“One truck,” Mackey said. “Plus two cars with private guards, one in front and one in back. Plus a one-car State Police escort, with a new car taking over at each new jurisdiction.”
Devers said, “Doesn’t sound easy.”
Tommy had been thinking that it didn’t even sound possible. He tended not to say very much at meetings like this, but to think things over and ask his questions later. Also, he’d noticed that sooner or later other people almost always raised the points he would have raised himself if he’d felt like talking, just as Devers had done now.
The one called Parker answered Devers, speaking for the first time. He said, “I’ve never found an easy one yet. But we think we’ve got a way that’ll work on this one.”
Tommy suddenly remembered who it was that Parker reminded him of. Four years ago Tommy had been living at a commune that had later fallen apart because of sexual jealousies, but which had been going pretty good when he was there, except for some trouble from rednecks in a nearby town. The commune leaders had gone to a couple of lawyers, since the local cops had been on the side of the rednecks, but nobody’d been able to do much of anything. Then one time two of the commune girls had been beaten up and raped on their way back from town, and it turned out one of them had a father in the construction business in Chicago, and the father had sent a man down to straighten things out. The man had been named Tooker, and he’d talked very quietly with a slightly hoarse voice. He never threatened anybody, but there was a general feeling in his neighborhood that somebody was going to suddenly get killed sometime in the next ten seconds. He almost never blinked, and he looked directly at whoever he was talking to, and he didn’t have a heck of a lot to say. But he went into town and talked with some people there, and all of a sudden nobody was bothering the commune any more. Tooker came back to the commune and said, “You’ll be okay now,” and left, and there was no more trouble after that.
Parker was that same kind. Looking at him, Tommy felt the sudden stupid urge to ask him if he knew a man named Tooker, but of course he wouldn’t.
Meanwhile, Lou Sternberg was saying, “What about money?”
“We’re being paid a hundred sixty thousand,” Mackey said.
“When?”
“I’m getting ten grand tomorrow, for financing. Our buyer is getting up the cash, and by the beginning of next week he’ll put the other hundred fifty thousand in three savings accounts in three different banks. I’ll hold the passbooks. When we do the job, we trade the paintings for the cash, and split it five ways. Thirty thousand each, plus whatever we have left from the first ten thousand.”
Thirty thousand dollars. Tommy grinned, thinking about that number. It meant two years, that’s what it meant, two years of doing nothing, worrying about nothing, rolling around the country with Noelle and just taking every day as it came.
If it worked. If it was workable. Tommy leaned forward, listening very carefully to what everybody had to say.
Four
“Hold on, Brenda,” Mackey said, grunting, gasping for breath. His hands clutched her waist, his bare feet were planted flat on the cold floor, his shins were braced against the side of the bed. “Hold on, baby.”
She was talking into the pillow again. That was her big thing, talking gibberish into the pillow, voice muffled, words making no sense; then the speech getting faster, the voice higher, building up to something that sounded goddam Japanese by the finish.
“Hold on,” Mackey said. Which was what he always did. He had no idea what he meant, but he always said that. Perspiration streamed down his body in the chill air-conditioned air, his muscles worked, he said it twice more, and then he was very silent for a while. Her Japanese soundtrack ran on for a few seconds without him, like a soloist after a passage by the full orchestra, and then that was silent, too.
The next time Mackey breathed, it was long and slow, like an inverted sigh. He grinned at the back of Brenda’s head, and said, “Honey, it is goddam cold in here.”
She said something into the pillow.
“Absolutely,” Mackey said. Grinning, he went on standing there a couple more minutes before going in to take his shower.
When he came out, toweling himself, Brenda was under the covers but still half-awake. “I’ll be back in no time,” he said.
“Mm,” she said. She gave him a lazy smile and closed her eyes.
Mackey dressed, bent over the bed to kiss her, and went out to damp twilight. It had rained on and off all day. The clouds seemed to have moved on by now, but the dampness was still in the air.
Mackey got into his car and drove diagonally through town to Griffith’s place. Along the way, he thought about the team that had been put together for this job, and he could find no fault with it. Parker was as good as ever, from holding Griffith up for the extra thirty grand to figuring the State Police substitution gimmick. Lou Sternberg was a damned old woman about a lot of things, but he was solid and reliable, and if he agreed to take on a job, it pretty well meant the job was solid and reliable, too. Mackey considered himself lucky that this was one of the times when Sternberg was in the States looking for work.
Tommy Carpenter was also good. A complete maniac in his own quiet way, but dependable on the job, and absolutely without fear or inhibitions or anything else. Mackey grinned at the thought of Tommy’s role in the caper they’d partially worked out.
The only one Mackey didn’t already know from the past was Stan Devers, the young guy Parker had brought in. Devers was a little flashy, and Mackey hadn’t entirely liked the way the guy had come on with Brenda when they’d first met one another yesterday, but when the job was being discussed he seemed serious and smart, and that was the important thing. Also, Parker recommended him, and Parker was very cautious who he worked with.
So now the string was together, and the next thing was to get the front money and start assembling the necessary materials. Which is what Mackey was up to now.
Night had fallen by the time he reached Griffith’s place. There were no cars filling the curved driveway this time, no sound of rock music from behind the house. The house itself was mostly dark, with only a few faint lights
