Butcher's Moon

Forty-seven

Parker sat and listened to them tell each other about their scores. They were all up, all of them happy and excited because they’d made out tonight. “It was so easy”: they all said that, at one time or another.

Wiss and Elkins were the first ones back, bringing with them the biggest score of the night: one hundred forty-six thousand, four hundred eighty-seven dollars, the money from the vault at the stock brokerage. “They were really putting it away for a rainy day,” Elkins said.

Philly Webb, who had driven Wiss and Elkins here, had immediately gone away again to get Handy McKay and Fred Ducasse from the Vigilant office. Before he got back, Carlow and Wycza and Devers came in, with a scuffed suitcase from the dope dealer containing eighty thousand, eight hundred and twelve dollars. “We should have a night like this once a year,” Wycza said.

Devers was so pleased he was almost drunk with it. “What the hell,” he said. “Why not once a month?”

Dalesia and Hurley and Mackey arrived next, with the smallest take of the night: seven thousand, six hundred twenty-five, from the loan-shark operation. That was less than Faran had suggested would be there, but by then nobody much cared. Besides, Mackey was full of funny stories about Nick, the guy who ran the place, and about his wife, who slept through the whole robbery. “He’ll wake her up tomorrow morning,” Mackey said, “and he’ll say, ‘Sweetheart, we got knocked over last night,’ and she’ll say, ‘Schmuck, leave the drinking to the customers.’”

Parker didn’t do any of the talking. He watched and listened, letting them work out their pleasure and their nervous excitement; it wasn’t even three o’clock yet, plenty of time left to get his own work done.

Webb came back with Handy and Ducasse, and then everybody was here. The money was brought back out and recounted, and all the totals added up to two hundred seventy-six thousand, two hundred eighty-seven dollars. The money was stacked up on the dining table, and Mackey said, “Son of a blue bitch, boys, that’s a quarter million dollars.”

“Pencil and paper,” Hurley said. “I want to know what my piece is.”

It turned out to be an even twenty-five thousand, one hundred seventeen dollars apiece. Nobody could believe a big number like that would come out even when divided by eleven, so three of them did the division, but it kept working out. Twenty-five thousand, one hundred seventeen dollars a man.

Elkins nodded, smiling. “That’s a nice night’s work,” he said.

Parker said, “Now we do another night’s work.”

They all looked at him, and he could see that in the pleasure with their success, they’d forgotten about him and what was supposed to happen next. It brought them down off their highs, one at a time. He waited it out, waited till the smiles left the faces, waited till the eyes got the flat look back again, waited till they were ready to go back to work.

“Right,” he said.