Plunder Squad (8 page)

Parker found Mackey down by the bar, talking with one of the bartenders about pro football. “I’m done,” Parker said.

“Sure thing.” Mackey knocked back the rest of his drink and put his glass on the table. “Tittle,” he said to the bartender. “I still say Tittle.”

The bartender gave a disbelieving shrug. “Maybe,” he said.

“No maybe about it.” Mackey turned away, saying to Parker, “Let’s find Brenda.”

Brenda was with a group of younger people in the middle of the lawn, discussing Viva. It took Mackey a minute to cut her out of the herd, during which time Parker stood to one side and avoided becoming involved in other people’s conversations. Then the three of them walked up across the lawn and into the house. They went through the same rooms and halls as before, and out the front door, without having seen Griffith anywhere along their route. They got back into the car again, Mackey driving, Brenda in the middle, Parker to the right, and after they’d driven out into the street and turned in the direction of the motel, Mackey said, “You get everything worked out the way you wanted?”

“Yes.”

“What was the point, anyway? You just want to meet him?”

“I wanted to get the other twenty grand,” Parker said.

Mackey frowned across Brenda at him. “What other twenty grand?”

“Between one-thirty and one-fifty.”

Mackey grinned suddenly, and faced front. They were driving in light traffic through a residential area. Mackey said, “You get it?”

“I got more.”

“More?”

“He jumped from one-forty to one-sixty. So I said yes.”

Mackey laughed out loud. “I wish I’d been there,” he said. “God damn it, that’s beautiful.”

“Maybe,” Parker said. “I’m not so sure.”

“Why not? What’s the problem?”

“It came too easy. Jumping like that. And some people at the party said he was broke.”

“Griffith? With that house?”

“The story is, he’s stuck with a lot of paintings he can’t sell.”

Mackey frowned, gazing out through the windshield. “You think so?”

Brenda said, “Why would he want more then? I mean, if he can’t sell the ones he’s got.”

Mackey dismissed that one with a shake of the head. “He could have buyers lined up. He could take care of that one ahead of time.”

Parker said, “You talk to him about payment?”

“That’s the question,” Mackey said. He sounded worried. “I didn’t bother to ask, you know? I figured, he’s stuck with that house, that business, his whole life, he can’t really skip out, so he won’t try a cross. So I didn’t worry about it.”

Brenda said, “You think he might try to run away?”

“No,” Mackey said. “That isn’t the problem.”

“Now is when I need money,” Parker said.

“Me, too,” Mackey said.

Brenda said, “Oh. You mean he might want you to wait till he’d sold the paintings.”

“Robbery on consignment,” Mackey said. He sounded disgusted.

Parker said, “Let’s get that straightened out.”

“We can go back right now.”

“No. He’s in a heavy mood now, he might decide to drop the whole thing. Call him tonight. Don’t sound suspicious or greedy, just say you want to talk over the details of trading the paintings for our money.”

Mackey nodded. “Okay. I’ll work it out with him.”

Brenda said, “Does this mean it might not happen?”

“Bite your tongue,” Mackey said.

Brenda turned to Parker. “What do
you
think?”

Parker thought three in a row would be too many. He said, “We should be able to work something out. First we’ll find out what he’s got in mind.”

“I want to get this thing off the ground,” Mackey said. “It’s been a long while between drinks.”

They drove the rest of the way back to the motel in silence. Parker left them and went off to his own room and called Handy McKay again. If something else had come along, he’d leave this right now. If nothing was happening, he’d stay here and hope for the best.

Handy came on the line and said, “Got a call for you.”

“Good.”

“Guy in San Francisco. Named Beaghler.”

Parker shook his head. “Forget it,” he said.

“Well, what Beaghler said was, he had information for you on a friend of yours. Somebody you wanted to look up.”

“Ah.”

“He said to call him at home.”

Parker did, but it was Sharon’s voice that answered, full of strangled sexuality. Parker said, “Bob there?”

“No, he’s out now.” The sentence was so loaded with veiled invitation that it sounded as though it had to be a parody; except it wasn’t.

“When will he be back?”

“Around five.” The voice had throttled back, become more matter-of-fact. “You want me to have him call you?”

Five. There was a two-hour time difference from here to California, so that would be seven this evening here. “No,” Parker said, “I’ll call him.”

“Who should I say?”

“I’ll tell him when I call back,” Parker said, and hung up, and phoned again at quarter after seven.

This time Beaghler himself answered, all of his belligerence and insecurity compressing themselves into the one suspicious word, “Hello?”

“The last time I saw you,” Parker said, “was at that motel in Fremont. I got mad at you for shouting my name so loud.”

“What? Oh, Pa—! Oh, yeah, yeah. That’s right. You got my message, huh?”

“I got it.”

“You were looking for that fellow George, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, he’s here.”

“Where?”

“Not thirty miles from where I’m standing. Where are you?”

“More than thirty miles from where you’re standing. How can I get in touch with George?”

“I’ll take you to him.”

Parker frowned at the telephone. “There’s no need for that,” he said.

“But I want to. Listen, be a sport. There’s money in it.”

“What money?”

“Not from you. But this could help me, it really could.”

Parker considered, trying to work it out. Uhl was someplace with money, apparently. Beaghler wanted the money, but didn’t want to go up against Uhl himself. So he wanted Parker to take care of Uhl while Beaghler took care of the money. And the hook would be that Beaghler wanted to make a deal: Uhl’s whereabouts for Uhl’s money.

Beaghler said, “Hello?”

Parker said, “How long’s he going to be there?”

“Just a few days.”

The details would have to be worked out at the scene. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” Parker said.

“I’ll stay home from work.”

Parker hung up, and went to see Mackey. Mackey and Brenda were getting ready to go out to dinner, and they both had the slightly flushed look of people who’d paused in the middle of changing clothes. Parker said, “I’m taking off for a couple days. Work out what you can with Griffith. I’ll give you a call before I come back, to see if things are still on. If you aren’t here, I’ll know they’re off.”

Mackey said, “You want help?”

“No, you have things to do here. I’ll call you in a couple days.”

“So long,” Mackey said.

Brenda said, “Good luck.”

Sharon opened the door. When she saw Parker standing out there on the porch, her face tightened up and she said, coldly, “Just a minute.” She shut the door again.

Parker sat on the porch railing. Behind him, heavy equipment was grinding and clanking in the excavation on the other side of the street. The sky was half blue and half puffy clouds, so that sunshine and cloudiness alternated like very slow Morse code; there was almost a ten-degree drop in the temperature of the air every time a cloud covered the sun. It was ten-thirty in the morning, and the Dodge at the curb had been picked up from a different rental company, using a different credit card.

The door opened again and Beaghler came out, shrugging into a blue denim jacket with metal snaps to close it down the front. He left it hanging open. Under it he was wearing a T-shirt, plus black trousers, the legs stuffed into black boots. He looked tense but cheerful; maybe too cheerful, as though he were nerving himself up to something that frightened him.

Parker stood up. Past Beaghler he got another glimpse of Sharon in the doorway, her face closed and sullen, before she shut the door.

Beaghler ignored the slap of the door behind him. “Hi, there,” he said. “You made good time.”

“Where’s Uhl?”

“We’ll go out there now. You got heat on you?”

“Just tell me where he is.”

Beaghler’s hands were up behind his neck, twisting the collar of his denim jacket. He stopped that way, looking like a prisoner of war about to be frisked, and gave Parker a stupid and cunning grin. “Come on,” he said. “You figured it out by now.”

“Tell it to me anyway.”

“In the car. Come on.”

They went down off the porch and through the bedraggled lawn and over to the Chevy Nova with the oversized tires. Beaghler got behind the wheel and Parker slid in on the passenger side. Beaghler put his hands on the steering wheel and shift lever, and confidence could be seen to flow into him like electric current from the car. He sat that way for a second, changing like a comic-book hero who’s said the magic word, and then he gave Parker a quick meaningless grin and took the car keys from the breast pocket of his denim jacket.

Much had been done to the engine. The sound that came from under the hood was well muffled but still full of the promise of strength—a controlled growl, ready to move. A faint vibration spread throughout the car, like the eagerness in tensed muscles.

But Beaghler didn’t drive like a cowboy. He moved the car smoothly away from the curb and stuck to normal speeds throughout the drive; it was like being in a plane taxiing toward the runway, being slow and sedate but on its way to where it could really let out and be itself.

Parker let Beaghler have a couple blocks of communion with his car, and then he said, “Tell me the story.”

Beaghler gave him a look almost of surprise, as though he’d forgotten he had a passenger in the car with him. Then he could be seen to organize his thoughts again, to remember what they were here for; he faced front, watched the traffic, and said, “First of all, I want you to know I’m not sore.”

Parker waited.

Beaghler gave him a quick glance, and faced front again. “About you socking me, I mean,” he said.

“All right.” Parker noticed that Beaghler hadn’t referred to Sharon, either her role in it or what Parker had said about her. But her existence shimmered in the car, and Parker understood that Beaghler meant he wasn’t angry about all that either. Which might be true, or might not.

“I had it coming,” Beaghler said. “I got a bad temper, it gets me into trouble all the time. I’d be rich and retired and well off today, except I shoot my mouth off all the time.”

“All right.”

“So I wanted you to know that, in front.”

“Now about Uhl.”

“Right.” Beaghler paused to make a right turn, then said, “I guess you know the San Simeon thing didn’t work out.”

“I knew Ducasse left.”

“It was my own fault. I should of done it different. Anyway, after it fell through, George Walheim went over to Sacramento and tied in with some other people that were doing a thing over there. You remember him? George Walheim?”

“The lockman I met at your place.”

“Right. And they already had a driver, so they didn’t need me. But George worked with them, and damn if another guy in on it wasn’t this fellow you’re after, George Uhl. You know, two guys named George, you remember the name. It struck us both at the time. I mean, George Walheim and me.”

“Is that where Uhl is? Sacramento?”

“Not any more. Let me tell you the story.”

Parker shrugged. He didn’t need the whole story, but if he had to wait through it he could.

“George didn’t tell me about this—I mean George Walheim.”

“I know who you mean.”

“Yeah. Anyway, he didn’t tell me about Uhl until after they did their job together, you know?”

“What was the job?”

“I don’t know exactly. I think it was one of those discount
stores at a shopping center outside Sacramento. I think that was the one they did, but I don’t know exactly.”

“How much did they get?”

“I don’t know. But I do know George is flush. George Walheim. He’s very happy about it. I’d guess he got maybe ten grand or more for himself out of it. He’s really happy.”

“So Uhl should have the same amount.”

“That’s what I figure.” Beaghler gave Parker a fast grin, then faced front again. “And I figure half of it is mine,” he said. “I’ll show you where Uhl is, I’ll help you take him, and we’ll split the money.”

“Where’s Uhl now?”

“In a farmhouse in the mountains.” Beaghler grinned again and said, “Hiding out from you.”

“How do you know he’s there?”

“It’s the place they all went after they pulled their job. Then when they split up, Uhl said he was going to stay there maybe a month or two, because there was a guy looking for him and he wanted to lay low.” Beaghler gave Parker another bright-eyed look and said, “That was you.”

“Walheim told you how to find the farmhouse?”

“I already knew about it. I used it a couple times myself.”

“Who else is there besides Uhl?”

“Nobody.”

“You know that for sure?”

A touch of Beaghler’s underlying nervousness showed through. He said, “He was alone when George left, that’s all I know for sure.” Squinting at Parker, he said, “You think maybe he’s got friends with him now?”

“I don’t know.”

Beaghler brooded through the windshield at the traffic. He said, “Well, we’re gonna come at him from the back, so it should work out okay.” Another quick glance at Parker. “Don’t you think so?”

“We’ll see,” Parker said.

“Here’s where we switch,” Beaghler said.

They were just below Fremont, on a secondary road heading southeast, already starting to climb toward the mountains. Beaghler was making a left where a wooden sign in need of fresh paint said:
Doughtery’s Campsites—Mobile Homes—Sales, Service—Trailer Park—Eat
. A gravel road led in between two ragged lines of old-looking trailers. A white clapboard house, also in need of paint, was up-slope to the right.

Parker said, “Switch to what?”

“The ATV. I told you about it.” Beaghler drove slowly down the gravel road, the Chevy’s engine growling low as if in greeting to all the wheeled houses.

“Why do we switch to that?”

“I told you, we’ll come at him from the back.” Beaghler steered around a group of children, who gave blank-faced stares as the car went by. “There’s only the one road in,” Beaghler said. “It’s dirt, it’s dryer’n hell, you drive along there you raise a dust cloud you can see for ten miles. That’s what makes it such a good place to hole up.”

Remembering Beaghler’s scheme of driving through mountains for ten hours with the statues from San Simeon, Parker said, “How far is it, the back way?”

“Ten miles, fifteen miles.” Beaghler said it in a dismissing way, as though the distance were unimportant.

“How long to get there?”

“From here? Less than an hour.” Beaghler had reached the end of the line of trailers. He turned right onto a dirt lane that climbed up and curved around behind the white house. “Don’t worry,” he said, “it won’t take long. Not like down around Big Sur.”

Parker said, “Who are the people here?”

“Friends of mine. I keep my ATV here, I don’t like to drive it in the city. Wait’ll you see it, it’s a sweetheart.”

Parker recognized the vehicle the instant it came into view, around behind the house. Amid the half-dozen junkers scattered around the weeds, the high and boxy ATV stood out like a Marine sergeant in a roomful of winos. It was of the type of a Land Rover, jeeplike in the bottom half and trucklike in the top, with windows all around and the spare tire mounted high on the back like a man wearing a holstered gun waist-high on his hip. The tires were large and wide and deep-treaded, and the grill and headlights were covered by a mesh screen. A five-gallon gasoline jerry can was mounted on the left side, just ahead of the driver’s door, and the whip antenna curving back over the roof suggested a short-wave radio inside.

Beaghler parked between his ATV and a wheelless Volkswagen Microbus. He said, “I’ll just go in and say hello to my friends. Be right back.”

They got out of the car, and while Beaghler went off to the house Parker strolled around the ATV. It was made in Japan, a brand name he’d never seen before. There were four separate seats inside, two and two, all bolted to the floor and easily removable. The stowage area behind the rear seats contained a toolbox, a coiled length of heavy chain, a hatchet, and two folded wool blankets, blue, with
U S
on them in black.

The vehicle was unlocked, and its floor a high step up. Parker sat in the front passenger seat, left the door open, and looked around at the interior. A bubble compass in fluid was mounted on top of the dashboard, there were seat belts for all
four chairs, and four cans of oil were stowed in a cardboard box under the rear right seat. A first-aid kit was mounted under the dash, and the glove compartment contained flashlight, matches, two red flares, and a pair of heavy canvas work gloves.

Beaghler came back while Parker was still going through the glove compartment. He opened the driver’s door and grinned in, saying, “Outfitted pretty good, huh?”

“Yes,” Parker said. Whatever else Beaghler might be, he took his vehicles seriously.

Beaghler swung up behind the wheel as Parker shut the glove compartment. “This is my baby,” Beaghler said, and touched the steering wheel and gearshift just as he had done with the Chevy. And once again he seemed to get strength and power direct from the machine; it made him grin some more, and hold the stance.

Parker looked around some more. He moved the two sun visors up and down, then reached under his seat and found the Smith & Wesson Military and Police .38 tucked away in a holster attached to the under part of the seat. It wasn’t a spring clip holster like the one Parker used when traveling, but an ordinary leather pocket; the revolver made a snug fit in it, and the opening was at the side, but the gun could still fall out on a bad jounce.

Beaghler’s grin had gotten a little tight. He stayed where he was, hands on steering wheel and gearshift, and watched Parker holding the gun. “That’s just for in close,” he said.

With a two-inch barrel, the gun could be for nothing but close work: inside the car, for self-defense. Parker nodded, and put it away again, and Beaghler’s smile relaxed; he shifted to a more comfortable position on the seat, moved his hands away from the wheel and shift, and said, “We’ll just let her run for a couple minutes first.”

“Fine.”

The engine sounded pretty much like an ordinary pickup truck, strong, but not the powerful growl of the Chevy. Parker said, “What other guns have you got?”

“Rifle in the back, under the blankets. And another pistol.”

“I’ll take a look.”

“Help yourself,” Beaghler said, but his eyes glinted again.

Parker stepped down to the ground and walked around to the back, where the top half hinged up like a station wagon. Parker opened it, put the metal rod in place that propped it open, and moved the blankets to look at the other guns.

The rifle, wrapped in a pink baby’s blanket, was ordinary enough—a Sears Model 53 bolt-action in .30-06 caliber. Three and a half feet long, seven pounds, with a five-shot magazine and folding rear sight, it would hit what it was aimed at if it hadn’t been knocked around too long, but the bolt-action made it slow and cumbersome for anything but the simplest kind of hunting; no good against anything that could shoot back.

The pistol was something else again. A Colt Python chambered for the .357 Magnum, it had an extra-heavy six-inch barrel and weighed nearly three pounds. Beaghler kept it in a felt-lined small wooden box, with a little package of cartridges; he obviously knew he had something good here. The Python would probably have an accuracy in the middle ranges that would beat out the Model 53. But even this gun wasn’t being treated well enough; it should be fastened down to keep it from bouncing around, and if it was kept out in the car all the time it should be wrapped in oilcloth or plastic. Beaghler came close to doing well, but he always missed by just a little.

Parker went back around to the passenger seat again, and Beaghler grinned at him, saying, “Nice? Like them?”

“You keep them in the car all the time?”

“Sure. They’re safe here, my friends keep an eye on things for me.”

Parker thought of the children down by the trailers, and of the condition of the weapons in the car, and of the doors having been left unlocked. He said, “You keep this car here all the time?”

“Mostly. I told you, I don’t like to take it into town.”

Parker nodded.

Looking at his dashboard gauges, Beaghler said, “We might as well get started. Get it over with.”

“Good.”

They had to back around in a tight half-circle to face away from the house. The tall grass under the car made rustling shushing sounds along the axles and the front bumper—soft, but audible against the deeper tones of the engine. Parker looked out at the grass and thought about a car parked here all the time without killing the grass under it. And parked here unlocked with guns in it and children playing not fifty feet away, none of whom had ever come to this interesting-looking vehicle to investigate it. And guns left out in the air all the time without showing any signs of exposure.

Beaghler shifted from reverse into first. “We’re off,” he said.

“Yes,” Parker said.