Lemons Never Lie

"You want to try it?"

"Yes."

They both stood, Grofield holding the Terrier. Recklow rooted into the saddlebag again and came out with two.32 cartridges. "Fire at things in the water," he said.

"Right."

Grofield felt Recklow watching him load the gun. Recklow had the ability to make you feel you had to prove your competence to him, and Grofield was just as glad he was handling a gun of a type he'd operated before. He walked over near the stream, went down on one knee, looked around to be sure he wasn't observed, and then took careful aim at a white pebble in the stream bed up a ways to his left, away from the falls. He squeezed off a shot, a miniature geyser sprang up, and the stones in the vicinity of the white pebble jumped, roiling the water. It was hard to tell, but he thought the bullet had hit a bit to the right of where he was aiming. He might have done it himself, though, in squeezing the trigger; it was such a small gun.

He chose another target, this one near the opposite bank, and fired again. He squeezed with great care, and watched the result one-eyed, then nodded and got to his feet. He walked back to Recklow and said, "It's off to the right."

"By much?"

"Just a little."

"Consistently?"

"Oh, I could correct for it," Grofield said.

Recklow looked sour. "But you want a cut in the price."

"Well, let's take a look at one of those others," Grofield said. He hunkered down again and looked at the other two guns.

Recklow remained standing. He said, "That Terrier costs sixty-five dollars new."

"This one isn't new," Grofield said. He was still holding the Terrier while looking at the other guns, as though he'd forgotten the thing was in his hand.

"The hell with it," Recklow said. "I'll load it and give it to you for forty-five."

Grofield grinned up at him. "Done," he said. He held the Terrier out to Recklow, butt first. When Recklow took it, Grofield picked up the other two guns and got to his feet. "I'll put these away for you."

"I'll do it." Recklow stuffed the Terrier in his left hip pocket, took the other two guns from Grofield, and stood there holding them. "Now for the car. You want one in the glove compartment? Maybe a small one, too, one of these."

"No. I want to store it under the dash, I want to put a holster under there."

"Not a holster," Recklow said. "A clip."

"Have you got one?"

"Seven-fifty. It's got a spring. When you want to put the gun away you just push it up and the clip holds it. When you want it back, you put your hand under it, push the lever with your thumb, and it pops into your hand."

"I'll take it," Grofield said. "Now, about the gun to put into it."

"You want something with more distance accuracy for outside," Recklow said. He put the two rejected body guns away, poked in the saddlebag some more, pulled out a larger revolver, and said, "Here's one. I've got a couple more on the other side." He handed the revolver to Grofield and walked around the gray to look in the other saddlebag.

The gun Grofield was holding was a Ruger.357 Blackhawk. It had the weight and heft of a solid gun, and is one of the best-looking of contemporary handguns. Looking it over, Grofield saw several short scratches, all at the same angle, on the left side of the barrel.

"Here's two more." Recklow came around the horse with a pair of guns in his hands, and stood with his palms up, displaying the guns for Grofield to inspect.

"Not the Ruger," Grofield said. "Somebody was hitting something with it." The gun on Recklow's right hand was a Colt Trooper, also in.357, with a six-inch barrel. Grofield picked it up, handed Recklow the Ruger, and studied the Colt. "This looks pretty good. What's that one?"

It was a Smith & Wesson, the model 1950 Army in.45 caliber. Grofield looked at it without taking it, and said, "Let me try the Colt."

"Of course. Hold on, I'll get you ammunition."

Grofield waited, holding the Colt, turning it over and over in his hands, studying it. When Recklow handed him the two deceptively slim.357 cartridges, Grofield said, "I don't want to shoot into the water with these. I won't be able to see anything."

Recklow pointed across the stream, where the land continued to slope upward toward more woods. "Shoot into those rocks over there. I just don't want you to hit a customer in the woods."

"I won't."

Grofield loaded the two bullets into the Trooper, aimed at a particular fold of rock, and saw the shards fly from the exact spot he'd been pointing at. He fired the second one at once, and hit the same place. "That's good enough for me," he said, walking back to Recklow. "How much do you want for it?"

"Seventy-five."

Grofield grinned at him. "You wouldn't be tacking the five dollars from the Terrier on this, would you?"

"Seventy-five is the price," Recklow said. "I'll load it for you."

"All right."

"We'll make it five for the clip," Recklow said, as Grofield handed him back the Trooper. "That'll make it an even hundred and a quarter."

Grofield took out his wallet. He'd left the cupboard bare back at the theater to pay for this trip. He counted out four twenties, three tens, and three fives. Recklow took the money, tucked it into his shirt pocket, and said, "Ride around a while. Give me a chance to clean them up and load them and get them ready for you."

"Sure."

They both mounted and went separate ways, Recklow turning back toward the barns, Grofield deciding to head upstream a while. The water came along with little drops and pools through this stretch of tan stone, but ahead was more greenery – woods, hills. Grofield rode that way, listening to the clack of Gwendolyns shoes on the rockface. In western movies, people rode over land like this to cover their tracks. Grofield, twisting around in the saddle, looked back and saw no mark of Gwendolyns passage. He grinned at himself – the mighty hunter. Not out here.

4

The woman had been dead at least a couple of days. Grofield saw her lying on the kitchen floor, face down, a brown lake of dried blood forming an irregular shore about her head and extending out to make an island of one chair leg, and he didn't have to turn her over to know he would find her throat cut, or to know Myers had been here, or to know that this would be the lady of the house – Dan Leach's wife.

He had used a small screwdriver with a compartment in the removable head for several other shafts – Phillips-head, awl, and so on-to break in through this kitchen door, and now he slipped the tool away in his hip pocket and quietly closed the door. The kitchen smelled like sweet garbage. Grofield stepped over her legs, and went on through the doorway opposite to look over the rest of the house.

It was a small and neat house near Enid, Oklahoma, with a vegetable garden in the back, a farm-equipment dealer in a concrete block building for the nearest neighbor, and a straight flat two-lane concrete state highway out front. Grofield had phoned Leach here two or three times, but had never actually seen the place before. He was surprised now at how modest and small it was, and supposed that reflected Mrs. Leach's viewpoint on life, rather than Dan's. He'd had the impression Dan, when flush, liked to party, but now it seemed his wife had been a different type entirely.

Well, neither of them would do any more partying. Or cleaning. The house was almost painfully clean, so neat and orderly that the thin layer of dust that had settled since the woman's death became the place's most prominent feature, simply because it was so obviously an interloper.

Kitchen, living room, bedroom, bath. A crawl space for an attic, reached by a trap door in the bedroom ceiling and not high enough for a man to stand up straight in. A basement only barely big enough for the utilities it contained.

It was clear what had happened. Myers had come here since Grofield had seen him, knowing that Dan Leach's wife, through her brother, had been Dan's route to find him, and not wanting Grofield to be able to use the same route.

If he found the wife's brother, would Myers have been there first, too?

Grofield, in his half-dozen years working with professional thieves, had met a number of social misfit types, but he had never before met anyone so ready to kill, or so quick to assume that murder was the best answer to any problem. How many people had Myers murdered in his life and how had he managed to avoid the law so far?

And what was the brother's name? Dan had known Myers through his wife's brother. Even assuming the brother was still alive, what was his name, and how would Grofield now go about finding him?

Grofield searched the house. He found photographs of Dan and a woman who was more than likely the woman now dead in the kitchen. He found a few photographs of Dan and the woman with another man, and some with the woman and the other man without Dan, and supposed he was looking at the face of the brother. But the face wouldn't get him very far without the name.

Didn't any of these people write to each other? He searched dresser drawers and boxes on closet shelves, to no effect. A bookshelf mounted on the bedroom wall contained about thirty books, all Reader's Digest condensed volumes; he shook them out one at a time, and in the process found Dan's emergency fund, ten hundred dollar bills, five of them fluttering down from each of two books. But no names and no addresses. Grofield stuffed the thousand dollars in his wallet and left the bedroom.

The only phone in the house was in the living room, standing on the Enid directory on the end table beyond the sofa. But there was nothing written in or on the directory, and nothing but poker chips and playing cards were stored in the end table. There was no personal notebook with addresses and phone numbers anywhere around.

After a while, Grofield had to admit to himself that he was wasting his time, the house had been stripped. A woman who maintained a home like this one, small and neat and orderly, would surely have kept addresses and phone numbers neatly in a pad somewhere handy to the phone. More than that, she would surely have a Christmas card list somewhere in the house, and Grofield guessed she'd been the type who'd keep whatever letters from friends and relatives she'd ever received. That they were all gone, without a trace of search, suggested that Myers had made the woman gather up letters and address books and the like herself before he'd killed her.

Which meant it had to be done a different way; another trail would have to be found. But what about this house, and the body? Grofield's own presence here couldn't be entirely erased, so that would have to be taken care of. And, for the good of everybody Dan had worked with in the last few years, it would be best to cover up the fact of the murder itself, if he could. It was always dangerous when the police got interested in the family of a man in this business, whatever their reasons. A murder investigation here, spreading out as it would from Dan's wife to a search for Dan himself and on to a study of his former associates, could cause difficulties up and down the line.

He had come in here in the middle of the afternoon, having learned a long time ago that it's always safest to break into private homes in the daytime, accidental witnesses tending to believe that things done openly in the middle of the day are of necessity legal. He now had about two hours of daylight left.

To get started, he had to go back to the kitchen. He hated the fact of the woman lying there, face down in the lake of dried blood, and avoided looking at her as much as he could. He could only open the cellar door part way, because of her hand; the truth was, he could have pushed her arm out of the way and opened the door wider, but he preferred to use the narrow opening.

The cellar was like the interior of a submarine made of stone – small and narrow and low ceilinged and crowded with greasy machinery. Also shelves up over the sink, containing a variety of bottles and boxes and cans. Grofield went through them and found half a dozen labels that claimed the contents were flammable – turpentine, paint remover, spot remover. He carried them all upstairs, leaving the door to the kitchen open after he'd slipped through. Putting the rest of the cans on the kitchen table, he carried the rectangular quart can of turpentine with him as he went through the rest of the house, opening all the windows and being sure the doors were open between rooms. He then left a dribbled trail of turpentine from a pool in the middle of the bed down and across the bedroom floor and through the living room on a wide arc and on into the kitchen. Now the swing door had to stay open, too.

He tossed the empty turpentine can down the cellar stairs, then opened a can of paint remover and poured that all over the body. Kerosene, spot remover, everything was poured out and spread around, and the containers thrown down the cellar stairs.

The original sweet nauseating smell was gone from the kitchen now, blanketed by the sharper odors of all the things he'd spilled. Avoiding looking directly at the body as much as he could – sometimes it seemed very large, sometimes very small – Grofield pushed the wooden kitchen chairs around it, and then backed away to the exit door. He opened it, looked out carefully at the next back yard, the low wire fence, the field beyond. There seemed to be no one in sight. He nodded to himself, turned away, and went over to the stove, which was gas, of the pilotless type that needs to be lit by matches. A container of wooden matches decorated with pictures of Switzerland was hanging on the wall. Grofield took this down, held on to one match, and scattered the rest of the matches around on the floor. He turned on one of the gas burners atop the stove without lighting it, and walked back across the floor listening to it hiss. He knew that one open burner would be sufficient to cause an explosion, and that if the stove wasn't completely destroyed some sharp-eyed investigator might notice if more than one burner switch was turned to on.

He opened the rear door again, and the outside world still seemed just as empty of people. Standing in the slightly open doorway, he turned back to the room, struck the match on the wall beside the door, held it with the flaming end downward until it had caught well, and then tossed it gently toward the dead woman.

It didn't reach all the way, but landed on one of the wet trails on the floor. There was a tiny phum! and yellowish flames that were almost invisible skittered away along the trails, like ghosts of midget racers.

Grofield stepped out, shut the door behind him. He trotted away across the neat yard, jumped the low fence, and jogged around the rear of the farm-equipment dealership, leaving the way he had come. His car was a half mile down the road, in a diner's parking lot. He reached it without incident, climbed aboard, and drove away. It was a mark of how completely he thought of this as a personal thing he was on and not work that he was driving his own car, the used Chevy Nova.

He circled the area, and half an hour later he couldn't resist driving back that way to see how it had worked out. Sometimes a fire is a tougher thing to start than it should be.

A state trooper was in the road a quarter mile from the house, directing traffic down a side road detour. Grofield stopped and stuck his head out and called, "What's the matter, officer?"

"Just keep moving," the trooper said.

"Yes, sir," Grofield said, and made the turn, following the other shunted traffic. He didn't get to see the house at all.

5

Grofield pulled the car off the road and stopped behind the tractor-trailer rig. When he got out and walked around the truck to the bank of roadside phone booths, he noticed the legend on the truck cab's door: UNIVERSAL FUR STORAGE 210-16 Pine Street Phone 378-9825. Why was that so familiar? Then he remembered the truck in the St. Louis job, the one Hughes had bought from Purgy. It was the same company!

The same truck? No, this one was newer, the cab was newer. Grofield shook his head and went on to the booths.

The driver of the truck was in the first of the four booths, yelling his head off. Grofield couldn't make out the words through the closed glass doors, but whatever the trucker was mad about he was really mad. He had his cap clutched in his hand and kept waving it over his head as he shouted, his movements restricted by the closed-in glass walls of the booth.

Grofield went on down to the last booth at the other end, and stepped inside, leaving the door open while dialing. This was his seventh and last call, and he was making each of them from a different phone booth.

He dialed 207, the area code for Maine, and then the number. An operator came on and asked for a dollar seventy for the first three minutes. Grofield's right jacket pocket was sagging with change; he produced coin after coin to bong into the slots until he'd reached a dollar seventy. "There."

"Thank you, sir."

Then there was nothing for a long while, and then clicking, and then nothing, and then a loud click, and then ringing, and finally a woman's voice saying, "New Electric Diner."

"Handy McKay, please."

"Hold on a minute."

"Sure."

When McKay came on, Grofield said, "This is Alan Grofield. I met you with Parker a couple times, and you've passed messages on to him."

"I remember you," McKay said. "You want another message sent?"

"No. This time I'm looking for somebody else. He's in the same business I'm in, but we don't have any friends in common. I was hoping somebody I know would know how I could get in touch with him."

"I'm kind of out of touch with everybody these days," McKay said. "Except Parker. What's your man's name?"

"Myers. Andrew Myers. I'm told he did some work around the Texas area."

"I don't know him. Sorry."

"He's been traveling the last week or so with a guy named Harry Brock. Big strong guy, not very smart."

"Don't know him either. I could ask a couple of questions for you."

"I'd appreciate it."

"Where can you be reached?"

"Henrietta Motel, Wichita Falls, Texas. Area code 817, phone num-"

"Hold on, not so fast."

Grofield repeated everything, more slowly, and then said, "I'm only going to be there till noon tomorrow."

"I'll pass the word," Handy McKay promised.

Grofield hung up and waited in the booth a few seconds, thinking about calling Mary. But he had nothing to say to her yet, and she knew not to expect him to keep in touch every day like a machine parts salesman on the road, so he left the booth and walked on around the truck and back to his Chevy. The trucker was still in the other booth, but was no longer yelling. His hand clutching the cap was at his side and he was being elaborately sarcastic now, smiling with his lips drawn back while he talked, as though in a second he'd bite the phone in half. It would be funny, Grofield thought, while the guy was on the phone, to take his truck away and drive it up to Arkansas and sell it to Purgy. Grinning, he got into the Chevy and drove away from there.

6

Grofield sat naked on the motel room bed, reading a biography of David Garrick that he'd lifted from the local library. It was after midnight, no calls had come in, and he was at the part where Dr. Samuel Johnson was describing an actor as "a fellow who claps a lump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries, 'I am Richard the Third'," when the phone rang.

He hated to put the book down until he found out if Johnson had at least been put in his place, but there was no choice. Marking his place with a hotel matchbook, Grofield put the book aside, reached over to the phone, and said, "Hello?"

The voice was male, small, nasal, and guarded. "Is this somebody named Alan Grofield?"

"That's exactly the somebody this is," Grofield said.

"Huh?"

"I am," Grofield translated.

"You're looking for my friend Harry Brock."

"In a way," Grofield said.

"You sore at him?"

"No."

"You sure?"

Grofield said, "I'm sore at a guy named Andrew Myers. I think Harry Brock could tell me where he is."

"Sure he could," the voice said. "He's with him right now. I just met that Myers a couple days ago. He's a madman."

"That he is. Where'd you meet him?"

"In Vegas."

"Oh, really?"

"But they're gone from there now," the voice said. Grofield had a tendency to visualize people from their voices; in his mind, this one looked like a talking rat.

Grofield said, "Where'd they go, do you know?"

"Sure I know. But I'm not sure I want to go into it on the phone."

"Where are you calling from?"

"San Francisco."

"Then I don't think I could drop over for you to tell me in person," Grofield said.

"I don't personally have anything against Myers," the voice said. "Other than the fact that he's crazy, which is everybody's privilege, the way I see it. I wouldn't want to queer his operation."

"He's got a thing going, has he?"

"He wanted me in. It was a little too wild for me."

"Where was this?"

"Like I say, I don't want to queer things. There's him; there's the people he's got in with him."

"I'll wait till he's finished," Grofield said. "That's a promise." He was thinking, if Myers has something set up, it would be better to wait till after he pulled it anyway, and hit him when he was flush. Revenge was going to be sweet, of course, but beside that he was going to want his money back. He had a theater to open.

The rat-voice hesitated, saying, "Well, I don't know.

"I don't know who passed the word on to you," Grofield said, "about me looking for Brock and Myers. But they must have said something about me."

"Yeah, they did."

"Whether I could be counted on or not."

"Yeah, they mentioned something about that."

"So I've told you it's not Brock I'm sore at, and I won't do anything until after they're finished doing what they're doing." The circumlocutions were a pain in the ass sometimes, but with bugging rivaling solitaire as the nation's favorite indoor one-man sport it was necessary never to be very precise about what you wanted to say.

The rat-voice said, doubtfully, "Yeah, I suppose if I call you up, I might as well go all the way."

"That makes sense," Grofield agreed.

"There's this little town in upstate New York-"

"My God!" Grofield said. "The brewery?"

"You know about it?"

"That's how I met him, too. Weeks and weeks ago. Is he still peddling that idea?"

"I didn't think that much of it," the rat-voice said seriously. "I'll tell you the truth about myself, I'm maybe not as experienced as you are. I don't want to go into my qualifications over the phone, you know, but in comparison with some of you people I'm like small potatoes. So I don't figure my attitude and my opinion count for very much. But I thought it was a little-"

Grofield let the silence go on for a reasonably long while, and then suggested, "Reckless."

"Yeah," said the rat-voice, relieved. "That's a good word. Reckless. That's why I figured I'd rather stay out of it."

"But some of the others stayed in?"

"Sure."

"Are they, uh, small potatoes, too?"

"Sure. All except Harry. And Myers."

"And they've left Vegas by now, to go up there."

"That's right."

"When do they plan to do it, do you know?"

"Pretty soon. I don't know exactly for sure."

"Well, thanks," Grofield said. "And you may not be very experienced, but you've got good instincts. That thing of his is a great one to stay away from."

"I figured that way. You know the name of the town?"

"I know it," Grofield said. "Thanks again."

"Any time."

Grofield hung up, and sat for a second smiling at the phone. "I know it," he said. He'd forgotten all about the David Garrick biography. "Monequois, New York," he said, and got up from the bed, and started to dress.

1

It was raining in Monequois. Grofield sat hunched behind the wheel of his Chevy Nova and thought about warmth and sunlight. And Mary. And the theater. And money. And Myers. And that goddam brewery across the street.

With the windows rolled up, they steamed up. With them down, cold wet wind came in. Grofield compromised – opened the vent across the way on the passenger side. The seat was getting wet over there, the windows on that side of the car were clear of steam – but not of raindrops and running water – and the windshield and side windows over by Grofield were steamed up.

So was Grofield. This was Thursday, and he remembered from Myers' briefing back in Las Vegas weeks ago that Friday was payday around here. Which meant Myers was more than likely going to hit tomorrow, or have to put it off till next week. If he was really here.

And if he was really here, where the hell was he? You can look at photographs and maps and charts, that whole suitcase full of counterspy stuff he liked to tote around with him, only up to a certain point, and after that certain point what you had to do was go around and actually stand in front of the place you were going to rob and look at it. Sooner or later, you would have to look at it.

So where were they? Grofield used his sleeve to remove steam from the side window for the twentieth time, and looked across the cobblestone street at the high brick wall surrounding the brewery building. There was a gate across there, and two armed private guards in gray uniforms were on that gate, and they had the kind of conscientiousness that can only come from having a paranoid employer. They checked the identification of every vehicle driver and every pedestrian to go in or out of that gate over there – every one. In the rain. Including the drivers of their own goddam delivery trucks. In the rain.

It was a part of Myers' scheme that the gang would get through that gate in a fire engine, responding to an incendiary blast that Myers would have previously set somewhere inside the building. Myers was going on the assumption that the gate guards wouldn't check IDs on firemen responding to a fire, but now that he'd seen those gate guards in action Grofield wasn't so sure he was right. And even if he was, how about that previously set blaze? An incendiary bomb with a time mechanism was a simple thing to prepare and would be a simple thing to hide somewhere in the building the day before, but just how did Myers expect to get in there to hide it? He couldn't pull the fire engine stunt twice, that just wouldn't work. So he'd have to do something else. Besides which, he or some members of the gang he'd put together were going to have to come down here and look at this building, they just had to. So where were they?

In the rain, he almost missed them. If Harry Brock with a chauffeur's cap on hadn't stuck his head out of the driver's window of the Rolls Royce to say something to the gate guards Grofield wouldn't have seen him at all. A chauffeur-driven Rolls had rolled up the cobblestone street and turned at the gate. Grofield had noticed the chauffeur behind the wheel and the dim figure in the back and had taken it for granted he was looking at the paranoid who owned all this. But then, when the Rolls stopped rolling and Harry Brock stuck his head out in the rain with his chauffeur's cap on to say something to the guard, Grofield became suddenly alert.

So that was Myers in the back seat, was it? The bastard was bold, that was one thing you had to give him. Myers wasn't the type to grab a lunchbucket and try to slouch in past the guard like a workman; no, his style was to show up in a Rolls Royce.

Whatever the story Myers had to go with the Rolls, it was good enough to get him through. Grofield watched the guard and Harry Brock talk, watched the guard go into his office for a minute, and watched him come back out into the rain and wave Harry Brock through. And the Rolls disappeared inside.

Grofield, sitting there, waiting for Myers to come back out, thought of an old story he'd heard one time. There was a large factory that made a lot of different products, and every day this one worker would go out the main gate pushing a wheelbarrow full of dirt. The gate guard was sure the worker was stealing something, and he kept searching the dirt, but he never found anything. After twenty years, the guard stopped the worker one day and said, "I'm retiring tomorrow, this is my last day. I can't leave this job without knowing what you're up to. I won't turn you in, but you've got to tell me. What are you stealing?" The worker said, "Wheelbarrows."

Myers and Brock were inside for nearly an hour, and there was no trouble when they left. Grofield started the Chevy and followed. Because of the rain he had to stay fairly close, but he didn't expect that to cause any problems. He was sure Myers felt safe and pleased with himself. He'd cut the route Dan Leach had taken, and he must feel he had time to run this operation and get a stake. It had been a narrow thing, Grofield getting there in time. It had needed Myers to keep pushing this plan even after an overwhelming number of professionals had told him it was no good. It had needed Myers to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find a string to work the job with him, and even then to come up with somebody smart enough to walk out. And it had needed that somebody to know somebody who knew Grofield, and who was willing to talk to him because of the friendship in the middle.

The Rolls took a turn a block from the brewery and headed toward the middle of town. Monequois was an old town with an Indian name, just a few miles from the Canadian border. It was built over and around several small but steep hills, and even the main downtown street was at a steep slant. There were no streets wider than two lanes, plus parking lanes, and the result was a perpetual daytime jam-up in the downtown area. The buildings along the main street were brick or stone, old and grimy and ugly, and the houses out around them were mostly clapboard, poor but neat. Monequois was a backwater, on no through routes, and strangers would tend to be noticed, which was the flaw in Myers' routine with the Rolls. It was a bad idea to cause attention to yourself in an area where you were going to pull a job. Grofield, the night before, had stolen a couple of New York State license plates to put on the Chevy instead of the legal Indiana plates it normally carried. The New York plates had differing numbers on them – Grofield having taken them from two different cars – but they both began 4S and had a sequence of four more numbers after that; the likelihood that any one would notice the discrepancy was very small. And the advantage was that neither of those plates was likely to be reported as stolen. When both plates are taken from a car, the owner knows damn well he's been robbed, but when one plate is gone he'll tend to believe it fell off. He'll report the loss to the Motor Vehicle Department, but won't report a theft to the police.

The Rolls now headed directly into Clinton Street, the town's main shopping street, where traffic was stop-and-go and it could take five minutes or more to travel one block. Grofield, three cars back, composed his soul in patience and hummed melodies to the rhythm of the windshield wiper.

The Colonial Hotel was on the main street, and that was where the Rolls stopped. Myers got out, wearing a black raincoat and a black hat, and hurried across the rainy sidewalk and into the hotel. The Rolls moved on.

Was Myers actually staying at the local hotel? It was incredible the number of things the man was doing wrong. Grofield remembered Myers claiming he'd cleared the job with the local mob up here – another weird idea – and wondered if Myers thought that made him immune from the normal laws of police activity.

He would have preferred to stay with Myers now, to stake out the hotel and see what Myers did next, but there was nothing in this crowded rainy street to do with the car. Having no choice in the matter, he went on following the Rolls.

It took another quarter of an hour to get clear of downtown – it was like pulling yourself loose from an octopus – and then the Rolls turned off onto a narrow unnumbered blacktop road that took them quickly out of town and away from all other traffic. Grofield hung farther and farther back, hoping the rain would keep Brock from seeing too clearly in his rear view mirror. He knew that Brock was more stupid than Myers, but he suspected Brock was the more professional of the two. It would be Brock who would think to check the possibility that he was being followed.

Grofield wasn't sure, but he had the feeling they were now traveling north. If so, they were on their way to Canada, which was only about three miles north of town.

They traveled seven miles, taking another right turn after four, onto an even smaller and narrower road. They were traveling mostly past woods now, with an occasional rectangle of cleared farmland and an even more occasional building. There were no advertising posters, no road markers. It was impossible to tell which country they were in.

Grofield and the Rolls were the only cars in sight, and Grofield was hanging back so far now that most of the time he couldn't see the Rolls at all. He would crest a rise, come out the other end of a curve, and catch a glimpse of the Rolls up ahead. The occasional glimpse was all he wanted right now.

But the result was, he very nearly missed the turn. He came around a curve, and ahead there was a farm flanking the road. The house, on the left, had burned down some time ago, the charred sticks poking up in the rain, abandoned and desolate. The barn, on the right, had a sagging roof and some missing siding, but was mostly still in one piece. A dirt track led from the road through a gap in a crumbling fence across to the doorless wide entryway into the barn, and it was only the tail lights glowing because Brock had his foot on the brake that attracted Grofield's attention. He caught a glimpse of the two red dots inside the darkness of the barn, and quickly accelerated to be absolutely sure that was Brock in there. He took a rise, saw half a mile of road twisting and turning through a valley ahead, and it was empty of traffic.

Fine. Out of sight of the barn, Grofield turned the Chevy around and headed back. Up on the rise, he saw the barn now on his left, with the beige trunk of an automobile now jutting out the entrance. But the Rolls was black.

Grofield slowed as he went past the barn, peering at it through the rain. The driver's door of the beige car was standing open, with no one behind the wheel. Which meant Brock was in there jockeying the Rolls around, having moved the other car out of his way.

There was no question in Grofield's mind but that Brock would be heading back toward Monequois now. He drove along slowly, watching the rearview mirror, and all at once the beige car splashed into view. Grofield eased off the accelerator, slowing even more, and the beige car shot by him, arcing a sheet of water across the windshield.

It was a Buick. It had Quebec plates. Brock was at the wheel, alone in the car.

Grofield let him go on out of sight, and didn't catch up again until after the turn back onto the road that led to town. There was an occasional car or milk truck on this road; Grofield had to pass three vehicles before seeing the Buick up ahead once again.

And damned if they didn't go downtown again; Myers must have all the time in the world.

Myers wasn't alone. When they got opposite the hotel, Myers came out with two other men, and the three trotted across the street and got into the Buick. Grofield, four cars back, was pretty sure he knew neither of the other two.

The Buick kept on retracing the route of the Rolls, on out of downtown and past the brewery once more. It slowed down so much while going by the brewery that a Mustang behind it honked angrily; Grofield supposed the other two were being shown the place in person for the first time.

They went out of town to the south now, Grofield again hanging back farther and farther as the traffic dwindled, and after three miles the Buick made a right turn onto a dirt road that meandered away toward some woods. Grofield, coming slowly along the blacktop road, saw the Buick bouncing along the dirt ruts, and knew he couldn't possibly follow them in there without being noticed. Not in the daytime.

He drove on, and as he passed the turnoff the Buick attained the trees and disappeared.

2

Two A.M. Pouring. Pitch-black.

Grofield drove at five miles an hour with parking lights on across the dirt road toward the trees. The windshield wipers, whipping back and forth at top speed, couldn't keep up with the rain.

If it was still raining like this tomorrow, Myers would have to hold off on his caper. There wouldn't be any fires in Monequois, no matter how many bombs Myers set. Grofield, wishing Myers good luck up to a point, had listened to the local news at eleven, where they had said the rain would stop during the night and tomorrow would be cloudy and cooler. Grofield hoped they were right.

He reached the edge of the woods, and stopped. Turning the car around, in the dark, on this narrow dirt road, was a tricky operation. He didn't want to wind up stuck in the mud halfway; it would make for an embarrassing moment in the morning, when the boys came out to pull their job.

Grofield got it turned around at last, pocketed the keys, and very reluctantly got out of the car. That afternoon he'd done some shopping in Monequois' cramped downtown, buying himself knee-length rubber boots, water-repellent hunting trousers, a water-repellent hunter's waistlength jacket with hood, and some other things that he would maybe need a little later. Now, standing beside the car in the pouring rain, he felt that he must look like the Abominable Snowman. Or, considering the tan color of everything he had on, maybe more like the abominable mudman.

The jacket had a pouch in the front. He put his hands in there now, feeling the little Smith & Wesson Terrier and the pencil flashlight. Keeping his right hand in the pouch, fingers closed around the revolver butt, he took his left hand out with the small flashlight, switched it on, and started slogging down the faintly seen dirt road.

There was less rain in under the trees, but there was still plenty. Grofield's face and left hand were soaking wet, and despite how much he had himself closed up there were still a couple of rain trickles working their way in around his neck and down inside all the protective clothing. Feeling more and more irritable, he slogged on.

He'd traveled half a mile on foot before he came to the house. It was surprisingly large, two stories, white clapboard, and gave no sign of being abandoned. Had Myers rented a hideout?

Or was his place farther along? If this house were occupied now, and had nothing to do with Myers, the odds were very good the household would include a dog. Most isolated households do. Feeling very itchy about that potential dog, Grofield prowled slowly around the exterior of the house, trying to find some sign as to who, if anybody, lived there.

There was a barn behind the house, and in the barn a shiny red fire engine. Grofield shone the light on it, and smiled.

3

Grofield pressed his right hand down on the sleeping man's mouth and closed his left over his throat. The sleeper woke with an explosion of arms and legs under the covers, flinging blankets and sheets off the bed in all directions. But his shouts were turned to muffled gargles in his throat, and for all the thrashing the only sound was rustling and scrabbling – not enough to be heard through the closed door and down the hall and into any of the rooms where the others were sleeping.

There were six in the house, the same number as the gang Myers had tried to put together when Grofield first met him. They were all asleep, scattered among the four bedrooms on the second floor. Myers and this one had rooms to themselves; the other four doubled up. That was why this one had been picked; he was alone. The snoring that had covered Grofield's approach explained why.

Grofield stood on one foot, leaning all his weight on his hands, the one over the thrashing man's mouth and the one squeezing his throat. He knew this would take a fairly long while, that unconsciousness comes reluctantly when the air supply has been cut off, but the guy was helping the process by flinging himself around this way, using up the strength in his body.

Grofield had come in through the back door; Myers hadn't even bothered to lock it. Not that Grofield would have been stopped by a lock, but the carelessness of Myers was a never-ending revelation to Grofield. It was the man's strength as well as his weakness, it made him bold and successful at the same time that it made him dangerous to be around. And ultimately, with a little help from Grofield, dangerous to himself.

The mind wakes up more slowly than the body. By the time the guy in the bed thought to attack the hands that were holding him down and cutting off his air, he had very little time or strength or consciousness left. He scratched at Grofield's gloved hands, plucked at his sleeves, tried vainly to get at his face. His arms stuck straight up, fingers moving more and more slowly, until it looked as though he were doing an imitation of an underwater plant. And his legs had stopped moving.

Grofield had searched the downstairs first, thoroughly. He had catalogued the arms supply, he had inventoried the food in pantry and refrigerator, he had observed the half dozen suitcases and bags lined up along the wall in the dining room. So they were planning to leave from here, in that highly noticeable red fire engine, and then they were planning to drive back here and hide out for a few days. They had food enough for at least a week. With Myers running things, the state of New York would be feeding the bunch of them within twelve hours.

Any damn fool can plot a robbery, and can get away with planning it. Walk in and out of the same bank every day for a month, casing it. Live where you want, drive where you want, do what you want. Any damn fool can walk into a bank or a brewery or wherever the money is – a supermarket, say – and manage to walk out again and leave the immediate scene of the crime. The part that takes the brains is not getting caught afterward. A sensible man, running this thing, would have his people in motels in Watertown and Massena, far enough away from Monequois so none of the locals will have seen them in front, to be remembered later. A sensible man would have his fire engine stashed miles from where he intends to hide out after the operation. A sensible man would keep as far away from his hideout as possible until after the job. A small town area like this one couldn't be hit the way Grofield and the others had hit the supermarket near St. Louis, with a large anonymous city handy to disappear into before the alarm could be raised, and a sensible man would take the local conditions into account.

Hell. A sensible man wouldn't try to knock over that brewery in the first place.

Grofield's arms were getting tired now, his fingers were growing tired from the job of forbidding this guy air. But at last, the man on the bed was running down, like a wind-up toy. His legs were stretched out like pale logs on the sheet, and his arms were collapsing downward in slow motion, the fingers sliding helplessly down Grofield's rigid arms. The madly blinking staring gulping eyes were glazing over now, the distended pupils were rolling upward. The airless heaving of the chest was growing more sporadic.

"Don't die, you silly bastard," Grofield whispered. "All I want you is unconscious."

The eyelids fluttered down. The arms fell to the sheet, flanking his still torso.

There was no sound anywhere in the house. Grofield stood unmoving a few seconds longer, listening, watching, waiting, and then very tentatively relaxed the grip of his two hands, lifted them slowly from the purpled face.

Nothing happened.

Including no intake of breath. Grofield frowned down at the unconscious man, and when breathing still didn't start he put the heel of his left hand on the guy's stomach, just over the waistband of his shorts, and leaned his weight on that hand. Lean, release; lean, release. The second time, a very scratchy sound followed it – a first breath.

Fine. So far, so good.

Grofield's eyes were used to the darkness by now, so he worked without his pencil flash while looking for the guy's clothing. He'd been sleeping in his shorts and T-shirt, and everything else was on a chair over near the door. All except the shoes, on the floor beside the bed.

Grofield took the shoes first, and removed the shoelaces. One he used to tie the guy's big toes together, and the other to tie his thumbs together behind his back. His necktie made an effective gag. The rest of his clothing, shoes, socks, shirts, pants, jacket, all went into the pillowcase Grofield stripped off the bed. A raincoat and a soft cap were in the closet, and Grofield took them, too, stuffing the cap into the pillowcase.

Next he spread a blanket on the floor, and carefully rolled the guy off the bed and down onto the blanket. He wrapped the raincoat around him as best he could, and then rolled him in the blanket. A hands and knees search around the walls of the room produced one extension cord, which Grofield tied around the middle of the long bundle he'd made. He tucked the end of the pillowcase up through his belt in the back and looped it there so the pillowcase hung down over his behind, then picked up the rolled blanket, balanced it precariously on his left shoulder, and slowly made his way out of the room.

Rain continued to pour, outside. It could be heard drumming on the roof, tapping on the windows, pouring through the gutters. The muffled, distant, soothing sounds of the rain covered the small sounds Grofield made as he carried his burden slowly down the stairs to the first floor and through the house and out the kitchen door.

It seemed darker outside the house than in, maybe because the pelting rain distorted everything you tried to look at. Grofield shifted the weight of the blanket on his shoulder and began slogging away from the house through the mud.

Halfway to the car, the figure in the blanket came to life and started to twist violently around, almost making Grofield lose his balance and fall down in the mud. He managed to stay on his feet, and when he was braced with his legs spread he took the Terrier out of his pouch, holding it by the barrel, and hit the spot on the blanket where he believed the head to be. The third time he hit it, the twisting around came to a stop. Grofield put the Terrier away again and slogged on toward the car.

4

Grofield untied the extension cord, grabbed an edge of the blanket, stood up, pulled the blanket upward, and the man inside rolled out like a college parody of Cleopatra being delivered to Caesar. The blanket was soggy, and so was the man; he lay shivering on the floor, his skin and underwear both drenched. He had a new bruise on his left cheek, probably denoting the spot Grofield had hit with the gun barrel. The necktie, once a gag, dangled limply around his neck.

He glared up at Grofield, trying to make his expression tough and unafraid, but his voice gave him away, sounding weak and frightened when he demanded, "What the hell's going on?… Who are you?… Where is this?"

"This is my hotel room," Grofield said calmly. "And you, temporarily, are my prisoner."

"I don't know what you're up to, Mac-"

"Save that speech," Grofield told him. "I know what it says. Excuse me a minute." He carried the sopping blanket away to the bathroom and hung it over the shower curtain rod.

When he came back, the guy was hunching himself across the floor toward the door. Grofield said, "You really want to go out there? Let me help." He walked past him, and opened the door. Despite the verandah-style roof over the sidewalk out front, rain swirled in with gusts of wind. The room lights glistened on the headlights and bumper of Grofield's Chevy, parked out front, but beyond it was nothing but swirling wet blackness.

The guy on the floor had stopped moving, and had hunched himself into a ball against the wind. Grofield looked down at him, shut the door, and said, "You don't really want to go out there."

"You're gonna give me pneumonia." His teeth were chattering, and he didn't have secure control of his voice.

"Not if I don't have to," Grofield said. "What's your name, by the way? I need something to call you."

"You can go to hell."

Grofield opened the door. Speaking over the sound of the storm, he said pleasantly, "I'm dressed warmer than you are. I can stand it a lot colder, and a lot wetter."

"Jesus Christ!"

"That isn't your name. Tell me your name and I'll shut the door."

"Morton!"

"First name."

"Perry!"

Grofield shut the door. "That's very good, Perry," he said. He went over to the chair where he'd dropped the pillowcase. Lifting that up now, he emptied the clothing out onto the chair – both shoes bounced away onto the floor – and went through the pants pockets till he found the wallet. He opened it, got out the driver's license, and read aloud, "Perry Morton." He turned and smiled, saying, "Very good. Truth is your best bet."

Morton was glowering at the wallet. "If you had that, why go through all that shit with the door?"

"To let you know your best move, Perry, it's to answer my questions, and to tell me the truth every time. Do you know what would have happened if I'd looked in here and it turned out your name wasn't Perry Morton?"

"You'd of opened the door," Morton grumbled.

"More than that. I would have pushed you outside for a minute or two, and left you there."

"Like hell. You won't let me go until you're done with me, whatever you want."

"I didn't say let you go. Perry, do you know how many other moving cars I passed on my way here from the house where I got you? None. There isn't one car out there, not one pedestrian out there. I didn't see one lit window except for a couple that were obviously night lights. It's almost three-thirty in the morning, Perry. People in a small town area like this go to bed at ten o'clock. And it's a Thursday night, a weeknight, besides. And there's a storm going on. Where do you think you'd go if I pushed you out there, Perry, all tied up and in your underwear? Who do you think would help you?"

Morton looked sullen, but with a trace of slyness hiding behind it. "I guess you're right," he said.

Grofield said, "I know what you're thinking, Perry. You're thinking you'll lie to me until I do push you out there, and then you'll hop to one of the other occupied rooms, or maybe to the motel office, and you'll get help that way. But do you know what that means? That means whoever you wake up is going to call the cops. And what are you going to tell the cops?"

"Why not tell them you kidnapped me?"

"From where? What are you doing around here? Perry, I can convince the police you're lying, I never saw you before in my life. Believe me, I can. I can make them wonder who you are and where you came from and what's going on. I can arrange it so they hold on to both of us right on through till tomorrow afternoon. You don't want the local cops asking you questions tomorrow afternoon, do you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, well," Grofield said. "I hoped you wouldn't be such a slow learner." He walked over toward the door.

"Wait a second, wait a second! I didn't tell you any lies!"

Grofield stopped with his hand on the knob, and looked back. "What's going to happen tomorrow, Perry? What are you and the others supposed to do tomorrow?"

"They won't do it. When they wake up in the morning and I'm gone, they'll know something's screwed up."

"No, they won't, Perry. They'll simply think you turned yellow and ran away in the middle of the night. They're all hungry, Perry, they'll go ahead and do what they came here to do. Which is what, Perry?"

"You know everything," Morton said sullenly. "What do you ask questions for?"

"I'm lonely," Grofield said. "Also impatient." He opened the door.

"The brewery!" Morton yelled.

Grofield shut the door. "What about the brewery?"

"Jesus. We're going to knock it over. At two in the afternoon."

"For what? The beer?"

"The payroll. They've got a cash payroll."

"How many of you, Perry?"

"S-s-six."

"You cold? Listen, if you're good, and answer all questions promptly, I'll let you take a hot bath when we're done."

"I'm gonna get pneumonia," Morton said.

"Maybe not," Grofield said, carelessly. "What's the name of the guy who set it up, Perry?"

"Myers. Andrew Myers."

"And how are you going to do it?"

"We got a fire engine."

Grofield waited, but Morton had nothing else to say, so finally Grofield said, "Well, bully for you. So you've got a fire engine, so what?"

"Myers has it set for a fire to start there tomorrow. At the brewery. And we'll show up in the fire engine, that's how we'll get in."

"What about the regular fire engines?"

"We're blowing them up. Myers set that up, too, he's got a bomb in the police station. The firehouse and the police station are the same building, he's got a bomb in there to blow it up. So there won't be any other fire engine coming, and there won't be any cops chasing us when we leave."

"You're going to leave in the fire engine, too?"

"Sure."

"And go where? Back to the house where I picked you up?"

"Yeah. Not in the fire engine."

"Not in the fire engine."

"We got two cars stashed, right in town."

"Where in town?"

"There used to be a tank parts factory here, way back in World War Two. They're using the factory for something else now, but down behind it there's a warehouse and some railroad tracks they don't use any more. You know, tracks in from the regular tracks."

"A spur line," Grofield suggested.

"Yeah. They're all rusty, they're never used any more."

"And?"

"And we got two cars down by there. In the warehouse. We drive the fire engine in, we plant the other bomb, we drive the two cars out and split up and take off and meet back at the hideout."

"What other bomb?"

"We're gonna blow up the fire engine. So there's no fingerprints or clues. And to make more confusion in the town – to help us make the getaway."

"Myers has a very explosive mind," Grofield said. "So then you're going to drive the two cars back to the hideout. And then what? Wait a few days till the excitement dies down?"

"Sure."

That was another of Myers' flaws, though Grofield saw no point in mentioning it. But the kind of wave Grofield saw Myers making was not the kind of wave that died down very quickly. For at least a couple of weeks, the locals would be up in arms – vigilante groups visiting abandoned buildings; boy scouts searching the surrounding countryside; police roadblocks everywhere. If they stayed put, they'd be found. If they moved, they'd be caught. After the kind of ruckus Myers planned to make, the only thing to do was take off as fast as possible and not stop until you were separated from the scene of the crime by at least an ocean or a continent. Preferably both.

But back to another step in the plan. Grofield said, "Tell me about these two cars. What make are they?"

"One's a Buick and the other one's a Rambler."

"Colors?"

Morton frowned in confusion, but answered. "The Buick's kind of tan, and the Rambler's light blue."

"Both sedans?"

"Yeah. I don't get the point."

"You don't have to," Grofield said. "What's the plan? Three men in each car?"

"Right."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, Myers and two others in one-"

"What two others? Give me their names."

Morton looked troubled and truculent. "I don't think I ought to give you any more names. I don't know who you are or what you're up to."

"And you can tell the boys," Grofield said, "that you got your pneumonia for their sake. Assuming you ever see them again." He opened the door.

"All right!"

Grofield shut the door.

"I'll tell you," Morton said angrily. "But I'll tell you something else, too. If I ever get my hands on you, you're gonna wish you were a piano salesman instead."

"I'll remember that," Grofield told him. "But you remember something, too. When we see the way things work out tomorrow, you remember that I'm the only reason you aren't along with the rest of the boys. I'm saving you from a nice long prison sentence, and I may be saving your life. But don't thank me, just tell me who's going to be in what car."

"I wasn't going to thank-"

"You're wasting time, Perry. Tell me who's going to be in what car."

"Myers and a guy named Harry Brock and a guy named George Lanahan, they're going to be in one car, and-"

"Which one?"

"The Buick. And me and-"

"All right, that's all. What about any other vehicles? You using anything else in this caper beside the fire engine and the Buick and the Rambler?"

He shook his head. "No, that's it."

Grofield frowned, and considered reaching for the doorknob again. Instead, he said, "These bombs Myers set up in the police station and the brewery, how'd he do it?"

"What do you mean, how'd he do it?"

"I mean, how'd he get into the police station? How'd he get into the brewery?"

"I don't know… I guess he just walked in."

"Both places?"

"I don't know, I guess so."

"That brewery's supposed to be a tough place to get into."

"Well, he's got the bomb in there already," Morton said. "I know that for a fact."

"How do you know it for a fact?"

"Because Myers said it was there, and we're going ahead tomorrow. I mean, they're going ahead tomorrow. Myers wouldn't do it if he didn't have the bomb set up, would he?"

"I guess not," Grofield said. "But what about the Rolls Royce?"

Could the bewilderment on Morton's face be assumed? Morton said, "What Rolls Royce?"

Grofield believed him, really, but he thought he ought to make sure. He sighed and said, "And you were doing so well," and opened the door.

"I don't know about any Rolls Royce! It's the truth, it's the truth!"

Grofield shut the door again. "I guess it is, at that," he said. He nodded, and went over to sit down in the second chair, the one without Morton's clothes scattered all over it. "Now," he said, "let me tell you something. Tomorrow, when that fire engine drives into that warehouse and you switch vehicles, the loot will go into the Buick with Myers."

"Well, naturally," Morton said. "Myers is the one running the show."

"Yes, he is. And the Rambler will drive out to that farmhouse, and stop there, and wait for the Buick, and it will never show up."

"It'll show up. What do you think we are – mugs? We chose to see who'd be in what car. I know Lanahan, he's an old friend of mine, he wouldn't cross me."

"That's right," Grofield said. "But Lanahan is going to get killed very shortly after he's out of sight of the Rambler. Because I'll tell you where that Buick is going, with Myers and Brock in it. It's going north, on a road I was on this afternoon, a back road that crosses the border without any border guard. It'll stop at a barn up there across the road from a burned-out farmhouse. Inside the barn is a black Rolls Royce. Myers and Brock – or maybe just Myers, maybe he's going to kill Brock too – will get out of the Buick, they'll take the Quebec plates off the-"

Morton started. "How'd you-"

"How'd I know the Buick had Quebec plates? I followed it into town today from that barn I'm telling you about, after Brock brought the Rolls out there. Was that you he picked up at the hotel?"

"No, two of the other guys. You been following us around all the time?"

"Just today." Grofield glanced at his watch. "Yesterday, I mean. Anyway, they'll put the Quebec plates on the Rolls, and probably at that point Myers will kill Brock. Unless he fancies Brock playing chauffeur for a day or two. They'll head north, they'll go to Montreal or Quebec, and if by any unusual chance they are stopped they'll have solid Canadian papers, and the loot will be stashed in the spare tire or under the rear seat or someplace like that."

"They're going to cross us," Morton said, finally beginning to believe it.

"That's right. And believe me, I think I've probably been in more of these operations than you, the cops will be all over that farmhouse hideout before sundown tomorrow."

"But they'll talk," Morton said. "None of us are real pros, except Myers and Brock. Those guys won't keep quiet, they'll tell everything they know about Myers. He doesn't dare cross them."

"I hadn't thought of that," Grofield said. "In that case, I imagine Myers will be leaving another of his time bombs behind."

"At the farmhouse?"

"Or possibly in the Rambler. That might be trickier to do, but it would more surely eliminate everybody."

Morton frowned at the opposite wall. "It makes sense," he said. "It really makes sense that way." He looked at Grofield. "I don't know what your part is in all this, but I'm glad you grabbed me out of it."

"My motivations were selfish," Grofield said.

Morton peered at him. "You're after Myers."

"I have a grudge against our friend Myers that goes back before you were born," Grofield said.

"Well, I got a grudge against him, too."

"As they say in bankruptcy court, get in line. And as they also say in bankruptcy court, they're isn't going to be much left by the time he gets to you. You want that bath now?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Grofield got to his feet. "It would be dumb to make me use the gun I have in my pocket."

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna try to do anything."

Grofield went over and squatted behind him and went to work untying the shoelace holding Morton's thumbs together. Morton, speaking over his shoulder, said, "I could throw in with you. You could use a second man."

"Not to insult you," Grofield said, "but I think I'll be better off on my own. Tough knot, this… There! Do the toes yourself."

"Sure."

Grofield sat down in the chair again, and watched Morton pick at the other lace. He said, "Maybe I'm too suspicious, Perry, but I'm not going to trust you entirely. You can take your time in the bath, and afterward I'll loan you some dry clothes, but then I'm going to have to tie you up again and lock you in the closet while I get some sleep."

"If I gave you my word-"

"I'd regretfully have to give it back. I have no use for it. Go take your bath, Perry."

Morton had finished untying the lace holding his toes together, and now he got awkwardly to his feet. "I'm in something over my head," he said. "I know I am. I won't give you a tough time. I don't know how you operate, but you don't have to kill me. I mean, I keep seeing in my mind you coming into the bathroom and holding my head under."

"Don't worry," Grofield said. "I'm not a nut. Myers is the nut."

Morton said, "I mean, that crack I made about the piano salesman and like that-"

"To tell you the truth," Grofield said, "it didn't worry me. Go take your bath."

5

Grofield parked the Chevy in the slot facing his motel room, picked up the paper bag from the seat beside him, and got out of the car.

The weather forecast had been on the button – rain ending by morning, a cool and cloudy day. The air was damp, with that post-rain chill that cuts right through clothing and flesh to strike at the bone, and the cloud-cover seemed low enough to reach up to from an attic window, but the rain had stopped, and that was the important thing.

The Do Not Disturb sign on the door had not been disturbed. Grofield unlocked the door, went into the room, kicked the door shut behind him, put the paper bag down on the writing desk, and went over to unlock the closet door. Morton was asleep in there, half-sitting and half-lying on the floor, head nestled on Grofield's empty suitcase. The clothing Grofield had loaned him was a little too large, and made him seem more rumpled than necessary.

Grofield leaned down and rapped his knuckles on Morton's knee. "Rise and shine, Perry," he said. "It's tomorrow."

Morton started, opened his eyes, looked around in momentary panic, saw Grofield standing over him, and relaxed as memory returned. "I couldn't figure out where I was," he said, and rubbed a hand over his face. Since it had turned out the closet door could be locked from the outside and couldn't be unlocked again from the inside, Grofield hadn't bothered to tie him up any more.

"Come on out," Grofield said. "I got us some breakfast."

"What time is it?"

"Almost noon. Check-out time here is twelve, time for you and me to get moving."

Morton got stiffly to his feet, and suddenly sneezed. "I'm coming down with something," he said.

"Probably," Grofield agreed. "Use the bathroom if you want. But don't take too long, I've got coffee here. You'll want it before it gets cold."

"I'm stiff all over," Morton said. He went off to the bathroom, walking like an old man.

Grofield called after him. "Your stuff is hanging up in there. It's dry now, change into it. I've got to pack."

"All right."

Grofield went over to the writing desk and took the things out of the paper bag. Two containers of coffee, plus sugar and milk. Four danish pastries.

Morton was only a brief time in the bathroom, and when he came out he was wearing his own wrinkled but dry clothing, and carrying Grofield's over his arm. They ate together, and Morton suggested a couple of times that he throw in with Grofield against Myers, and Grofield thanked him and declined. Morton said, "So what do you do with me?"

"I keep you around till I'm finished. Just in case in your heart of hearts you'd like to warn Myers. Or go after him yourself."

"All I want," Morton said, "is to be in some other state."

"You will be. Later."

Grofield had already paid his bill while he was out. Now, after breakfast, he finished packing and told Morton, "We'll go out together. You'll sit in front. I'll drive. If you're a clown, you'll do something to make me shoot you."

"I'm not a clown," Morton promised.

"I hope not," Grofield said. "I'll tell you something. I've fired guns in public before, and if you only fire one shot nobody ever comes to find out what it is. They think it's a backfire, or something unimportant. You've got to shoot three or four times before anybody even stops what they're doing to listen."

"I'm not going to try anything," Morton said. "You could have killed me last night when you were done asking me questions. You didn't, so I know you won't kill me now, not if I don't give you cause. So I'll just do like you say, and when you tell me I can leave I'll leave."

"That's very smart, Perry," Grofield said.

"I'm new," Morton said, "but I'm a quick study."

"I can see that."

They left the room and went out to the Chevy. Grofield put his suitcase on the back seat, he and Morton got in front, and he drove away from there, heading for the barn where he'd last seen the Rolls Royce.

It was nearly one thirty when they reached the barn. Morton said, "Is that it?"

"That's it. The Rolls is inside."

"That Myers," Morton said. "He's really something."

"Not for long."

Grofield braked almost to a stop. A driveway went up to the left, toward the burned-out house; originally, there'd been an attached garage. Grofield made the turn into the driveway, drove up it, angled off onto shaggy lawn, and drove around the house to where a swing and a slide showed that children had lived in this house once. Grofield pulled to a stop behind the section of the house that was still jutting up the highest – bits of wall and upended beams not much higher than a man. But enough of it to hide the Chevy from the road.

"Last stop," Grofield said. "Everybody off."

They both got out of the car, and Grofield got the length of clothesline from the floor in back. Morton, seeing him come around the car with it, said, "What's that for?"

"To keep you safe while I'm busy."

"You don't have to tie me up."

"Yes, I do, if I don't want to distract myself. Come on, Perry, don't get difficult. We've got a nice relationship going."

"I don't want to get tied up!"

"Perry, it'll be worse if I have to hit you with the gun butt."

"Tell me what you're going to do."

Grofield pointed to some trees farther up the hill behind the house. "Tie you to one of those. I'll come back and let you loose again afterward."

"I don't like that," Morton said. His eyes were wide, and his voice had started trembling again.

"It won't be for long. Maybe an hour. And you're dressed nice and warm now, with your raincoat and all. Come on, Perry, don't make things tough for yourself."

"I just don't like it, that's all," Morton said, but there was no fight in him now, and when Grofield took the Terrier out of his pocket and gestured with it, Morton went grudgingly on up the hill.

The trees were old, not very tall, but very thick in the trunk. Grofield tied a knot around one of Morton's wrists, then pulled the rope partway around the tree and tied his other wrist. When he was done, Morton was standing with his arms around the tree as though embracing it. The trunk was too thick for him to get his arms all the way around it, and the foot or so between his wrists was where the clothesline was stretched across.

"I've got to stand here like this?"

"It won't be long," Grofield promised again. "I'll come back up when I'm finished with Myers."

"Good Christ!" Morton cried, turning his head, craning his neck so he could see Grofield. "What if you lose?"

"Then I'd say you're probably in trouble," Grofield told him.

6

Two thirty-five. A slight drizzle had started, polka-dotting the surface of the road. Grofield, up in the hayloft, looked at his watch, looked out the opening in the wall at the road, and wondered if he'd made a mistake somewhere. Could Myers really have meant to go back to that farmhouse? But he'd stashed a car here that none of the others had known about; he'd arranged to split the group into two cars with the profits in his; he had to be planning to come here.

Of course, it was also possible they'd been caught. The operation Myers had worked out was so full of speed and explosions and terror and boldness that it ought to work, at least long enough for them to make their initial getaway, but it was always possible something had gone wrong and they'd all been caught. Particularly with the semi-pros Myers had been reduced to working with. And particularly with Myers being the unpredictable wild man he was.

Poor Perry, Grofield thought, looking out at the drizzle. He really will get pneumonia, the poor bastard.

If nothing happens by three o'clock, he told himself, I'll go over and listen on the Chevy's radio and see what I can find out. Listen to the three o'clock news.

A car was coming. Grofield glimpsed it a long way off, rounding a curve two or three hills from here; up here in this hayloft he had a pretty good view of the countryside, and one small pie slice of distant road could be seen down past a farmer's field in that direction.

The right car? It had been moving fast, and it seemed to be the right color. The uncertain drizzle didn't affect vision the way yesterday's downpour had, but the distance, the car's speed, and the narrow slice of visible road all combined to make him less than completely sure.

It was the right car. It came around the final curve less than half a minute after his first glimpse of it, and it was being driven very very hard. The curve topped a rise, and the beige Buick came off the rise with all four tires for one split second off the ground, as though a stunt driver were at the wheel. When it hit, it slued badly, rocking from side to side on its springs as the man at the wheel fought to keep the thing under control. He wasn't really a stunt driver after all.

No, he was just a fool. The way he took the turn off the road toward the barn, the Buick really should have tipped over. It wanted to, it hung for a long streaming second on the very edge of imbalance, and then it slammed down on its right side tires again and headed full-speed for the barn.

Grofield fully expected the damn thing to crash into the barn like a bowling ball into the pins, and he braced himself to try to leap clear of the wreckage when the barn collapsed. But then the Buick's brakes squealed, the car slued badly again to the right, and it came to a stop sideways to the barn door, no more than two feet from a collision. Despite the light rain, the arrival managed to raise a cloud of dirt, which slowly settled on the Buick's windshield and hood.

Meanwhile, the driver's door burst open and Harry Brock lunged out, yelling at the top of his lungs: "-think you're so damn smart, you can drive it yourself! Drive the goddam Rolls yourself! Do every goddam thing yourself! You're smart, you are!"

The Buick was so close to the barn that when Myers jumped out the passenger side he wound up within the barn doorway and out of Grofield's sight. But Grofield could hear him: "You got blood on me, you lunatic! Driving like that!"

"You had to kill him in the car! Smart again!"

Myers came running around the front of the Buick, not to attack Brock physically but to shout at him from closer range. "Now everything's my fault! I did my part!"

"Yes, you did. You're full of hot air, Andy, nothing but hot air."

Myers was obviously trying to get control of himself. "Harry, we can't stand around here arguing with each other. There'll be roadblocks up, there'll be police all over the place. Harry, we've got to switch the plates and put the Buick in the barn and blow it up, and we don't have time for all this."

"Do it yourself," Brock said, and turned his back on Myers to walk away across the grass, paralleling the road. "I'm done taking orders from a jerk like you."

"Harry, we need each other!"

"I need you like I need a hole in the head," Brock said, turning around to put his hands on his hips and glare at Myers. It was a strangely womanish gesture, making him look like a fishwife in a street brawl.

Myers went running after him again. "Harry, we can't waste the time!"

Brock made a disgusted pushing-away gesture with both arms, and turned his back again.

Myers caught up with him, and reached out to grab his arm. "Harry, listen to me, we can't-"

Brock spun around and punched Myers in the face. Myers staggered backward, lost his balance, and fell heavily on his rump. He sat there, obviously dazed, and Brock stood over him and said, "You don't touch me, you big-talking jerk. What are you good for, anyway? You just screw everybody up. And I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave you right here. Give me my half of the money, I'm taking the Rolls. You can keep the Buick, with the plates. And you can have George, too, and do what you want with him."

Grofield was very interested in that speech. The way they'd been bickering, he'd been afraid the robbery hadn't worked out after all, they hadn't managed to breach the brewery gate with their fire engine. But with Brock demanding his share of the money, the argument had to have some other cause.

Could it just be tension, nervousness, no real reason to fight at all? Grofield had seen people get into deadly arguments over nothing at all just after a difficult job, this could be the same thing.

Down below, Brock had decided to help himself to whatever Myers was carrying on his person. He stood over Myers, bending down to poke his hands into Myers' coat pockets, and all at once Myers moved, a sudden blur of confused motion – Brock yelped, a weird high-pitched sound, and hopped backward on one leg. Blood was spurting from high on his other leg, very near the groin, streaming out through a new ragged slit in his trousers.

"You cut me! You cut me!"

"You son of a bitch, I'll do better than that." Myers got to his feet, a little shaky, waving the knife in his right hand. Where it had blood on it, it was dull, but where raindrops had landed on it it glistened.

Brock hobbled away in a frantic circle, hopping backwards, clutching the top of his thigh with one hand, trying to hold his blood in. "What were you trying to do?" he cried. His voice was still high and strange.

"Stand still, Harry," Myers said, stalking him, "I'll show you what I'm trying to do." And he lunged forward, aiming the knife at Brock's stomach.

Brock flailed at the knife with his hands, in panic and fear, and was very lucky. Both hands were cut, but the knife suddenly flipped away from Myers' grip, and the tide had turned again.

Myers leaped for the fallen knife. Brock, standing on his good leg, swung the hurt one as though trying for a fifty-yard field goal. His shoe caught Myers high on the chest and sent him sailing in a complete somersault through the air. Myers landed on his back, and rolled, and Brock came up with the knife.

Myers ran into the barn. Grofield, trying to see, stuck his head as far out the hayloft opening as he could, but Myers was completely within the barn. And now Brock was going in after him, limping badly, holding his wounded leg with one hand and holding the knife out in front of him with the other.

The next part, Grofield didn't see. He stayed crouched in the hayloft, the Terrier in his hand, watching the ladder he'd come up and listening to the sounds from down below.

There was no sound at all at first, except the slight dragging rustle of Brock's wounded leg as he moved across the barn floor. Then, in a wheedling soft voice, Brock saying, "Where are you, Andy? Come on out, Andy, come get your knife back."

Then there was silence, total silence, for almost a minute. Grofield strained his ears and his eyes. There was nothing from down there. He looked over his shoulder at the opening in the front wall, half-expecting to find them both behind him, but he was still alone up there. He kept on having the feeling, though, that they were up there with him, both of them, just out of his sight.

The scream was preceded by a sudden rush of footsteps, and followed by a confused banging and scuffling. Something clattered, and then Myers sounded off with a jagged frightened half-crazy laugh, crying, "You don't like the pitchfork, huh? You don't like it, huh?"

Silence for a few seconds. Another rush of scuffling and footsteps and panting, but no scream this time. And then silence. And then Myers, terrified, screaming, "No!" Metal clanged against metal, there was running, something metal falling, and then vibration in Grofield's feet, and Grofield started, staring at the ladder. Somebody was coming up.

Myers. He was bleeding from two long cuts on the face, his clothing was torn, he looked as though he had other cuts on his body, and he scrambled practically all the way up to the hayloft before he saw Grofield squatting there, pointing the Terrier at him. Then he yelled, not like a man who's been hurt but like a man who's seen a ghost, and he shoved himself backwards out into the air away from the ladder, and plummeted out of sight.

Did that growl come from Harry Brock? A growl of satisfaction and victory. Grofield hunched himself smaller, and didn't move.

Below, Myers was babbling at the top of his voice. "It's Grofield, Harry! It's Grofield up there! We need each other… We've got to help each other… We've got to get Grofield! Harry! Harrreeeeeee!"

The next sounds were chunky, and the silence after them seemed moist. In that silence, Harry Brock said, "Grofield? You really up there, Grofield?"

Come and look, Grofield thought, pointing the Terrier at the ladder.

"Well, let's make sure," Brock said, down below. "Let's be on the safe side."

Grofield waited. The floor beneath him seemed paper thin. His lips were dry. All he could hear was raindrops hitting leaves of grass.

A crash shook the barn. Another one. The top of the ladder, which had been nailed in place, fell away.

"There," Brock said, down below. "You up there, Grofield? You don't have to say anything. You're up there, you can stay there."

Grofield didn't move.

"Now, you son of a bitch," Brock said, "where's the money?" So he was searching what was left of Myers. Grofield thought of creeping forward to the inside edge of the loft and looking down into the barn, but was afraid to move. This floor was noisy. Neither Myers nor Brock had used a gun, but Brock might have one. A sound from up here, and Brock would know exactly where Grofield was. A bullet coming up through the floor between Grofield's legs was not a pleasing thought.

What was happening down below? Small sounds, undecipherable. Grofield waited, and didn't realize what Brock had in mind until he heard the Buick door slam out front. The passenger side door, facing the barn opening, left open by Myers when he'd jumped out of the car.

Now Grofield did move, and fast. He straightened, turned, ran one long pace, and jumped feet first out through the hayloft opening.

It was about six feet to the top of the Buick. Grofield landed, the top buckled under him, his shoes slid on the wet metal, and he fell heavily on his hands and knees, facing the rear of the car.

He couldn't get a purchase. He slid backwards despite himself, and knew his legs were dangling down in front of the windshield. The only thing to do was push hard, and slide his whole body down across the windshield and onto the hood.

Lying on his stomach on the hood, he stared through the windshield at Brock, who stared back pop-eyed. Grofield pulled his arm up in front of his face, fired at Brock through the windshield, and Brock yelped and heaved himself out of the car on the driver's side. Grofield fired at him again as he was getting out and saw the puff on the shoulder of Brock's coat.

But Brock kept moving. He ran away from the car, and Grofield pushed himself off the hood and onto his feet. Turning, he saw Brock go stumbling around the corner of the barn, and made after him.

Brock was on his knees beside the barn, leaning his right shoulder against it, his head bowed. Grofield circled him cautiously, and Brock lifted a very sleepy face. "It was all Myers' fault," he said. He mumbled it, as though he'd been drugged.

Grofield said, "Where's the money?"

"In my pocke'. Co' pocke'."

"A hundred twenty thousand dollars? In your coat pocket?" That, according to Myers, was the size of the payroll at the Northway Brewery.

Surprisingly, Brock began to laugh. The agitation disturbed his balance, and he fell forward onto his face, and was quiet.

Grofield rolled him over, and Brock looked up sleepily. His eyelids were heavy, he was having a tough time keeping them up. Grofield said, "What's funny? Where's the hundred twenty thousand? Didn't the caper go?"

"They pay by check!" Brock started to laugh again, but it seemed to hurt him, and he just smiled. "They went back to checks," he said sleepily, his smile looking lazy and good-natured. "They couldn't do the cash, they went ba…" His eyes closed.

Grofield poked his shoulder. "What did you get?"

"Twenny-seven hunnnn…"

"Twenty-seven hundred dollars?"

Brock was snoring.

Grofield went through his coat pockets, and there it was. Twenty-seven hundred dollars, in large bills. Petty cash, probably, the only cash they keep in the place. Six men, a fire engine, three getaway cars – twenty-seven hundred dollars.

"He didn't make sure," Grofield said. He shook his head, and stood up, and Brock stopped snoring. Grofield looked down at him, and he wasn't breathing at all. Grofield turned away and went back around to the front of the barn to make sure.

There was nothing in the Buick but a dead body in the back seat. That would be Lanahan.

There was nothing in the Rolls parked inside the barn except three suitcases in the trunk, and they contained clothing and toilet articles and things like that.

Finally, Myers. Brock had apparently decided to make him leak to death, and had used both the knife and the pitchfork for the job. It was impossible to search the clothing without getting bloody fingers. Grofield grimaced with distaste as he went through the pockets, and his revulsion was such that he almost missed the money belt entirely. But he found it, and untied it, and pulled it off Myers' body.

It had four compartments. Two of those, on the left side, had been punctured, and were soggy with blood. Grofield didn't open them at all. He opened the other two, on the right side, and there was the money.

His own money. It still had the Food King wrappers on it. The remains of Grofield's piece of the supermarket job. He sat down on the floor and counted it, and there was four thousand, one hundred eighty dollars there. Out of thirteen thousand, three hundred twenty-five that Myers had taken away from him.

"It's something, anyway," Grofield said aloud, and stuffed the money into his pockets. Going across the road and up toward the Chevy, he added twenty-seven hundred and forty-one hundred eighty in his head, and came up with six thousand, eight hundred, and eighty dollars.

"We can open anyway," he said. He walked around the corner of the burned-out building, and a charred piece of two-by-four came around in a fast arc, hissing it was moving so fast, and hit him square in the face.

7

Grofield sat up and touched his nose and his hand came away bloody. He could barely see, the way his eyes were puffed shut, and the whole front of his face was stinging. Also, he had a violent headache.

He looked down at himself, and he was sitting on the ground beside a burned-out house in a light rain. And his pockets had all been turned out; he'd been rolled. He said, "Hey."

Movement attracted his attention. He turned his head, slowly and carefully, and there was a man standing beside a car. Grofield's car, the Chevy. And the man was – son of a bitch, it was Perry Morton!

Morton had been just about to get into the car, but now he stood there looking at Grofield and said, "You awake already? I figured you were good for a couple hours."

"How long-" His throat felt raspy; he cleared it, and started again. "How long was I out?"

"Maybe five minutes. Just long enough for me to get your money and your gun and your car keys." Morton was feeling pleased with himself, and why not?

Grofield cleared his throat again. "Don't leave me here, Perry," he said. "This area's going to fill up with cops. I gave you a break, you give me one."

Morton considered. But he was feeling so smug and pleased with himself, he had to be magnanimous. He said, "If you can make it to the car, I'll take you along."

"Thanks, Perry," Grofield said.

It took him two tries to get to his feet, and then he was dizzy as hell. He staggered over to the passenger side of the Chevy and climbed in beside Morton, who had just started the engine.

Morton looked at him and grinned. "Just remember I've got the gun now," he said. "I'll expect you to be as smart with me as I was with you."

"I'll remember," Grofield said.

Morton started the car, and headed them away from there. "I'm going farther up into Canada, and then I'll head west."

"Fine with me." There was a make-up mirror on the sun visor on the passenger side; Grofield put the visor down now and studied his face in it. His nose didn't seem to be broken, but he had several little cuts on both the nose and cheeks. Also he was going to have two lovely black eyes, but they'd be gone before the season started.

"Lemons never lie," Grofield said, and sighed.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

They drove in silence a while, and then Morton, smiling, said, "Well, you're the bigtime pro and I'm just the new boy, but I guess I'm a fast learner, huh?"

"You sure are," Grofield said. He'd licked a handkerchief and was wiping the blood off his face. It was just as well to have a chauffeur for the rest of today, until they were a good distance from the robbery area. There was no hurry about taking the reins back. The Colt Trooper under the dashboard would keep.

Morton turned the radio on, and began to whistle along with the music.

Grofield put his handkerchief away and said, "Wake me when the news comes on, will you?"

Morton glanced at him in surprise. "You're going to sleep?"

"I've had a hard day," Grofield said.

"Well, you can sure rest now," Morton said, and gave a broad smile.

"Yes, I can," Grofield said, and closed his eyes. The Chevy drove across Canada into the sunset.

THE END

About Richard Stark:

"Richard Stark" is the celebrated alter ego of MWA Grandmaster, multiple Edgar Award winner, and Academy Award nominee Donald E. Westlake

Author of the best-selling "Parker" series, including the novel that was the basis for the movies Point Blank starring Lee Marvin and Payback starring Mel Gibson

This file was created with BookDesigner program

bookdesigner@the-ebook.org

20/08/2007

LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/

Table of Contents

PART ONE

2

3

4

5

6

PART TWO

2

3

4

5

6

7

PART THREE

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

PART FOUR

2

3

4

5

6

1

2

3

4

5

6

7