The Green Eagle Score

4

Cold bright sunlight flooded in when Parker opened the door. He gestured and Fusco came in, saying, “You had breakfast?”

“Yes.” Parker shut the light out again and said, “Sit down.”

It was a room in a motel in a town called Malone, about fifteen or twenty miles from Monequois. It was a standard small-town motel, with the concrete block walls painted green, the imitation Danish modern furniture, the tough beige carpeting, not enough towels. Parker had learned years ago that you don’t take up residence in the place where you’re going to make your hit, so this would be home for him either until the job was over or until he decided he wanted to bow out of it. Fusco was already staying in Monequois, had been for the last few months since he’d gotten out, so there was nothing to be done about that, but he and Devers had let Parker off here last night on the way in, arranging for Fusco to borrow the Pontiac and come back for him this morning.

Now, sitting down in the room’s only chair, Fusco said, “You want to talk about Stan.”

“He’s either very good or very bad,” Parker said. “I want to know which one it is.”

‘He’s good Parker. What makes you think he’s anything else?”

“How long’s he been tapping the till?”

Fusco looked blank. “Tapping the till?”

Come on,” Parker said. “He’s got himself an angle going in that finance office, he’s bleeding off a couple hundred a month, maybe more.”

“Parker, he never said a word to me, honest to God.”

“Would he have to tell you?” Parker asked him. “He goes to New York to buy a suit at Lord & Taylor, on his charge account. How much you think that suit set him back?”

Fusco spread his hands. “It never even occurred to me. I don’t think that way, Parker, I take a man at his word.”

“You used his car to come here just now?”

Fusco frowned, rubbed a knuckle across his jawline. “That’s a pretty good car, isn’t it? I never thought about it. You think he’s been hooking the company, huh?”

“He didn’t tell you about it,” Parker said. “That’s good. Buying the car with full cash down was stupid, but if he keeps his mouth shut maybe he’s all right anyway. How well do you get along with this ex-wife of yours, what’s her name?”

“Ellen. She still calls herself Ellen Fusco.”

“You get along with her?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Well enough to ask her a question about Devers?”

Fusco shook his head. “I’m not sure, Parker, that’s the honest to God truth. What kind of question?”

“I want to know did he ever tell her what he’s got going.”

“You want to know how he works it?”

Parker shook is head in impatience. “I want to know if he opened his mouth to her.”

“Oh.” Fusco nodded, saying, “Sure. I can find out something like that. Not directly, you know what I mean?”

“Any way you want to do it.” Parker lit a cigarette, walked over to drop the match in the ashtray on the nightstand. Looking at Fusco again, he said, “Back in San Juan, I said the job could be done maybe even if Devers wasn’t solid. You didn’t like that.”

“Because he is solid, I know he is.”

“I don’t know it,” Parker told him. He waited a second, and said, “How important is Devers to you?”

“Important?” Fusco looked confused. “What do you mean, important?”

“I mean, what if Devers looks like a problem to me? What if I say the job is good but Devers is bad? What if I say we run it and bump Devers? Do we go ahead, or do we forget the job?”

Fusco spread his hands, for just a second at a loss for words. Then he said, “Parker, the question won’t come up, I know it won’t.”

“I’m bringing it up now.”

Fusco shook his head, looked at his outspread hands, looked over at the window where sunlight made bright slits across the Venetian blind. Finally, not looking at Parker, he said, “What it is, I’ll tell you what the problem is. It’s Ellen, it’s—I don’t want Ellen to—I wouldn’t want her to think it’s because of her. That I rigged the whole thing to bump Stan because of her. That’s what she’d think.”

“What does it matter what she thinks?”

Fusco shrugged, kept looking away toward the window. “She’d want to get even, get back at me. She’d blow the whistle.”

“You mean they’d both be unreliable.” Parker flicked ashes into the ashtray. Watching Fusco, he said, “We could handle her the same way.”

Now Fusco did look at Parker, surprised and shocked. “For Christ’s sake, Parker! She’s got my kid, I told you that! For Christ’s sake, you can’t—you don’t just—”

Parker nodded and walked toward the door. “That’s what I wanted to know,” he said. “What the rules are.”

Fusco was still sputtering. “Parker, we’re not going to—”

“I know we’re not. But I have to know the limitations. Now I know. Devers has to be all right, or the job’s no good.”

Fusco looked at him.

Parker shook his head. “I don’t want to kill your kid’s mother,” he said. “I want to know what we can do and what we can’t do, what kills the job and what keeps it alive.” He opened the door, and sunlight sliced in. “Let’s go.”

“You scared the crap out of me,” Fusco said. He got to his feet, grinning weakly. “The next thing I thought you’d say, I thought you’d say, okay, we’ll bump the kid, too.”

“I didn’t think you’d go for it,” Parker told him.