Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [108]
“That’s the plan?”
“That’s it.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit too elaborate?” She even curled her lip when she said it.
“Maybe you’re right. Okay, let’s do it this way—I stop the car at the next corner, Miss Smartass gets out and wiggles her way home, and I go out to Scarsdale by myself.”
“It won’t work.”
“Why not? You couldn’t find your way home?”
“Don’t be so wise, Burke. We have to have a way to make this Goldor tell us about Wilson.”
“I’m working on that.”
“Don’t you think we should work it out first?”
“Flood,” I said, looking at her, “there is no time.” And she listened to my voice and looked at my face and believed me.
When we got near the garage I pulled the Plymouth over near the wall and told Flood to get out. She looked at me suspiciously. “You can’t wait in the other car,” I told her. “I’m not even sure where it is and you have no papers for it. I have to leave this one inside and the man there doesn’t get to see you, okay?”
She just looked at me. “Flood, if I wanted to cut you out of this deal I wouldn’t have picked you up in the first place. Now just get out—stand over where I showed you and be quiet.”
She switched away, holding her jacket in one hand. I opened the window on her side and called out to her. “Put that damn jacket on, will you?” and she must have understood because, for once, she just did like I said without a big argument.
I rolled the Plymouth into the underground garage and pulled it over to the side to make sure Mario had seen me come in. In a few minutes he came over to my window, said, “Same as always?” and I nodded. Mario motioned for me to get out, leave the key, and come with him. I followed him back to the cubicle he called his office and we conducted our business.
“What time on the stub?” he asked.
“Anytime between eight-forty-five and nine this evening.”
“Pick it up when?”
“Late tonight, early tomorrow,” I said, trying to sound indifferent.
“It’s still fifty plus the parking charges, right?”
“Right.”
We then walked over to the time clock where all the entering cars are punched in. Mario reached halfway down into the pile of fresh tickets, pulled one out, tore off my stub and put the other piece in his pocket. He would clock me in at the right time later that night. The number on my stub would match the check-in time—that’s what cost me the fifty bucks. I pocketed the stub, slipped Mario the fifty, and walked out into the afternoon.
Flood was waiting near the wall. “Any problems?” I asked her.
“No.”
I started to walk over to where the Mole was going to leave the Volvo, glancing down at my watch to keep on schedule. Just a couple of minutes shy of six, I would have to call the jerkoffs about the gun deal like I said I would. Flood didn’t need to know any more about my business than she already did, but listening to my half of this conversation wouldn’t do any harm.
I found a pay phone, watched the second hand of my watch until it was ten seconds short of six, and punched the buttons. James answered on the first ring. “Yes?”
“I like the deal,” I said, “but I wonder if it couldn’t be upped a notch or two?”
“Meaning?”
“Let’s say the deal you proposed is one unit, okay? Now I know some people who want another one-and-a-half units, making two-and-a-half units all told, right? Could your people supply the additional amount? I would be responsible for it.”
“I’d have to ask.”
“Do it,” I told him.
“If it can’t be done—”
“Then the original is okay, but I would like more if possible.”
“Same guarantees?”
“Yes.”
“Can I reach you?”
“I’ll call same time tomorrow.”
“Fine. And listen, about that problem my associate had with your—”
“We had no problem,” I told him.
“I just wanted to say—”
“We had no problem,” I repeated in a deliberate voice.
“Great. Tomorrow, then?”
“You got it,” I said, and hung up. Dopes.
I walked away from the pay phone like it was diseased. You never know. Blumberg once told me that