Plunder Squad

One

Parker watched the state cop slowly absorb the situation. His own gun was tucked away neatly in its regulation holster, and he didn’t have a prayer of either slamming the door or ducking out of sight before Parker could put a bullet in his head.

“Just stand right there,” Parker said softly. “Wait it out, everything’ll be okay.”

Matching Parker’s quiet tone, the cop said, “I don’t know what your game is, mister, but you’re making a big mistake if you—”

“All set!”

Stan Devers’ voice. Parker said to the cop, “Straighten up and look at your partner.”

The cop’s brow was furrowed, more in perplexity than alarm. He had been half leaning forward, still in the position of having just opened the car door, but now he slowly straightened and looked over the top of the car toward his partner. Parker watched his face, and saw him take in what had happened over there. The two troopers had been first distracted, and then separated, and were now both under control.

“Keep your hands away from the car door,” Parker said, “and back up three paces. Straight back, slow and easy.”

The trooper looked angry, affronted. “You’re going to regret this, my friend,” he said, his jaw tight, but he backed up three paces and stood there obediently waiting for what would happen next.

Which was that Devers appeared, in a State Police uniform, a gun in his hand. He wore the uniform well, and he was grinning. “Okay,” he said to Parker. “I’ve got him now.”

Parker at once shifted position, lifting himself up out of the awkward crouch on the floor, twisting around so he could open the passenger door and step out onto the gravel.

Noelle was just to his left, dressed now and folding the blanket. She was a very serious girl, methodical and humorless almost all the time, and her expression was intent as she squared off the corners of the blanket on each fold.

Off to the right, Ed Mackey, in another State Police uniform, was holding a gun pointed at the second trooper while Tommy Carpenter manacled his hands behind his back with his own cuffs. Tommy was also dressed again by now, and being fast and serious. Mackey didn’t look as good in a uniform as Devers; even though it was the right size for him, it gave an impression of having been made for a slightly different species of creature, like the overalls on the monkey in the circus who rides the tricycle.

Parker looked at his watch; they still had about four minutes. He said to Mackey, “Everything all right?”

“Just fine,” Mackey said. “This guy’s sensible, you can tell by looking at him.”

What Parker could tell by looking at him was that the second trooper was even madder than the first. But he was controlling it, and he looked smart enough to go on controlling it. So long as everybody stayed alert and didn’t give him any openings.

Devers was bringing the first trooper around to join them, and Noelle was tossing the blanket in the car. Then she shut the passenger door, and hurried around to the driver’s side to get behind the wheel and take the Chevrolet away from there. Her part of the job was finished; after unloading the Chevy, she’d wait up in Springfield with the Volkswagen Microbus for Tommy to rejoin her when everything was over with.

”Done,” Tommy said, and stepped away from the second trooper. He moved over to take care of the first trooper the same way.

Parker walked over to the second trooper, who looked at him and said, “You’d be smart to give this up right now.” Parker ignored that. He said, “What’s your name?”

“Trooper Jarvis.”

“First name.”

“Robert.”

“They call you Bob?”

Trooper Jarvis’ eyes narrowed. “Some people do,” he said, being reluctant about it.

“All right, Bob. Take it easy.” Parker walked over to the first trooper, as Tommy finished handcuffing him. “What’s your name?”

This one was younger, and was still feeling more insulted than angry. And also more insulted than scared, which might be trouble. It was better to deal with a man who understood the situation. Instead of which, this one was getting on his high horse. After a quick glance over at Trooper Jarvis, he said angrily, “You don’t need my name.”

Time was getting tight. This one would follow Trooper Jarvis’ lead, so the hell with him. Keep Jarvis reined in and you’d have them both. “That’s all right,” Parker said. He motioned with his revolver. “Start walking that way.”

“Maybe I’d rather not.”

A mule, and stupid. Parker was deciding whether to use words or the gun butt when Tommy Carpenter kicked the trooper in the rump hard enough to make him hop, and said, “Move your ass, or I’ll whip it into the next county.”

Country boys understood one another. Glaring around in all directions, the anonymous trooper started to move.

Now Tommy led the way, with Jarvis and the other trooper behind him, and Parker bringing up the rear. Back at the U-turn, Noelle was driving off, accelerating the Chevrolet like a stock-car racer, while Mackey and Devers were getting into the Highway Patrol car. Mackey would drive, and Devers would operate the radio.

Ahead of Parker was their other car, a two-year-old Dodge sedan, also equipped with a police radio, on which they’d heard these troopers arranging when and where to meet the art convoy. Griffith’s first ten-thousand-dollar payment had bought this car and its radio, and the old Chevrolet, and the State Police uniforms, and the Reo cab waiting up ahead, and everything else—with a few dollars left over.

The Dodge was a four-door, so there was no trouble getting the troopers into the back seat. They sat awkwardly, because of their hands behind their backs, but there was room for them to make themselves fairly comfortable.

Tommy drove, and Parker sat beside him, half turned and watching the two troopers, his revolver showing atop the seat-back. He didn’t expect to have to shoot anybody, and didn’t want to shoot anybody, but it was a good idea to remind them both—particularly the one without a name—that the possibility was still there.

The Dodge had been left on the center grass strip of the highway, just beyond the U-turn, out of sight of the troopers when they arrived. It was facing toward the U-turn, the same direction that the paintings would be coming. Once everybody was in place in the car, Tommy took right off, driving in the same style as Noelle. When they passed the U-turn, all Parker could see was a State Police car with two troopers inside it.

They’d traveled another mile or two down the road when the police radio began to talk. A somewhat hoarse voice said, “Five-six-two?”

“We’re here.” That was Stan Devers’ voice. “Is that you I see coming?”

Tommy, hunched over the wheel of the Dodge, grinned and said, “Right on time.”

Parker nodded, but kept his eye on the back seat, where both troopers were tensing up a little, particularly the one without a name. They would finally be understanding what was happening now, and one or the other of them just might decide to be moronic. While the radio kept talking in two voices, saying idle things while the switch of responsibility was being made, Parker said over it, “Bob, why don’t you talk to your partner? Explain to him how it would be better to stay alive and hope to be a witness at my trial.”

“Neither one of us is stupid,” Trooper Jarvis said coldly. “We know when to bide our time.” And beside him, the anonymous trooper could be seen to relax and give up his dreams of kicking Tommy in the head, opening the door with his teeth, and dashing to the nearest headquarters for help.

“That’s good,” Parker said, being careful to talk exclusively to Jarvis. There was no point tensing the other one up again.

“The only question is,” Jarvis said, “how stupid you people are.”

“We won’t kill you unless you push it,” Parker said. “That answer the question?”

“Partly.”

The radio had stopped talking; the switch had been made, and Mackey and Devers were now out front of the convoy, leading it down the road.

Grinning, Tommy said, “I like things neat. Neat and sweet and organized.”

“Then you won’t mind jail,” the anonymous trooper said.

Nobody reacted. His remark just sat there, being ignored by everybody, even Trooper Jarvis. Slowly, the anonymous trooper blushed. He blinked, he stared defiantly out the window, he pretended he wasn’t blushing, he even bit the insides of his cheeks to make it stop, but he was blushing.

It was another several miles to the exit for U.S. 51. Vandalia was to the south, but they turned north, following in the wake of Noelle, who would be taking 51 and 29 up to Springfield. But the people in the Dodge weren’t going that far. They weren’t going even as far as Ramsey; a few miles short of that town they turned off on a small road to the right, toward the Kaskaskia River.

Just about now, Mackey and Devers would be stopping the convoy and explaining to everybody that they’d just received word on their radio about a bad accident up ahead, short of the Hamburg exit, blocking the entire road. They would have to make a detour, around through Ramsey and Hillsboro, rejoining the Interstate again at Greenville. If anybody in the convoy had a road map to follow, it would all look sensible, and not too much of a delay.

If there was trouble, Devers would get on the radio and say, “Is this Tobin?” Then Parker and Tommy and Lou Sternberg would get out of this part of the country as quickly as they could, leaving Devers and Mackey to work things out as best they could for themselves.

About half a mile in the side road, a small dirt track led off to the right. Tommy nosed the car in there, and stopped, leaving the engine and lights on.

“We get out here,” Parker said. “But we’re very slow and careful about it.”

Jarvis would be getting out on Tommy’s side, leaving Parker to take care of the excitable one. But there wasn’t any trouble, and when both troopers were out they were marched into the woods to the right of the car, put in seated position with their backs against trees, and then tied there with their belts through both elbows and around behind the tree.

“I’ll see you two again,” the anonymous trooper said. He sounded grim and dangerous, but it was just to soothe his ego.

Tommy laughed at him. “You wouldn’t know me if you fell over me. How can you tell one hippie from another?”

“That hair’s all a disguise,” the trooper said, loud and angry. “Don’t you think I figured that out? I know what you really look like, I’ve been studying your face.”

Tommy roared with laughter, clutching a tree to hold himself up. Parker looked at the other trooper, Jarvis, and saw him being expressionless and aloof. He would know, as Parker did, that his partner had just said something incredibly stupid, whether he was right or wrong. If he was wrong, he’d made a fool of himself, and if he was right, he’d just asked to be killed.

Still laughing, Tommy said to the trooper, “Man, you are something else. You’re a trip and a half. I’d like to keep you around in a cage, poke you with a stick every once in a while, and just listen to you talk.”

Quietly, Jarvis said, “But that’s what we’re going to do to you.” Said without his partner’s bluster, it was an effective remark.

Tommy lost all his humor. He stood glaring at Jarvis, and even in the dim shine from the car headlights Parker could see him thinking about doing some kicking. There was no point in that, and no need for it; Parker said, “Come on, it’s time.”

Tommy looked over at him, his eyes glinting slightly. “Right,” he said, his voice flat, and followed Parker through the trees back to the car.

They switched roles now, Parker getting behind the wheel to do the driving, and Tommy sliding in on the passenger side. They’d left the motor running, and Parker shifted into reverse, made a tight U-turn, and drove back out to the two-lane main road. Instead of turning either left or right when he got there, he angled almost directly across the blacktop, moving slowly, and steering to the left for the last few feet so as to put the right front wheel in the ditch. Now the rear of the car jutted out diagonally into the road, its headlights visible in the direction the convoy would be coming from.

Tommy said, “Can we get it back out of the ditch later?”

“Yes,” Parker said. He switched off the motor but left the lights on, and got out of the car. Tommy also got out, and they walked back across the road and then down along the shoulder southbound, their way illuminated by the Dodge’s headlights. They walked about two hundred feet, and then Parker stopped and looked back, judging the distance. “This should do it,” he said, and led the way off the road and in among the trees.

The two of them went ten or twelve feet in from the road, and then stopped and waited, leaning against tree trunks and looking out toward the road. Tommy said, “Just so no Good Samaritan shows up before they get here.”

“We checked it out well enough,” Parker said. “There’s no traffic on this road before seven, seven-thirty.”

”You never know,” Tommy said. “You never know who’s gonna get drunk and go visit Aunt Tillie.”

Parker said nothing to that. It was true, and it was the variable in any situation, the unexpected civilian walking into the middle of somebody else’s plan. But there was never any way to prepare for it, so all you could do was hope it wouldn’t happen. Or, if it did happen, hope you could absorb it without lousing things up.

They waited about five minutes, neither saying anything more, and the first they knew of the convoy’s arrival was when a dim red light began to flicker on the branches over their heads. Mackey and Devers, having seen the apparent accident ahead of them, had switched on their overhead flasher, would now accelerate away from the rest of the convoy, and come to a stop next to the Dodge, finishing at a slight angle so that the two vehicles, the patrol car and the Dodge, would completely block the road.

Headlights, out through the trees. Parker felt Tommy tense up beside him; the boy was surprisingly good and cool for his age, but everybody tenses.

The police car went by, red light turning. Tommy whispered, “Come on, come on.”

And here came the rest. The first Plymouth went by, and then the truck, slowing down, and finally the second Plymouth; its brake lights made a red pool on the road surface, to match the turning red light sliding along the tree branches up above.

Now Parker and Tommy moved out closer to the road. The second Plymouth had come to a stop just beyond where they’d been waiting, and in the Christmas-tree array of rear lights on the truck the four men inside the Plymouth could be seen in silhouette, their heads turning as they talked to one another, undoubtedly about the accident up ahead.

Ed Mackey came trotting back past the truck toward the Plymouth. In motion, he looked more sensible in the uniform. He hurried to the driver’s side, and as the driver rolled his window down, Mackey called, loudly enough to be heard by everyone inside the Plymouth, “Looks like we got somebody under the car up there. We’re gonna try to roll it off him.”

The driver said something. It was probably an objection to doing anything with an injured man before proper medical attention could show up, because Mackey answered, “Out here? This time of night? Our first job is get that car off him and stop him bleeding to death. Come on.”

Four men got out of the Plymouth: two in front wearing uniforms, and two in back wearing civilian clothes. Mackey shouted to them to hurry it up, and all five went trotting away past the truck.

Parker and Tommy came out onto the road and walked quickly to the car. The driver had shut his door behind him, but the other guard had left his open; Parker slid in on that side, reached over to the steering column, and turned the key to shut off the engine. With the louder growl of the truck cab closer to them, the people from this car wouldn’t hear the Plymouth’s engine cutting out. Parker took the keys, got out of the car again, and slipped the keys in his shirt pocket.

Tommy was at the rear of the truck, looking around the corner toward the Dodge. As Parker came around the front of the Plymouth, Tommy turned his head and grinned at him, his face yellow and red in the truck lights. “They’re all out,” he said.

Parker stood behind him and looked around the corner of the truck. Up ahead, twelve men were milling around in the Dodge’s headlight glare. Mackey and Devers were both shouting at everybody now, trying to keep them all moving, not give any of them a chance to look under the Dodge and see nobody there. Mackey was shouting, “Stand along the side of the car! Against the car! We’ve all got to work together here, God damn it! Get against the car!”

They were doing it, ten of them lining up along the side of the Dodge, facing the car, their backs to Mackey and Devers. Mackey was standing back a ways, shouting at them as a group, while Devers worked in closer, moving individuals into place; it was as though Mackey were the shepherd and Devers was his dog.

Parker moved out from behind the truck and walked along next to it. Tommy following behind him. Five private guards, four civilian passengers, one truck driver, all lining up beside the Dodge. Parker’s revolver was in his hand now, and he walked smoothly, neither hurrying nor making any attempt to be unobtrusive. Things were under control now.

Mackey put the lid on. He took the revolver out of the holster at his right side, aimed it away at the woods, and fired once. The sound of the shot wasn’t particularly loud in the open air, but it cut through the noise and confusion as though a radio had been switched off. Ten startled silent faces turned to stare. Devers quickly backed away, drawing his own gun. Parker and Tommy moved up on either side of Mackey, both with pistols in their hands. And Mackey shouted, “Everybody stop! Stay right where you are.”

The switch was too fast. It was four against ten, but the ten were too confused by the sudden change, it would take a few seconds for them to understand that the police officers were something other than police officers, and the few seconds were all that would be needed. Confused men don’t make any moves, and when the confusion was over, the new status quo would already be a fixed situation.

Mackey made it more of a sure thing by leaning on them while they were still bewildered: “The first man that moves is dead! Turn around, face the car. Turn around, God damn it, I don’t care which one of you I kill!”

They all turned around, shuffling, bumping elbows into one another, staring at one another with shocked faces. Each man obeyed because the men flanking him were obeying, and very quickly all ten were facing the Dodge.

It was a good situation, but it couldn’t be held forever. While Parker and Mackey stood guard, Tommy and Devers frisked the ten men, starting at the outside ends and working toward the middle, searching for nothing but weapons. It turned out that only the five guards were armed, with a holstered revolver each. The five revolvers were taken away and thrown into the ditch.

Next, they had to be immobilized. Lengths of cord were in the trunk of the Dodge. Tommy got them out, and he and Devers went down the line tying wrists.

By now, the first shock and bewilderment were over, and several of the men were starting to get verbally tough: “We’ll get you for this.” “You won’t get away with this.” That sort of thing. Which was fine; so long as they bled off their hostility and embarrassment that way, they wouldn’t cause any serious trouble.

After four of the men had been tied, Mackey holstered his revolver and went to help, leaving Parker the only one still holding a gun. If all ten of them were simultaneously to start running now, several of them would surely get away. But there was no way for them to plan a move together, and none of them wanted to be the only one running, so nothing happened.

The next step looked like something from a prisoner-of-war movie. All ten were herded across the road to the beginning of the side road Parker and Tommy had driven down before. Then Parker got into the Dodge, backed it out of the ditch, turned it around, and followed slowly as Mackey and Devers marched the ten men down the side road in the shine of the Dodge’s headlights. The uniforms on Mackey and Devers and on the five guards helped to reinforce the prisoner-of-war idea.

Tommy meanwhile had swung up into the cab of the truck. Originally Mackey was to have driven the truck away at this stage, but when it turned out that Tommy, among his other unexpected abilities, had experience driving big rigs, the jobs had been switched around, Mackey being a more believable and intimidating figure than Tommy when holding a gun on somebody. Now Parker saw in the rear-view mirror Tommy swing the truck out past the front Plymouth and accelerate away.

They didn’t go very deep into the woods with their ten prisoners before tying them to trees with their belts in the same style as the two troopers. Mackey stood guard on the dwindling untied group while Parker and Devers did the work. Then all three went back to the Dodge, Parker driving, the other two in the back seat with their change of clothing. Parker backed the Dodge out to the road, and he and Devers moved the two Plymouths into the side road, just deep enough to be invisible to anyone driving by. Devers was down to socks and T-shirt and uniform trousers by now, and kept up a muffled yelling of “Ouch, ouch, ouch” as he ran back along the stony dirt road with Parker to the Dodge. Parker got behind the wheel again, Devers slid once more into the back, and Parker drove north.

He caught up with the truck, doing about fifty, just before the town of Oconee, and stayed behind it the next few miles to the gas station south of Pana with the For Lease sign huge in its window.

False dawn was a blurred gray line far to the east, but the land was still dark. When Parker stopped the Dodge and switched off its headlights, and when at the side of the station Tommy did the same with the truck, the blackness in contrast was at first almost total. Parker opened the car door and the interior light went on, but it showed almost nothing away from the car. He stepped out onto the tarmac, aware of Mackey and Devers doing the same, both of them now in their regular clothing, and when the doors were slammed the night was complete again.

The bulk of the station itself was the only guide. Parker walked carefully around it, not wanting to trip over any unseen curbs, and came to the second bulk of the truck. He touched the metal side of the trailer, and he could amost feel the paintings inside it: canvas, wood, oils. Kirwan and the department store on Mother’s Day; Beaghler and the six statuettes from San Simeon; and the third try was beginning to work out.

But just beginning. There was still a lot to do.

Yellow lights came on—dim, but enough to see by. They were the parking lights of a dark green Reo truck cab with red lettering on the doors: Great Lakes Long Haul Moving, Kenosha, Wisconsin 552-6299. The Reo was tucked in close beside the station building, facing the road; Tommy had come to a stop with his own cab very close to it, so the Reo’s parking lights now shone on the length of the truck.

Lou Sternberg climbed carefully down from the driver’s seat of the Reo. He was still dressed too warmly for the weather, including the same billed cap as before, but now instead of the raincoat he was wearing a short brown leather jacket with a zip-up front. The jacket and cap, with green work pants and heavy shoes, converted him from a short stout accountant to a short stout truck driver. He came around to meet the others at the front of the Reo and said, by way of greeting, “Damp tonight. Hell on the sinuses.”

“Should remind you of home,” Tommy said.

Sternberg gave him a look of disapproval. “Have you ever been in London?” He was taking a pack of sugarless gum from his jacket pocket.

“Naw,” Tommy said. “Too damp for me.”

“Don’t talk about what you don’t know about.” Sternberg unwrapped one piece of the gum.

Parker said, “Let’s go.”

Sternberg nodded. “Right.” He put the gum in his mouth, stuck the wrapper in his jacket pocket, and led the way around to the back of the Reo cab. Parker followed him, while the other three went off to do other things. They’d rehearsed all this, but never with this little light.

At the rear of the cab, on the flat greasy surface where a trailer would be hitched, there were instead two ladders tied down with lengths of rope. Working silently, Parker and Sternberg untied them and tossed the ropes into the cab. Then they carried the ladders over to the stolen truck, one on each side.

The others had gotten the rest of the equipment from the trunk of the Dodge: spray cans of red enamel and large cardboard stencils, each sheet two feet by three and containing just one letter.

It was difficult working in the dark. Mackey and Devers on one side, Parker and Tommy on the other, they fixed the stencils high on the trailer sides with masking tape, while Lou Sternberg went about the process of unhitching the trailer from the Mack cab that had brought it here. He finished separating all hoses and wiring, and drove the Mack cab out of the way, just as the stencils were all put up; in the dim glow of the Reo’s parking lights, the cut-out letters could dimly be read: GREAT LAKES, stretching most of the length of each side of the trailer.

Tommy and Devers, being the lightest, stayed up on the ladders and did the spraying, while Parker and Mackey dragged each ladder backward across the tarmac. At the same time, Sternberg was putting the Reo cab in position, though he didn’t try to connect it to the trailer while the spraying was still going on. Instead, he climbed down from the cab with a Wisconsin license plate and a screwdriver, and switched the rear plate on the trailer.

The sky to the east was getting lighter. A car went by, southbound, without pausing, and a minute later a pickup truck went past heading north. The stencils were pulled down from the sides of the truck and packed away again with the empty spray cans in the trunk of the Dodge. Sternberg began attaching the Reo cab to the trailer while Mackey took a short crowbar and popped open the trailer’s rear doors.

Immediately a siren sounded, loud and abrasive, a one-tone buzzing too loud to shout over. But they’d expected that, been planning for it. While Parker and Mackey put the ladders in the truck, stuffing them in among the tied-down crates, Devers traced the siren to its source and cut the wires. The silence after the noise seemed a kind of sound of its own, swelling and falling.

Tommy had kept out one spray can of paint, and was now spraying the doors of the Mack cab, removing the company name. The red he was spraying on didn’t match the original red of the body exactly, but it didn’t matter; used trucks often enough have a former company name painted out in a sloppy way.

Sternberg finished hitching cab and trailer together as Parker and Mackey reclosed the trailer doors. They wouldn’t shut as neatly as before, but by slamming them they could be made to stick.

The Mack cab engine started with a roar, and then the headlights flashed on. Tommy backed it around in a tight U, and Parker studied the right side of the trailer as the headlights swept across it. There had been a very little running of paint, not much. Not enough to worry about. With a cab of a different make and a different color, with a different license plate on the back, and with a company name spread across both sides, it was no longer the same truck. Sternberg had registration papers for the cab that would hold up if necessary. There was no way to pass an inspection of the trailer except to avoid one, and the way to do that was to keep ahead of pursuit. Move fast, and keep moving.

All the lights of the truck switched on, and Sternberg climbed down from the cab to walk around and make a quick inspection. It would be stupid to get stopped for a missing light, and then be arrested for grand larceny.

The Mack cab had finished making its turn, and now bounced out from the gas station tarmac to the road, and headed north. It was about forty-five miles to Springfield. Tommy would leave the Mack cab there, near the railroad station, and then connect up with Noelle and the Volkswagen Microbus. The two of them would head straight west into Missouri, crossing the Mississippi at Hannibal, and then turning north into Iowa. They planned to spend tomorrow night in Davenport, and then take Interstate 80 east the next day. They had friends in Cleveland, and would get there sometime Thursday night. Mackey would phone them there before Sunday.

Sternberg finished walking around the truck and climbed back up into the cab. He started the engine and made a sweeping turn to take him out onto the highway just a minute behind Tommy, though he wouldn’t be able to travel as fast. He too went north, but it would only be for a few miles; at Pana he’d turn east on State Highway 16, take that over to Interstate 57, and head straight north to Chicago. He’d put the truck in a safe place there and wait for Mackey to call him with the arrangements for turning everything over to Griffith.

Parker and Mackey and Devers stood and watched the truck move away. After it left, there was still enough light to see by, with the eastern horizon graying almost to blue.

Mackey nodded in satisfaction. “We did it,” he said.

Parker said nothing. He turned away and walked over to the Dodge, and a second later the other two followed him.