The Handle

by Donald E. Westlake

  “One of my lawyers told me what it is,” Karn said. “There was an old legend in the old days in England about a country called Cockaigne where everything was great. Streets made of sugar, doughnuts growing on the trees and like that. Like the song about the big rock candy mountain. Idleness and luxury, that was Cockaigne, and that was what this bird Baron called his gambling island.”

  Parker didn't care about legends in the old days in England. What he cared about was what Karns wanted from him right now. But he knew the only thing to do with these people full of unimportant details was wait them out; sooner or later they'd get to the point.

  Karns was saying now, “You see what this guy Baron had in mind, something like the old gambling ships used to stay just outside the twelve-mile limit, we used to operate a couple of them ourselves, but with Baron it's more complicated than just a ship. He finds himself an island situated just right, makes a deal with a country to claim it and then leave him alone with it, and he's set. He gets a lot of his business from the yacht and small boat trade in the Gulf, and the rest of it from the rich Texans. They come from Houston and San Antonio and Corpus Christi and Austin. They come from as far away as Dallas and New Orleans. They spend money on that God damn island like the stuff was going out of style, and not a penny of it comes to us.”

  Karns got to his feet, began to pace the room. His face and voice and movements showed him feeling again an old irritation that hadn't eased with time. “For six years,” he said, “that son of a bitch has sat out there and laughed at us. We told him he couldn't operate without us, we offered him a fifty-fifty split, and he told us to go to hell. He never moves off that island so we can get at him, and as long as he's on the island he's safe from us. We can't pressure him with our own law people because he's outside everybody's jurisdiction.”

  Parker said, “So you want me to take his money away.”

  “Right. I want you to pluck him like a chicken, scrape him clean. Don't just rob the place, burn it to the ground, rip it right off that God damn island and throw it in the sea. Gut it, like Couffignal. Or don't you know that one either?”

  Parker didn't. He said, “What's in it for me?”

  Karns spread his hands. “Whatever's on the island. He must have a million stashed there by now, maybe more.”

  Parker shook his head. “The guy you've been describing isn't stupid. He's got a week's proceeds there at the most and you know it. The rest is in Swiss banks.”

  Karns shrugged. “It's a possibility, I admit it. But even a week's proceeds will be plenty.”

  “How much?”

  Karns squinted into the middle distance, finally said, “I suppose about a quarter million.”

  “Make that a guarantee,” Parker said.

  “What?” Karns turned to look at him. “How could I do that? You want me to send accountants in?”

  “You make up the difference,” Parker told him. “We go there, do the heist, burn the place down like you want, and you make up the difference between our take and a quarter million.”

  “Well, now,” Karns said. “Well, now, wait a minute. That's liable to be a lot of money. I don't think I could go along with that.”

  “You called for me because you need a professional in my line of work. When you want a professional you've got to pay for him.”

  “Well, of course, I know that, but still and all. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

  “It was your figure,” Parker reminded him.

  “For a top,” Karns said. “I was estimating how much it might be.”

  “Estimate an average.”

  Karns frowned, looking like a man with an ulcer. It was obvious he didn't want to pick a number low enough for Parker to figure the job wasn't worth it, but on the other hand he didn't want to pick a number high enough for his organization to have to make up the difference between it and the actual take. Finally he said, “For an average, for what I'd guess would be the average general amount of cash you might find on the island, I'd say a hundred and eighty thousand.”

  “Say two twenty,” Parker told him.

  Karns looked surprised, and then laughed. “Are we haggling? Do we settle at two hundred thousand?”

  Parker said, “Plus front money.”

  “What? What front money?”

  “Every job,” Parker told him, “has expenses beforehand. There's weapons to buy, other things. If this is an island, we'll need a couple of boats.”

  “We can supply everything,” Karns assured him.

  But Parker shook his head. “No. We buy everything before the job, use it once, destroy it afterwards. That way there's no links between us and the job.”

  “This time,” Karns said, “you won't have to worry about things like that. There's no law out at the island, no one will ever be after you for this job.”

  “It isn't my first job,” Parker said, “and it won't be my last. I won't leave things around.”

  “In other words, you'll do it your way or not at all.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it all right if we supply the material and leave its disposition up to you?”

  Parker shrugged. “Just so you don't expect anything back.”

  “I understand that. All right, so you'll do it for guaranteed two hundred thousand dollars take, plus material.”

  “If the job can be done,” Parker said.

  “You mean it isn't an agreement yet?”

  Parker shook his head. “Not till I look it over. If I don't think I can do it, there's no deal.”

  Karns spread his hands. “Then look it over,” he said. “By all means look it over.”

  Now Parker had looked it over, and the job seemed possible, and he had made his first contact to build the string for the operation. He was working again.

  * * *

  *Point Blank.

  *The Outfit.

  TWO

  1

  Grofield came in saying, “I'll take the job only if the place we knock over is air conditioned. Have you felt that heat out there? How are you, Parker?”

  They shook hands. Parker said, “I haven't been out today.”

  “Nor would I be,” said Grofield, catching sight of Crystal. “Darling,” he told her, “you are everything my heart desires. Fly with me.”

  “I can't,” she said. “High altitudes give me nosebleeds.”

  “My nosebleeds come from my wife,” Grofield said, and grinned ruefully. To Parker he said, “Did you know I married that darling little telephone girl? A natural actress, natural actress. You should see her in Hedda Gabler.”

  Grofield had picked up the telephone girl in the course of the last job he'd worked with Parker, in a place called Copper Canyon.* Parker said, “Good. Now she can't testify against you.”

  “A romantic,” Grofield said. “Parker, you are a true romantic, Robin Hood in the age of mechanization.”

  Parker said, “Sit down. Let's talk about the job.”

  “Is honeypot here in the know?”

  “Don't worry about her,” Parker said.

  “I'll go to the supermarket,” Crystal said. She smiled at Grofield. “Nice to have met you.”

  “Polygamy,” Grofield told her, “is the only answer.”

  Grofield watched Crystal leave the room, and then he settled with a grateful sigh on the sofa, spreading his legs out in front of him. He was a tall man, lean and sleek, with carefully tended wavy black hair, urbane good looks, an air of easy competence about him. He was a sometime actor, sometime roadshow producer, and he financed his theatrical career with the money he made in his other line of work, taking jobs with men like Parker.

  He said, “Tell me the story,” and he meant he was finished clowning around. It was his saving grace, as far as Parker was concerned; he knew when to get down to business.

  Parker told him the situation in brief, explaining as quickly and basically as he could, and Grofield's questions were few and to the point. When the Karns connection with the job
was explained, Parker showed him the map of the island and the photos Crystal had taken.

  Grofield said, “Good-looking layout. I think it'll be tough to take.”

  “Maybe not.”

  Grofield said, “Show me.”

  “I don't have a plan cold yet. But I figure we come in two ways. A couple of guys come in like regular customers, down to the main pier. When they get a chance they move over to the boathouses, clean out anybody on guard there, and the others come in that way with the boat we use for the getaway. Karns wants the place burned down, and that's good, we make a lot of confusion, a lot of panic, we get away clean underneath it.”

  Grofield said, “How many men you figure?”

  “Four or five, maybe more.”

  “So it's probably around forty thousand apiece.”

  “Around that.”

  “How much can you count on this guy Karns?”

  “You mean, will he welsh on the guarantee?”

  Grofield nodded. “Or pull a doublecross and try to heist the heisters.”

  “No. Karns knows me from before, he won't try anything.”

  “I'll take your word for it.” Grofield glanced at some of the pictures again. “I guess you figure me one of the guys coming in the front way.”

  “Right.”

  “And you the other one?”

  “Yes.”

  Grofield shook his head. “You run the boathouse brigade,” he said. “I can look sensible going to a place like that alone, but you can't. Without a woman on your arm, you'd look like forty kinds of trouble.”

  He was right and Parker knew it. He said, “Who, then?”

  “How about Salsa?”

  Salsa had also worked with them on the Copper Canyon job. He had a gigolo's looks and a gigolo's background. Grofield was right; Salsa would be perfect for the front way. Parker said, “You want to contact him?”

  “Sure. What else do we need?”

  “A peterman and somebody knows boats.”

  “Peterman. But you don't know what kind of safe.”

  “It's got to be upstairs,” Parker said, “and I couldn't get up there anyway.”

  “I don't like that secret panel garbage, if you want the truth. I figure something like that's always around for a reason, and I figure I don't know yet what the reason is.”

  “We'll know when we crack it,” Parker told him. He wasn't worried about that door himself; it couldn't lead anywhere but upstairs, and upstairs couldn't have too many surprises.

  Grofield said, “What we want is an all-around safeman, somebody can handle the box no matter what it is.”

  “There aren't many of them,” Parker said. “Not any more. Dead or retired, all the old juggers.”

  “There's a guy I worked with a couple years ago,” Grofield said thoughtfully. “To look at him you wouldn't think he had a brain in his head. He's a wrassler, one of those TV boys with all the hair, he looks like an abominable snowman. But you should see him with a safe, he's got the touch of a Florence Nightingale.”

  “What's his name?”

  “Gruber. Gropin’ Gruber I always called him.”

  “I've heard of a safeman called Gruber, but I never met him.”

  “If you heard he was good, it's the same man.”

  “Can you get in touch with him?”

  “I think so. I'll try tonight, when I put in the call for Salsa. And what else?”

  “Someone to run the boat.”

  Grofield shook his head. “That's a funny one. I've never been on a job where we needed a boat.”

  “Maybe Salsa knows somebody. Or your friend Gruber.”

  “What about Joe Sheer? He knows just about everybody.”

  Parker shook his head. “He's dead,” he said. Joe Sheer had handled Parker's messages for years, ever since Joe retired from his main business, opening safes. “He died a few months ago,” Parker said.

  “Is that right? Old Joe? I liked him, Parker, I honest to God liked that old man. What, was it sudden?”

  “It was sudden,” Parker said. He was leaving out a lot, that Joe Sheer's death had caused Parker trouble and ultimately destroyed the usefulness of the safe cover identity Parker had used on his off-work time for years.* It was because of that bad time that Parker now needed money badly enough to work two operations in less than two months.

  Grofield said, “All right. I'll ask around. We'll want a man who can do more than just run a boat, won't we?”

  “I figure, the way we'll work it, we ought to leave him at the boathouses to cover our getaway route. You and Salsa and me, we get Gruber into the casino and upstairs to the safe.”

  “All right. We want a driver, in other words, except it's a boat driver.”

  Crystal came in as Grofield was talking. “Boats,” she said. “Don't talk about boats. I'm still not recovered.”

  “You take first-rate pictures,” Grofield told her. “How are you on publicity photos? I've been needing new ones.”

  “Carry this bag to the kitchen,” she said. “We'll talk about it.”

  The other two went into the kitchen and Parker sat on the sofa, bent over the map lying on the coffee table. He could visualize the way it was, the way it would be. There was still work to do, preparation, but they were started.

  Out in the kitchen, Grofield was flirting with his woman, didn't hear it.

  * * *

  *The Score.

  *The Jugger.

  2

  Yancy said, “It's the red one there.” He pointed at a red Thunderbird glinting in the sunlight, a new hardtop with a broken tail-light.

  Parker walked with him across the sidewalk from Crystal's apartment house to the car. The heat was bright, heavy, oppressive, especially after the air conditioned building. They got into the car and Yancy started the engine and turned a switch on the dashboard. “All the comforts of home,” he said, meaning the car was air conditioned.

  They drove over Texas Avenue to the Gulf Freeway and headed north. Yancy turned on the radio and found a station playing the top forty. The radio started the second it was switched on, with no wait for warmup, and at the push of a button it moved along the dial and stopped automatically when it found a station.

  The car was so full of gimmicks it was a surprise it would move at all. Tinted glass, tachometer, compass, joy knob. Large foam rubber dice hung from the rearview mirror. A stuffed toy tiger sat on the shelf by the back window. Mirrors were mounted on both fenders. Round large extra brake lights flanked the toy tiger.

  It was thirty-five miles to the end of the Freeway at Dowling Avenue in Houston. They did it in twenty-eight minutes, silently, each thinking his own thoughts. Off the Freeway, Yancy drove over to Washington Street and stopped in front of a seedy bar called Tropical Palm Lounge. “This is the place,” he said, and got out of the car.

  Parker followed him inside. The interior was a large square room full of round little tables with shiny black formica tops. Posts here and there were surfaced with amber-tinted mirrors. A small stage at the back contained an upright piano, a set of drums with DW in large letters on the bass drum, and a microphone. A narrow dancing area enclosed by a low wooden rail was in front of the stage, and the bar, backed by more amber-tinted mirrors, was along the left wall.

  The time was early afternoon, and the place was nearly deserted. One bartender was on duty, with three customers to keep him company at the bar. The tables were all empty, and no waiter or waitress was in sight.

  Yancy said, “This way.” He went first to the bar, saying, “Hi, Eddie.”

  “Whadaya say, Yancy?”

  “Bottle in the back, boy?”

  “Sure thing, Yancy.”

  “You're my pal.” He turned to Parker and motioned with his head. “Come on.”

  Yancy was enjoying himself, being the big man on the local scene showing off for the out-of-towner. It didn't bother Parker. Just so Yancy did what he was supposed to do, he could choose any style he liked.

  They walked n
ow down the length of the bar and through a door at the back marked “Office.” But the door didn't lead to an office, it led to a short hall with doors to left and right. The door on the left also said “Office,” but it was through the door on the right that Yancy led the way.

  They were in a storeroom, piled high with cases of liquor. At a small table in a cleared space near the door sat a short stocky man with snow-white hair and the red-veined nose of an alcoholic. He had been playing solitaire. An ashtray on the table was mounded high with cigarette butts.

  Yancy said, “Hey, there, Humboldt. How's it going?”

  Humboldt said, “You got a cigarette, Yancy? I run out.” He had a nasal voice, a whiner's voice, full of grievance and complaint. The voice went with a smaller thinner body than Humboldt's.

  Yancy said, “They got a whole machine up front. You run the place yourself, cop a pack.”

  “I didn't feel like walkin’ all the way out.”

  Yancy laughed and shook his head. “You smoke too much, Humboldt,” he said, “and you walk too little. You'll croak after all.”

  “Don't say things like that. Gimme a cigarette.”

  Yancy dropped his pack on the table. “This is Parker,” he said, nodding his head toward Parker. “He's here for some equipment.”

  Humboldt said, “This the special order they told me about?” But he was too busy getting at one of Yancy's cigarettes to show much interest.

  “This is him,” Yancy said. He turned to Parker. “Last year,” he said, “the doctor told Humboldt either he cut out the sauce or he'd be dead in six months. And I mean an important doctor, a doctor that knew his business, got his own column in the newspaper and been on TV and everything.” He looked to Humboldt. “Isn't that right?”

  Humboldt had the cigarette going now. “That doctor saved my life,” he said.

  “Yeah. We'll see.” Back to Parker, Yancy said, “Humboldt hasn't had a drink since, not a taste. So he smokes instead, four five packs a day. And he eats, all the time. He put on seventy pounds so far, maybe more. Isn't that right, Humboldt?”