Plunder Squad

Five

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.