and onto the hood.
Lying on his stomach on the hood, he stared through the windshield at Brock, who stared back pop- eyed. Grofield pulled his arm up in front of his face, fired at Brock through the windshield, and Brock yelped and heaved himself out of the car on the driver's side. Grofield fired at him again as he was getting out and saw the puff on the shoulder of Brock's coat.
But Brock kept moving. He ran away from the car, and Grofield pushed himself off the hood and onto his feet. Turning, he saw Brock go stumbling around the corner of the barn, and made after him.
Brock was on his knees beside the barn, leaning his right shoulder against it, his head bowed. Grofield circled him cautiously, and Brock lifted a very sleepy face. 'It was all Myers' fault,' he said. He mumbled it, as though he'd been drugged.
Grofield said, 'Where's the money?'
'In my pocke'. Co' pocke'.'
'A hundred twenty thousand dollars? In your coat pocket?' That, according to Myers, was the size of the payroll at the Northway Brewery.
Surprisingly, Brock began to laugh. The agitation disturbed his balance, and he fell forward onto his face, and was quiet.
Grofield rolled him over, and Brock looked up sleepily. His eyelids were heavy, he was having a tough time keeping them up. Grofield said, 'What's funny? Where's the hundred twenty thousand? Didn't the caper go?'
'They pay by check!' Brock started to laugh again, but it seemed to hurt him, and he just smiled. 'They went back to checks,' he said sleepily, his smile looking lazy and good-natured. 'They couldn't do the cash, they went ba…' His eyes closed.
Grofield poked his shoulder. 'What did you get?'
'Twenny-seven hunnnn…'
'Twenty-seven hundred dollars?'
Brock was snoring.
Grofield went through his coat pockets, and there it was. Twenty-seven hundred dollars, in large bills. Petty cash, probably, the only cash they keep in the place. Six men, a fire engine, three getaway cars – twenty- seven hundred dollars.
'He didn't make sure,' Grofield said. He shook his head, and stood up, and Brock stopped snoring. Grofield looked down at him, and he wasn't breathing at all. Grofield turned away and went back around to the front of the barn to make sure.
There was nothing in the Buick but a dead body in the back seat. That would be Lanahan.
There was nothing in the Rolls parked inside the barn except three suitcases in the trunk, and they contained clothing and toilet articles and things like that.
Finally, Myers. Brock had apparently decided to make him leak to death, and had used both the knife and the pitchfork for the job. It was impossible to search the clothing without getting bloody fingers. Grofield grimaced with distaste as he went through the pockets, and his revulsion was such that he almost missed the money belt entirely. But he found it, and untied it, and pulled it off Myers' body.
It had four compartments. Two of those, on the left side, had been punctured, and were soggy with blood. Grofield didn't open them at all. He opened the other two, on the right side, and there was the money.
His own money. It still had the Food King wrappers on it. The remains of Grofield's piece of the supermarket job. He sat down on the floor and counted it, and there was four thousand, one hundred eighty dollars there. Out of thirteen thousand, three hundred twenty-five that Myers had taken away from him.
'It's something, anyway,' Grofield said aloud, and stuffed the money into his pockets. Going across the road and up toward the Chevy, he added twenty-seven hundred and forty-one hundred eighty in his head, and came up with six thousand, eight hundred, and eighty dollars.
'We can open anyway,' he said. He walked around the corner of the burned-out building, and a charred piece of two-by-four came around in a fast arc, hissing it was moving so fast, and hit him square in the face.
7
Grofield sat up and touched his nose and his hand came away bloody. He could barely see, the way his eyes were puffed shut, and the whole front of his face was stinging. Also, he had a violent headache.
He looked down at himself, and he was sitting on the ground beside a burned-out house in a light rain. And his pockets had all been turned out; he'd been rolled. He said, 'Hey.'
Movement attracted his attention. He turned his head, slowly and carefully, and there was a man standing beside a car. Grofield's car, the Chevy. And the man was – son of a bitch, it was Perry Morton!
Morton had been just about to get into the car, but now he stood there looking at Grofield and said, 'You awake already? I figured you were good for a couple hours.'
'How long-' His throat felt raspy; he cleared it, and started again. 'How long was I out?'
'Maybe five minutes. Just long enough for me to get your money and your gun and your car keys.' Morton was feeling pleased with himself, and why not?
Grofield cleared his throat again. 'Don't leave me here, Perry,' he said. 'This area's going to fill up with cops. I gave you a break, you give me one.'
Morton considered. But he was feeling so smug and pleased with himself, he had to be magnanimous.
