Firebreak

by Richard Stark

  "You've been to this place before," Parker said.

  "It used to be my office."

  "What's the layout?"

  "All the offices are upstairs," Arthur told him. "Receptionist, little room at the top of the stairs. Behind her, a center hall, offices on left and right. Left has those front windows. Mine was the last window up there on the left. That's where Rafe is now."

  "We'll go up," Parker said. "You give your name and ask for Hargetty."

  "Right."

  Parker opened the street door, had Arthur go in first, and they headed up the stairs.

  Some effort had been made to soften this fireproof iron-and-concrete stairwell, with beige carpeting and walls, plus framed nineteenth-century photographs of New York City street scenes; horse-drawn trolleys, slender distant women in black silhouette lifting their skirts out of the mud.

  There was a dark wood railing at the top of the stairs, but no wall. Arthur stepped around the ornate newel at the end of the rail and Parker followed, seeing, against the rear wall, a thin middle-aged woman in thick black sweater and black-framed harlequin glasses seated behind a broad desk cluttered with phone and computer equipment, in-out baskets, packages of various kinds, phone books, small file boxes, a long Rolodex, and a variety of over-the-counter medicines. She was on the phone, nodding, not speaking, taking notes on a memo pad. She nodded at Arthur, wagged her pen briefly to assure him he was next, and went on listening and writing. Finally, she said, "I'll be sure he gets this as soon as he comes in. Yes, thank you. Thank you, you did the right thing."

  One more nod and she hung up, then shook her head, said, "Phew," looked at the notes she'd made, shook her head again, pushed that pad to one side, and gave Arthur a bright look: "Yes, sir, good morning."

  "Morning," Arthur said. "Rafe Hargetty in?"

  Already reaching for the phone, she said, "Who shall I say?"

  "Arthur Hembridge."

  She dialed a two-digit number, waited briefly, said, "Mr. Hargetty, an Arthur Hembridge and another gentleman are here." She nodded, sending a little meaningless smile in Arthur's direction, then said, "I will," hung up, and said, "Mr. Hargetty will be right out. You could have a seat over there while you wait."

  Across the room, under a window overlooking the street, were two sofas in an L, with a glass coffee table bearing half a dozen newspapers and magazines. As they crossed to it, Arthur said, "She's new. Well, it's been eight years."

  Parker sat with the window behind him, the receptionist ahead of him across the room, Arthur on the other sofa to his left, the inner door to the offices beyond Arthur. The receptionist was now typing, interrupted from time to time by the telephone. She handled all these calls herself, making notes or asking questions, never transferring anyone to the people in the other offices.

  They waited a little more than five minutes, and then that inner door opened and a man came out. Big-muscled but lean in torso, he looked like an oil-well driller in his wedding-and-funeral suit. Though he was probably in his mid-forties, his face and hands were weathered and lined, and he moved awkwardly, as though putting him indoors in city clothes had robbed him of both the self-assurance and balance he would have felt out on the rig.

  His smile was awkward, too, as he came forward, big-knuckled hand out, saying, "Arthur! By God, it's been a hundred years!"

  Arthur and Parker had both risen, and now Arthur stepped forward to accept the handshake, saying, "At least that long, Rafe. You look good."

  "So do you," Rafe said, his questioning eye glancing off Parker.

  Arthur said, 'This is Mr. Parker, part of the reason I'm here."

  Rafe winced at the name; a tiny movement, but Parker saw it. Turning, hand out again, Rafe said, "Mr. Parker, glad to know you. Any friend of Arthur's."

  'You, too," Parker said, and they shook briefly, Rafe already looking away.

  Rafe put his hands on his hips, arms akimbo, as though looking out over a cliff. That uneasy smile flickered again, and he said, "Well, Arthur, what can I do you for?"

  Arthur's smile seemed very natural. "We'd like to have a little chat in your office, if you have a minute," he said.

  "Well, sure," Rafe said, turning away. "Come on. Your office, too, you know."

  "I imagine there've been changes," Arthur said.

  "A few," Rafe agreed, and led the way down a functional cream-colored hall with overhead fluorescents. Most of the doors to both sides were open, most of the small offices occupied, with one man or woman at a desk, talking on the phone or staring at the computer.

  The last office on the left, Rafe's, was just as small and cramped as the rest. He went in first, shut the door after them, and said, "Only one chair, there. Unless you want mine."

  Parker stayed standing by the door. "The first thing you can do, Rafe," he said, "is call Frank Meany back, tell him—"

  They both stared. Rafe said, "What?" as though he didn't speak English.

  "—Arthur got spooked by something," Parker went on, "and left."

  Arthur, saddened but not surprised, said to Rafe, "You knew."

  Deciding to tough it out, Rafe said, "I'm not sure what you two—" j,

  Parker showed him the pistol, without pointing it anywhere; a Beretta Jetfire automatic in .25 calibre, strong enough for indoors. "Call him now," he said, "or you don't leave this room alive."

  Arthur said, "Rafe, for God's sake—"

  "No, Arthur," Parker said. "Rafe doesn't have time for that. Meany's sending people right now." He took a step closer to Rafe and raised the Beretta, because only an eye-shot would be sure. "Phone now."

  Rafe blinked at the pistol staring at him. "You can't shoot a gun in here," he said.

  Parker shot the front panel of the wooden desk. The flat sound swelled in the room, but wouldn't reach far beyond it. Parker lifted the Beretta toward Rafe's eye again.

  The sound of the shot had broken something in Rafe, like a high note breaking glass. He became boneless, and dropped backward into his desk chair, still looking at the Beretta. Parker and Arthur watched him for one long second, and then Rafe shook his head, reached out, picked up the phone.

  "Redial," Parker said.

  Rafe blinked at him, thinking about that, then shrugged, with a bitter sound in his throat. "I'm not clever," he said, as though it were a failing that had long troubled him, and pushed redial.

  Parker came around the desk to lean close, so he could hear both sides of the conversation.

  The phone rang three times, and then a woman's voice answered, saying some company name that Parker didn't quite catch. Rafe said, "It's Rafe Hargetty again, let me talk to Frank."

  "One moment."

  Parker was close enough to smell a kind of metallic haze that rose from Rafe, as though he'd just been electrocuted. It was the smell of fear.

  "Rafe?" A hard, fast, tough-guy voice. "Keep him there, I got people on the way, use—"

  "He left, Frank."

  "What? You said he was there."

  "Him and another guy. They left before I got outside. I don't know, something spooked them."

  "What's the other guy look like?"

  "I never saw him, Frank." Rafe's fear came across as the underling's desperate desire to please. He said, 'They were gone before I got out there."

  "Shit," said the voice. There's only one reason Arthur's off the reservation. Let me think."

  They all let Frank think. Arthur stood glaring at Rafe with heavy anger, while Rafe stared at his desktop, eyes and mouth moving as though he still thought there was some way he could turn this around, even though he knew there was nothing in the world he was ready to try.

  "Rafe. Rafe, you there?"

  "Yeah, sure!"

  "If he comes back— Who've you got there? Anybody could hold them?"

  There's always a few drivers downstairs," Rafe said, "but they already left, I don't think they're—"

  "If they do," Frank interrupted. "If they do come back, don't call me first, call downstairs first,
get your hands on little Arthur and whoever the other guy is, then call me."

  "Okay, Frank."

  "Which is what you shoulda done this time."

  "I didn't think, I just wanted—"

  "I know, Rafe. Maybe they'll give you a second chance."

  "I'll—I'll take care of it, Frank. If they come back."

  "Good," Meany said, and broke the connection.

  Rafe hung up, and turned his troubled look on Arthur. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "Sorry for what in particular, Rafe?"

  "I'm not around violence, Arthur," Rafe said. "You know that, no more than you ever were."

  Arthur shook his head. "You're around it now."

  Parker said, "What's the link between Cosmopolitan and Paul Brock?"

  Rafe had the scared reaction of somebody who's been falsely accused: "Who?"

  Arthur said, "You don't know this fella Brock?"

  "Never heard the name in my life," Rafe said, blinking at Arthur. "I'm not going to lie to you, Arthur, not now, not like this."

  "If you don't know Brock," Arthur said, "what do you know?"

  "Frank came to me, a little while ago," Rafe told him. "He knew you and me kept in touch, he wanted to call you, give you a job."

  "A job," Arthur said.

  Rafe looked at Parker, then down at his hands curled on the desktop. "I'm not proud of this," he told his hands.

  "Bullshit, Rafe," Arthur said. "We do what's needed."

  Not looking up from his hands, Rafe said, "He wanted me to know, in front, you weren't gonna come out of it. So I wouldn't have a complaint later, he told me the setup."

  Arthur waited, looking at Rafe's bowed head. After a minute, Rafe sighed, shook himself, and said, "What it Was, there was a guy worked for Cosmopolitan, I guess a hit man, I don't know, and he did private jobs sometimes, too. He did a private job that got him killed, and Cosmopolitan didn't like it, they had a lot invested in the guy, and it looked bad if their pro got put down by some independent named Parker that nobody knew, so they took it over, the private job, they made it a Cosmopolitan job."

  "My job," Arthur said.

  "Yeah." Rafe looked up at Parker. "I don't know what you're gonna do to me, right now," he said, "but you got a whole big corporation looking to shut you down."

  Parker pointed the Beretta at the memo pad on Rafe's desk. "Write down Frank Meany's addresses and phone numbers. Where he works and where he lives."

  "I don't know where he lives," Rafe said, and at Parker's expression he said, "I swear to God!"

  Arthur, quietly, said, "I never knew where Frank lived either."

  "On the job, then," Parker said.

  Rafe looked from one to the other, not saying he was dead no matter what he did now, because they all knew that. Then he made a sour face and said, "He's at Cosmopolitan, over in Bayonne."

  Parker looked at Arthur. "You know the place?"

  Shaking his head, Arthur said, "I used to know the address. I was never there."

  Parker nodded at Rafe. "Write it down."

  Obediently, Rafe picked up his pen and wrote the company name and address on the memo pad.

  Parker said, "What does he do there?"

  "PR," Rafe said.

  Parker frowned. "What?"

  "Public relations," Rafe explained. "He's head of public relations."

  "That's the company's idea of a joke," Arthur said, picking up the whole pad, putting it in his jacket pocket. 'That and bombs." Looking at Parker, he gestured toward Rafe: "Why won't he call Frank as soon as we leave?"

  "Because," Parker said, "either I shoot him dead, or he comes with us. It's up to him."

  Slowly, Rafe got to his feet.

  7

  West of the Holland Tunnel, the Turnpike Extension rides high over the Jersey flats, where garbage and construction debris and used Broadway sets and failed mobsters have been buried for a hundred years. Arthur drove, with Parker and Rafe behind him on the backseat. Rafe had nothing to say until Arthur took one of the steep twisty ramps down from the Extension into the industrial wasteland of the flats. Then, not looking at Parker, he said, "I'd like to live through this."

  "Everybody would," Parker told him.

  The street they took south was flanked by warehouses and vast parking fields full of tractor trailers. There were no pedestrians in this part of the world, and almost no other traffic. Parker said, "Arthur, how far?"

  'Ten minutes."

  "Pull over at the next cross street."

  Rafe blinked, but wouldn't look at Parker.

  As the Volvo slowed, Parker said to Rafe, "Take off your shoes and socks."

  "I'm not trouble to anybody," Rafe said, still looking straight ahead. Then, when Parker didn't answer, he stooped to take off the shoes and socks, saying, 'Just leave them on the floor?"

  'Yes. Empty your pockets. Onto the floor."

  Rafe did so, wallet and keys and coins and a penknife dropping down by his shoes.

  Arthur had stopped the Volvo. Parker got out, on the curbside, and said, "Come out."

  Rafe slid over and climbed out of the car. He looked very scared, and kept his eyes fixed on a point somewhere to Parker's right.

  Parker said, "Walk somewhere."

  Surprised he was going to stay alive, Rafe looked quickly at Parker's face, then down at his own bare feet, then started walking, stepping carefully, frowning down at the scarred broken concrete of the sidewalk.

  Parker got into the front beside Arthur. "We'll be done before he calls anybody."

  "Good," Arthur said. "I was afraid you wouldn't have an easy way." He put the car in gear and drove on south, Rafe picking his way slowly through the wasteland behind them.

  It's called the Port of New York, but years ago most of the shipping businesses moved across the harbor to New Jersey, where the costs were lower and the regulations lighter. Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, and Bayonne are, along their waterfronts, a great sweeping tangle of piers, warehouses, gasoline storage towers, snaking rail lines, cranes, semi-tractor trailers, chain-link fences, guard shacks, and forklift trucks. Day and night, lights glare from the tops of tall poles and the corners of warehouses. Cargo ships ease up the channels and into the piers every hour of every day from every port in the world. The big trucks roll eastward from the Turnpike and the cargo planes lift from Newark International. The thousand thousand businesses here cover every need and every want known to man.

  This was the home of Cosmopolitan Beverages, or at least the home of their legitimate business. On the roof of a broad three-story brick building a long time ago painted dull gray a sparkling red-and-gold neon sign read cosmopolitan in flowing script and, beneath that, beverages in smaller red block letters. The building stood alone, surrounded by frost-heaved concrete patched here and there with asphalt. Between the expanse of concrete and the equally choppy street stretched a chain-link fence across the front of the property, turning at right angles at both ends to stretch back toward the piers and Upper New York Bay. Gates in both front corners stood open, the one on the left leading to a mostly full parking area beside the building, the one on the right opening to a smaller and mostly empty space, with a sign on the fence near the gate reading visitor parking.

  Arthur turned in at the visitors' gate, saying, "Same as last time?"

  "No. I'll be Hargetty." Parker looked at Arthur's profile as the older man stopped the car near the front corner of the building. "You have any guns in this car?"

  Arthur shook his head. "I've never owned a gun in my life," he said. "Fired rifles, a long time ago, in the army. Only at targets."

  "If it turns bad," Parker told him, "drop flat and roll into a corner."

  "And consign my soul to Jesus."

  "If you want."

  They got out of the car. "Don't lock it," Parker said, since Arthur was about to.

  "Right," Arthur said.

  The old concrete surrounding the building was like broken ice on a lake after a thaw and refreeze, but slicing th
rough it in a straight line from visitors' parking across the facade to the main front entrance was a four-foot-wide swatch of newer uncracked concrete. They took this walk, Parker going first, and inside the revolving door was a broad reception area, a wide low black desk on a shiny black floor, with no other furniture. The rear wall was curved, shiny silver, as though they were inside a platinum egg. On that wall were mounted, in a random pattern, bottles of the different liquors the company imported, each in its own clear plastic box; beside each was displayed that brand's Christmas gift box.

  The receptionist was a black man, thin, thirtyish, with a thick brush of a moustache that made the face behind it seem slighter, less important. He wore jeans and a

  dark green polo shirt under a maroon blazer with CB in ornate gold letters on the pocket. He watched Parker and Arthur cross to him as though their existence were baffling but unimportant, as though the idea of 'Visitors" had never been tested here before.

  Parker reached the desk and said, "Frank Meany."

  The man nodded, nothing more.

  Parker said, "We want to see him."

  Finally the man had something to say: "Did you phone him?"

  "Yeah, just a little while ago."

  "And he said to come here,?"

  "He didn't say I was supposed to talk to you, he said I was supposed to talk with him."

  The man looked around, as though there should be somebody else here to discuss this situation with, but then he shrugged and turned away, reaching for his phone.

  Parker waited, watching him make an interior call. The man spoke softly, but could be heard: "Some people here for Mr. Meany." A little pause, and, 'That's what they say." Another little pause, and, "I'll ask him." He turned to Parker: "Who are you?"

  "Rafe Hargetty."

  The man repeated the name into the phone, then said, "Okay," and sat back in his swivel chair, looking at nothing, tapping the eraser end of a pencil on his belt buckle.