Read Parker 09 The Split for Free Online

on top and all that jazz. So they don't quite reach to the top of the entranceway. I can get Bob up high enough, and he can squeeze through.'
    'Like an eel,' said Negli. He demonstrated by wriggling his hand through the air.
    'There's doors here and there in the wall,' said Kifka, 'besides the gates themselves. They're kept locked, but you can unlock them easy from inside.'
    'What if somebody sees you and Bob at the gate?'
    Kifka grinned. 'Early birds. First ones on line at the North Gate. We got this all worked out, Parker, believe me. The South Gate is where the newspaper photographers always take the pictures of the nuts, and the East Gate is right on the main drag, so we do it around at the North Gate. Monequois Park is across the road there, and if anybody drives by what are they going to see?'
    'All right. Then what?'
    'We got three locks to get through and we're in the finance office. Then we wait till morning.'
    Negli said, 'It's good, Parker, you know it is. It's worth your time coming here.'
    ''If it plays like Dan says it does, and if there's a way out.'
    Kifka said, 'So what do you want to do?'
    'Is there anything doing out to the stadium tonight or tomorrow morning?'
    'Middle of the week? Nothing.'
    'Then we do a run-through,' Parker said. 'Tonight. We want lock impressions anyway, so we can move faster when the time comes.'
    'Good idea.'
    They ran it through later that night, and it worked just as Kifka had said it would. Negli went over the North Gate and a minute later let the other three through a green door in the brick wall about ten paces away to the left. They were under the grandstand in a kind of concrete tunnel. Lighting their way with flashlights, they followed the tunnel around to the right and came out in the basement of the stadium building, next to a metal staircase. They went up two flights and Arnie Feccio worked silently and speedily on a locked door. There was no alarm system here, and no guards inside the stadium at night, although private police did patrol the general area by car.
    Kifka led the way past the first locked door to the second, which led onto the corridor to the finance office. Feccio got them through this door, too, and then through the third, and they were in the finance office.
    The finance office was actually three offices separated by room dividers of wood and glass, plus a small closed-off workroom containing supplies and a mimeograph machine.
    They looked the place over, decided the workroom would be the place to spend the night when the time came, and retraced their steps, Feccio taking the time to study the locks as they went so they'd have keys when they came back.
    Outside in the car, Kifka said, 'Well? How does it look?'
    'We can get in,' Parker said.
    Kifka nodded. 'Right. And the question is, can we get out? Right?'
    'That's right.'
    'If we can get in, we can get out. We'll have to work on it.'
    'Tomorrow,' Parker said. 'It's been a long day. I need a place to stay while I'm here.'
    'With a woman or without?'
    Parker hesitated, then said, 'With.' Not that he expected to want her, not just yet. Before a job he never had any interest in women, or in anything else but the job itself. But he would want her afterwards, when he would make up for lost time.
    Kifka had gotten him Ellie. Not exactly a pro, hardly an amateur. She wasn't sharing her place with anybody at the moment and she didn't mind sharing with Parker so long as he came with an introduction from somebody she knew and was willing to pay for the groceries and incidentals. She seemed surprised when Parker let her know the first night that nothing was expected just yet, but she didn't seem to care one way or the other.
    That almost summed her up. In her clothing, her appearance, her apartment, her life, in everything, she didn't care one way or the other. She was a good-looking girl, but Parker never really noticed it unless she was nude. She wore her clothing so sloppily that with it on she looked like a