Dalesia said, "Jake, don't you get it? You couldn't have had anything to do with the bank job because you were in jail, you were in a cell, the law law had you." had you."

"You were already in a cell," Parker pointed out, "before you could have known anything about the details of the bank move."

"But I gotta be there to do do it," Beckham said. "What good is that, I'm in some jail cell? I'm in some jail cell, the job doesn't happen." it," Beckham said. "What good is that, I'm in some jail cell? I'm in some jail cell, the job doesn't happen."

"We do it," Dalesia said. do it," Dalesia said.

Beckham frowned at Dalesia. The idea had never occurred to him. He said, "You do it without me?"

"You're still part of it," Parker a.s.sured him. "You brought it to us, so you're still in it, you get your share. But the law isn't looking at you."

"Jake," Dalesia said, "what Parker's doing, he's getting all all the emotion out of it, including you. So it's just us, and anybody else we have to bring in." the emotion out of it, including you. So it's just us, and anybody else we have to bring in."

"But-" Beckham couldn't get his mind around this idea. "I have to be there," he said. "When it happens, it's my- I have to be there."

"If you're there," Parker told him, "you're in jail the next day, you and your lady friend both, in different jails, for the next twenty years."

"If you're not not there," Dalesia said, "if you're already in jail then for some other reason, that's it, you're never behind bars again, you've got your stake, you wait out your parole, the world is yours." there," Dalesia said, "if you're already in jail then for some other reason, that's it, you're never behind bars again, you've got your stake, you wait out your parole, the world is yours."

Parker said, "Do you want the score, or do you want to make a point? Tell the world off, and go down in flames."

"Jesus." Beckham didn't sit on the examination table again, but he leaned backward against it, brow furrowed like corduroy as he stared at the floor, trying to work out this new situation. "You're asking me . . .," he decided, and trailed off.

Dalesia picked up on that. "What, to trust us? You'd never find Parker, Jake, but I couldn't hide from you. We go back a long way. You never wondered about me before. We've been in tents by trout streams up above Quebec, Jake, and we both slept like babies."

"I know that," Beckham said, and roused himself. "Jesus, I don't mistrust you, Nick, and if you say you don't worry about Parker, I won't worry about Parker. But this was my my baby, it's been my baby from the beginning. It's not like I go off with Elaine at the end of it, what I get is the cash, but it's baby, it's been my baby from the beginning. It's not like I go off with Elaine at the end of it, what I get is the cash, but it's my my cash, my score." cash, my score."

Dalesia said, "It just happens, Jake, in your score this time, you put the two of us on the send, we come back with the winnings. Meantime, you cover your a.s.s."

Beckham sighed. "I gotta get used to this," he said. "All right, if this is what has to happen, what do you want from me?"

Dalesia turned to Parker, who said, "What does Elaine drive?"

"A white Infiniti."

Dalesia laughed: "So the marriage isn't all all downside." downside."

Beckham showed him a sour face. "The car's leased by the bank," he said. "It's all scam. She doesn't get to choose it, and she doesn't get to keep it."

Parker said, "Do you have a place to stash the money car, once you've got it?"

"Yeah, a good one." The idea made Beckham smile. "It's one of those old nineteenth-century factory buildings, old brick, concrete floors, the jobs moved to the South seventy years ago, abandoned ever since, take it a thousand years to rot away."

"All right." Parker turned to Dalesia. "You got anything to do between now and tomorrow?"

"Only this."

To Beckham, Parker said, "Tomorrow morning at ten, she drives the Infiniti to the service area on the Ma.s.sPike west of Huntington. Eastbound side. She parks there, and we'll find her."

Dalesia said, "You better tell her what we look like."

"I don't know," Beckham said. "You're bringing her in in?"

"She brought herself in," Parker said, "and you brought her in. She meets with us, she has a map of the money route, she tells us what she knows about which armored car we want, and we give her a phone number to call when she's got the date it's going down. Then she leaves again. The only thing left for her to do, when the move is scheduled, she calls that number. Then maybe she should go shopping in New York for a few days."

"She does those to Boston," Beckham said, "on account of I can't leave the state."

Dalesia laughed. "Funny thing is," he said, "on the day the job goes down, you really really won't be able to leave the state." won't be able to leave the state."

7.

The old empty factory Beckham had described was in a remnant of a town ten miles south of Rutherford, on a narrow, hilly road that was itself a branch off a secondary road. Down below them to their left, through pine trees, was a fast, twisty stream that the road followed.

As they drove, Dalesia said, "Jake's problem is, he's still part amateur himself."

"He is," Parker said.

"I like him, don't get me wrong, but he didn't start out to be one of us. He started out to be a soldier boy, obey orders, get drunk, chase girls. He got turned and turned, and he's with us now because he's got no place else to be."

"He brings us a job," Parker said, without emphasis, "he got from the woman he's in bed with."

"I know. It's worse than a soap opera. Do you think you got him to back out of this?"

"Maybe. If not," Parker said, "you're the one he can finger."

Dalesia laughed, but then he said, "No. I put one in his head before that."

"Then her head, too."

Dalesia, considering, said, "You think so?"

"Never trust pillow talk."

Dalesia thought about that for a while, then said, "We could just keep driving."

"We could."

"I got nothing else."

"Neither of us has anything else."

Dalesia nodded. "For Jake's sake," he said, "I hope he can keep himself under control."

After a while, the road they were on descended to a flatter, more open area at stream level, and that was where they found the town, or what was left of it: a few old wooden houses with junked cars around them and clothes drying on lines extended back toward the encroaching pines. There were no stores or other commercial establishments.

Then the road made a left turn over a small concrete bridge, with just beyond it the hulk of the factory building on the right and an abandoned old wooden hotel and bar on the left; even the For Sale sign on the hotel had an antique look.

Dalesia turned right onto the weedy gravel on the far side of the factory and stopped at a sagging, rusty chain-link fence. They sat in the Audi a minute, looking out at the brick hulk, and Dalesia said, "To get here, you gotta go past those houses back there. On this road, at night, you don't do that without lights."

"Those people don't call the law," Parker said.

Dalesia thought that over, then nodded and said, "You're right. Also, we can see where this road goes next. You want a look at the place?"

It was seven in the evening now, twilight just setting in, but still bright enough to see. Parker considered the dark hulk of the factory building, then shook his head. "I take Beckham's word for it."

"Me, too."

They drove on, and after another four and a half miles they came to a numbered county road. There had been no more occupied buildings since the town.

"So what we do," Dalesia said as they turned south, "we bring the armored car in from the other way, because that's where their route is between the banks, but the vehicles to take things out again come this way."

"Stashed ahead of time," Parker said. "Right. It's just the one trip that night."

They drove south a while in silence, toward the general area of the Ma.s.sPike, and then Dalesia said, "If it's just you and me and the armored cars and the state cops and the private security, we'll be fine."

"That's right," Parker said.

8.

They chose a motel that was not the one where Beckham worked these days, and in the morning they checked out and went back to where Parker had left his car. Dalesia put the Audi near it and went on into the restaurant to find a booth, while Parker leaned against the driver's door of his Lexus to wait for Elaine Langen.

At ten in the morning, the parking area was nearly empty-too late for breakfast and too early for lunch; everybody was on the road. Except for the truckers, who had their own parking area around to the side of the building. As Parker waited, a thin but steady trickle of semis arrived and departed, snorting in and groaning out.

She was a few minutes late, which was to be expected, but when she arrived, the white Infiniti would have stood out even if the lot had been full. Watching her roll tentatively down the lane, looking at him but not yet sure he was the right one, Parker nodded first at her, then at the restaurant, then turned to walk indoors.

The interior was cafeteria style, with a mix of freestanding tables and booths along the windowed walls. Truckers and a few civilians ate at widely scattered tables. Dalesia had taken a booth near the back, beyond the windows. Parker walked toward him and saw Dalesia's expression change, meaning she'd followed him in.

Dalesia was on the side of the booth that faced the front and the entrance, so that whoever sat on the other side would be invisible from most parts of the restaurant. Parker slid in next to him and only then looked toward Elaine Langen.

Well. The first impression was of a slender, stylish, well-put-together woman in her forties, but almost instantly the impression changed. She wasn't slender; she was bone thin, and inside the stylish clothes she walked with a graceless jitteriness, like someone whose medicine had been cut off too soon. Beneath the neat cowl of well-groomed ash-blond hair, her face was too thin, too sharp-featured, too deeply lined. This could have made her look haggard; instead, it made her look mean. From the evidence, what would have attracted her husband most would have been her father's bank.

She walked directly to the table, looked at them both, and said, "Say a name."

"Jake Beckham," Parker said. "Elaine Langen."

"That's me."

"Sit down."

She looked at the booth, looked at the privacy they'd arranged for her, and said, "Thank you." She slid in and said, "Jake had to talk me into this, you know."

Dalesia said, "Into this, this, or into the whole thing?" or into the whole thing?"

Her laugh was brief and harsh. "Into this, this," she said. "I had to talk him him into the whole thing. But I guess you two must agree with me." into the whole thing. But I guess you two must agree with me."

Parker said, "About what?"

"There was an old movie," she said, "called, Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed."

Dalesia laughed and said, "That's what we've got here, huh? In the movie, did they get away with it?"

"I never saw the movie," she said. "I just noticed the t.i.tle, in a TV listing. It struck me."

"Probably," Dalesia said, "being a movie, they didn't get away with it. Movies are very unrealistic that way."

She seemed amused by him. "Oh? Do bank robbers usually get away with it?"

"They always always get away with it," Dalesia told her. "What orders do the bosses give the tellers in get away with it," Dalesia told her. "What orders do the bosses give the tellers in your your bank? 'If they show the note, give them the money. If you can slip them a dye pack, good, but if not, just give them the money.' Less ha.s.sle for everybody, right?" bank? 'If they show the note, give them the money. If you can slip them a dye pack, good, but if not, just give them the money.' Less ha.s.sle for everybody, right?"

"That's right," she said. "But still, they do get caught sometimes."

"The really stupid ones," he agreed. "Also, if you do it a hundred twenty-two times, the hundred twenty-third they're gonna grab you. Everybody's gotta show a little restraint."

She considered him. "What number are you up to?"

"One."

Parker said, "You've got a map for us."

A little surprised, she gave Parker an appraising look, then looked again at Dalesia. "Well, it isn't exactly good cop, bad cop," she said, "but it works the same. Yes," she told Parker, and reached into the shoulder bag she'd put on the seat beside her.

Parker said, "You got a gun in there, too?"

Surprised again, she said, "As a matter of fact, yes. I don't intend to show it."

"Then don't carry it."

She had taken from her bag a sheet of typing paper folded in half, but now she paused to say, "I've taken courses. I know how to fire a weapon, and I know how to hit what I aim at. And I also know never to show it unless I intend to use it. I carry it because I live in an uncertain world."

"That's true," Parker said.

She extended the paper toward him. He took it, unfolded it, and it was a Xerox copy of a page from a Ma.s.sachusetts atlas, in black-and-white, showing one small section of the state in close detail. On it a route had been indicated by a few short lines in red ink. Deer Hill Deer Hill was at the southern end of the red line, was at the southern end of the red line, Rutherford Rutherford at the north. West Ruudskill, the town with Beckham's factory in it, was a dot off the middle of the route, to the right. at the north. West Ruudskill, the town with Beckham's factory in it, was a dot off the middle of the route, to the right.

Parker folded the map twice and put it in his shirt pocket. She watched him, then said, "Jake says you're doing it without him, but you'll still share and share alike." She sounded as though she didn't entirely believe it.

Parker said, "Did he tell you why he's staying away?"