there, I’ve got one all picked out, a beautiful hairpin where they’re gonna have to come to practically a full stop anyway.”
Ducasse said, “How do you ambush it?”
“With grenades.” Beaghler said. “Smoke, and then percussion. We hit them with a smoke grenade so they can’t see and they have to stop. Then we roll a percussion grenade under the car to keep them stopped. Then we come down and George opens the rear door and we take the statues out and go on our merry way, safe and sound.”
Parker said, “On our way where? In the first place, armored cars keep in radio contact with their headquarters, and in the second place, there’s no way off that road. All they have to do is block both ends and wait for us.”
Beaghler’s broad grin showed he’d been waiting for that objection. “Not so,” he said. “I’ve got an ATV.”
“A what?”
“An all-terrain vehicle,” Beaghler said. “They make them for people who want to camp out. They’re like a jeep, only they’ll go places even a jeep won’t go. I’ve got one that’ll go places you’d think twice about going with a horse. It’s fantastic.”
Walheim said, “Where do you figure to go with it, Bob?”
“Over the mountains,” Beaghler said. “Over to King City. We’ll have another car stashed there, and we can just take the main road back up through Salinas.”
Walheim shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t get through there. You’ll never make it to King City.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Beaghler said. “Because I’ve done it. Artie Danforth and me. we did it together about a month ago.”
Walheim squinted at Beaghler as though he was hard to see. “Are you putting me on? You really went through that country?”
“Man, we averaged six miles an hour. But we got through.”
Parker said, “How many miles?”
“Just under sixty.”
“You’re talking about ten hours.”
”Probably longer than that. We’ll probably have to camp out overnight. See, the timing is, we’ll probably hit the armored car around noon. Say one o’clock. Then we’ve got only five or six hours before—”
“Somebody outside,” Sharon said. She was standing by the living-room window looking out. “Looking at the cars,” she said.
All four got to their feet and went over to look out the window. Out there, giving the three rental cars a once- over, was a stocky compact guy with a flattened nose, thinning curly hair, and a heavy slightly-blued jaw. He was glancing in the windows of each car, strolling along past them, taking his time but not making a major production out of it.
Parker frowned, trying to see the guy’s face more clearly. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but he couldn’t really be sure.
Beaghler, sounding very worried, said, “Fuzz, do you think?”
“No,” Ducasse said. “Private maybe, but not law.” Beaghler said, “Sharon?”
“I never saw him before.” The sudden frightened defensiveness told Parker just how tight a rein Beaghler kept on his wife, and suggested also how necessary it was. Which was confirmed when she added, “If I knew the guy, would I have said anything?”
Parker said, “Nobody knows him?”
Outside, the guy had turned toward the house, was coming up through the bedraggled lawn. Ducasse said, “Not me.”
Frowning, Parker said, “There’s something— Let me take it.”
“Sure,” said Beaghler. “I don’t want him.”
Parker kept watching as the guy came up on the porch. Was it a familiar face, or just a familiar type? He said to Beaghler, “Are you into anything else right now? Anything I should worry about?”
”Not a thing,” Beaghler said. “I’ve been quiet for a year, that’s why I’m so broke.”
The doorbell rang. Parker walked around the others and over to the front door. When he opened it, the guy was standing slightly turned away, pretending to be bored and looking out toward the street, as though he were a house-to-house salesman or something. Which he wasn’t.
Parker had opened the door only wide enough for him to step outside onto the porch, and then closed it again. If this was somebody he had known in the past, he might not want to advertise it to the people in the house.
The guy had turned his head this way when Parker opened the door, and Parker watched the quick assessment in his eyes, and the recognition that neither of them was playing in his true role. But there was no other recognition there, not the kind Parker had been waiting for; and he himself still couldn’t be sure.
The guy had apparently decided to go ahead and continue playing salesman: “Mr. Beaghler?”
“No.” They didn’t know one another after all, so there was no point stretching out the conversation. Maybe he was simply from a credit outfit; maybe Sharon had been pushing her charge accounts too hard.
“How about the little lady of the house? Is Mrs. Beaghler—?”
