The Outfit

by Richard Stark

  At eleven-forty, a prowl car went by, headed east. Parker jotted it down.

  At eleven-fifty-five, window 3 went out. At eleven-fifty-seven, window 9 lit up. He wrote it down. At twelve-ten, window 9 went out. He noted that.

  At twelve-twenty windows 6 and 7 went off. Parker waited, but no other lights went on to replace them. He started the car and drove around the block, but there still weren’t any lights on in back. He returned to his parking space.

  At one-fifteen the prowl car went by again, once more headed east. So it was a belt, and not a back-and-forth deal. The belt took about an hour and a half. Parker wrote it down.

  After the prowl car disappeared from his rearview mirror, he got out of the Olds and crossed the street. The street lights were widely spaced here and all of them were on the park side. He was only a shadow when he slipped through the opening in the hedge and moved at an angle across the lawn towards the lighted windows. He peered over a sill at the room inside.

  An oval oak table, with a chandelier above, and five men sitting around the table. It took Parker a minute to figure out what they were doing. Playing some game.

  Monopoly. For real money, one-cent to the dollar.

  Parker studied them and picked out Bronson right away. He had a rich, irritated, overfed look. The other four had the stolid truculence of club fighters, strikebreakers, or bodyguards. In this case, bodyguards. As Parker watched, Bronson bought Marvin Gardens.

  Parker moved away from the window, around the house, keeping close to the wall. There was an apartment over the garage, which he hadn’t noticed before. There was a light on up there, and record-player music came softly from the open window. As Parker watched, a Negro in an undershirt showed in the window. The chauffeur, undoubtedly. Parker continued around the house.

  There were no other lights on. Someone had gone to bed in the room behind window 9. The chauffeur was in his apartment over the garage. Bronson and four bodyguards were playing Monopoly downstairs. The one who had gone to bed, Branson’s wife?

  Probably. So there were six in the house, plus the chauffeur. Parker went back to the car and wrote it all down in the notebook.

  Two-fifty, the prowl car again.

  Three-ten, window 3 went on. A minute later it went off again, then an upstairs pair of windows, 6 and 7, went on. They stayed on.

  Who would have left the game? Bronson. Window 3 would have shown the light he’d turned on to go upstairs. Windows 6 and 7 were probably his bedroom. Windows 1 and 2, where the game was, stayed on.

  Three forty-five, windows 6 and 7 went off. Then window 8 came on, stayed on for five minutes, and went off. So, was 8 Bronson’s bedroom? Maybe he had a den or something upstairs, and he’d spent some time there before going to bed. Parker wrote it down, then added a question mark.

  He drove around the block again. The chauffeur’s light was out, and there were still no lights on in the back of the house.

  The bodyguard’s didn’t even cover the back of the house. They were still in front, playing Monopoly.

  Parker didn’t believe it. He parked around in front again, left the car, and went over to the house to check. And there they were, all four of them, still playing Monopoly at the oval oak table.

  Parker went back to the car. He wrote it down and put an exclamation point after it.

  When window 3 went on at four-fifty, and windows 1 and 2 went off, he knew they were all going to bed. None of them would stay up all night, to be sure. They would all go to bed. When window 3 went black Parker started the Olds, and drove around to the back of the house. A row of lights came on on the third floor. He waited until they went off, one by one.

  Now the entire house was in darkness. There was no one awake to give an alarm. Parker went back to his parked car and settled down to wait for morning. He noted the prowl car’s infrequent but regular passage, and also that the two cops in it never gave him a second glance. He’d been sitting here all night, but they hadn’t bothered him.

  At seven-thirty, he put pencil and notebook in his pocket, left the Olds, and walked into the park. There was a blacktop path with some benches along it. He sat on one, bundled up in the hunting jacket, and chain-smoked while he watched the house and waited for ten o’clock.

  At five past nine, a black Cadillac came out through the opening in the hedge, and turned right. Squinting, Parker could see the Negro chauffeur at the wheel and one man in back. That would be Bronson. Another black Cadillac came out from the cross street to the left, turned, and fell in behind the first one. There were four men in it. The two Cadillacs drove away. So now there would be no one in the house except Branson’s wife.

  At nine-thirty, a cab stopped in front of the house and a Negro woman got out, carrying a brown paper bag. She went into the house. Cook or maid or cleaning woman, her work clothes in the bag.

  At five minutes to ten, another cab came along and stopped, this one pulled to the curb behind the Olds. Handy got out and paid the driver. Parker got to his feet and strolled along the path, looking over at Handy. Handy checked the Olds first, then looked around until he spied Parker. He came towards him across the grass. Parker sat down on the nearest bench.

  Handy sat down next to him. “How’d it go?”

  Parker got out the notebook and read off what had happened in the past twelve hours, with his own commentary and explanations. Handy listened, nodding, and said, “He’s making it easy for us.”

  “It doesn’t figure.”

  “Sure it does. He thinks he’s safe here. The bodyguards are for just-in-case, but he doesn’t really think he’ll need them.”

  “We’ll go in Thursday. That’ll give us five days to double-check.”

  “Okay.”

  Parker got to his feet. “See you tonight.”

  “Right.”

  Parker looked over at the Olds. “Maybe we ought to move the car.”

  “I won’t need it till after dark.”

  ‘Til be right back.”

  Parker went over and got into the car and drove it away. He took it halfway around the park, locked it, and walked back through the park to Handy. “It’s over there. You follow the path straight through.”

  “Okay.”

  Parker gave him the keys then walked out of the park. He found a cab, and went back to the motel.

  FOUR

  Wednesday afternoon, Parker phoned Bett Harrow in Miami. She wasn’t in her room so he had her paged, dropping dimes and quarters into the phone while he waited. Handy was in Buffalo, sitting in the park across from Bronson’s house, a job that had become considerably dull by now. Bronson spent most of his time at home, and had no visitors. Parker’s estimate of the household and the position of particularly important rooms had been verified over and over again.

  There was only one reason for watching the house now. Bronson might decide to leave, might suddenly pack his luggage, and go off to some other city. Handy had suggested going in before Thursday since the job seemed simpler than they could have hoped for, but Parker wanted to wait. He wanted to be sure the Outfit had been hit a few times before he got rid of Bronson. So they waited, and continued the monotonous job of watching Bronson’s house. Hardly anything was written in the notebook any more.

  If things went right, he could be back in Florida by Friday or Saturday. That was why he was calling Bett Harrow, to be sure she would still be there and that she still had the gun. If she’d got tired of waiting and had already turned it over to the law, he wanted to know that, too.

  When she finally came on the line, he said, “This is Chuck.”

  “Oh! Where are you?”

  “Not in Florida. You still got the gun?”

  “It was very clever of you to figure out why I took it.”

  “No it wasn’t. There couldn’t be any other reason.”

  “I might have just wanted a gun.”

  He could hear the sardonic smile in her voice. “Yeah. Do you still have it?”

  “Of course. You asked me to w
ait a month, didn’t you?”

  “All right. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Figure to see me in your room sometime Saturday night.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Yeah.” He hung up and left the phone booth.

  The booth was in the gas station across the road from the motel. Parker went out to the road, waited for a break in the traffic, then strode across. It was six-fifteen; the rush hour traffic was lessening. Parker went into his motel room and stretched out on the bed to wait for ten o’clock.

  He was oddly tense and impatient. He didn’t like this feeling, he hadn’t expected it. Always, when he was working, when the job was being set up and he was waiting for it to start, when everything was planned and ready, and all he had to do was look at the clock and wait for it to tell him now — always, during that time, he felt compact and timeless, almost bodiless, without impatience or tension or boredom or nervousness of any kind. One time, in Spokane, he was on a warehouse job, and he’d had to sit in silent darkness inside a truck for six hours, not even able to smoke, and he’d done it with no trouble at all. It was while working, while a job was being set up and run through, that he felt most alive and most calm.

  Except this time. This time he couldn’t get into the mood. This time he wasn’t finding the calm satisfaction in planning the job.

  Because it wasn’t an ordinary job, that was why, and he knew it. This wasn’t money he was after, it was a man. It wasn’t for profit, it was personal reasons. He felt strange using the methods and experience of his work for personal reasons.

  He found himself thinking of Bett Harrow. He would bed her Saturday night, first thing. Before talking about the gun and whatever demands she had to make, before any business at all. Do it right away, because there might be bitterness later, and he wouldn’t want it spoiled by bitterness.

  At least, in this way, towards sex, he was reacting as though on a normal job. He never had a craving for a woman while working, not an immediate, right-now, sort of craving. It was a part of his pattern, part of the way he lived. Immediately after a job, he was always insatiable, satyric, like a groom on a honeymoon after a long and honourable engagement. Gradually, the pace would slacken, the pressure would ease, and the need would grow less fierce, until by the time the next job came along, he was an ascetic again. He wouldn’t touch a woman or even think much about women until that job was over. But once a job was completed, the cycle would start again.

  It had always been that way. When Lynn, his wife, had been alive, it had been a tough pattern for her to get used to, but now that Lynn was dead, he worked out his cycle on the bodies of transients like Ben Harrow, which was easier for all concerned.

  Saturday, he knew, he would be raring. So it would have to be pleasure before business that night.

  He had been lying on the bed, thinking, but now he got to his feet and paced around the room. His damn impatience was gnawing at him, keeping him from resting. He looked at his watch. It was only twenty-five minutes to seven. He shrugged back into his coat and left the motel, headed for the diner, wondering how long he could make dinner last.

  Just until tomorrow night. Take it easy, he told himself. One more night.

  FIVE

  Handy gnawed at a wooden match. “I don’t like wasting time on the chauffeur.”

  They were parked in front of Branson’s house, against the opposite curb. Parker was at the wheel, Handy beside him. It was ten-forty, Thursday night.

  Parker said, “The chauffeur’s the only one outside the main house. They’re liable to have a phone to him back there or something like that. If one of them gets word to him there’s no way we can stop him sending for help.”

  “I suppose so.” Handy agreed doubtfully.

  “Besides, his windows overlook the back of the house, and that’s the way we’ll be going in.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Handy shook his head and threw the match away. “I’m not used to this idea, breaking into a house. I’ll keep my mouth shut and let you do the planning.”

  This was the second time they’d disagreed and Handy had admitted being wrong. The first time, Handy had wanted to wait till three or four in the morning, when the whole crowd would be asleep, but Parker had explained to him what was wrong with that.

  “That way, there’s six of them in six different rooms, and a silent house. It’d take us too long to get them all squared away. If we wait till the Monopoly game’s on and Branson’s wife is watching television in that little room on the right and Branson is up in his den, we’ve got six people in three rooms, a house with enough noise in it so we can move around, and the only person on the second floor is the one we’re after. We won’t have to brace the bodyguards at all. We can by-pass them and go straight for Branson. Just so we keep an eye on the stairs, that’s all.”

  That last point, about by-passing the bodyguards, was what had mulled around in Handy’s head for the last few hours. If they were going to ignore the bodyguards, why not ignore the chauffeur, too?

  Now that had been straightened out, and they were in agreement, Parker looked over at the house. “There goes the light on in the den. It’s time.”

  “Right.”

  They got out of the Olds and walked down the street on the park side, strolling, like friends out for a constitutional. Tonight, both wore topcoats, snug-fitting, to allow freedom of movement, and hats tilted back from their foreheads. Their shoes were rubber-soled and rubber-heeled. They had their hands in their topcoat pockets. Their guns were in their right-hand topcoat pockets.

  Now that the time had finally come, Parker felt his tension draining away. At long last, the peace of working hours was spreading through him. It could take an hour to walk around the block; it wouldn’t matter. He was patient, and calm, and certain.

  They crossed over, went down the dim cross street, turned right. This narrow street was lit only at the intersections, leaving a pool of darkness in the middle, where the rear driveway to Branson’s house was. They walked down that way, their shoes silent on the sidewalk, and then slipped through the hedge on to Branson’s grounds. The blacktop muffled their steps, too; they would have had to be more cautious with gravel.

  To their right, was the four-car garage. An outside stairway up the far side led to the apartment above. Parker and Handy, guns now in their hands, hurried across the face of the garage, and then moved slowly and cautiously up the white wooded stairs. The sky was blanketed by cloud masses; it was a moonless, starless, black night. The white stairs were vague grey shapes in the darkness.

  At the top was a landing with a door. There was a four-paned window in the door, covered with thick curtains, so that only a vague hint of light came through.

  Parker rapped on the door. A sudden startled voice from inside called, “Just a second!”

  Parker raised an eyebrow, surprised. He’d expected the chauffeur to ask who it was, and he’d intended saying that Branson wanted to see him. Which should have been enough to make the chauffeur open the door. The guns would have done the rest, keeping the chauffeur quiet while they went in and tied and gagged him. But the chauffeur hadn’t asked anything at all. Which maybe meant he was expecting somebody. Parker glanced towards the house, but saw nothing. No lights were on in the rear of the house; no one was coming towards the garage.

  He’d have to make sure, once they got inside.

  The door opened and the chauffeur stood there, wearing black trousers, an undershirt, and brown slippers. He looked at them, at the guns in their hands, took a step backward, crying “Oh my God!” He looked as though he were going to faint. He made no attempt to shut the door again.

  Parker had the crazy feeling the chauffeur had been expecting him, that he, Parker, was the one the chauffeur had been waiting for.

  The chauffeur’s face was curiously mottled. He kept backing away across the room, shaking his head, gesturing wildly, and murmuring, “My God, my God! I knew it, I knew it. My God, I knew it —”

  Parker wal
ked in and to the right, and Handy came in after him, shutting the door. Parker said, “Take it easy. Don’t get excited, just take it easy.”

  But the chauffeur kept backing away and muttering to himself, until he ended up against the far wall. He stood there, shaking his head, terrified out of his wits, his hands still making vague, half-formed movements.

  They were in the living room. It was nicely set up with modern furniture and pole lamps and a large stereo rig against one wall.

  Handy was frowning at the chauffeur, just as baffled as Parker. “What’s the matter with you?” He looked at Parker. “What the hell’s the matter with him?”

  “I knew it,” mumbled the chauffeur. “I knew it, I knew it, my God, I knew it! Why didn’t I have some sense, why didn’t I —”

  “I don’t know,” said Parker. “You. Shut up.”

  The chauffeur immediately shut up. He brought his hands to his sides and kept them there. He stood at a sort of ragged attention, leaning backwards against the wall.

  And then all of a sudden Parker understood. He laughed and said, “Watch him, Handy. I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Mister,” said the chauffeur. His voice was hoarse. He sounded as though he were going to start pleading.

  “Just shut up a minute, friend.” Parker walked on by him.

  Beyond the living room was a dining room and a hall that led to a kitchen, with a bedroom and bathroom off that to the right. Parker went to the bedroom door and turned the knob. It was locked.

  “All right, come on out.” When nothing happened, he said, “Nobody’s going to hurt you, come on out. If I have to shoot the lock off, you won’t like it.”

  A key grated in the lock, and the door was opened hesitantly. The woman who came, reluctant and blinking, from the dark bedroom was short and somewhat plump, and sour-looking. She was probably in her early thirties, and wore the kind of black dress women wear to cheap bars. Her hair was dyed a brassy blonde, and her skin was white.

  “He forced me,” she said, looking at Parker’s chest rather than his face. She had a twangy voice and sullenness riddled it. “I didn’t wanna come up here. He forced me.”