‘If you refuse to help us,’ England said, ‘or if you try to leave the area without going through with the robbery, we will pick you up.’
Parker said, ‘Drink your coffee. Let me think.’
England shrugged. ‘Go right ahead.’
Parker got to his feet, went over to the kitchen sink, turned the cold water on, and doused water over his face and head. He dried off with paper towels, then went through the cabinets over the sink until he found a can of mixed nuts. He sat back down at the table, drank his coffee, ate handfuls of the mixed nuts, and thought it out.
The alternatives were three: Clear out of here right now. Go along with Carey and England all the way. Work some sort of compromise.
His instinct told him to go for number one. England and Carey were sloppy, because they were sure of themselves. He could overpower them any time, then look the situation over and find a way out of the building past the reserve troops that were bound to be outside. Go north and east, get far away from this part of the country and lie low for a while.
The main thing wrong with that, he wouldn’t be able to alert Grofield and Salsa, so the law would naturally take them as a consolation prize for him.
So maybe a combination of one and two. Promise to go along with Carey and England, then get the word to Grofield and Salsa, and the three of them wait for a good time to clear out of here.
Which wasn’t good either. Most of the time, a lone man can break free of surveillance if he wants to badly enough and if he has some experience, but with three men trying it all at once the odds are too high, at least one of them will get grabbed.
Besides that, Parker was in this operation because he needed the money. His cut would be forty thousand, guaranteed, and forty thousand would give him the cushion he needed right now. If there was any safe way to keep the operation alive, he’d do it.
Then maybe alternative number two; go along with Carey and England all the way. Except that Carey and England were stupid. Trying to get a bad risk like Heenan in on the job, and now even trying to get one of themselves in with him. As though this weren’t a profession, as though a job like this didn’t need personnel who knew their business and could be counted on no matter which way things went. It was obvious Carey and England had no understanding of Parker’s line of work, and that meant, if he did go through with the job, he’d have to keep control of it out of their hands.
Which came to alternative number three, the compromise. Work out an arrangement with Carey and England that would get them what they wanted and him what he wanted. It was possible they could come to some sort of middle ground even though neither of them trusted the other. Carey and England mistrusted Parker because he was outside the law, and Parker mistrusted them because he was convinced at the end of everything they’d be trying for Baron and himself both. If they could put the arm on him, they’d be crazy to let the chance go by, and he didn’t think they were crazy.
Finally he said, ‘All right. A proposition.’
Carey said, ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to bargain.’
Parker told him, ‘I’m looking to see if I can get an arrangement where it would be safer for me to stay with this job than to try to make a break for it right now. The way you two are handling it, it’s safer for me to make the break.’
England held a hand up, saying, ‘All right, we’ll listen. We’re reasonable men.’
Carey glanced at his partner, but he didn’t say anything more.
Parker said, ‘What you want is Baron. You don’t care how you get him, so the details don’t’
‘We want him alive,’ England said hastily. ‘Don’t get us wrong, we won’t be satisfied with proof of his death or anything like that. We want Von Altstein very much alive.’
‘There’s a trial waiting for him,’ Carey said. ‘A big public trial, and a rope at the other end of it.’
‘I don’t care,’ Parker said. ‘You want him alive, that’s all you care about. The Baron, or Von Altstein, or whatever you call him, you want him in on dry land where you’ve got jurisdiction. So I’ll go along with you, I’ll bring him in for you. But that’s it, that’s all of it. I don’t have any law or any pigeons working with me. You people leave me strictly alone to do my job my own way, and when my job is done you’ll get your piece of it.’
They looked at each other, both of them doubtful. England said, ‘What sort of guarantee’
‘No guarantee. You say you’ve got me in a bind, you’re watching me so close with so many troops I can’t get away from you no matter what. So you guarantee the job yourself.’
Carey said, ‘We could consider it.’
‘You mean you want to check with somebody higher up. Use the phone in the bedroom, it’s quickest that way.’
They looked at each other again, and then England nodded and said, ‘I’ll go. I won’t be long.’
Parker said to Carey, ‘You want more coffee?’
Carey watched England leave the room, then turned to Parker. ‘No, thanks.’
‘I do.’ Parker went over by the sink again, opened cupboards, closed them, opened drawers, closed them, palmed a steak knife and went over to the table. Suddenly his left hand had a grip on Carey’s hair and his right hand was holding the knife to Carey’s throat. ‘Don’t move,’ he whispered.
Carey wasn’t that stupid. He stayed where he was; only his eyes had widened a little.
Parker let go his hair and used that hand to frisk Carey, finding his revolver, a businesslike S&W Special, in a belt holster on his right hip. Parker backed away, holding the revolver, and put the steak knife back in its drawer. He faced Carey, keeping the revolver where Carey could see it without its being exactly aimed anywhere in particular.
Parker said, ‘England comes back in here, I disarm him. That’s easy. The three of us go out, we flag a cab. None of your troops follows because there’s two of you and one of me so they figure I’m well covered. Ten blocks away I shoot you and England and the cabby, drive the cab to Houston, take a plane. Any problems?’
Carey said nothing.
Parker walked back across the room and put the revolver down on the table. ‘That’s your guarantee,’ he said. ‘I could do that, and I won’t. I need this operation, and if you and your friends don’t screw it up I’ll run it off as scheduled.’
Carey picked up his revolver, looked at it a second, then put it away. His voice mild, distracted, he said, ‘I’m not a specialist in people like you.’
‘You’re lucky,’ Parker told him.
Carey studied Parker as though making up his mind whether or not to buy him. ‘Maybe I will,’ he said. ‘When this is over, when we’ve got Von Altstein and you go off your own way, maybe I’ll put in for a transfer. Maybe we’ll meet each other again some other time.’
Parker doubted it, but he knew why Carey was saying it. It was a way to get some of his pride back. So Parker just shrugged and sat down at the table and said, ‘Maybe so.’
England came back a couple minutes later. ‘They want some sort of assurance,’ he said.
Carey said, ‘It’s all right. We’ve got the assurance.’
‘We do?’
‘Mr. Parker just took my gun away, held it on me, and explained how he could kill the two of us and a passing cabdriver and get himself out of this situation, if he wished to do so. It was plausible, particularly with him holding my gun on me while he explained it all.’
England was frowning, looking back and forth at the two of them. He said, ‘Then what?’
‘Then he gave the gun back to me,’ Carey said.
England said, ‘I don’t get it.’
‘I do,’ Carey said. He got to his feet. ‘It’s all yours, Mr. Parker,’ he said. ‘You won’t see us again till you come back to shore with Von Altstein.’
Not even then, Parker thought. Aloud, he said, ‘I’ll see you then.’
5