The Score p-5

by Richard Stark

  Not all jobs were like that. Nobody cares what you did a while back if all they want you for is to operate a shovel or work in a harvest gang. Heavy work for low wages, all you can use.

  There’s more than one way to make a living. And if you want more of a living than you can get with a shovel, and if nobody’ll give you a sniff at any sort of a job better than that, there’s stillways to make a living.

  Chambers stretched and scratched himself, and watched old George. That damn fool Ernie. Why take off after a sixteen-year-old chippy anyway? Who cares how willing she was?

  Chambers sighed, and shifted position, and felt the sweat dribbling down. Too bad Ernie wasn’t here.

  3

  Grofield heard background music. Always, everywhere he went. Sometimes lush and full, with a lot of strings. Sometimes rapidfire, with xylophones and brass, that busy-Manhattan-street-with-yellow-taxicabs music. Sometimes strident, harsh, dramatic. But always music, in the air around his head like a halo.

  Right now, next to Parker in the front seat of the prowl car, the music he was hearing was low, slow, like a heavy pulse beat; a bass drum, and a bass fiddle, and maybe a few other instruments, all low-pitched, pounding out a slow relentless beat, gradually building up.

  Parker was driving, and wearing a hat he’d taken off one of the cops. The walkie-talkie was on the seat between them, and the Tommy between their knees, barrel down against the floor, stock jutting up onto the seat. Grofield’s rifle was in his arms, butt in his lap and barrel pointing up past his right ear. His walkie-talkie was on the floor between his legs.

  Behind them, in the other car, were Phillips and Littlefield and Kerwin. The two cars drove over Caulkins Street to Raymond Avenue, and turned left. A block and a half up they saw the truck, but nobody in or near it. Grofield heard the music build up in tempo as they went by, rolling slow and silent, Parker’s face all jutting angles in the green dashlights. Grofield turned his head to look at the truck, anonymous-looking truck, imagining the angle of the follow shot, the camera, having trailed up to now, now speeding, going past on the other side, keeping the truck always centered beyond the prowl car, and intercutting to the faces inside, Parker and himself.

  He felt he ought to say something, but nothing came to mind. Nothing that wasn’t banal, too damn typical of this scene. None of the really great playwrights had ever written this scene; the fifth-raters who had written it would all, to a man, put in his mouth at this point the line, “Well, this is it, boss.”

  He remained silent.

  Three more blocks and they turned left on Blake Street. The telephone company building was one block over, on the corner. Parker stopped the car, and the background music stopped, too, leaving a dramatic silence. Parker got out of the car, carrying the Tommy but leaving the walkie-talkie, and Grofield got out on his side, strapped his walkie-talkie on, and picked up his rifle. The station wagon had stopped behind them, and the other three had gotten out. They’d all had their hoods off while riding, and now they put them back on.

  The telephone company building was three stories high, made of the yellow brick that seemed to be standard around here for nonresidental buildings. The walk up to the door was flanked by flowers. There was a dim light beyond the entrance door, and lights behind four of the windows on the second floor left.

  They went in without talking. The walkie-talkie on Grofield’s back made a tiny jangling sound as he moved, barely loud enough for even him to hear it. That would be amplified on the soundtrack, serve instead of background music. He tried to walk so as to give the jangling a proper slow rhythm.

  Inside, a globe hanging from the ceiling was lit, showing a hall, and a wide flight of metal stairs leading up. They went up, sliding their feet on to each step with small shushing sounds, to avoid any clatter, and at the top they saw a door with light behind the frosted glass.

  They pushed open the door and went in, Parker first, Grofield after him, and the others behind. Parker said, “Stop, ladies. If anybody screams, I shoot.”

  Three women. One at a desk, writing with a ballpoint pen. The other two on chairs before a long switchboard filling the right-hand wall, looking like a flat black computer. All three stared. Two opened their mouths, but none of them screamed.

  Parker said, “All stand up. Move to the center of the room.”

  The woman at the desk found part of her voice and said, “What are you men doing here?”

  “Do as the gentleman tells you, dear,” said Grofield, “Don’t interfere with the schedule.”

  He watched the three women move uncertainly to the center of the room. The two operators looked terrified, period. The woman who’d been at the desk looked both terrified and indignant. But there wouldn’t be any screaming, and there wouldn’t be any running or anything like that. They’d behave.

  Parker lowered the Tommy and pointed at the woman from the desk. “What’s your name?”

  “Mrs Sawyer.”

  “What’s your first name, Mrs Sawyer?”

  “Edith.”

  “Introduce me to the other ladies, Edith.”

  “I don’t know what you have in”

  “Just tell me their names, Edith.”

  One of the operators blurted, “I’m Linda Peters.”

  “Thank you, Linda. What’s your friend’s name?”

  The friend spoke for herself. “Mary Deegan.”

  “Mary Deegan. Tell me, Mary, you related to George Deegan, over at the firehouse?”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  “Well, he’s in good hands, Mary. Just like you.”

  Grofield liked to watch Parker work. See him before a job, or after, you’d think he was just a silent heavy, quick-tempered and mean, about as subtle as a gorilla. But on a job, dealing with any people that might be in the way, he was all psychology.

  Terrify them first. Terrify them in such a way that they’ll freeze. Not so they’ll make noise, or run, or jump you, or anything like that, just so they’ll freeze. Then talk to them, calm and gentle. Get their first names, and use the first names. When a man uses your first name, calmly and without sarcasm, he’s accepting your individuality, your worthiness to live. The use of your first name implies that this man really doesn’t want to harm you.

  The fright to freeze them, and then the reassurance to keep them frozen. And it worked almost every time.

  Parker was explaining it to them now, telling them all they had to know. He was telling them he was sorry two of them would have to be tied and gagged, but it wouldn’t be for long. They were watching him, the three of them, hanging on his words.

  That was another part of the psychology. Bunch them together right away, in a little group. It reassures them, to be in a group, and it cuts down the possibility of individual initiative. Each member of the group waits for some other member of the group to lead the way.

  Parker even arranged the tieing and gagging differently. Phillips and Littlefield brought over two of the chairs, took the casters off them so they wouldn’t roll, and had Mrs Edith Sawyer and Linda Peters sit down in them. Their ankles were tied to the center chair leg, their wrists were tied behind their backs, and the sponge-and-cloth gags were applied. Then Parker and the others left, and Grofield was on his own.

  The operator still loose was Mary Deegan. Grofield said to her, “Mary, do you suppose there’s a telephone book around here anywhere?”

  “Well, yes. Of course.” Her fright was fading, and she was now becoming bewildered.

  “Good. Mary, I want you to get that book, and sit down at Edith’s desk there, and copy down some phone numbers for me. Will you do that like a good girl?”

  “The book’s in the desk drawer.”

  “Well, then, get it.”

  She went over and sat behind the desk, and looked at him doubtfully. “It’s all right for me to open the drawer?”

  “Mary, you don’t have a gun in that drawer. And if you do, you have more sense than to show it to me. Go ahead and open the drawer.”r />
  She opened the drawer, and put the phone book on the desk.

  “Good girl. Now, give me the phone number for police headquarters. Got it? Now the firehouse.”

  She looked up. “Do you really have my uncle prisoner, too?”

  “Tut, tut! Prisoner me no prisoner, nor uncle me no uncle.” Though she couldn’t see it under the hood, he smiled, then said, “A paraphrase of Shakespeare. Your uncle is in good hands. Write down the number, and maybe later you can talk to him.”

  She wrote down the number.

  “Let’s see. One more. The night phone at the refinery.”

  She wrote that one, too.

  “Good girl. Just leave the paper there, and rise and go to yon computer, if you would. Resume your seat there.” He sat down at the desk, put the rifle down on its top, and pointed to the phone in front of him. “Can I work this? Or do you have to do something there?”

  “You can work it.”

  “Fine.” He picked up the receiver, and dialed police headquarters.

  It was answered after one ring: “Police headquarters, Officer Nieman.” The officer’s voice sounded a little thin and strained.

  “Hello, Fred, let me talk to E. The man with the machine gun.” He felt the women’s eyes on his face as he said the last words, and even though he wore a hood he forced himself not to smile.

  Edgars came on the line, sounding wary. “Yeah?”

  “G here at the phone company. Everything’s fine. You can reach me at 7-3060. Got that?”

  “Got it. Everything’s under control here, too. You’re the first call.”

  “May I be the only.”

  “Right.”

  Grofield broke the connection and called the firehouse. The shaky voice this time said only, “Hello?”

  “Hello, George. I want to talk to C.”

  “Who?”

  “The man with the rifle.”

  “Oh. Oh!”

  Chambers came on, saying, “How’s it going, man?”

  “Fine. Everything under control. Let me give you the number here, in case you have to reach me.”

  “Hold on. George, give me a pencil. And a sheet of paper. Okay, go ahead.”

  Grofield gave him the number, and then hung up and got to his feet. He took the walkie-talkie off, set it on the desk, next to the rifle, and hunched his shoulders to get the stiffness out of them. He looked over at Mary Deegan and said, “Mary, you got direct distance dialing here?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If anybody wants to call out of town, they’ve got to go through you, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He picked up the rifle and walked across the room to her. “If anybody calls you, I want to listen in. How do we work that?”

  “You could sit there, I guess. Put that headset on, and plug that jack in there.”

  “Fine. Now we’re set, aren’t we?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Grofield leaned back in the chair, feeling the unfamiliar closeness of the headset against his ears. The music had a high richness to it now, and he was bringing it back from over Germany, the co-pilot dead in the seat beside him. They’d said daylight low-level precision bombing was impossible, but he’d helped to prove them wrong. Radio silence, radio silence. The earphones were silent on his head.

  Six years, eleven jobs. Every one of them had had the moments of high drama, complete with music and camera angles and dramatic lighting effects but they’d all had stretches like this, too, of waiting, silence, and boredom.

  Twenty thousand. Maybe more. Too late to get into summer stock now, but there was always winter stock in Florida or Texas or somewhere. This time, why not spend the money the smart way? Produce. Get into the money end of the damn racket for once.

  But you couldn’t produce stock and act in it both. He’d already tried it, in Maine, three summers ago. But he liked to act and he hated paperwork, and the summer had been a disaster. So he’d do the same as always, act for peanuts in winter stock, throw away the dough on a convertible and a good apartment and good times, and by the end of the season he’d be broke again, looking around for another job. Number twelve.

  All except number one had been fine. Competent professional jobs, because he was working with the right people. The first one had been a mess. Begun as a gag, actually gone through with only because nobody wanted to be the first to quit, and successful by pure luck.

  In Pennsylvania it was. A repertory company, twelve of them on a shares basis, and the company not even earning enough to maintain itself. Four of the guys had started talking about stealing, as a gag: “If business keeps up this lousy, we’ll have to knock over a gas station or two.” Then the gag got specific; a supermarket in a suburban area forty miles away.

  When it stopped being a gag and started being reality Grofield couldn’t say for sure. But it became reality, as they worked out plan after plan for weeks, and then they went ahead and did it, wearing masks, carrying prop guns loaded with blanks, in an old beat-up Chevrolet with mud smeared on the license plates. They got forty-three hundred dollars, and they never were caught.

  That was number one, and afterward Grofield swore it would never happen again; you couldn’t bank on dumb luck forever. But he was still in general contact with a guy he’d known in the army, and one time he mentioned the supermarket score to him the only one he’d told about it, up till then and the guy laughed and offered him a spot driving in a jewelry store heist. It was just driving the car, and he was broke again, summer stock being over and nothing having turned up in the city. So he did it.

  And he was still doing it. He was probably the only actor in the United States who could really afford to work at Equity minimum.

  Over on the desk, the walkie-talkie spoke, in a tin imitation of Parker’s voice, saying, “Radio station taken care of. Nobody was there.”

  Wycza’s voice said, “Shall we start?”

  “Wait till we get the west gate.”

  “It’s almost twelve-thirty.”

  “I know.”

  Mary Deegan said, suddenly, “You’re going to steal the payroll, aren’t you?”

  “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies. I tell you what, let’s play Twenty Questions. You know how to play Twenty Questions?”

  “Wha what?”

  “Twenty Questions. Do you know how to play it?”

  She nodded, doubtfully.

  “Good.” He looked around, saw the walkie-talkie. “I’m thinking of something mineral.”

  All at once she started to cry. She ducked her head and whispered, “I’m, I’m sorry. It’s my nerves.”

  “That’s all right, Mary. It’s just stage fright, don’t worry about it.”

  4

  Kerwin didn’t take any part in wrecking the radio station equipment. For himself, he didn’t even think it was necessary, but Parker and the others did, so let them do it.

  He stood in the doorway, watching the street. The prowl car was parked there, at the curb, with the station wagon behind it. There was absolute silence from the street, but from inside there were the crashes of metallic breakage.

  Kerwin liked metal. He liked machinery, liked to watch it work, liked to fiddle with it and learn about it and understand it. At home, he was a ham radio operator, and a do-it-yourselfer. He owned two prewar cars, and they both ran like watches. In one corner of his basement there was a model train layout, full of drawbridges and complex signal systems; he ran the model railroad with his neighbor, and two pipes under the driveway between their houses carried track which linked their systems.

  He liked machinery and he hated to see it destroyed. When it came to safes, he liked to use drill and screwdriver and wrench and his own hands; men who relied on nitro were just bums and amateurs, not professional safemen at all. And when it came to the kind of wreckage Parker and Littlefield and Phillips were doing in the radio station now, Kerwin wanted no part of it. He didn’t approve.

  The sounds stopped. A few se
conds later, they came out, all wearing their hoods, and Parker said, “Clear?”

  Kerwin nodded. “Clear.”

  They went out and got into the two cars, Parker and Phillips in the prowl car, Kerwin and Littlefield in the wagon. They drove back up Whittier to Raymond, turned left, and drove down to the end, to the west gate of the plant.

  This part had no effect on Kerwin at all. People were just fuses; they had to be deactivated before you could get to work. He and Littlefield waited while the prowl car nosed forward to the gate, and the guard came out of his booth, waving in a friendly way. Then the guard stopped, and raised his hands, and Kerwin saw Phillips get out of the car, walk around it, disarm the guard, and walk him back into his shack.

  Littlefield cleared his throat, and said, “Think they need us?”

  “If they do, they’ll motion to us.”

  “I guess so.”

  Parker had gotten out of the car now, too, and had gone into the shack. After a couple of minutes, Phillips came out wearing the guard’s uniform. He attached a metal sign to the already-closed gate, and got into the car just as Parker also came out of the shack.

  Littlefield cleared his throat again. “It’s certainly running smooth,” he said.

  Kerwin glanced at him and saw how tightly he was holding to the steering wheel. “Nothing to be nervous about,” he said.

  “That’s right.” Littlefield coughed, and cleared his throat.

  The prowl car had backed away from the gate, and swung to the right. Littlefield put the wagon in gear, and followed the prowl car down Copper Street toward the other gate. Closed luncheonettes and bars and barber shops and tailors were on their right, and the fence on their left. Beyond the fence were the dark bulks of the plant buildings, and beyond them, in total darkness, the sheer wall of the canyon.

  Again, the station wagon hung back while the prowl car drove up to the gate. The same actions were repeated, and then Parker waved to them to come forward. Phillips had opened the gate, and was standing there looking natural and easy in the guard uniform. He gave them a mock salute as the wagon passed him, following Parker along the blacktop company street between the buildings.