Butcher's Moon

Forty-four

There wasn’t anything on local television after one o’clock, so Parker put Faran away again in the closet, found a deck of cards, and spent the time with some solitaire.

When he’d first taken over this apartment he’d gone through all the drawers in the place and found a spare set of keys for both the front door downstairs and the apartment door in a night table in the bedroom. He’d had four more sets made up, and had given them out to Elkins and Mackey and Devers and McKay, so the different groups could move in and out without ringing apartment bells in the middle of the night. Elkins used his key now as he and Wiss came in, Wiss carrying his black-leather bag and both of them looking moderately pleased with themselves.

Parker had been playing cards at the dining table by the front door. He stood up, leaving the incomplete hand spread out, and said, “Any problems?”

“Simplicity,” Wiss said. Walking deeper into the room, he put his bag on the sofa, and then he and Elkins emptied money from the bag and their pockets onto the coffee table. “All very nice,” Wiss said.

Parker looked at the stacks of bills. “Did you count it?”

Elkins said, “Ten thousand, four hundred and fifty dollars.”

“A little more than we figured.”

Elkins grinned. “I thought maybe I’d palm a couple hundred, who’d know? But it isn’t worth it.”

“You’ll all do good tonight,” Parker told him. “You won’t need to nickel-dime.”

Wiss said, “You hear from anybody else?”

“Everything’s okay at the burglary-alarm place. The manager out at the Riviera called a while ago, checking on Mr. Flynn’s credit.”

“Lovely,” Wiss said. He poked around in his bag for stray bills, found none, and closed the bag. “So we’ll be off,” he said.

“I’ll call Webb.”

They walked to the door. Elkins said, “See you later.”

Parker nodded. They left, and he called Philly Webb, the driver at Vigilant. “Wiss and Elkins are on the way,” he said, and went back to finish the game.

Ten minutes later Mackey and Hurley and Dalesia came in. carrying the full dispatch cases. Mackey was grinning his hard aggressive grin, and he said, “Parker, you should of been there.”

Parker left the cards again. “No trouble?”

“Piece of cake,” Mackey said. “Goddam piece of cake.”

Hurley said, “That big baldheaded monster, what’s his name?”

“Wycza,” Parker said.

“Yeah, Wycza. Him and Florio got to be buddies. You never saw anything like it.”

Dalesia said, “What do we do with the money?”

Parker swept the solitaire hand off to a corner of the table. “Put it here. You count it yet?”

“We’ll do that now,” Mackey said. Rubbing his hands together, grinning his hard grin at everybody, he said, “I just love to count money. Other people’s money.”

“Our money now,” Hurley said.

The dispatch cases were zipped open, the money belts were taken off, and the cash was piled up like a green mountain on the table. The four men began counting, each of them making stacks, and when they were finished they added their four totals together. Dalesia did it, with pencil and paper. “Forty-seven thousand, six hundred,” he said.

Mackey said, “That’s really nice.”

Looking over at the smaller stack of money on the coffee table. Hurley said, “That’s from the movie house?”

Parker nodded. “Ten thousand, four hundred and fifty.”

Dalesia said, “So far, that’s fifty-nine thousand and fifty dollars.”

Mackey, laughing, said, “And fifty dollars?”

Hurley gestured at the living room. “We’ll leave it for the householders,” he said. “As a tip.”

Parker said, “Wycza and the others already off on their next one?”

“Right,” Dalesia said. Looking at his watch, he said, “We better, too. See you later, Parker.”

The three of them trooped out of the apartment. Parker went into the bedroom, glanced at the locked closet door, and went over to check dresser drawers. The top one was nearly empty; he put the remaining few clothes on top of the dresser, carried the drawer into the living room, and lined it with the cash from the two robberies. He brought the full drawer back to the bedroom, put it away in the dresser, and returned to the living room to deal out a fresh hand of solitaire.

It wasn’t yet two o’clock in the morning.