Ричард Старк - Flashfire [= Parker]

Hurley laughed, not as though he was amused but as though he was angry. “Fucked me a little,” he said. “I feel it in cold weather.”

“Stay where it’s warm.”

“That’s what I’m doing. In fact, that’s why I’m calling.”

Parker waited. After a little dead air, Hurley did his laugh again and said, “You never were much for small talk.”

Parker waited. After a shorter pause, Hurley cleared his throat and said, “It’s a thing with some people I don’t think you know.”

“I know you.”

“Well, that’s just it, I won’t be there. If you want it, you’re taking my place.”

“Why?”

“I got a better something come up, offshore. I’m fixing to be a beachcomber. A rich beachcomber.”

“Because of the arm,” Parker suggested.

‘That, too,” Hurley agreed. “These three are good boys. They know how to count at the end of the day, you know what I mean.”

Parker knew what he meant; they wouldn’t try to hog it all, at the end of the day. He said, “Why don’t I know them? They civilians?”

“No, they just work different places, different people, you know how it is. But then, it could pan out with them, and then you know them, and who knows.”

“Who knows what?”

“What happens next,” Hurley said.

Letting that go, Parker said, “Where are they now?”

“They move around, like people do,” Hurley told him. “Lately, they’re based around the Northwest somewhere, or maybe Vancouver. Over there someplace.”

“Is that where this thing is?”

“No, they like to work away from home.”

So did Parker. He said, “Not around me.”

“No, in the Midwest, one of those flat states out there. I told them about you. If you’re interested I’ll give you a number.”

So one thing led to another, and here he was in the back of the Bronco with Melander and Carlson and Ross, and after all he was going to be told the who-knows that Hurley hadn’t wanted to talk about.

“It’s jewelry,” Ross said.

Parker wasn’t impressed. “That’s a dime on the dollar, if you’re lucky.”

“That’s right,” Ross said, “that’s what we’ll get.”

Melander said, “We got three buyers, ready to go. That’s what they all give us.”

Parker said, “Three?”

“There’s too much for one fence,” Ross explained.

Parker was beginning to get interested. “What are we talking about here?”

Carlson steered them up onto the interstate ramp as Ross said, “Four of us will walk home—”

“Ride home,” Melander corrected him. “In a limo.”

“Right,” Ross agreed. “Four of us will ride home with three hundred grand apiece.”

Parker looked from Ross to Melander and back. They both seemed serious, if happy. Nobody in the car was taking any mood changers. He said, “This is twelve million in jewelry?”

“That’s the floor,” Ross said. “That’s the appraisal. It’s a charity sale. If we let it alone, it’ll go higher, but what we’ll get is the floor.”

“A charity sale. Where?”

“Palm Beach,” Ross said.

Parker shook his head. “Deal me out.”

Ross said, “You don’t want to listen to the job?”

“I just heard the job,” Parker told him. “Twelve million in jewelry all in one place draws a lot of attention. Cops, private cops, guards, sentries, probably dogs, definitely helicopters, metal-detecting machines, all of that. Then you put it in Palm Beach, which has more police per square inch than anywhere else on earth. They’re all rich in Palm Beach, and they all want to stay that way. And besides that, it’s an island, with three narrow bridges, they can seal that place like it’s shrink-wrap.”

“All of this is true,” Ross said. “But we got a way in, and we got a way at, and we got a way out.”

“Then I still know the job,” Parker told him, “and I still don’t want it.”

Melander said, “Just out of curiosity, why?”

“Because to even think about doing your job,” Parker told him, “and to do it in Palm Beach, there’s two things you got to have. One is the insider, who’s the amateur, who’s gonna bring you down. And the other is a boat, which is the only way off the island, and which is even worse than an island, because there’s no way off a boat.”

Ross said, “That’s yes and no. We got the insider, that’s true, but he’s before the job. He’s nowhere near Palm Beach on the day, and he’s not exactly an amateur.”

Melander said, “He’s one of our buyers, we worked with him before.”

“What he is,” Ross said, “he’s an art appraiser, estate appraiser, he tells you what the paintings are worth, what the rugs are worth, what the jewelry is worth, for the taxes and the heirs.”

Keeping his eyes on the road, Carlson said, “He has a little trouble with nose powder, so he needs extra money. But he doesn’t let it make him a problem, at least not for us.”

“What his occupation is,” Melander said, “he spends his life casing the joint.”

“Then he tips off you guys,” Parker said.

“Right.”

“And then you go in and take out the best stuff. And how long before somebody notices, when this guy does the appraisal, step two is a robbery?”

“We don’t do it that way,” Ross told him. “Our agreement is, we never touch a thing until at least two years after he’s been and gone. And this time, the Palm Beach, he wasn’t one of the appraisers.”

“He gets access to the appraisals,” Melander added, “like anybody else in the business.”

“He’s done other stuff in Palm Beach,” Ross said, “so he knows the place, he knows the routine, he knows everything about it, but he isn’t one of the people that looked at this particular bunch of jewels.”

Melander said, “He’s moved in that territory, but on different estates, different evaluations.”

“If they’re looking for an insider,” Ross said, “they won’t look at him, because he wasn’t inside.”

“Possibly,” Parker said. “What about the boat?”

“No boat,” Melander assured him. “I a hundred percent agree with you about boats.”

“Then how do you get off the island?”

“We don’t,” Ross said.

“You stay there? Where? You know, you rent a condominium, the cops are gonna look at recent rentals.”

“Not a condominium,” Ross said.

“Then where?”

“At my place,” Melander said, and grinned like a bear.

Parker tried to see around corners, but couldn’t, not quite. “You’ve got a place there?”

“It’s fifteen rooms,” Melander told him, “on the beach. I think you’ll like it.”

“You’ve got a fifteen-room mansion on the beach in Palm Beach,” Parker said. “How does this happen?”

“Well, I looked at it a few weeks ago,” Melander said.

“But he’s just buying it today,” Ross said. “We got the down payment from that bank back there.”

The motel, and the car Parker would be using, was in Evansville. When they got there, while Melander and Ross counted the money on the bed, Carlson and Parker sat in the room’s two chairs, across the round table from one another, and Carlson told him more. “The mansion is cheap. I mean, for a mansion in Palm Beach.”

“Why?”

“It was sold maybe eight years ago to this movie star couple, you know, he’s a star and she’s a star, so when they make a picture, he gets twenty million, she gets ten million—”

From the bed, Melander said, “Still not equal pay, you see that?”

Carlson and Parker both ignored him, Carlson saying, “They bought the place, they thought they’d be stars in Palm Beach, but Palm Beach ignored them. They’re stars, but they’re trash, and in Palm Beach you can’t be trash. Or, if you are trash, you hide it, and you spread your money around.”