Plunder Squad

Three

The smell of dew was crisp and clean in the morning air. The sun was an orange circle just above the treetops, and small birds hopped on the wet lawn stretching away from the patio toward the bamboo hedge. The smashing of the windowpane made a quick sharp noise in the silence, and was gone without an echo.

Parker tossed the rock away toward the grass and reached through the hole in the window to unlock the French doors on the inside. Behind him, Mackey and Devers were looking carefully to left and right, but there were no neighbors close enough to have heard, and at seven-thirty in the morning no mailman or delivery boy likely to be arriving around at the front of the house.

They’d phoned Griffith nearly an hour ago, from the edge of town, and had gotten no answer. They had come here and found his car in the garage, but no one had come to the door in response to their ringing of the bell or knocking on the windows. So now they were going in, to find out what the story was. Had Griffith left for some reason, or was he hiding?

Glass shards crackled under Parker’s feet as he stepped into the dim room. No light showed anywhere in the house, and there was no sound other than that made by Parker and Mackey and Devers.

Mackey, standing beside Parker just inside the doorway, said softly, “If that son of a bitch skipped out on us—”

“We’re screwed,” Devers said.

Parker said, “He’s got no reason to run out. Not without the paintings.”

“But what if he did?” Mackey’s voice was low, but angry. “We don’t have any buyer lined up, except Griffith.”

“We’ll worry about that if we have to,” Parker said. He walked across the room and through the doorway on the other side, Mackey and Devers following him.

They found Griffith upstairs, in the tub, in the bathroom connecting with the master bedroom. The water was cold, and a dusky rose in color. The lower half of Griffith’s face was underwater, but the top half was as white as plaster. His eyes were closed, and his hair looked as though it had been glued to his scalp in handfuls.

The three of them crowded into the small room to look at him. Mackey said, irritably, “God damn it. God damn it to hell.”

Devers reached down into the water and took one of Griffith’s thumbs, and lifted his forearm up into the air. The ragged gash in his wrist, flanked by the shallower hesitation cuts, flowed coral-colored water, but no blood. Devers sounded more dismayed than angry when he said, “What did he do this for? What the hell got into him?”

“That,” Parker said, and pointed at the folded newspaper on the closed toilet lid.

Mackey picked up the paper. “Right,” he said. “Here it is.” He handed it to Parker.

This was a different newspaper, but the wording in the separate box was just about the same: part of the gang caught, with a vehicle that had carried at least a part of the stolen paintings. Galesburg was mentioned. It was the same garbled story as in the paper in Nashville, it apparently having been released just barely in time to make most afternoon papers, but not in time to do full coverage on it or check the details.

Devers and Parker looked at the paper together, and Devers said, “He thought it fell through.”

”Why the hell didn’t he wait?” Mackey was getting angrier by the second, glaring at the body as though he might push its head the rest of the way under.

Devers said, “He must have been tight for cash. We really must have strapped him when we made him put the money in savings accounts.”

“No reason to kill himself.” Mackey was sulky.

Parker said, “We search.”

Mackey raised an eyebrow at him. “For what?”

“A lot of things. For a note, in case he left a note with our names in it. For something to tell us the name of his buyer.”

“If he had one,” Devers said.

Parker said, “If he was that tight for cash, he had a way to turn those paintings over right away. At least some of them.”

Mackey said, “What about the bank accounts? We’ve got the passbooks.”

“Not a chance,” Parker said.

Devers said, “Let’s get out of here.”

The three of them moved next door to the bedroom, where Devers switched on the overhead light. Mackey said to Parker, “Why not? I’m a pretty good hand with signatures. I could do a fine Leon Griffith before the bank closes this afternoon. And I walk in with Griffith’s ID.”

Parker said, “He opened the accounts three days ago. A man comes in with fifty thousand in cash to open a savings account, they’re going to notice him at the bank. They’ll remember him three days later. You don’t look like Griffith.”

“All that money,” Mackey said. “Wasted.”

“All our work wasted, too,” Devers said. “Unless we can find a buyer.”

“And soon,” Parker said. “I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”

Devers said, “I’ll start in here.”

The three of them separated into different parts of the house, and spent the next hour searching. There was no note, and no clue to Griffith’s buyer—if he had a buyer—in any of the obvious places: his office, his bedside table. But they kept searching anyway, as outside the day got brighter, and soon they didn’t have to turn lights on any more when they entered a room.

Parker and Mackey met near the front hall. They both had fingertips black with dust, and Mackey was even more irritable than before. “Not a goddam thing,” he said. “And where the hell else is there to look?”

“The basement.”

“That’s a goddam waste of time, and you know it.”

“We’ll do it anyway,” Parker said.

Mackey grimaced. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Just so we can say we did everything.”

“Come on.”

They walked down the hall together. Mackey said, “Lou isn’t gonna be happy when he hears about this.”

“Nobody’s happy about it,” Parker said.

Devers was coming the other way, a piece of paper in his hand. He looked excited, but in a muted and guarded way. He said, “Take a look at this.”

Parker took the paper, and he and Mackey read it together. It was lavender stationery, thick, good quality, with a purple letterhead in Edwardian script:

Jacques Renard

302 CPW

The letter was handwritten, in clear but rather overly fancy printing. It was dated a month earlier, and it read:

Leon, dear,

So lovely to hear from you. Unfortunate, of course, the news your letter brought. Dear boy, we are all of us biting the bullet these days, and praying for happier times.

Although a direct transfusion just wouldn’t be possible from these limp old veins, it might be that some sort of business arrangement might be worked out between us, if you’re interested. Should you be traveling in these woods, why not rap upon my trunk?

As ever,

Jack

Doubtfully, Mackey said, “Maybe. Sounds more like a brush-off. Like Griffith tried to tap this guy, and the guy didn’t want to be tapped, but was letting Griffith down easy.”

Parker said to Devers, “Why do you think this is it?”

“Because it was in the kitchen,” Devers said. “Hidden in a cookbook.”

Mackey said. “Hidden? Maybe he just used it for a bookmark.”

Parker said, “I saw other letters from Renard in the office.”

“That’s right,” Devers said. “In the office. Not in the kitchen.”

Mackey looked at the letter again. “That’s some address,” he said. “Three-oh-two CPW. What the hell is CPW?”

“Central Park West.” Parker said. “Renard is in New York.”