Plunder Squad

asked you to spare me the details.”

”They insist on proof I have the money,” Griffith said. “Or they won’t do it.”

Renard opened his eyes again and looked mock-forlorn, like a circus clown. “How sad,” he said.

“I’ve agreed to open savings accounts, and let them hold the passbooks.”

“A clever arrangement.”

“But I don’t have the money.”

Renard cocked his head to one side, gave Griffith a kind of sad smile, and very slightly shook his head. Bright- eyed, still smiling, he turned back to his plants.

Griffith was letting his desperation show, and he knew it, but he didn’t seem able to stop it from happening. “I’ve done what I could,” he said. “I’ve mortgaged everything, I’ve borrowed from eveiybody, I’ve strapped myself to the wall.”

Faintly, Griffith heard Renard go tsk-tsk. But his back remained turned, his attention remained blatantly on those stinking plants.

A picture came into Griffith’s mind: Renard, going over the terrace railing, falling a dozen stories, splattering on the pavement like a pound of butter. And every plant, pot and all, flung down after him, one at a time.

He squeezed his hands together. He had to make this work, Renard was his last chance. “I need seventy thousand,” he said. “I have to have it. And I need it right away.”

Renard sighed. Sitting back on his haunches, resting his hands on his legs, he looked over his shoulder at Griffith and said, very distinctly, “I am not going to give it to you, and that is my last word on the subject.” He turned away again.

“If I don’t get the money, they won’t do it!”

Renard shrugged. He worked with the trowel.

“I’m already in debt, I’ve already gone too far with this thing! If they don’t do it, I’m ruined!”

No reaction at all.

“God damn it, Jack, if they won’t do it you won’t get the paintings!”

Another sigh. Renard sat back again, half turned again, said, “That would be very sad. My customer would be morose. I too would be morose. But life would go on.”

“Not my life.”

A shrug, a lift of the eyebrow—who cares?

“Jack, I’ll give you two more paintings. Your choice.”

Renard shook his head. “I want the six we discussed, and that’s all I want.”

“They’re all valuable, for God’s sake!”

“Leon, I will not hold stolen goods. I have a customer for the six. You give them to me, I give them to him. He pays me, I pay you. The paintings are in my possession for the maximum of thirty minutes. I will not hold stolen paintings.”

“I’m going to.”

Another mocking little expression, and Renard turned away again.

Griffith was at a loss. He stood there looking at Renard’s fat back, covered by the pink shawl, and he wished there was some way to make all of this un-happen, to get back out of it again.

Renard had come to him in the first place because he’d known Griffith was in bad financial shape. Renard had a customer for six paintings currently in a tour of modern art. If Griffith could get his hands on them, Renard would pay sixty-five thousand dollars for the six.

From there, it had very quickly grown out of control. Why be content with stealing the six? Why not take the whole lot of twenty-one, and find customers of his own for the other fifteen? Unlike most stolen goods, which sell at less than the equivalent over-the-counter price, there tended to be a certain romantic cachet to stolen art; a painting certifiably unshowable frequently demanded and received a higher figure than if it were being sold through normal channels by its legitimate owner.

Through other people in the dealer world, Griffith had contacted Mackey, and at first things had seemed to be simple and safe. Mackey would do the job for one hundred thirty thousand, exactly twice what Renard was paying for only six of the paintings. Griffith would give Mackey Renard’s sixty-five thousand when the job was done, and pay him the rest over the next year or so, as money came in.

But then Mackey’s friend Parker had shown up, and the complications had started. Griffith had allowed Parker to drive him up another thirty thousand because there was still plenty of slack left over in the fifteen paintings he’d be keeping for himself. But then it turned out they wanted a guarantee of the existence of the money. Griffith had promised them he had it, because by then the thing was so real and necessary to him that he didn’t want them getting cold feet and quitting on him. Also, Griffith had been very rich for the last several years, until the recession, and he retained the belief that money could always be gotten somehow.

But maybe it couldn’t. He had pawned, he had mortgaged, he had borrowed, and he was still seventy thousand dollars short of the amount. And he knew them now, Mackey and Parker; they wouldn’t do it without a guarantee of the money.

And if it didn’t happen? Griffith’s financial position had been shaky before this; now that he’d borrowed so much, committed himself to this thing so deeply, there was no other way out. He had to get the paintings, he had to get the robbery done, or he was finished.

He had been silent for quite a while, staring at Renard’s back, thinking. Now Renard turned his head again, and something he saw in Griffith’s face seemed to startle him; maybe even frighten him. He straightened up on his knees, and held the trowel more prominently. And his voice was much gentler than usual as he said, “Well, you