Plunder Squad

Two

Mackey came in with a newspaper. “It says here they’ve got us,” he said.

Parker was lying on top of the made bed, dressed except for shirt and shoes. He sat up and said, “Let’s see that.”

“I don’t feel like I’m got,” Mackey said, grinning, and handed over the newspaper. “I’m going to go wake up Stan.”

Parker nodded, and looked at the paper as Mackey went out again. The robbery was the number two story on the front page, top left, with something at the UN on the right and a shipping strike in the middle. The headline was, MILLION DOLLAR ART TREASURES HIJACKED, which was already inaccurate. The story was a breathless and slightly garbled account of the robbery, padded with descriptions of some of the stolen paintings. The main story was continued on an inner page, but at the bottom of the front-page column was a separate box with its own headline: THIEVES CAPTURED. “Illinois State Police,” the item read, “announced this afternoon the capture of a part of the gang of art thieves near Galesburg. Also found was one of the vehicles used to transport the stolen paintings. Police anticipate a speedy round-up of the rest of the gang.”

Parker looked at his watch: five to six. He got off the bed and went over to switch on the television set, and stood there waiting for the six o’clock news to come on.

When Parker and Mackey and Devers had driven away from the gas station early this morning, they’d headed due south, winding up here in Nashville around noon. They’d taken three rooms at this motel and settled in to catch up a little on their sleep. Six hours wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. They’d left the Dodge back in Illinois, and the car they were driving now was clean, but it was still better to keep moving, get where they were going, finish the job as soon as possible.

If things weren’t already loused up.

A war movie was coming to an end on television; the bomber crippled, everybody wounded, all sagging across the French sky toward the Channel, with inter-cut shots of the nurse and the old man staring upward.

Mackey came back in, with Devers trailing after him, yawning and stretching and rubbing his eyes. Grinning, Mackey said, “What do you think of that paper? Show it to Stan.”

“I don’t like it,” Parker said, and told Devers, “It’s on the bed.”

Mackey’s grin turned puzzled. “What’s the matter? They grabbed the wrong people, that’s all. There’s none of us going to Galesburg.”

Parker said. “Galesburg is about twenty-five miles from Davenport. I figure they got Tommy and the girl.”

Devers, standing over by the bed with the paper in his hand, said, “I think you’re right. And the vehicle they got was the Volkswagen.”

Mackey said, “Then why do they say Galesburg? Tommy was getting out of Illinois, going up on the Iowa side.”

Devers said, “We pulled the job in Illinois. It’s the Illinois State Police making the announcement.” He patted the paper “They got a lot of things almost right here, so maybe they got the town almost right, too. Galesburg could be where the announcement came from.”

“We’ll see what the news says,” Parker said. On the set, the bomber had landed and the commercials were on.

Devers came over, carrying the newspaper, and all three stood there watching the set. It was a long three minutes of commercials and station identification before the news came on, and then the first two items were international and the next one a local thing concerning Nashville. But the fourth was the robbery and the capture. “The two suspects,” the announcer said, “in last night’s daring art robbery in downstate Illinois, captured early this afternoon in Davenport, Iowa—”

“Damn,” Devers said.

“—have been transferred to the Illinois state capital at Springfield.”

Film showed of the Volkswagen Microbus, with troopers and men in civilian clothes all over it. The announcer’s voice said, “The suspect’s vehicle, believed to have been used in removing at least some of the twenty-one paintings valued at nearly three quarters of a million dollars, is being gone over carefully for evidence which could lead to the capture of the rest of the gang and recovery of the stolen artworks. Police say the suspects, twenty-four-year-old Thomas Clark Carpenter and twenty-one-year-old Noelle Kay Brassell, deny any connection with the robbery, but that a positive identification has been made by Illinois State Troopers Robert Jarvis and Floyd MacAndrews, who were briefly held prisoner by the gang in the course of last night’s robbery.”

Mackey said, “I bet Tommy’s regretting that boot in the ass about now.”

The announcer was finished with the robbery news. As he went on to something else, Devers said to Mackey, “How much can we count on them?”

“Tommy?” Mackey looked surprised at the question. “One hundred percent.” he said. “Tommy won’t admit anything, and he won’t talk about us.”

Parker switched off the television set. “What about the girl?” he said.

Mackey shrugged. “I don’t know her. But Tommy trusts her, so what the hell?”

Devers said, “I’ve seen men trust women before.”

Mackey looked worried, but seemed to be trying not to show it. He said, “What does she know anyway?”

“Anything that Tommy knows,” Devers said.

Parker said, “She knows our names and faces, but she doesn’t know where to find us. She knows what city we met in, she knows we were getting paid by an art dealer.”

Devers said, “Does she know Griffith’s name?”

Mackey frowned. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Nobody ever said it in front of her, but Tommy knows it. Would he mention the name to her? What for? And would she remember it?”

Parker said, “We leave here now. We get to Griffith tomorrow morning, we make the arrangements for the switch, we get our money out of the banks. She’s a strong girl, if she does break down, it won’t be for a day or two. We’ll have time to get out from under if we keep moving.”

“God damn it,” Mackey said. “I counted on Tommy. How’d he manage to get himself picked up?”

Parker had stepped into his shoes, and now he shrugged on his shirt. “Let’s go,” he said.