Firebreak

by Richard Stark

  Still, it did make Wiss feel a little alone now and then, that he wasn't able to pass on his expertise and experience to a son. Which, in a weird way, was where Larry Lloyd came in. He reminded Wiss a little of himself, the same love of arcane learning, the same ability to concentrate on the smallest details. He was a little too old to be Wiss's son, unless Wiss had started a lot younger than he had, but there was something of that relationship growing there. Not to make a big deal about it, but Larry was in some ways the extra son that Wiss had never had, the son that would continue the family business.

  And now Larry was changed, but Wiss thought maybe in a good way. All of a sudden he was there, in Chinook, unexpectedly, loose and grinning, saying, "I don't have to do it long-distance any more."

  Wiss and Elkins had taken adjoining motel rooms in Chinook, twenty miles from Havre, and Larry was there waiting for them outside their rooms when they came back from lunch. "I got the next room over," he said.

  They went inside, away from a clear cold wind, into Wiss's room, flanked by the rooms of the other two, and Wiss said, "Larry? What about your parole?"

  "I decided I'd rather be on the lam," Larry said. "Got tired of playing their game." He was very relaxed, very pleased with himself. Wiss knew it was a stupid comparison, but to him Larry looked like a guy who'd just paid off a heavy mortgage.

  Elkins had sensed it, too, but was made worried by it. He said, "Larry, are you hot?"

  "Well, sure," Larry said. "I told you, I'm on the lam."

  "I mean hotter than that," Elkins said.

  Now Larry looked a little uncomfortable, but still pleased with himself, like a kid with a guilty secret. "Frank," he said, "we don't ask each other things like that."

  "We do," Elkins told him, "if it can come bite us on the ass. Is the motel manager down there looking at your picture on the TV news right now?"

  "Oh, I doubt it," Larry said. "Not way out here."

  Now Wiss was sharing Elkins' worry. He said, "Larry, are you on television anywhere?"

  "Probably," Larry said, shrugging it off, not worried at all. "Around Boston, I suppose."

  'Just tell us, Larry," Wiss said. "What did you do?"

  Larry ducked his head and spread his hands. "Okay, okay," he said, "you'll hear about it somewhere anyway, doesn't make any difference. You know that ex-partner of mine that I tried to kill."

  Wiss said, "You took another crack at him."

  "This time I did it right," Larry assured them. 'This time, Brad does not get rehabilitated."

  "Keep a low profile while you're here," Elkins advised him. "We'll bring your meals in to you. After the job, we'll line you up with a plastic surgeon."

  "That would be good," Larry agreed. "I can change everything else about myself on the Net, but not my face. But let me go set up my stuff, start listening to those people. We're gonna do the job soon, right?"

  "Whenever Parker gets here," Elkins said.

  "I can hardly wait."

  Larry went off to his own room, and Elkins turned his worried frown toward Wiss, saying, "Just how crazy is he?"

  "I'm not sure," Wiss said. He didn't want to admit he was on Larry's side. He said, "I think maybe a little less crazy than before. Maybe he can concentrate better now."

  'Just so he concentrates on staying out of sight," Elkins said.

  Larry did, for about an hour, and then he knocked on the connecting door between his room and Wiss's. Wiss and Elkins were in there playing gin rummy. Elkins went on looking at the cards while Wiss got up and went over to open the door.

  Larry was not grinning now. He said, 'Trouble."

  Wiss said, "You were seen?"

  "Not trouble with me," Larry said, coming into the room. 'There's a lot of e-mail traffic from the lodge, and phone traffic, and shortwave radio."

  Elkins put his cards down. "Shortwave?"

  "There's federal cops up there," Larry told him. "I think a lot of them."

  Elkins dropped his cards and got to his feet. "What the hell for?"

  'They're looking for our paintings," Larry said.

  PART FOUR

  1

  Parker changed planes at O'Hare, called Wiss from there to pick him up later in Great Falls, and then walked toward his next terminal. Abruptly he stopped, in the pedestrian traffic, to look in at an open-faced snack bar beside the corridor. On a television set behind the bar was a picture of Larry Lloyd.

  Parker stepped closer, but he couldn't hear what was being said behind that picture. It was a mug shot, a few years old, head-on to the camera, with the usual look of a mug shot; urgent, but defeated. Then it was replaced by a picture of a burning apartment house.

  Farther along the corridor was a newsstand. There was nothing about Lloyd in the New York Times or USA Today, but an extensive piece in the Boston Globe. Parker bought it, and read about Lloyd on the next plane.

  It was the emotional thing again. The guy who'd

  screwed Lloyd had got an early release, and that tipped him over the edge. But all the way over this time; no more playing computer games, pretending to be here when you're there. There was no way to cover these tracks.

  What would Lloyd do? Parker didn't think he was the suicidal type, he was too self-righteous for that. He couldn't leave the country, and he had no history as a lamster. There was already a reward posted, from somebody called George Carew, the brother-in-law that Lloyd's enemy and victim had been released to. It was only five thousand so far, but Carew was rich, and would up the ante if he had to, though he probably wouldn't have to.

  Where would Lloyd turn? To somebody he'd known on the inside? Almost any one of them would trade him in for five thousand without thinking twice.

  What did that mean for the heist? Could they get in without Lloyd running interference on the computer? If they had to just smash in, noisy and direct, that wouldn't be any good, because it would leave them with just the one exit, back down the private road to the state highway. They couldn't repeat Elkins' and Wiss's stunt of going up over the mountain into Canada, because this time the law would know about that route.

  When Parker got off the plane in Great Falls, he was thinking the job was dead and the best thing for Wiss and Elkins to do was whack their former partners to keep from getting sold. Wiss waited for him outside, turning away as soon as he saw Parker, headed off for the short-term parking, but he didn't walk like a man with a sudden new set of troubles. Following, Parker wondered if maybe Wiss didn't know about Lloyd yet.

  But he did. When Parker joined him in the car, a rental Taurus, he said, "You heard about Lloyd?"

  Wiss grinned. "I sure did. From Larry himself."

  "He came here?"

  "He was already here when you called. I didn't want to say anything on the phone."

  "What's the story?"

  "He doesn't want to play footsie any more." Wiss seemed calm about it, driving them up route 87 toward Havre, but Parker had noted before that Wiss had taken a kind of mentor shine to Lloyd; maybe not a good thing.

  Hunting season would start soon, and the road was dotted with SUVs full of guys wearing orange and red. Driving among them, looking like any other hunter, but not yet changed out of dark blue, Wiss said, "He saw his chance, deal with the guy messed him up, then forget the past, come out here. He figured to use his share of this thing to set himself up as Mister New."

  "Not everybody can do that," Parker said.

  "Oh, I know." Wiss grinned, driving around a little old lady doing her grocery shopping before hunting season started. "I couldn't, for one. But I think Larry could. Except now we got this complication."

  Parker said, "Your old partners."

  Wiss laughed, but shook his head. "I know what you mean, I keep expecting them to show up, but they're not as fucked over as Larry. If they've got a shot at keeping the straight world, they'll take it. Not that they can't show up, when you least want them."

  Parker shrugged the ex-partners away, saying, "What's the complication?"

&n
bsp; "Yesterday," Wiss told him, "the lodge filled up with law. Federal first, ATF, then state, then county."

  "What the hell for?"

  Wiss shook his head, but couldn't keep down a grin. He was like somebody who'd made a bad-news prediction, not wanting it to come true, and now it has, so he wins by being right but he loses by being in the middle of the bad news. He said, "It's the firebreak thing again. Remember, when we first described this setup, we said it was a firebreak."

  "I remember."

  "We went in the first time," Wiss explained again, "but we didn't get what we went in for, so then they upgraded their security, made it tougher."

  "You said law."

  'That's the other part of the firebreak," Wiss told him. 'The robbery attracted attention, it made somebody somewhere in law enforcement think there was something more in there than Paxton Marino was talking about. Let me tell you what happened."

  "Go ahead."

  'Those three paintings we recognized, when we went into the secret rooms," Wiss said, "they were a special order, we told you."

  "Yeah."

  'The customer was an art dealer down in Dallas named Horace Griffith," Wiss said. "We dealt with him before, he was always okay. This time it was to grab these three special pictures from this traveling museum show, a special order from a customer of his. He didn't say who his customer was, but we didn't care."

  "Paxton Marino."

  "Sure. Yesterday, Griffith shows up at the lodge with a bunch of empty wooden crates, just the right size to carry paintings."

  "I get it," Parker said. 'That's your firebreak again. Now they're gonna move the stuff."

  "But they don't get a chance," Wiss told him. "Right after Griffith gets there the place fills up with ATF, maybe thirty, forty of them, you'd think they're after terrorists."

  "But they're not."

  "When Larry told us, we said, what are they doing there, and he said, They're looking for our paintings.'" Wiss laughed. "Is that a pisser? They're looking for our paintings. Larry's gonna be okay, Parker."

  That didn't matter, not now. "But there isn't a job any more," Parker said, meaning, if the job did still exist, they'd have to think very hard, should Lloyd still exist.

  "We don't know yet," Wiss said. "The general feeling is, let's stick around, see what happens next."

  "Until when?"

  "Until the dust settles." Wiss shrugged. "Who knows, maybe they'll truck the pictures outa there, we can hijack them on the road, we're the only ones know what and where they are."

  "Possible," Parker agreed.

  "At this point," Wiss said, "everything's possible. Listen, I forgot to ask. Did you deal with that problem?"

  'Yes," Parker said.

  2

  "Happy hunting," the clerk said, handing over the key, and Parker said, "Thanks."

  As they walked down the cold space between the maroon doors of the units and the cars parked out front, Wiss said, "She thinks we're hunters, getting ready for the season."

  "Well, we are," Parker said, and stopped at his room, number eleven.

  Pointing, Wiss said, "We're all connected, with doors in between. Frank's next, then me, then Larry."

  "I'll unpack, then meet where?"

  "My room," Wiss said, "it's handiest. Bring your chair, there's only one in each room."

  Elkins' room was empty and very neat, as though the guest hadn't arrived yet. Elkins and Wiss were together in Wiss's room, playing cards. This place looked more lived-in, maybe just because of the two men with cards in their hands. All the interior doors were open, and through the last one Parker could see Lloyd seated cross-legged on the floor in there, screens and keyboards and phones in a semicircle on the floor around him, a set of thin black earphones on his head, notepad in his lap, making notes.

  Wiss looked up from his hand when Parker walked in. Nodding his head at the dresser, he said, "Bourbon, ice bucket, plastic glasses."

  Parker put his chair near the card players, then crossed to the dresser, saying, "What's going on?"

  "Larry's getting an update," Wiss told him.

  Elkins played a card and said, 'The feds are fighting with Washington. The feds here, fighting with the feds there." He glanced at Parker. "You know what they call it? Washington? You know what the feds call Washington? Sog. Seat of government. Sog. English isn't good enough for them."

  Parker brought his glass back, sat beside the other two, and said, "What are they arguing about?"

  'The ones here," Elkins said, watching Wiss play, "are absolutely sure there*s something to find. Art. Paintings. They think illegally in the country, maybe Holocaust stuff, stolen by the Nazis. The feds there say, where's your evidence? Where's your probable cause? You are dealing with rich important people here, without a smirch on their character, don't step on your dick out there."

  Parker said, "You're saying, they can't find the hidden rooms."

  "Not so far," Elkins agreed.

  Wiss said, "But Larry says, they're looking for the architect. The main architect, there was more than one there. But the main one's supposed to be in San Francisco, his office is in San Francisco, but they think he's in Tokyo right now, on a project, or Sao Paulo."

  Parker said, "Sooner or later, they'll find the plans. You can't hide— What did you say it was? Three rooms?"

  "About this size," Wiss said. "About like going from you to Frank to me."

  "So it could be a space forty by fifteen." Parker shook his head. "They can't not find that."

  "Well, it's the basement," Elkins pointed out, "and it's modern architecture, you know, it isn't your basic shoebox, it's got funny angles, and not all of it has basement underneath, the way it's built into the side of the mountain."

  "Also," Wiss said, "part of the job would have been to hide it, fool the eye, make it look as though there isn't any space unaccounted for."

  "Still," Parker said, "they'll find it."

  "It's looking like," Elkins said, "they're not gonna find it without the plans. And they may not be given the time. They been there since yesterday, it's getting to be an embarrassment, Sog wants them to pull out before the heavyweights start leaning on them."

  "From what Larry's hearing," Wiss added, "Marino's already got lawyers in DC bitching about this, pulling in markers from congressmen."

  Lloyd came in from his room. "Welcome back," he said to Parker.

  "You've been busy," Parker said.

  Lloyd grinned, pleased with himself, then shrugged it off and said, "We've all been busy. The latest, the ATF talked to the FBI to get the Italian police to talk to Marino. They're setting up an appointment, in Milan, for tomorrow."

  Elkins snorted. 'These are cops," he asked, "when they want to talk to you, they give you an appointment?"

  "When you got a billion dollars," Wiss commented, "you get an appointment."

  Parker said, "So the law's going to be up there at least until tomorrow."

  'That's the other thing," Lloyd said. He sat on the edge of Wiss's bed, the only one not drinking, and said, 'They've given up looking. For now. So most of them are leaving, just two staying on, an ATF art specialist named Hayes and a state CID inspector named Moxon. And they're making the staff leave, too, closing the whole compound, nobody in, nobody out."

  'Treating it like a crime scene," Wiss pointed out. "Secure the area, bring out the measuring tape and the Polaroid cameras."

  "Two of the staff," Lloyd went on, "are going to be staying at this place here. Dave Rappleyea and Fred Wheeler."

  Elkins found that amusing. "We're gonna be neighbors?"

  'That's right," Lloyd said. "They're making them share a room, up on the second floor."

  Elkins said, "Well, they're employees."

  Wiss said, "What about Griffith?"

  "He's going back to Dallas," Lloyd told him. "I think they'd have liked to keep him, but it isn't a federal offense to ship empty crates around."

  Elkins said, "Are you hearing what his story is? Griffith; what's
his explanation for the crates?"

  "His story is, he doesn't know what they were for. Marino asked him to bring them up, but didn't say why, and Marino's a very good customer, so Griffith did what he wanted, and expected a phone call at the lodge to tell him what to do next."

  Wiss said, "Now Marino's gonna talk to Italian cops. What story is he gonna tell?"

  "He and Griffith are e-mailing each other all the time," Lloyd said, "but you know how secure that can be."

  Elkins laughed. "For instance," he said, "we're reading it."

  "Exactly. So they're being very circumspect, very careful what they say to each other. A lot of 'as you know' stuff."

  Elkins said, "Are they on the same page yet?"

  'The story's going to be," Lloyd told him, "Marino's moving some of his paintings, the ordinary ones out on the walls in the regular part of the lodge, he's gonna move some of them to his place in the Alps, but he didn't decide yet which ones, so he wanted a bunch of different-size crates."

  Parker said, "Nobody's going to buy that, not in Italy and not here."

  'They might in Sog," Elkins said. "Money's the only thing they really believe, down in Sog."

  "It doesn't matter if they believe it," Lloyd said, "it only matters that it gives their lawyers something to say."

  Parker said, "I'm trying to decide, is delay better for us, or worse? Do we still want to break in there, or hijack it on the road?"

  Wiss said, "I think it's better where it is. We already know the layout. Also, they don't know yet what they're gonna find. Once they've got it, and see what it is, they'll really do tight security." .

  Elkins said, "So we've got until they find the architect."

  "Well, a little longer," Lloyd told him. "Until they finish talking to the architect's lawyer."

  'Then we should talk with our new neighbors," Parker said. "Make them feel at home. Dave Rappleyea and Fred Wheeler."

  3

  Parker watched Elkins introduce himself to Dave Rappleyea. He was good at that sort of thing, easygoing enough, not threatening, but also not overly hearty. Having a conversation with somebody who might know something useful in the heist you were working on was part of his job description: heavy lifting.