Comeback

4

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."