Comeback (3 page)

"He's a very straight citizen," Parker agreed.

Mackey leaned against the car, wiping his eyes, and said to Brenda, "Well? What do you think? Still too gloomy?"

"I think you can take a chance," she said. "If everything else is okay. If Parker's going in."

"Yeah?" Mackey was interested. "How come the change of heart?"

"He isn't a liar," Brenda said. "He isn't trapping anybody, or double-crossing anybody, or anything like that, because that fella couldn't lie about what
time
it is without the whole thing showing on his face."

"Well, that's true." Mackey nodded, thinking it over, then grinned again and looked at Parker. "Ever work with a guy on
that
recommendation before? He can't tell a lie. Parker, we're signing on with George Washington."

They waited in the parking lot, and when Carmody came out with Liss half an hour later he stopped dead at the sight of them. Eyes round, he stared off toward the street for rescue, but before he could do anything foolish Liss took his elbow and said, reassuringly, "It's okay, Tom. This means they like you."

"What? What?"

Gently, Liss explained: "These are the people gonna help us, Tom. They wanted to see you first, see what they thought. If they figured you were okay, they'd wait here until we came out. And here they are."

"You mean, the, the—"

Mackey said, "That's right, Tom. The reverend's millions."

Startled, Carmody said, "Not millions!"

"I know, I know." Mackey grinned at himself. "I was just exaggerating, Tom, it's a bad habit I got. The number's four hundred grand, am I right? Two for us, two for you."

"Approximately," Carmody said.

Mackey spread his hands, looking at Liss. "How can we not love this guy, George?" he asked. "He doesn't want to mislead us or anything."

Parker said, "Carmody, you'll give George a list of the places where your preacher's going to be doing his thing the next four or five months."

Carmody said, "That long? I was hoping—"

"Maybe we'll do it next week," Parker told him, although he knew they wouldn't. "Maybe not till later. We'll do it when we got the right place, the right circumstances. You don't want any risk, right?"

"That's right," Carmody said. He stared at Parker like an antelope looking at a lion. "Mr. uh, Grant, is it?"

"Yeah."

"I never did anything like—"

"We know," Parker said. "George told us what your idea is. You want to do good."

"Whereas," Mackey said, 'W want to do well."

Ignoring that, Parker said to Carmody, "If

something goes wrong, the cops won't ask you what your motive was. You see what I mean?"

"Absolutely," Carmody said.

"So we'll pick the right time, the right place, the right circumstances," Parker told him. "We'll decide when it's safe to make our move. And then we'll say to you,
now."

The money room was long, low-ceilinged and windowless. There were bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the walls were off-white plasterboard, and a pale gray industrial carpet was on the floor, but even with all that lightness and brightness the place had the feeling of being a cave or a tunnel, far underground. Air conditioning produced a flat dry atmosphere, in which sounds became muffled and small. The hymn-singing could not be heard in here.

Parker and Liss and Mackey came into the room fast, ski masks on their faces, the shotguns pointing outward, slightly over the occupants' heads, the blued-steel barrels moving back and forth as though looking for a target. Liss cried out, "Everybody stop! Stop now! Hands on desks!
You!
You'll die!"

The fat man with the black necktie stopped reaching for the phone. He and the other five people in the room all became very still. Three of them—the fat man and two middle-aged women, all seated at desks with open ledgers and calculators and video terminals—were employees of the arena, and would calm down when they stopped to remember it wasn't their money in any case. The other three, all slender short-haired young men in dark slacks and white shirts and narrow ties, were Reverend Archibald's people, and might take a robbery more personally.

These three had all been on their feet, standing around the long tables piled with money, still only partially counted. Now they all stood bent slightly forward, palms flat against the counting table as their eyes darted around, glancing quickly at one another, at the money, at the shotguns, at the lights and the floor and everything in the room. All three were thinking about trying something, even against the guns.

Mackey stepped forward toward the money table, keeping to the side so he didn't block Parker's and Liss's aim. He was jittery on his feet and bunching his shoulders up and down, giving them all kinds of body language about how wrought-up he was. His voice loud and ragged, full of tension, he yelled, "You three! Get away from the money!"

They stared at him, not moving. Mackey shook the shotgun in both hands. He bobbed on his feet. He yelled, "I gotta blow one of you bastards away! I gotta! So
move!"

Liss angrily yelled, "Don't get blood on the money!"

"Move away!" Mackey screamed at the three. "Move away!"

Now finally one of them found voice. Frightened, gasping through the words, he said, "What do you want to shoot us for?"

Parker stepped forward. "Ed, don't do it," he said. "Not unless they give you a reason."

Mackey jittered forward close enough to touch the shotgun barrel against the white shirtsleeve of the one who'd spoken. "Give me a reason," he begged. "Give me a reason."

Parker, as though he wanted to calm Mackey down as much as anybody, said to the trio, "Down on the floor. Right where you are. On your backs. Ed won't shoot unless you're stupid."

The three went down fast, and lay blinking up at the ceiling. Like upended turtles, they felt more exposed and helpless on their backs than if Parker had let them lie face down, where they could have felt hidden and coiled. Between their position on the floor there and Mackey's apparent blood-hunger, they wouldn't be causing any trouble after all.

Parker had taken the bag of duffel bags from Mackey on the way in, to leave Mackey's arms free for when he went into his act. Now Parker turned to the two women seated at their desks, trying to be invisible, and tossed the duffel at them. "Take the bags out and fill them. The faster you do it, the sooner we're out of here."

The women hurried across to the money table, stepping over the supine men. Awkward with haste, they stuffed money into the gray canvas bags, while Mackey kept pacing around, muttering to himself and rubbing the top of his head. Liss stood near the door, the shotgun in his hands moving in arcs, like a surveillance camera. Parker went past him and back out to the small anteroom, where they'd left Carmody, who was still out, lying on the floor where they'd dragged him. He went back inside and Mackey was fidgeting back and forth, pointing his gun at the men on the floor and mumbling incomprehensible things, while the two women kept sneaking terrified looks at him and filling the duffel bags as rapidly as they possibly could.

Parker went around the room, unsnapping the phone cords connecting all the phones to their jacks, then bringing the phone cords over to the money table and stuffing them into a bag that was already half full.

Liss said to the fat man, 'You can make that important call now."

The fat man was doing dignity; he sat, unmoving, head bent forward, gazing at a spot on the desk midway between his splayed-out hands. He pretended Liss hadn't spoken.

They'd brought six bags, but it only took five for all the money. "Give me the empty one," Parker told the women as they loaded the last of the cash, and they did. While he moved the duffels two at a time out to the anteroom, Liss told the people, "You'll stay in here a while. Ed's gonna hang around outside the door, hoping to shoot somebody. I don't know how long it's gonna take Jack and me to get him to leave, so don't be in any hurry to go anywhere."

Liss then joined Parker and the money in the anteroom, while Mackey raved at the people a while on his own. Looking down at Carmody, some dried blood on the side of the fellow's head looking fake against the angel makeup, Liss said, "Is he gonna hold?"

Parker had already put his shotgun in the empty duffel bag. Holding it open for Liss's weapon, he said, "He'll hold."

"I'm the one he could identify," Liss said. He didn't put the shotgun in the duffel. He said, "I'm the one exposed if he breaks."

"If you kill him," Parker said, "they'll know he was the inside man. They'll look at who he knew, through that parole scam. They'll get to you for sure."

Liss thought about that. Mackey came out, shutting the door, and looked at them. "Something?"

"No," Liss said, and put his shotgun in the bag.

Mackey put his weapon with the others and said, "They'll stay in there a while. They'll stay in there until their pants dry." Then they tossed their ski masks into the bag with the guns, and left, each carrying two bags, Mackey carrying the heavier one with the guns.

Back where they'd come into the building, Parker cautiously opened the door and looked out. The parking lot was full of cars and empty of people. This was why they'd given up the idea of going for the money outside in the barrels. They would have had to wait until the crusade finished and everybody was out and moving. This way was cleaner and simpler.

The three moved quickly across the asphalt lot through the cars. It was a bright sunny fall day, temperature in the fifties, air very crisp and clear. They seemed to shimmy and disappear as they moved through the varicolored parked cars.

At the far end of the parking lot, five days ago, a construction company trailer had been set up here, wheeled in behind a semi cab, then chocked up and the perimeter beneath closed with concrete blocks. A sign on the side of the trailer read, in large blue letters on a white ground, MORAN CONSTRUCTION,
site manager's office.

This was a legitimate trailer from a legitimate construction company, now bankrupt and shut down, but its assets not yet sold. The trailer had been stolen from the company's yard, using a cab that also belonged to the company. Once it was in position here, Mackey had hooked up the electric lines to a nearby power pole, and then they'd just left the thing alone. Archibald's crusade hadn't even been in this state when they'd moved the trailer into position. Such trailers are so often to be found in distant corners of large public parking areas that nobody looks twice at them. This one had been left undisturbed for five days.

Now, Parker did the combination on the padlock on the door and climbed up and in, followed by Liss and then by Mackey. They entered a cramped office, with desk and chair on one side and narrow hard sofa on the other, on and around which they dumped the duffel bags. To the right of the office was the john, complete with a very narrow shower—the trailer contained its own water supply and waste storage— and to the left was a compact living room, with built-in sofas, a bookcase full of magazines and paperbacks, and a small black-and-white television set. Beyond the living room was a galley-type kitchen; five days ago, they'd stocked that with beer and soda and canned food.

There was a small sliding window in the entry door, covered on the inside by a stretched-tight translucent plastic curtain. Once they were inside, Parker removed that curtain, unlatched the window, slid the openable half out of the way, reached out, and reattached the padlock to the hasp on the door, locking them in. Then he slid the window shut, latched it, and put the curtain back in place.

Mackey came in from the kitchen with three cans of beer. Distributing them, he said, "Parker, I like this. It's very good. This is the most comfortable escape from a heist I ever made."

"Bad news to be running around out there now," Parker said.

"You know it." Mackey popped open his beer. "To a life of ease," he said.

Liss knocked back about half his beer, but still looked troubled. "Now," he said, "all Tom has to do is not make me sorry he's still alive."

It was a mess in the parking lot for a couple hours. Police cars and police lab vans blocked the aisles. An ambulance came and went, yowling, most likely dealing with Tom Carmody. Long tables were set up near the main arena entrance, where clerical cops processed the crusade's attendees, taking their IDs and giving them a few quick questions each, as the former crusade audience stood in long nervous patient lines. More cops searched every car before permitting it to be driven away. Twenty thousand people; every one of them given personal attention. It took a while.

Twice in the course of the afternoon, cops came over to the construction trailer to fiddle with the padlock and test the door to be sure it was locked and then knock on it, just in case. The second one did even more, walking all around the trailer to see if there was any other way in, then trying to look in through the three windows; the one in the door leading to the office, the large one in the living room through which Parker and Mackey and Liss occasionally watched the action outside, and the small high one in the john. But they were all covered by the translucent plastic curtains, so he gave up, and contented himself with copying down the Moran Construction Company phone number from the sign on the trailer's side. He wouldn't get much satisfaction if he actually dialed that number.
Out of service,
most likely.

The cops were nowhere near finished when it started to get dark, so three floodlight trucks were brought in and parked strategically to drench the area in light. Even at the fringe of the action, where Parker and the other two waited, there was plenty of illumination. It spilled into the trailer, giving them all the light they needed, softening into a pale coral color as if filtered through the curtains.

In that soft illumination, Parker and Mackey and Liss sat around the desk in the office and counted the money, which came to three hundred ninety-eight thousand, five hundred eighty dollars, all in fives and tens and twenties, and even some wrinkled singles. About as traceable as a drop of water.