No maybe about it.” Mackey turned away, saying to Parker, “Let’s find Brenda.”
Brenda was with a group of younger people in the middle of the lawn, discussing Viva. It took Mackey a minute to cut her out of the herd, during which time Parker stood to one side and avoided becoming involved in other people’s conversations. Then the three of them walked up across the lawn and into the house. They went through the same rooms and halls as before, and out the front door, without having seen Griffith anywhere along their route. They got back into the car again, Mackey driving, Brenda in the middle, Parker to the right, and after they’d driven out into the street and turned in the direction of the motel, Mackey said, “You get everything worked out the way you wanted?”
“Yes.”
“What was the point, anyway? You just want to meet him?”
”I wanted to get the other twenty grand,” Parker said. Mackey frowned across Brenda at him. “What other twenty grand?”
“Between one-thirty and one-fifty.”
Mackey grinned suddenly, and faced front. They were driving in light traffic through a residential area. Mackey said, “You get it?”
“I got more.”
“More?”
“He jumped from one-forty to one-sixty. So I said yes.”
Mackey laughed out loud. “I wish I’d been there,” he said. “God damn it, that’s beautiful.”
“Maybe,” Parker said. “I’m not so sure.”
“Why not? What’s the problem?”
“It came too easy. Jumping like that. And some people at the party said he was broke.”
“Griffith? With that house?”
“The story is, he’s stuck with a lot of paintings he can’t sell.”
Mackey frowned, gazing out through the windshield. “You think so?”
Brenda said, “Why would he want more then? I mean, if he can’t sell the ones he’s got.”
Mackey dismissed that one with a shake of the head. “He could have buyers lined up. He could take care of that one ahead of time.”
Parker said, “You talk to him about payment?”
“That’s the question,” Mackey said. He sounded worried. “I didn’t bother to ask, you know? I figured, he’s stuck with that house, that business, his whole life, he can’t really skip out, so he won’t try a cross. So I didn’t worry about it.”
Brenda said, “You think he might try to run away?”
“No,” Mackey said. “That isn’t the problem.”
“Now is when I need money,” Parker said.
“Me, too,” Mackey said.
Brenda said, “Oh. You mean he might want you to wait till he’d sold the paintings.”