Plunder Squad

Five

Lou Sternberg met Parker at O’Hare International. He had a disgusted look on his face, but he gave the standard greeting: “Have a good flight?”

“Yes.” Parker meant nothing by the word; it was simply a sound that ended that topic.

They walked down ramshackle corridors forever, as though in somebody’s troubled dream, and came out at last to a rainy night, with small lights reflecting off the wet blacktop. Sternberg opened his black umbrella, and pointed: “I’m parked over that way.”

It was still a fairly long walk. In addition to his umbrella, and his usual raincoat and cap, Sternberg was wearing rubbers on his shoes and a gray scarf around his neck. It was impossible to tell if he was disgusted by the job going sour or by the rain.

The car was a rental Chevrolet. Sternberg unlocked it, and Parker got in. Sternberg backed in, closing the umbrella as he came, and maneuvered awkwardly to get the umbrella into the back seat without poking anybody’s eye out.

Neither of them spoke till Sternberg had the car moving cautiously toward the terminal exit. Then he said, “You see where Tommy got off?”

Parker looked at him. “When?”

”Heard it on the radio coming out.” Sternberg grinned and shook his head. “The advantage of being a hippie,” he said. “So many organizations came out on Tommy’s side, so much talk about police harassment, they had to let him go. If they’d had him in there for running a red light, they could have beat on him for a month. But a felony gets too much publicity.”

Parker frowned and said, “What about the troopers’ ID?”

“Who’s going to believe two cops against one long-hair kid? You look at Tommy, now; would you believe he was a heist-man?”

“The girl, too?”

Sternberg nodded. “Both of them, free as air.” Ahead of him, a taxi failed to yield the right of way; Sternberg had to hit the brakes hard, and the rear end would have skidded on the wet pavement if he hadn’t moved the wheel slightly. “They let any damn body drive,” he said.

Parker waited till they were clear of the terminal before saying, “Our situation is bad.”

“I got that idea from your call. Trouble with Griffith?”

“He’s dead. Killed himself when he thought we’d been caught.”

“Good Christ.” Sternberg frowned out at the traffic through the moving windshield wiper, as though the answer to some question might be found written on the side of a passing truck.

“We found one guy Griffith was dealing with, in New York. But he’s only interested in six paintings.”

“For how much?”

“Sixty thousand.”

“Twelve thousand apiece.” Sternberg shook his head, his expression bitter. “Well, it wasn’t worth the trip,” he said, “I can tell you that much.”

“It wasn’t for any of us.”

“I came farther.”

Parker shrugged.

Sternberg grumbled a minute, then turned and said, “What about the rest of them? Fifteen of the damn things.”

”We talked it over,” Parker said. “Mackey and Devers and me. We’ve got to give them up.”

Sternberg looked both shocked and disgusted. “Give them up? There’s ninety thousand riding there!”

“Nobody to collect from.”

“What about insurance companies?”

“You want to stick around and deal with them?”

“God damn it,” Sternberg said, and glowered out at the traffic.

“Neither do the rest of us,” Parker said. “I hate insurance companies,”

Sternberg said. “They’re goddam thieves.”

“I know.”

“We’d be lucky to get twenty cents on the dollar.”

“More likely to get picked up in a trap,” Parker said. “Besides, what do we do with the paintings while we dicker?”

“So we give them back.”

“And take our twelve thousand,” Parker said, “and go home.”

“Christ.” Sternberg shook his head. “This has not been a good year for me,” he said. Parker said nothing.