McWhitney stopped at the table to shake both their hands, he standing, they seated. He didn’t bother to smile during the handshake, but said to Parker, “Good to see you again.”
“You too.”
“Maybe this time it’ll come to something,” McWhitney said, and sat down.
“It’s coming to something, Nels,” Dalesia said. “Parker’s got the hardware on the way.”
McWhitney nodded. “Good.”
They were interrupted by the waitress. The menu was printed on the paper place mats. They ordered things, and then McWhitney said, “I understand you met that guy Keenan.”
“Yes.”
“I take it he didn’t push you very hard.”
“Not hard,” Parker agreed. “He didn’t know anything, so he didn’t know where to reach for a handle.”
“Well, he made a grab at a handle when he came to me.”
Dalesia said, “Sounds as though he was desperate by then. Time going by, not getting anywhere, no profit in sight.”
McWhitney nodded. “I think he was in the wrong business,” he said.
Dalesia grinned. “Well, at the end he was.”
Their food came, and while they were eating it, McWhitney said to Parker, “Did Nick talk to you about some church somewhere?”
“He said the word ‘church,’” Parker said, “but he didn’t say what it meant.”
“Same with me,” McWhitney said. He turned his dissatisfied gaze toward Dalesia. “Look at him,” he said. “He looks exactly like somebody with a concealed full house.”
Dalesia was pleased with himself. “That’s just what I am,” he said.
They all traveled in Dalesia’s car, McWhitney in the backseat. Dalesia showed them the intersection first, where they would grab the armored car, and they both approved the choice. McWhitney, gesturing at the diner and the gas station, said, “These places are empty at night?”
“Nobody out here at all.”
Parker said, “I like the way it narrows down.”
“Let me show you where we go from here,” Dalesia said. “The car we want we’ll take out this way, to the right.” He drove less than half a mile, then stopped where a dirt road angled off to the left. “We stop the car here,” he said, “put the guards over on the dirt road there.”
Parker looked around. The area was hilly, the road twisty, with pine woods along the right and on part of the left. Just beyond the dirt road turnoff, a cornfield had finished its season and was turning into papyrus. “Not much traffic.”
“Don’t open a lemonade stand,” Dalesia advised, and drove them on.
West Ruudskill was seven miles farther. They didn’t stop, but Dalesia told McWhitney, “That’s our mill, where we’ll switch the cash from their armored car to our truck. Big wide doorway, solid floor.”
“Looks good,” McWhitney said, peering out the back window at it as they drove by. Facing front again, he said, “I guess, next it’s this church of yours.”
“Eleven miles from here,” Dalesia said. “All crap road, twisty, two-lane, but at least it’s all paved.”
They drove to the end of the road from West Ruudskill, and Dalesia took the left where it came to the T, then in a quarter mile another right; and a few miles later, after passing a few farms but mostly woods, he turned off on the right side at a small white clapboard church with a wooden steeple. Across the road was a narrow two-story white clapboard house with a broad porch around the lower floor. Both buildings had the look of long disuse.
“These country churches,” Dalesia said, pulling in at a weedy gravel area that would once have been a parking lot, “they’re losing their congregations, doubling up, nobody can afford to keep every one of these dinky things going any more.”
They got out of the car, and Dalesia said, “The power’s off, here and across the street. The line still comes in, so maybe we could start the electric if we needed to.”
“We shouldn’t need to,” Parker said.
“That’s what I figure.” Dalesia started off around the church, saying, “Let me show you what I like about this place.”
Around back, a large white-clapboard-sided lean-to had been attached to the rear of the church some time after the original construction. The slanted roof was gray asphalt tile, and the addition was completely open across the back, almost the full width of the church. The covered space was about ten feet from front to back. A few miscellaneous items were jumbled into a rear corner, but the rest of the dirt-floored space was clear.
“There’s bits of their old Christmas manger scene back there,” Dalesia said, pointing at the stuff in the corner. “They built this on for storage, I guess back when congregations were getting bigger instead of smaller. But you know what’s great about this?”
“The truck,” Parker said.
McWhitney smiled for the first time since Parker had met him. “We put it in sideways,” he said. “We cover it with a tarp, so there’s nothing shiny.”
“Run your helicopters,” Dalesia said. “Do what you want. We’re inside, safe and dry, and our stash, in the truck, is out here, invisible.” He grinned around at them, proud of his discovery. “Myself,” he said, “I’ve always been a churchgoer.”
3
Back at the family place for breakfast next morning, Dalesia was irritated.
