The curb curved back on either side, and concrete started off to the right, going into the scrub about ten feet and stopping. Beyond was a gravel road for about a hundred feet, and beyond that a dirt road that curved back toward the main road but didn’t come all the way. From 440, though, all you could see was the concrete starting out and then the gravel going off into the bushes.
Parker slowed the car, turned the wheel a little, and stopped just at the edge of the gravel. “Right here,” he said. “The way I told you. We cut her off into this thing, take the dough, and go on to the ferry. Monday, around noon, we’ll have ten or fifteen minutes before another car shows up. Besides, we’re already in New York State.”
They got out of the car. Handy tramped back and forth on the concrete, looking the situation over. He peered down at the gravel part, and stood there a minute, poking at his teeth with a wooden match. Then he shook his head and turned back.
“You know what bothers me?”
“What?”
“Skimm.” Handy left the match in his mouth while he dug out a cigarette, talking around the match. “If he’s on the outside and she figures to cross him, too, okay, then it’ll work out like you say. But if she’s sweet-talked him over, I don’t like it. Skimm’s no dummy. He’ll try to think the way we think, and he’ll come up with the idea they should stay away from Staten Island.”
“Do you think he’s in?”
Handy took time to light the cigarette and throw the match away. “I don’t know. I’ve known Skimm twelve years. I’ve worked with him four, five times. I always figured Skimm was a little guy who didn’t have much brains but you could trust him, you know what I mean?”
Parker nodded. “You think Alma wants him? After the job, I mean?”
“It doesn’t figure.”
“All she wants,” said Parker, “is the money. Not half of it, all of it. She won’t even try to sweet-talk Skimm.”
“That’s the way it plays,” Handy answered. He looked around, at the empty road, and the gravel road that went nowhere. “We’re taking a big chance on how it plays.”
“She takes it out of Jersey for us, then we take it away from her. If the law stops her, that’s one thing. If it doesn’t, she’ll come this way.”
“It does figure,” said Handy. His cigarette was all wet, where he’d lipped it. He stuck it back in his mouth. “All right, this is the way we do it.”
“Right.”
A pale blue Ford went by, headed toward the bridge to New Jersey. It was the first moving car they’d seen on Staten Island. They watched it go by, and then Parker said, “I got to get back. I got to walk Stubbs.”
“You talk about him like he was your dog.”
“He’s a pain in the ass,” Parker said.
They got into the car, made a U-turn at a break in the mall, and headed back to New Jersey.
3
After breakfast, Parker stopped at an outdoor phone booth next to a gas station. The Saturday morning traffic streaming by on 9 headed south for the shore. Parker dialed Skimm’s number, and waited seven rings till there was a click and Skimm’s voice said, “What?”
“It’s ten o’clock,” Parker said. Since Skimm had a woman, he’d been sleeping.
“What’s that? Parker?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, that guy called, that Lawson. He wants you to call him at his office, he’ll be there till noon.”
“All right. Walk Stubbs for me this afternoon, will you?”
“I was goin’ to the shore with Alma.” When Parker didn’t say anything, Skimm said, “All right, I’ll do it. That guy gives me a pain.”
“I know,” Parker said. “Hang around there while I talk to Lawson.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll make some coffee. Alma’s gone to work. She’s gonna be mad when we can’t go to the shore today.”
“Yeah.” Parker hung up, disgusted, and dropped another dime in the slot. He called Lawson’s office, and an operator had him put in another fifteen. When he told the secretary it was Mr. Flynn to talk to Mr. Lawson she put him right through.
“I’ve got some of your goods, Mr. Flynn. Those three cases you wanted, in good condition, and one truck.”
“Good,” Parker said.
“The only thing is the truck right now is in North Carolina. It’s the one I told you about. It needs some work on it, but it’ll run. They’ll take eight hundred for delivery right there in North Carolina, no extras.”
“How old is it?”
“Nine years.”
Parker grimaced. “Will it make it up here?”
“According to what I’ve been told,” Lawson said carefully, “it should make the trip, yes.”
“All right. Where is it?”
“Goldsboro. I believe that’s not too far from Raleigh.”
“I’ll find it. Who’s the party?”
“The Double Ace Garage.”
“All right.”
“About the other matter, the three cases—”
“I’ll pick them up Tuesday.”
“Well,” said Lawson, “I don’t have them, but I can put you in touch with the man who does.”
“Tell him Tuesday.”
“I don’t think he’ll like that, Mr. Flynn. They’re what you might call a perishable commodity. He doesn’t like to keep them in the store too long, if you know what I mean.”
“Tuesday’s the earliest I can make it.”
“Well, I tell you what. I’ll give you his name and phone number. You can straighten it out with him.”
“You straighten it out,” Parker said. “I’ll call you Tuesday.”
He hung up and left the phone booth and joined the rest of the traffic on 9. Handy was sitting in Alma’s green Dodge in the furniture store parking lot, across the road from the diner. Parker turned the Ford in next to him, and Handy came over, sliding in next to Parker in the Ford. He had a pencil and a notebook with him.
“What’s the good word?” he said.
“I got to go to North Carolina to pick up a truck. I’ll try to be back Monday. Walk Stubbs for me tomorrow, will you?”
“Sure. Skimm taking it today?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s supposed to take over here for me tomorrow morning.”
“I know.”
“What kind of truck you — There he goes!” He pointed the pencil at the road. “See him? The light green Merc with the white top. He’s either law or on a case.”
Parker squinted at the Mercury as it faded away down the road, southward. “Law, I guess. Shows up when the traffic’s heavy?”
“Right. The same two guys in it every time.” Handy made a mark in the notebook. “I don’t think he’ll be working Monday, but just the same.” He looked out at the road again. “What kind of truck you got?”
“I don’t know. A bomb, I think.”
“Just so it’s big.”
“You can use the Ford while I’m gone. I’ll leave it with Skimm.”
Handy nodded. “I’ll see you Monday.”
“If the truck doesn’t break down.”
“If you don’t show, I’ll take care of Stubbs.”
“Right.”
Handy went back to his own car and Parker drove north into Irvington and stopped at Skimm’s house. Skimm was dressed but he hadn’t shaved. His beard grew in straggly and gray, making him look more like a wino on the bum. “Come on in, I’m making coffee,” he said.
Skimm went back to the kitchen and Parker called Newark Airport. He could get a plane at two-fifty, change over in Washington and go from there to Raleigh. After that he’d take a bus to Goldsboro. He made the reservation, and then went out to the kitchen.