Plunder Squad

Four

“Hold on, Brenda,” Mackey said, grunting, gasping for breath. His hands clutched her waist, his bare feet were planted flat on the cold floor, his shins were braced against the side of the bed. “Hold on, baby.”

She was talking into the pillow again. That was her big thing, talking gibberish into the pillow, voice muffled, words making no sense; then the speech getting faster, the voice higher, building up to something that sounded goddam Japanese by the finish.

“Hold on,” Mackey said. Which was what he always did. He had no idea what he meant, but he always said that. Perspiration streamed down his body in the chill air-conditioned air, his muscles worked, he said it twice more, and then he was very silent for a while. Her Japanese soundtrack ran on for a few seconds without him, like a soloist after a passage by the full orchestra, and then that was silent, too.

The next time Mackey breathed, it was long and slow, like an inverted sigh. He grinned at the back of Brenda’s head, and said, “Honey, it is goddam cold in here.”

She said something into the pillow.

“Absolutely,” Mackey said. Grinning, he went on standing there a couple more minutes before going in to take his shower.

When he came out, toweling himself, Brenda was under the covers but still half-awake. “I’ll be back in no time,” he said.

“Mm,” she said. She gave him a lazy smile and closed her eyes.

Mackey dressed, bent over the bed to kiss her, and went out to damp twilight. It had rained on and off all day. The clouds seemed to have moved on by now, but the dampness was still in the air.

Mackey got into his car and drove diagonally through town to Griffith’s place. Along the way, he thought about the team that had been put together for this job, and he could find no fault with it. Parker was as good as ever, from holding Griffith up for the extra thirty grand to figuring the State Police substitution gimmick. Lou Sternberg was a damned old woman about a lot of things, but he was solid and reliable, and if he agreed to take on a job, it pretty well meant the job was solid and reliable, too. Mackey considered himself lucky that this was one of the times when Sternberg was in the States looking for work.

Tommy Carpenter was also good. A complete maniac in his own quiet way, but dependable on the job, and absolutely without fear or inhibitions or anything else. Mackey grinned at the thought of Tommy’s role in the caper they’d partially worked out.

The only one Mackey didn’t already know from the past was Stan Devers, the young guy Parker had brought in. Devers was a little flashy, and Mackey hadn’t entirely liked the way the guy had come on with Brenda when they’d first met one another yesterday, but when the job was being discussed he seemed serious and smart, and that was the important thing. Also, Parker recommended him, and Parker was very cautious who he worked with.

So now the string was together, and the next thing was to get the front money and start assembling the necessary materials. Which is what Mackey was up to now.

Night had fallen by the time he reached Griffith’s place. There were no cars filling the curved driveway this time, no sound of rock music from behind the house. The house itself was mostly dark, with only a few faint lights showing from deep within, and Mackey had to ring the bell three times before at last a nearer light flicked on and through the glass pane in the front door he could see Griffith coming this way along the hallway.

Griffith was irritable but subdued. He’d been in a bad temper ever since his run-in with Parker, but Mackey didn’t mind. Griffith’s snappish mood made it easier for Mackey to deal with him, made him no longer feel at a disadvantage in Griffith’s presence.

Which had helped in the dickering over payment. Mackey had handled that himself, partly because to use Parker on Griffith twice in a row could maybe cause the whole deal to fall through, and partly because Mackey wanted to show Parker that he too could handle Griffith if he put his mind to it. Griffith had started by brushing the whole problem away, insisting that of course he would pay up when the time came, but Mackey had kept at him, and Griffith’s irritation had grown, and finally Mackey had worked out the bank-account method with him, plus the agreement to pay the first ten thousand before the job was done. Griffith had stalled on that last part, but Mackey had driven him to name a specific date when the ten thousand would be paid over, and in a final frustrated fury Griffith had roared out a date, and it was today. So Mackey was here.

Griffith gave him a sour look and said, “I suppose you’re here for the money.”

“I suppose you’ve got it,” Mackey said, and wondered what he’d do if Griffith didn’t have it after all.

But Griffith said, “Yes, of course I have it. Come in.”

Mackey shut the door behind himself, and then followed Griffith through the house to his small office, where Griffith sat himself behind the desk, opened a drawer, took out a fat nine-by-twelve manila envelope, and thudded it down on the desktop. He shut the drawer emphatically, gave Mackey a mistrustful look, and said, “You realize what occurs to me.”

Mackey said, “We had our first meeting last night, at the motel. There’s five of us. We didn’t come together for two grand apiece.”

”What about you leaving everybody, for ten thousand? Me and your friends.”

“You I don’t worry about,” Mackey said. “My friends would probably come after me and kill me. Besides, I don’t work that way and everybody who knows me knows I don’t.”

Through the bad temper, Griffith’s nervousness was beginning to show. He laid his palm atop the manila envelope, and brooded at the back of his hand. “Once I give this to you,” he said, as though to himself, “it becomes real. I’m committed to it.”

“You’re committed already,” Mackey said. “Neither one of us wants to tell my four partners they came all this way for nothing.”

Griffith closed his eyes. His color was bad. He was really very nervous. His lips moved, as though he were lip-reading his thoughts behind his closed eyelids.

Mackey felt sorry for the poor bastard; he wasn’t used to this kind of life. “Come on,” he said gently. “Take it easy.”

Griffith’s eyes blinked open all at once. He looked haggard; his physical condition was deteriorating by the second. Staring at Mackey, he said, “What if you get caught?”

“Then we’re in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“What about me?”

“Your name won’t come into it,” Mackey told him. “And even if it did, there’s no proof against you. All you have to do is deny it.”

“No, no,” Griffith said, shaking his head, as though to say that wasn’t what he’d meant at all. But then he didn’t say anything else.

Mackey frowned at him, not getting it. “What else?” he said.

Griffith’s head twitched back and forth. “Nothing. Nothing.” He pushed the manila envelope suddenly across the desk; a pen rolled off onto the floor. “Here, take it.”

“Right.” Mackey picked up the envelope, felt the stacks of bills inside it. “About the other money—”

“You’ll get it, you’ll get it!”

The more shrill Griffith got, the more quiet Mackey got. “I know I’ll get it,” he said. “The question is, when?”

“In time, in time, that’s all, you’ll get it in time.”

“The paintings leave Indianapolis next Tuesday.”

“You don’t have to remind me.”

“Monday’s got to be the deadline.”

“All right!”

Griffith’s rage boiled around Mackey without effect. Mackey said, “So I’ll hear from you on Monday. You want me to let myself out?”

Griffith was blinking now; his hands were fidgeting with things on the desktop. “Yes,” he said. He was no longer looking at Mackey, was staring at his fingers instead. “Yes.”

“So long,” Mackey said. He hesitated, troubled by Griffith’s emotional state, but there was nothing he could do about it. He shrugged and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. He walked across the next room, opened the door, stayed in the room, shut the door again. Then he tiptoed back to the open office doorway and stood just out of Griffith’s sight, listening. Maybe Griffith would make a phone call to somebody, maybe he would do something to explain why he was so nervous.

Mackey waited two or three long minutes, but there was only silence in the room. Finally he leaned very cautiously to the side, until he could look around the doorjamb into the office.

Griffith was still seated at the desk, his hands still on the desktop, fingers splayed out. He was trembling all over, shivering violently in every part, as though he had malaria. His head was bent slightly forward, and was also trembling.

Mackey frowned, amazed at the man. And what was that glinting on Griffith’s cheek? Mackey squinted, and it was a tear. Silently, steadily, Griffith was weeping.

His brow furrowed with thought, Mackey turned away and moved silently out of the house.