The Man with the Getaway Face

1

Parker left the car off Hudson Boulevard in Jersey City and walked two blocks to the office building. There were two elevators, but only one of them was working. An ancient angular Negro with a loose vacant smile operated it. Its metal sides were painted green, and there were grease smears on the doors.

Parker got out on the third floor and turned left. A sign on the fourth door down read: “Eastern Agency Confidential Investigations.” He pushed the door open and went into a small green reception room. On one wall was a certificate stating that James Lawson was a licensed private investigator.

A bleached blonde, looking secondhand, sat at the gray metal desk, talking on the phone. When Parker came in she said, “Hold on, Marge.” She pressed the telephone to her hard breast and looked at Parker.

“Doctor Hall to see Lawson,” Parker said.

“One moment, please.” She told Marge to hold on again, and got up and went to the door of the inner office. She had stripper’s hips, big and thick and wrapped in a tight black skirt. She went through into the inner office, and in a minute she came back. “Go right on in, Doctor.”

“Thanks,” said Parker.

She went back to her desk and her phone call, and Parker went through to the inner office and closed the door.

James Lawson was small and balding. He looked like the kind of man who was worried about being out of condition, who kept promising himself he’d start going to a gym but never went. He looked across his wooden desk at Parker. “I don’t think I know you.”

Lawson wasn’t a man to trust with the new face. “Parker sent me. Him and Handy McKay.”

“So you can name-drop,” said Lawson. “Doctor-Hall, and Parker, and Handy McKay. Parker’s dead.”

“No, he ain’t. Him and Handy and Pete Skimm and me are working on a job. You want to call Skimm?”

Lawson shook his head. “I don’t call anybody,” he said. “Where’d you get the Dr. Hall from?”

“Parker. He said I should call myself Doctor Hall, and then you’d know what was what.”

“How come he didn’t come himself?”

“He can’t show himself in the East. He ran into trouble with the Outfit.”

Lawson nodded. “I heard something about that, too. But I also heard he was dead.”

“He wasn’t, the last time I talked to him.”

Lawson chewed on a knuckle. “You look okay,” he said, “and you sound okay. But I don’t know you.”

“Do you think I’m law? If I was law, I wouldn’t play games. I could take your license away without half trying. I wouldn’t have to fool around with you.”

“Take my license away for what?”

“For the time you gave Parker the three Magnums and the Positive.”

Lawson started. “You know about that?”

“Parker told me. So let’s quit fooling around.”

“Maybe I better call Skimm,” said Lawson. He was suddenly very nervous.

Parker gave him the number, and then sat down in the client’s chair during the phone call. Skimm was home, and Parker had already told him the right answers. Lawson talked with him briefly, and then hung up.

“You ready to deal?”

“Sure.” Lawson grinned, his lips wet. “But I ought to know who I’m dealing with,” he said.

“Flynn. Joe Flynn.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of you.”

“I’ve always worked out around the Coast before this.”

“And where’s this job? Here in Jersey?”

Parker shook his head. “Youngstown, Ohio,” he said. “You’ll read about it in the papers.”

Lawson was a man you could trust, so long as you never told him anything.

Lawson opened a drawer and took out a pencil and notepad. “What do you need?”

“Three guns. Medium size — .32’s or .38’s.”

Lawson nodded. “I’ll look around. Anything else?”

“Two trucks. Semis.”

“Tractor-trailers?” Lawson frowned, and tapped his pencil point against the notepad. “That’s a tricky one. There isn’t so much market in those big ones any more. That’ll probably cost you.”

Parker shrugged. “If it costs too much, we’ll steal our own.”

Lawson tapped the pencil faster against the notepad. “You’ve still got the registration to worry about. And the cover.”

“Don’t need them,” Parker said. “Just the trucks.”

“Stripped?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh. That isn’t so tough, then. I know one already, if it isn’t sold. Down in North Carolina. I’ll check on it for you.” He wrote on the notepad again. “Anything else?”

“Some place to get some work done on one side of the trucks.”

“Engine or body?”

“Body.”

Lawson nodded. “I think I know the place for you. Anything else?”

“No.” Parker got to his feet. “That’s all we need. You can leave messages with Skimm.”

Lawson ripped the top page from the notepad, stuffed it in his side pocket. “You ought to leave something with me. Sort of a drawing account.”

Parker took out his wallet, peeled off four fifties, and dropped them on Lawson’s desk.

Lawson picked them up and grinned. “You want a receipt? You know, for tax purposes?”

“No,” Parker said. “Leave the word with Skimm.”

“Will do.”

Parker went back downstairs in the green elevator and walked back to the Ford. It had a parking ticket on it. He threw the ticket into the gutter and drove away, back to Hudson Boulevard and then to the Pulaski Skyway and down 9. Because of the trooper, and not wanting to be near the diner too soon before the job, he turned on 1 when it branched away to the right. At New Brunswick, he turned left on 18, then right at Old Bridge, heading down toward Spotswood. But before he got there he turned left up a winding dirt road.

The land here was red clay and white sand mixed together, with a fuzz of wild gray grass and here and there thick-trunked trees. The road seemed to end shortly but Parker went up an overgrown slope, and the dirt road angled sharply around a tree and then dropped away down the dip into a kind of cup.

Down in the indentation stood a gray farmhouse, nearly invisible on days the sun didn’t shine. Someone had once tried to make the land grow something besides wild grasses and occasional trees. But the farmhouse was slowly rotting away now, becoming a part of the land. It couldn’t be seen from any road, and most people in the area probably didn’t even know it existed. The dirt road leading in was sometimes used as a lover’s lane, but those people never even came in very far. They didn’t care what was over the slope; they just wanted not to be seen from the road.

When Parker had first come, the road had been impassable. The turn around the tree at the top of the slope had been choked with underbrush and dead branches. They would not have cleared it until the day before the job, but now there was Stubbs, so Parker had hacked away at it with an ax and cleared enough room for the Ford to just get through. He made it now on the first try and came down the grassed-over double track on the other side.

He drove around to the back of the farmhouse, left the Ford up close against the house — he would have liked to park it in the barn, but that had already fallen in — and went down the steps into the basement. The flooring upstairs was unsafe, so they used only the basement.

It didn’t smell like a basement. The windows were all broken out, and sand had sifted in over the years. It smelled mummified. There were two cots set up along one wall, a card table and three folding chairs on the other side, and a camp stove by the ruins of the furnace so the smoke would go up the chimney.

Parker went over to the door to the fruit cellar and hit it with his fist. “You in there?”

Stubbs’ voice came through the thick door faintly. “Go to hell.”

Parker took the bar down and went back to the card table, where the automatic lay next to the canned goods. He picked up the automatic and called, “Come on out.”

There was a pause, and the door pushed slightly open. Another pause, and the door jolted back and slammed against the wall and Stubbs came out with a gray chunk of two-by-four over his head.

Parker motioned with the automatic. He watched Stubbs decide whether or not to throw the two-by-four at him, but Stubbs decided against it. When he dropped it, Parker said, “Let’s go out in the air.”

He would rather have just left Stubbs locked away in the fruit cellar for two weeks, but if he did Stubbs might get sick and die. He couldn’t afford yet to have Stubbs die. He had to waste some time now getting Stubbs out in the sunlight.

They went outside and Parker sat down on the ground, his back against the wall of the farmhouse. “Go on, walk around a little,” he said.

Stubbs stood blinking in the light. There was no window in the fruit cellar, and he’d been in pitch-dark. He looked around, blinking in the light. “I got to go.”

“Over there.” Parker pointed with the automatic. “Away from the house, over by that tree there. And cover it up.”

Stubbs stood around, undecided. “I’m out of cigarettes.”

Parker tossed him his pack, and some matches. He had more in the glove compartment of the Ford. Stubbs picked them up from where they’d fallen at his feet, and slowly lit a cigarette. He stuffed the pack and the matches in his pants pocket and looked sullenly at Parker. “You can’t kidnap me like this.”

Parker shrugged. It didn’t need an answer.

Stubbs screwed his face up, the way he did when he was trying to think. He wanted to tell Parker this whole thing was impossible, you just don’t lock a man away in a fruit cellar for two weeks with no electricity and no plumbing. But Parker was doing it, and that didn’t leave Stubbs much to say. After a minute, he turned and trudged over toward the tree.

They stayed outside for half an hour, and then they went back into the basement and Parker let Stubbs make himself some beans and instant coffee at the camp stove. There was bread, too, but no butter, and a can of peaches for dessert. Stubbs thought about tossing a can of beans at Parker’s head, but Parker told him to forget it, so Stubbs forgot about it.

After he’d cleaned up his dinner utensils, Parker let him go outside again for a while. Then he put him back in the fruit cellar, put the bar across the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he called through the door.

There wasn’t any answer, so Parker shrugged and walked away. It was just about sundown, darker in the cup around the farmhouse than up along the ridge. Parker got into the Ford, started the engine, and drove carefully through the dusk back to the road. He turned right and drove back toward the motel where he was staying, stopping off at a diner for a chicken dinner.

Handy showed up a little after ten in Alma’s green Dodge. Alma didn’t like him using it, but he needed it for the stakeout and after a while she’d given in. He’d spent the day and part of the evening at various spots on route 9 working out the state trooper beats. They talked it over for a while, and then Parker said, “Let Skimm take over Thursday. I want to show you the doublecross.”

Handy nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

Then they went out to a nearby bar and drank some beer. After a while they split, and Parker went back to the motel. He was in bed by one o’clock.

2

Parker slowed as he neared the toll booths, and fumbled in his pocket for change. The toll booth structure was pale stucco with a green California Mission roof. It should have been on a road in Italy or Spain, rather than at the eastern end of the bride from Perth Amboy to Staten Island.

The fare was fifty cents. Parker handed over two quarters, and went three-quarters of the way around the circle, then straight for about a hundred yards on cracked concrete, and took a right turn. This was 440, headed toward St. George, where the ferries docked.

The road was four lanes wide, made of concrete, with a center mall. But it looked abandoned. Old breaks had been lumpily covered with blacktop, and the more recent breaks had been ignored. Bushes and weeds grew wild on the mall, and the land to either side of the road was scrub.

“This is the way she’ll come,” he said to Handy. “After the job, she’ll take the dirt road back of the diner, just the way she says. But she’ll turn right instead of left, and come up just the way we did, up 9 and over 440 to the Outerbridge Crossing. She can take it easy along here, she’s out of New Jersey.”

Handy twisted around in the seat and looked behind them. “We’re the only ones on the road.”

“This route doesn’t get much play. On a Monday, around noon, we’ll have it all to ourselves.”

“You’re sure this is the way she’ll come?”

“She’s got to. It’s the most direct way.”

“What about those other two roads? Back there by the bridge, at the circle?”

Parker shrugged. “They don’t go anywhere. This is the way to the ferry. There’s what I want, up there.”

He hit the brake, and the Ford slowed. At an angle off to the right was a cross street, or the beginning of a cross street. When this road was built, the curbs were put down with provisions for cross streets in the future, when Staten Island would be as big as Brooklyn.

The curb curved back on either side, and concrete started off to the right, going into the scrub about ten feet and stopping. Beyond was a gravel road for about a hundred feet, and beyond that a dirt road that curved back toward the main road but didn’t come all the way. From 440, though, all you could see was the concrete starting out and then the gravel going off into the bushes.

Parker slowed the car, turned the wheel a little, and stopped just at the edge of the gravel. “Right here,” he said. “The way I told you. We cut her off into this thing, take the dough, and go on to the ferry. Monday, around noon, we’ll have ten or fifteen minutes before another car shows up. Besides, we’re already in New York State.”

They got out of the car. Handy tramped back and forth on the concrete, looking the situation over. He peered down at the gravel part, and stood there a minute, poking at his teeth with a wooden match. Then he shook his head and turned back.

“You know what bothers me?”

“What?”

“Skimm.” Handy left the match in his mouth while he dug out a cigarette, talking around the match. “If he’s on the outside and she figures to cross him, too, okay, then it’ll work out like you say. But if she’s sweet-talked him over, I don’t like it. Skimm’s no dummy. He’ll try to think the way we think, and he’ll come up with the idea they should stay away from Staten Island.”

“Do you think he’s in?”

Handy took time to light the cigarette and throw the match away. “I don’t know. I’ve known Skimm twelve years. I’ve worked with him four, five times. I always figured Skimm was a little guy who didn’t have much brains but you could trust him, you know what I mean?”

Parker nodded. “You think Alma wants him? After the job, I mean?”

“It doesn’t figure.”

“All she wants,” said Parker, “is the money. Not half of it, all of it. She won’t even try to sweet-talk Skimm.”

“That’s the way it plays,” Handy answered. He looked around, at the empty road, and the gravel road that went nowhere. “We’re taking a big chance on how it plays.”

“She takes it out of Jersey for us, then we take it away from her. If the law stops her, that’s one thing. If it doesn’t, she’ll come this way.”

“It does figure,” said Handy. His cigarette was all wet, where he’d lipped it. He stuck it back in his mouth. “All right, this is the way we do it.”

“Right.”

A pale blue Ford went by, headed toward the bridge to New Jersey. It was the first moving car they’d seen on Staten Island. They watched it go by, and then Parker said, “I got to get back. I got to walk Stubbs.”

“You talk about him like he was your dog.”

“He’s a pain in the ass,” Parker said.

They got into the car, made a U-turn at a break in the mall, and headed back to New Jersey.

3

After breakfast, Parker stopped at an outdoor phone booth next to a gas station. The Saturday morning traffic streaming by on 9 headed south for the shore. Parker dialed Skimm’s number, and waited seven rings till there was a click and Skimm’s voice said, “What?”

“It’s ten o’clock,” Parker said. Since Skimm had a woman, he’d been sleeping.

“What’s that? Parker?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, that guy called, that Lawson. He wants you to call him at his office, he’ll be there till noon.”

“All right. Walk Stubbs for me this afternoon, will you?”

“I was goin’ to the shore with Alma.” When Parker didn’t say anything, Skimm said, “All right, I’ll do it. That guy gives me a pain.”

“I know,” Parker said. “Hang around there while I talk to Lawson.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll make some coffee. Alma’s gone to work. She’s gonna be mad when we can’t go to the shore today.”

“Yeah.” Parker hung up, disgusted, and dropped another dime in the slot. He called Lawson’s office, and an operator had him put in another fifteen. When he told the secretary it was Mr. Flynn to talk to Mr. Lawson she put him right through.

“I’ve got some of your goods, Mr. Flynn. Those three cases you wanted, in good condition, and one truck.”

“Good,” Parker said.

“The only thing is the truck right now is in North Carolina. It’s the one I told you about. It needs some work on it, but it’ll run. They’ll take eight hundred for delivery right there in North Carolina, no extras.”

“How old is it?”

“Nine years.”

Parker grimaced. “Will it make it up here?”

“According to what I’ve been told,” Lawson said carefully, “it should make the trip, yes.”

“All right. Where is it?”

“Goldsboro. I believe that’s not too far from Raleigh.”

“I’ll find it. Who’s the party?”

“The Double Ace Garage.”

“All right.”

“About the other matter, the three cases—”

“I’ll pick them up Tuesday.”

“Well,” said Lawson, “I don’t have them, but I can put you in touch with the man who does.”

“Tell him Tuesday.”

“I don’t think he’ll like that, Mr. Flynn. They’re what you might call a perishable commodity. He doesn’t like to keep them in the store too long, if you know what I mean.”

“Tuesday’s the earliest I can make it.”

“Well, I tell you what. I’ll give you his name and phone number. You can straighten it out with him.”

“You straighten it out,” Parker said. “I’ll call you Tuesday.”

He hung up and left the phone booth and joined the rest of the traffic on 9. Handy was sitting in Alma’s green Dodge in the furniture store parking lot, across the road from the diner. Parker turned the Ford in next to him, and Handy came over, sliding in next to Parker in the Ford. He had a pencil and a notebook with him.

“What’s the good word?” he said.

“I got to go to North Carolina to pick up a truck. I’ll try to be back Monday. Walk Stubbs for me tomorrow, will you?”

“Sure. Skimm taking it today?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s supposed to take over here for me tomorrow morning.”

“I know.”

“What kind of truck you — There he goes!” He pointed the pencil at the road. “See him? The light green Merc with the white top. He’s either law or on a case.”

Parker squinted at the Mercury as it faded away down the road, southward. “Law, I guess. Shows up when the traffic’s heavy?”

“Right. The same two guys in it every time.” Handy made a mark in the notebook. “I don’t think he’ll be working Monday, but just the same.” He looked out at the road again. “What kind of truck you got?”

“I don’t know. A bomb, I think.”

“Just so it’s big.”

“You can use the Ford while I’m gone. I’ll leave it with Skimm.”

Handy nodded. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“If the truck doesn’t break down.”

“If you don’t show, I’ll take care of Stubbs.”

“Right.”

Handy went back to his own car and Parker drove north into Irvington and stopped at Skimm’s house. Skimm was dressed but he hadn’t shaved. His beard grew in straggly and gray, making him look more like a wino on the bum. “Come on in, I’m making coffee,” he said.

Skimm went back to the kitchen and Parker called Newark Airport. He could get a plane at two-fifty, change over in Washington and go from there to Raleigh. After that he’d take a bus to Goldsboro. He made the reservation, and then went out to the kitchen.

Skimm was standing by the stove, watching a battered tin coffee pot. He’d spent so much of his life jungled up he didn’t know how to make coffee any other way but in an old beat-up pot. There were two heavy china mugs on the table, and steel spoons, but no saucers. A pint of Old Mr. Boston stood next to one mug.

“Sit down,” Skimm said, “she’s almost ready.”

Parker sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. “You got an ash tray?”

“Yeah, wait a second.” Skimm looked around and then brought a saucer over to the table. “Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Parker dropped the match onto the saucer.

Skimm went back over to the stove and watched the coffee pot some more. Over his shoulder, he said, “Things comin’ along, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess you were right, Parker. We only needed three men. Even with that Stubbs to louse things up.”

“You want to watch him this afternoon. Yesterday, he started to throw a two-by-four at me.”

Skimm bobbed his head and grinned. “Getting stir-crazy, huh?”

“Just another week,” Parker said. He shrugged. “I’m going south today, be back Monday. Picking up a truck. Come out to the airport with me and take the car. Use it when you go walk Stubbs and then let Handy have it.”

“Okay.” Skimm turned the fire off under the coffee pot and poured them two cups of coffee. He set out milk and sugar for Parker, and poured a belt of Old Mr. Boston in with his coffee. Then he sat down. “You got a truck, huh?”

Parker nodded.

“A good one?”

“How do I know till I see it?”

“That’s right, ain’t it?” Skimm sipped at his coffee, and made a face. “You say it’s down south?”

“North Carolina.”

“North Carolina,” repeated Skimm. “And you going to fly down, huh?”

“Shut up a while,” Parker said.

Skimm blinked rapidly for a few seconds, and then looked down at his coffee cup. He took another sip, and made a face again. Then he coughed, and looked slant-eyed at Parker. Parker just sat there, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee, waiting for it to be time to go to the airport.

After a while, Skimm coughed again. “You getting nervous about it, Parker?”

Parker focused on him slowly. He’d been miles away. “Nervous about what?”

“You know. The job.”

“No.”

“I thought — you acted jumpy.”

“Irritated,” Parker answered. “The job isn’t clean, there’s too much to watch.”

“You mean Stubbs?”

Parker shrugged.

“Listen,” Skimm said. “I know you don’t like Alma. She’s kind of bitchy sometimes, I know that. But she’s okay, Parker, she really is. You got to get to know her. I wish you’d try to get to know her.”

Parker looked at him, his mouth dragging down at the corners. “You offering her to me?”

Skimm got confused then, and looked at his coffee cup. “No, no, I didn’t mean that, nothing like that. I only meant—” He ran down, not sure how to explain himself.

“Sure,” said Parker. He finished his coffee and got to his feet. “Let’s go out to the airport.”

“What time’s your plane?”

“Two-fifty.”

“We got time, then.”

“I want to go now.”

“Sure. Okay.” Skimm stood up and finished his coffee, gulping it down. He started to put the pint in his pocket, but Parker said, “Leave it. You’re going to be driving.”

“Okay. Sure.”

They went out to the car, and Parker drove to the airport. When he got out of the car, he said, “You let Stubbs get away, I’ll stomp you.”

“Don’t you worry,” said Skimm. “He won’t go nowhere.”

Parker walked away into the terminal.

4

Coldsboro is small and pinch-faced, a backwater town on the Neuse River, surrounded by tobacco fields. There’s an air base nearby, and the State Hospital for Negro Insane. These, and cotton and fertilizer, are what the town lives on.

Parker got off the bus a little after ten, Saturday night. The workers and the airmen filled the streets. He pushed through and went into a diner where he got directions to the Double Ace Garage. It was too far to walk, so he went back to the tiny bus depot and took the only cab, an old black Chevrolet.

The Double Ace Garage was a long, low, shed-like construction of concrete blocks. It was painted a dirty white, with the name in red lettering over the wide doors at the front. Parker went inside to the office cubicle, stuck in the right hand corner up front, and found a hairy florid stout man sitting in a swivel chair at a rolltop desk. He was smoking a cigar, and he left it in his mouth when he talked.

“I’m Flynn. Lawson sent me.”

“Yah,” said the florid man. He turned slightly, and the swivel chair squeaked drily. “He phoned.”

“Let’s see it,” Parker said.

“Yah. You’re in a hurry, hah?”

Parker waited.

The florid man grunted and heaved himself out of the chair. They went around to the side of the building, where there was a gravel lot. The truck was standing there, a nine-year-old Dodge cab and a Fruehauf trailer, lit by a floodlight on the side of the building. The trailer was metal color and covered with grime, and the cab red. Some company name on the doors had been painted out with a darker red. The engine was running.

Parker shook his head. He went over and opened the door on the driver’s side and reached up and turned the ignition key. The engine stopped. The florid man watched him, chewing slowly on his cigar, but Parker ignored him. He looked at the rubber all the way around. It was all lousy but at least there were no threads showing.

The mudguards were gone, and so were most of the safety lights. The window was broken in the righthand door, and there was some sort of jury-rigged rope arrangement keeping cab and trailer together because the original hitch was broken. The floor mats were gone in the cab, showing where part of the metal flooring had rusted through.

Parker opened the trailer doors and saw that most of the wooden inner walls had been ripped out. He shook his head again and went around front to open the left side of the hood. The engine was a greasy mess, the wiring frayed, the radiator hoses cracked. The dip stick was gone, and so was the breather.

Parker closed the hood again, got down, and wiped his hands on the fender. Then he crawled under the cab. There was a large oil stain on the ground, and the lube points were practically covered by caked-on dirt.

He came out from under the cab. “She’s a mess.”

The florid man grinned around his cigar, and spread his hands. “For the price?” he said. “Come on back to the office.”

Parker went with him back to the office. The florid man started to say, “I know she don’t look—” when Parker turned around and went back out again. The florid man looked startled. “Hey! Where you goin’?”

Parker went around to the side of the building again. A kid in a greasy coverall had the hood open. There was a battery on the ground beside the cab, and he was getting set to attach the jumper cables.

The florid man came heavily around the corner. “Now, listen here, buddy.”

Parker turned to him. “I want a new battery,” he said. “And new plugs. And fresh oil. And a lube. And enough lights on the box so I don’t get stopped by state troopers.”

The florid man was shaking his head, chewing more rapidly on the cigar. “That wasn’t the deal. As is, that was the deal, as is.”

“No deal,” Parker said. He walked around the florid man and started toward the street.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

Parker turned.

The florid man tried a smile that didn’t come off. “No sense goin’ off in a huff, buddy,” he said. “We can work somethin’ out. It might maybe cost you a little more, but just for the parts, not for the labor. I wouldn’t charge you for the labor.”

“Do like I said with it,” Parker answered, “and new radiator hoses, and I’ll take it for seven.”

“Seven! The deal was eight.”

“It isn’t worth eight. It’ll never be worth eight.”

“Now, buddy,” the florid man said, “you got a chip on your shoulder. Now, why don’t we just talk this over? Come on back to the office.”

“Tell your boy to put a new battery in.”

The florid man tried another smile. This one worked better. “Not a new battery, buddy, I wouldn’t try to snow you. But a better one than you got. Okay?”

“Good.”

“There you go. You see, we can get along.” He turned and shouted. “Hey, Willis! Never mind about that. Take that old battery out of there, and put that Delta in. You know the one.”

“And leave the engine off,” added Parker.

“Yeah, sure, buddy. Leave her off, Willis.”

Willis gathered up his battery and jumper cables and went back through the side door into the garage again.

Parker and the florid man went back to the office, and this time Parker sat down in the slat-bottomed wooden chair beside the desk. The florid man settled heavily into the swivel chair, making it squeal. “I can see you know about trucks, buddy.”

“I thought you wouldn’t snow me,” Parker said.

“Now, there’s that chip on your shoulder again.” He made a little tsk-tsk sound, and shook his head in a friendly sort of way. Then he pulled an order-blank pad and a pencil over. “Now, then. What else did you want?”

“Lube. Oil change. New plugs. Check the points. New—”

“Points? Now, you keep adding something every single time.”

“Are you writing all this down?”

“I surely am.” The florid man wrote “points,” and asked, “What else?”

“New radiator hoses. And the legal minimum of lights.”

The florid man wrote, laboriously, chewing on his cigar. The cigar had gone out, but he kept chewing on it anyway. When he was done writing, he said, “Now, let’s see. Lube and oil change, I guess I can do that all right. And plugs, well, we can check ’em out, clean em up a little. But I don’t see any way we could give you new ones.”

“New ones,” Parker said.

“Now, buddy.” The florid man spread his arms. “I give a little, you give a little.”

“Tell me about that Delta,” Parker said. “The one you’re giving me.”

The florid man cocked his head and sucked on the cold cigar. Then he smiled again. “New plugs. I just might be able to do it.

“Okay, now, let’s see what else we got. The points. Well, sure, that’s no problem. And those hoses.” He nodded slowly, the cigar moving around in his mouth. “I noticed them myself, but I don’t think I got hoses like that in stock. I tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll have Willis tape them up solid with friction tape. What do you say? You won’t leak a drop.”

“There’s an oil leak, too.”

“Now, there you go adding things again.”

“The breather’s gone.”

“I know I don’t have that in stock.”

“Cap it, then. I don’t want to keep throwing oil away.”

“Cap it? I can cap it, right enough. It’s just I don’t have that in stock.” He looked down at the list again. “Now, this about the lights. There sure are a lot of lights on there now.”

“Not enough. There have to be lights at all outer corners, top and bottom, front and back of the box.”

“I’m not sure the wiring’s there any more.”

“It won’t take much to wire. You don’t have to be neat about it.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do.” The florid man looked at the list, studying it. “I do believe I can take care of all this for you, and still only ask the original price of eight hundred.”

“We’ll see what kind of a job you do.”

“Don’t you worry, my friend,” the florid man said. “I’ll take care of you right. You just leave everything to me.”

“One more thing.”

The florid man looked up, frowning.

“I saw Alabama plates on her. Are they hot?”

“Not where you’re going, way up in New Jersey.”

“What about when I drive through North Carolina?”

“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll smear some mud on ’em, so you can’t tell the difference.” He took the cigar out of his mouth at last. “You know, safe plates are expensive. I got some, safe as a mother’s arms, but I just wouldn’t let them get tossed in on this deal. Safe plates aren’t that easy to come by.”

“All right. Smear mud on them.”

“That’s just what I’ll do.” He tore the top sheet off the order blank pad. “Now, when do you want to take her? Tomorrow morning?”

“Tonight.”

“Oh, you want a rush job.”

“I want her tonight,” Parker said. “And don’t give me a lot of crap about that being extra.”

“Why, I had no intention. I tell you what, friend, you come back here at midnight — that’s two hours from now or a little less — and she’ll be ready.”

“That’s good,” Parker said.

He left the office. A block away he found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and spent some time over a cup of coffee. Then he walked around a while, looking at the town, glad he was going to be leaving it that night. At midnight he walked back to the Double Ace Garage.

The truck was out on the side again, but in a different spot, closer to the floodlight. Parker went over and looked at it. There were new spark plugs, the joints had been lubed, the breather hole was capped, and lights had been haphazardly attached to the trailer. Friction tape had been wrapped tightly around the radiator hoses and mud had been smeared on the Alabama plates. And the stain on the ground under the cab came from cleaner oil.

Parker swung up into the cab and turned the key in the ignition. She started sluggishly, but she started. The engine roared, and the cab trembled. There was either no muffler or it was riddled with holes.

Parker saw the florid man coming toward him across the gravel. He had a new cigar now, lit. He stopped beside the cab and shouted up over the roar of the engine, “How do you like her?”

“Get in,” Parker shouted back. “Let’s go around the block.”

The florid man hesitated. “Hold on just a second.”

He went back to the office. When he came back, he had a jacket on, with a bulging righthand pocket. He climbed into the cab, and Parker fought into second.

The mirror on the left was cracked, and the mirror on the right was gone. Using just the one on the left, Parker backed till he was facing the driveway to the street, and then drove out. The trailer was long and high. Because it was empty, and because of the bad way it was attached to the cab, it tracked badly as Parker made the wide turn onto the street.

The brakes were better than Parker had expected, though he had to pump them up a little each time. But the acceleration was lousy and the cab seemed ready to shake itself apart any second. They went around the block, having trouble on all the turns because of the way the trailer tracked, and when they got to the garage again Parker left the truck in the street. “All right,” he said. “Eight hundred.”

“She’s old,” the florid man answered, petting the grimy dashboard, “but she’s rugged. She’ll get you there.”

“Lawson’s already got his piece,” Parker said, “so you get seven-twenty.” He had it ready, in an envelope in his coat pocket.

He handed it over, and the florid man counted the money, slowly, his lips moving as his blunt fingers shuffled the bills. There were six twenties, and these he held out over the dashboard where the light from the street light would hit them. “There’s been some trouble with twenties lately.”

“I’m not in that business,” Parker said.

“It always pays to be careful.” The florid man finished inspecting the bills. “That’s fine. Well, you’re all set now. You got yourself a good buy.”

He opened the door and clambered down to the street. He slammed the door and waved, and went on into the garage, stuffing the bills back into the envelope. Parker fought the gearshift into second again, and started off.

He took 117 north out of Goldsboro and picked up 301 the other side of Fremont, then 301 north into Virginia. The friction tape on the hoses hadn’t been enough. The radiator itself leaked. Parker had to make his first stop at Richmond, after going one hundred and seventy miles. He had the radiator filled, and a can of sealant added. They checked the oil, and he needed a quart already.

The other side of Richmond, he stayed on 301 to bypass Washington and Baltimore. He crossed Chesapeake Bay, kept on 301 across the state line into Delaware, and had to stop short of Wilmington because the radiator had run dry again. The truck also took another quart of oil.

He’d now done three hundred and fifty some miles, and it was ten o’clock in the morning. The steady hard jouncing in the cab and the number of hours he’d gone without sleep caught up with him, and he pulled into a motel south of Wilmington. He didn’t start again until eleven o’clock that night. It was better to drive at night anyway, less likelihood of being stopped by the law.

After Wilmington, he crossed into Pennsylvania for a while, on 202, bypassing Philadelphia, then crossed into New Jersey at New Hope. He passed through Flemington at three in the morning, and just the other side of there the oil gauge told him he had trouble. He pushed fifteen miles to Somerville, but couldn’t find a gas station open, so he kept going, switching to 22, and picking up 18, to limp into New Brunswick.

He found a good-sized garage open, but they had no mediarne on duty Sunday night. He’d come on at seven o’clock, so Parker left the truck there and went away to get something to eat. He was glad to be out of the cab for a while. It had bucked and tossed him for five hundred miles, and he was a little surprised it had made it this far.

After eating, he went back and talked with the nightman at the garage. The pumps were all lit up out on the tarmac, but at five o’clock on a Monday morning there were no customers. After a while the nightman took a nap and Parker sat in the office, smoking and looking out at the truck. It was a bad truck, but it had done better than he’d expected. So maybe the job wouldn’t go completely sour after all, despite Alma and Stubbs and the bored state trooper.

When the mechanic came in at seven o’clock he looked at the truck in disgust. He got interested, though, being a professional, and worked on it till nine-thirty. By then, the boss was in, and he charged Parker thirty-seven dollars.

Parker asked for a receipt, and thanked the mechanic. The mechanic told him he had maybe five hundred miles left in the truck, and where he should drive was straight to a dealer for a trade-in, while it could still make it under its own power. “The way I got it fixed,” he said, “a dealer might think it was worth taking in and doing some work on.”

Parker gave him five for himself and told him he’d probably be back with the truck some time. Then he’d left New Brunswick on route 1, took it north to where it met 9, and turned south.

He got to the Shore Points Diner at ten after ten and pulled in to the side lot, just to the left of where the armored car usually stopped. He climbed down from the cab and went across the highway to the furniture store parking lot. Handy was there, in the Ford. Parker slipped in beside him. “That’s it. Over there. Cost me thirty-seven bucks in New Brunswick to keep it going.”

“That’s a real nice scow,” Handy said.

“Take it up to Newark and stash it on a side street tonight.”

“Right.”

Parker handed over the ignition key. “And take some paint and fix up the doors, will you? Put some kind of brand name on them.”

“Will do.” Handy looked down to the right. “Here she comes.”

They watched the red armored car come down the highway, slow, and turn at the diner. It rolled up the blacktop to the gravel at the side and slid into its usual parking slot. Parker and Handy watched it disappear behind the truck, and Handy grinned. “Right out of sight.”

Parker nodded. “The job’s going to work out.”

5

The man who had the guns was named Fox. Maurice Fox, it said on the window of the store, Plumbing Equipment. Inside, the store was long and narrow and dark. There were dusty toilets in one row, porcelain sinks in another row, and bins full of pipe joints and faucets along one wall.

A short balding man in a rumpled gray suit and bent glasses came down the aisle between the rows of toilets and sinks. “Yes?”

“I’m Flynn. You’ve got three pipes for me.”

“Yes. I didn’t like holding them so long.” He blinked steadily behind the glasses, and his eyes looked watery. “All the way from Thursday, and now Tuesday already.”

“I couldn’t make it before.”

“It’s bad business.” He shook his head, eyes still blinking steadily. “Come along.”

He turned and led the way down the aisle, Parker behind him. They went through a doorway to the back and down a flight of stairs with just steps and no risers to a plaster-walled basement. Fox clicked a light switch on a beam, and to the left a bare bulb came on.

Fox led the way to a wooden partition with a heavy wooden door. He took a ring full of keys from his pocket, selected the one he wanted, and unlocked the door. They went inside, and Fox lit another bare bulb. He closed the door after Parker.

The room was small and made smaller by the cases lining it on all four sides. The floor was wooden slats over concrete, except for one square in the middle, where there was no wood over the drain. Along the back wall the crates were on shelves, and Fox went over to them and reached into one of the crates and took out a Sauer 7.65-mm. automatic. He handed this to Parker, reached in again, and brought out a Police Positive .38 revolver. On the third dip, he came up with a short-barreled Smith & Wesson .32 revolver.

Parker looked them over. The Sauer still had its serial number, but it had been filed off the other two. He looked closer at the .32 and saw that acid had been used, after the filing.

Fox rummaged in another crate, and came up with two small boxes marked “Nails.” One also had an X on it. “The one with the X is .32 calibre. The other one is .38.”

“All right.”

For the last time, Fox felt around in one of the crates, and this time he brought out two clips for the Sauer. “You’ll want to check them?”

“Right.”

Fox went to the middle of the room, got down on his knees, and lifted up the drain plate. Underneath was loose dirt. “In here,” he said, getting to his feet again. “Don’t worry about the sound. The boxes keep it all in. It will be very loud, because the room’s so small, but outside no one will hear a thing.”

Parker put the two revolvers and the boxes of ammunition on top of a closed wooden crate, and slipped one of the clips into the Sauer. He stood wide-legged and aimed straight down into the drain. He switched the safety off, and fired. There was a tremendous noise, ricocheting off the walls and cases. Parker clicked the safety back on, removed the clip, and sighted through the barrel at the light bulb. The gun was in good condition.

Fox put one bullet in the cylinder of the .32 and another in the cylinder of the .38, and Parker tried them both. When he had finished, his ears were ringing. The .32 was in somewhat ragged shape — he nicked concrete at the edge of the hole when he fired it — but usable, and the other two were fine. He nodded. “How much?”

Fox pointed at the three guns lying on the crate. “Seventy-five and seventy-five and sixty. Two hundred and ten. And including the ammunition.”

“The .32 isn’t very good. It isn’t worth sixty.”

Fox shrugged. “Fifty, then. Two hundred even.”

“All right.”

Parker counted out the money, and Fox stowed it away in an old wallet. Then he carefully packed the three guns and the ammunition in a small wooden box with excelsior padding around them, and tacked the lid on tight. “You should clean them when you get home.”

“I will.”

They went back upstairs, and Parker went out the front door and got into the Ford. He drove to Irvington and left the guns with Skimm to clean and hide. Then he went down to the farmhouse to walk Stubbs.

6

They got the other truck that Thursday, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Handy went for it, because that was the day Parker fixed up a license for himself and a registration. It was a printer he went to, and once again the contact was through Lawson. It took three hours, and then Parker went to the body shop to wait for Handy and the truck.

The body shop was in Dover, and the owner, a sullen man in an undershirt, had heard from Lawson that Parker would be coming. Parker introduced himself as Flynn, and then waited around for Handy.

Handy got there at seven-thirty that evening. The truck was six years old. The cab was a wide International Harvester, painted green, and the trailer another Fruehauf. This one had cost more — fifteen hundred — and was a much better truck. It had been stripped of heater and mudguards and floor mats and all but the legal minimum of lights, but at least it was in sound running condition and the trailer was in good shape. The original plates had been Pennsylvania and as hot as it was possible to get, so Handy had had to pay a hundred extra for safe plates from Indiana.

Parker studied the trailer, and it would work out fine. There were two rear doors plus one door on each side at the midpoint. The wooden inner shell was scuffed up but intact. Parker told the body shop owner what he wanted — the rear doors and the right side door sealed permanently, and a lock on the outside of the left side door which would be guaranteed to keep people in. He and Handy went off to a diner and had coffee and then to a movie.

When they came back, just before midnight, the job was done. The owner wanted a hundred, but they gave him eighty. The bankroll was getting low, less than five hundred left.

They drove to Newark, and Handy left the truck in a street already lined with trucks. Then he and Parker drove to where they’d parked the other truck yesterday, and Handy drove it eight blocks away and parked it again. It wasn’t good to leave a vehicle in one spot more than twenty-four hours. After they moved the second truck, they drove down to the Shore Points Diner.

It was now nearly four o’clock, Friday morning. The diner was closed and there was practically no traffic on route 9. Handy kept the watch in his hand, looking at it by the dash light, and Parker gunned out of the lot. He had to go south first, make a U-turn, and then go north again. There were only two traffic lights along this stretch of 9, and they slowed when they reached the first one, to be sure they caught it red.

When it changed, Parker jumped to fifty and they flew past the second one. He had to slow to make the turn to 440, where there was a looping circle that went away to the right after 9 passed under 440. The turnoff came up a rise and stopped at 440, and you could make either a right or a left. There was a stop sign, and they would have to make a left.

They stopped, though there was no traffic, and Handy counted slowly to ten, looking at the watch in his hand. Then Parker made the left and they coasted at forty-five, the speed limit here, to the next light. They reached it just before it turned green, and had to come to a complete stop.

“Fifteen next time,” Handy said.

“Right.”

Next, there came a circle, and then another light, which turned red when they were about fifty yards away.

“This one’s going to be a bitch,” Handy said.

“I’ll be going through the other one faster,” Parker said. “I’ll hit it a little heavier coming around the circle. Thirty instead of twenty-five.”

“It’ll be daytime. There’ll be traffic.”

“It’s a bitch doing it this way,” Parker said.

Ordinarily, they would have made this dry run on a Monday morning at eleven o’clock, but either Alma or Skimm would have seen them at it and wondered what they were doing.

When the light changed, Parker drove on down to the bridge but didn’t bother to go across. There were no more lights from here to the turnoff. He circled around and went back to the diner, once again making sure he was stopped by the first light. When it changed to green, he pulled away and was making fifty by the time they passed the diner.

“Seventeen seconds,” Handy said.

“All right.”

They went around again, waited for the light to turn red before coming back down. Parker tore into the gravel parking lot, squealing the brakes at the last second, and swung around in the position they’d be in during the job.

“Thirteen,” Handy said. “Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.”

Parker made the trip again, out of the diner, south to the U-turn, then north. They went through the first light and Handy looked back at it, counting. It changed ten seconds after they went by. They went through the middle of the second light, made the turn to 440, and Handy counted to ten again, because the timing was different now. They went through the first light just after it went green, and the second one just before it went red.

“That’s all right, now,” Parker said.

“If the lights work the same in the daytime.”

“They might change them at rush hour. Not at eleven in the morning.”

“Still—”

“I’ll try it once more tomorrow morning, just to be sure.”

Parker drove Handy back to his place in Newark, then turned around and went back to his motel. He wrote a note asking to be called at ten o’clock, and dropped it through the mail slot in the office door. It seemed as if he was barely asleep when the woman who ran the motel was knocking at the door.

He got up and showered and ate breakfast and drove to the diner. Skimm was stationed in the furniture store parking lot and he went over and talked to him for a few minutes, leaving the Ford parked beside the diner. Then he went back over to the Ford, backing out of the parking space so he was in the position he’d be in during the job.

He paused to light a cigarette, watching the road. Traffic went by, headed south, and as the leader went by, Parker pulled out of the lot and fell in behind him. He went over the course again, and the lights worked the same in the daytime.

Satisfied, he went to the farmhouse and let Stubbs out in the air for two hours. Stubbs was surly and nervous. He’d refused to talk for the last two days, and he still refused to talk. The tic in his left cheek that had started yesterday was worse.

7

Saturday, Handy went shopping around in different stores and pieced together a dark blue guard’s uniform. That after-noon, to keep Skimm and Alma happy, they all got together and made a timed dry run of the getaway.

Alma and Skimm jumped into the Dodge and went bumping off into the scrub back of the diner, and Parker and Handy pushed the Ford south on 9. They were to go south on 9, turn right on 516 to 18 and then left on Main Street and on to the farmhouse. Alma and Skimm were coming around the back way, down the Amboy Turnpike. That’s the way it was being done today, with everybody playing games and being serious about it, and Skimm the only one who thought it was for real.

When Parker and Handy got to the dirt road turnoff to the farmhouse, the green Dodge was already there, parked on the shoulder of the road. Parker stopped behind it and kept his motor running. He didn’t like the two cars together like this, so close to the time of the job.

Skimm came over from the Dodge and leaned in the window. “How’d it go?”

“Sweet,” Handy said. “No problems.”

“We ought to run through it again,” Skimm said.

Parker shook his head. He was disgusted because he had to play a part when he should be concentrating on the job.

“Alma doesn’t want to either,” Skimm said.

“She’s right.” Handy answered.

“We’ll go into the farmhouse,” Parker said.

Skimm went back to the Dodge, and Parker turned the Ford across the road and went up the dirt track and around the tree and down to the farmhouse. He parked in back, and he and Handy got out and stretched. Then Parker went inside and took the automatic from the card table and unbarred the door. He kicked the door and stepped back. “Come on out.”

Stubbs came out. He didn’t have anything in his hands, and he wasn’t watching for a chance to jump Parker. He’d stopped all that four or five days ago, around the same time he’d stopped shaving.

Parker had brought him shaving gear the third day, and for a while Stubbs had shaved every day or so, but now he’d stopped. His beard was spiny, dark brown flecked with gray. His mouth looked dirty too, with spittle caked white on the lips, and he kept his eyes half-closed against the light.

When Parker told him to go on outside in the air, he shuffled, keeping his arms at his sides. His movements were getting shorter and more economical every day.

When Stubbs and Parker came out, Alma and Skimm were standing with Handy, talking. Stubbs stopped and looked at them, blinking some more. He’d been at the farmhouse twelve days now, and this was the first time he’d seen more than one person at a time.

Parker held the automatic loose at his side. “Walk around,” he said, “but don’t go near the cars.”

Stubbs walked around, in a large ragged circle. His shuffling made the white sand kick up around his feet. His shoes and pantcuffs were covered with sand, and his white shirt was almost gray. He’d stopped wearing the chauffeur’s jacket and cap, and his squat head looked naked, as though his hair was getting thinner. He shuffled around in a circle, head bowed and eyes looking at the ground, while the other four stood by the farmhouse and talked.

They went over the job, what each of them was supposed to do and how long it would take. Who was supposed to be where when. Parker went over it, and then each of the others went over his part of it, explaining it as though the other three didn’t know anything about it. There were questions, mostly from Alma and mostly useless because they weren’t about Alma’s part of it, but the questions were all answered.

Stubbs interrupted after a while, shuffling over and telling Parker he had to go out around to the other side of the farmhouse because of the woman. Parker went with him, and while he waited, he listened to the drone of the three voices from around back.

Shortly afterward, they finished and everybody seemed satisfied. Alma and Skimm got back into the Dodge, and drove around the farmhouse and back up toward the road. Handy and Parker stayed a while longer, so Stubbs could have more time out in the air. It looked to Parker as though Stubbs might be getting sick, since he wasn’t shaving or trying to fight back any more. He wanted Stubbs to stay healthy.

Handy said to Stubbs, “It’s almost over, partner. By Monday night, you’ll be away from here.”

“It’s always night,” said Stubbs. It was almost the first thing he’d said, and his voice was low and flat, as though he didn’t care if anybody heard him.

Handy felt sorry for Stubbs. He’d been inside, and he knew this must be even worse than inside, because of being alone and no light. “Listen, there’s a flashlight in the car. Why don’t we give you the flashlight?”

“For what?” Parker said.

Handy shrugged. “To break the monotony.”

Parker looked at Stubbs. It wasn’t easy keeping a man on ice, not for anybody concerned. But Stubbs had bulled in, complicating things. Parker’s concern for him was really limited — keep him healthy, and keep him on ice, until after the job; then go with him to Nebraska and square things with the cook, May. Then it was over. He didn’t have any interest in Stubbs other than that, so he’d never thought about giving him a flashlight.

Handy got the flashlight out of the glove compartment of the Ford and brought it over to Stubbs. Stubbs took it as though it was a piece of wood, and just let it dangle in his hand at the end of his arm. Then he went off and shuffled around in his circle again, holding onto the flashlight. Just before they put him back in he tried the flashlight and it worked. He looked at the circle of light on the ground and smiled. Then he went back inside and Parker barred the door.

8

You don’t do anything the day before a job. You just lie around and take it easy. Parker went to a movie in the afternoon and another in the evening, then had some beer in a bar. He wanted to take a six pack back to the motel, but in New Jersey you can’t buy a six pack after ten o’clock at night.

He was up at seven Monday morning and drove up to Irvington to Skimm’s place. Skimm had the Dodge. He gave Parker the Sauer and the .38, keeping the .32 for himself, and they took the two cars to Newark and picked up Handy. Handy rode with Parker, and Parker gave him the .38.

They picked up the good truck, and Handy drove that. All three of them went back to the Shore Points Diner, where Alma was already at work. The parking lot on the side they wanted was empty. They put the Ford in the spot where the armored car always parked, and the good truck to the right of it, on the side away from the road. Handy went into the diner, and Parker and Skimm went back up to Newark again in the Dodge.

They got the other truck, the bad one, and Parker drove it down 9 to the other side of the Raritan River and then parked on the shoulder and took out a roadmap. He sat studying the roadmap. Skimm stopped a little farther south, at the bottom of a long curving grade, where he could see a long way back. He also spent some time studying a roadmap. It was five minutes to ten.

They were all in position now. The good truck was where it would be during the job. The Ford was next to it, parked at an angle so it blocked where the armored car would be and where the bad truck would be, so no other customers could take those places. Skimm and Parker were two miles north, waiting for the armored car. Handy was in the diner, having a cup of coffee.

At ten after ten, Alma told Benjy to mop up the right side. She put a chair across the aisle and a cardboard sign on it saying, “Section closed.” There was one couple in a booth on that side, but they left at quarter after ten, when the ammonia from Benjy’s mop got to them. Handy left right after them, and sat in the Ford, taking a while to get a cigarette lit.

At twenty-five past ten, Skimm saw the armored car top the rise way behind him. He started the Dodge, pulled out onto the highway and drove south at the speed limit, fifty miles an hour. When Handy saw him go by, he backed the Ford away from the diner and drove south after him. As soon as the armored car passed Parker he put the roadmap away, fought the gearshift into second, and followed. Skimm, south of the diner, took the first U-turn and came back north again. Handy went on to the second U-turn and then came back.

The armored car pulled in to the diner and stopped in its normal place, next to the good truck. The driver got out and went to the back and let the guard out. They locked the door and went into the diner. As they were going through the door, Parker showed up in the bad truck and slid it into the slot to the left of the armored car. He got down from the cab and went into the diner. He sat on the stool nearest the cash register, and ordered coffee.

Skimm came north again, passing the diner to make sure the bad truck blotted out the view of the armored car, and kept going north. At the junction with 35 he did the loop-the-loop and wound up going south again. He stopped just shy of the entrance to the diner parking lot, and got out his roadmap. He left the engine running.

Handy came north, took the first crossover, went by Skimm in the Dodge, and drove around behind the diner. He already had the blue pants on, and now he changed to the blue shirt and put on a tie. He strapped on the belt and holster and slid the .38 in the holster. He put on the sunglasses, but held the garrison cap in his hand.

Inside the diner, Parker saw the driver and the guard getting ready to leave. He was at the register already, so he paid before they did, and went outside. When they came out, they saw him kicking at the right front tire of the cab, standing between the cab and the armored car. Then he walked back and looked at the double rear tires of the cab on the same side, and shook his head. When the driver and the guard were almost to him, he moved again, and studied the double tires at the back of the trailer. He shook his head angrily and said, “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”

He said it loud, and the driver and the guard looked at him and grinned.

When they had disappeared from Skimm’s sight behind the bad truck, he had put the roadmap down and shifted the Dodge into first. He drove slowly into the parking lot and stopped facing the woods behind the diner, his left front fender next to the rear of the good truck and his left rear fender next to the rear of the bad truck.

When Handy heard Parker say, “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he put his garrison cap on and walked around the side of the diner toward the good truck.

The driver took out a key and turned it in the back door of the armored car. Then he stepped back and the guard took out another key and finished the job of unlocking the door. He pulled the door open as Parker came walking forward, and when he started up into the back of the armored car Parker clipped him with the butt of the Sauer.

Just then Handy came around the back of the good truck, with the .38 in his right hand and a small pocketknife in his left. He put the point of the gun in the driver’s back and pricked the side of his neck with the knife.

“Hold very still,” he said, low and flat. The gun was the real threat, but the knife was psychological. Most people were more afraid of a knife than a gun.

The driver shivered, and his eyes widened. Parker said to him, talking low, “Go on up and have the other guard open the door for you.”

Handy moved his left hand down and pricked the knife gently into the driver’s hip. “One wrong move,” he said, “and I castrate you.”

Skimm got out of the Dodge, bringing the rope and gags. He and Parker tied and gagged the unconscious guard, and carried him to the side of the good truck. Parker opened the door, and they tossed the guard inside. Then he went around to the other side of the armored car to help Handy.

The guard in the cab of the armored car saw the driver, and caught a glimpse of another uniformed figure behind him. He opened the door on the driver’s side, and saw a flash of reflected light as the driver went down. Then Handy had the .38 on him. “Come on out!”

The guard hesitated. He could see the driver lying on his face on the gravel. He swallowed, and came carefully out of the armored car.

Parker sapped him as he stepped down. He and Skimm tied and gagged the driver and the second guard, while Handy started moving the sacks and boxes from the armored car to the Dodge. Parker and Skimm tossed the trussed two into the good truck with the first guard, and then Parker locked the door while Skimm went to help Handy. When the door was locked, Parker helped finish the transfer from the armored car to the Dodge.

Inside the diner, Alma walked across Benjy’s wet floor while Benjy glared at her, and looked out the window. She saw they were finishing, so she went through the kitchen and out the back door, slipping a paring knife into her purse.

Skimm got behind the wheel of the Dodge, and Parker and Handy walked back around to the Ford. The job had taken three minutes. Alma came out as Handy was changing his shirt, and said, “See you at the farmhouse.”

“Right,” said Handy. Parker was behind the wheel of the Ford and didn’t say anything.

The Dodge came around the corner of the building, its rear end low because of the weight in it now, and stopped. Skimm slid over, and Alma got behind the wheel. The Dodge shot off along the dirt road.

Handy finished changing his shirt and came around to get into the Ford on the passenger’s side. He tossed the blue shirt and the belt and holster and the garrison cap on the floor behind the front seat. Parker started the Ford and they went around the diner and paused near the two trucks and the armored car.

Traffic went by, headed south, and then there was no traffic. When the traffic started again, Parker joined it and they went over the course with no trouble, catching all the lights. They went across the bridge and paid the fifty cent toll at the Mission-style toll booth and went around the circle to 440. They felt easier now, because they were in a different state, but Parker still drove fast. There was a car far ahead of them, nothing behind them. One car went by in the other direction, toward the bridge.

When they got to the spot they’d chosen for the trap, Parker turned left through the gap in the mall. He shifted into neutral, put on the emergency brake, and got out of the car. In the trunk were sunglasses and a red baseball cap and a red flag and a large metal sign that said, “Detour,” in black letters on a yellow background.

Parker put on the sunglasses and the baseball cap, and stuck the red flag in his back pocket. He looked both ways, but there was no traffic, so he crossed the road and found a dead branch on the other side. He used that to prop up the detour sign in the righthand lane, just beyond the dead-end turnoff. In the meantime, Handy turned the Ford around so it was backed into the bushes and facing across the road. When Alma took the detour, he’d drive across and block her exit.

Parker lit a cigarette and waited. A pale green Volkswagen came along, and slowed when it saw Parker and the detour sign. Parker took out the red flag and motioned for the Volkswagen to go by in the passing lane. The Volkswagen did, with a young man driving and the girl beside him wearing a yellow bandana and reflecting sunglasses. She looked at Parker as they went by, and then twisted around to look at him some more through the rear window. “He looked tough.”

The young man looked at her, but because of the reflecting sunglasses he saw his own face instead of her eyes. But then she licked her upper lip, the top of her tongue moist and trembling, and he said, “Ah. A ditch-digger.”

Parker finished smoking his cigarette, and looked across at Handy. Handy was hunched at the wheel, the position of his body looking nervous. Parker began to wonder if Skimm had been in on the cross. If he had been, she wouldn’t be coming along this road. But it didn’t make sense that Skimm had been in it, it didn’t figure that way at all.

Another car came into sight way down the road and Parker stood up straighter. But when it came closer it turned out to be an old black Packard with a prim old woman at the wheel, and Parker motioned for her to go by in the passing lane. She stopped instead, and leaned out the righthand window. “What seems to be the trouble, young man?”

“Roadwork,” he answered.

“It certainly is about time!” She straightened again and drove off.

A little while after the Packard had disappeared at the far curve, Parker saw the Dodge coming. He knew it was the Dodge the second he saw it, and he motioned at Handy. Handy grinned, and let go of the wheel. He could relax now. The Dodge came closer, and Parker could see that Alma was alone in it, so he’d been right all the way down the line.

The Dodge was coming fast, too fast for someone who couldn’t afford to be stopped by the law, and Parker stepped out into the passing lane, and waved the red flag at her, while motioning with his other hand that she should turn right. The car sagged when she hit the brakes, and then she made the turn.

At the last minute, she must have recognized Parker or seen the Ford across the road, because she slammed on the brakes again and tried to get back to the highway, but she was already in too far and her left front fender crumpled into a tree. The Ford came across and turned, blocking the turnoff, and Handy ran over to the Dodge. He had the .38 in his hand, but when he got there the job was finished and Parker was putting the Sauer away again under his shirt. Alma had run only three steps from the car.

They opened the rear door, and Skimm was lying on the money with a paring knife in his chest, which was why she’d taken longer than they’d expected. They pulled him out and got to the money. They stayed behind the Dodge, and the Ford was on the other side of that, so the occasional cars going by didn’t bother them.

There were four metal boxes of bills and five bags of coins. Handy took care of the locks on the boxes, and they started to count. The bills were all bound in stacks of a hundred, so the counting didn’t take long. There was just over fifty-four thousand dollars in bills.

Parker took out six thousand, for the bankrolling, and they split the rest in half. Parker stowed his share in the suitcase he’d put in the back of the Ford; Handy put his back in two of the metal boxes and stashed them in the trunk of the Dodge. Then Parker picked up a bag of coins in each hand and walked deeper into the woods. The ground was mushy, and when he came to a stream he stopped and dropped the two bags on the ground. On the way back, he passed Handy carrying two more bags in.

Parker went back and got the fifth, and when he got to the stream again Handy had already slashed one of the bags open and was dumping rolls of quarters out onto the ground, scattering them around. Parker slit open another bag, this one containing rolls of pennies, and walked up the stream a ways, then started dumping. He stamped the rolls of coins into the ground and kicked them into the stream.

It took them a while to get all the coins scattered around. They didn’t want them, because they weren’t worth the trouble to carry. There was probably less than six hundred dollars in all the five bags put together, and that six hundred was more awkward to carry and more dangerous to dispose of than the entire fifty-four thousand in paper. Banks in the area would be on the alert for a stranger wanting to unload rolls of coins. Getting rid of one roll here and one roll there would be a full-time job. The police knew that, and all professional thieves knew it, and so coins were practically never a part of any boodle.

After they’d finished mining the whole area with rolls of coins, they slashed the canvas bags to ribbons and buried them. Then they went back to the cars. Parker had already moved the detour sign off the road and now he took it deeper into the woods and threw it away. Handy, meanwhile, started the Dodge; hitting the tree hadn’t hurt it much, just dented the fender and bumper. It was his getaway car, since he wasn’t going back to New Jersey with Parker.

They said so long to each other. “You can get in touch with me through Joe Sheer,” Parker said.

“Arnie La Pointe usually knows where I am,” Handy answered.

“Right.”

Parker turned the Ford around, and headed back for the bridge. In the rearview mirror, he saw the green Dodge come out of the turnoff and go up the road toward the ferry. He took a long way around to get to the farmhouse, not wanting to be too near the diner. He went around through New Brunswick, and it was nearly two o’clock before he got there.

He walked in and the first thing he saw was that the automatic was gone from the card table. The second thing he noticed was that the door to the fruit cellar was still barred. He backed out, looking all around him, and walked around the farmhouse until he came to the ragged hole in the outside wall where Stubbs had knocked the clapboard through and crawled out. He walked over to the dirt road and saw where Stubbs had walked on the soft clay between the tire tracks. He grimaced and went back to the farmhouse and saw that Stubbs had even taken time to shave.

He couldn’t wait one more day, thought Parker. He had to go complicate things again. He looked around at the empty slopes around the farmhouse, dotted with scrub. Where the hell have you got to, Stubbs? he thought. Where did you go, Stubbs?