The guy started away, and Wycza reached in his pocket for a magazine. Then the guy suddenly laughed aloud, and turned back, and gave Wycza a huge happy grin. “Well, of course!” he said.
Now what? Wycza waited, saying nothing.
The guy came over closer, bent down so no one else in the waiting area would be able to hear what he had to say, and whispered, “You thought I was a cop!”
Wycza still did. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said.
The guy dropped down into the seat on Wycza’s right, and said, quietly but excitedly, “My name’s Devers, Stan Devers. Parker never told you anything about me?”
“I told you before, you—”
“Wait a minute now,” Devers said; if that was his name. “Didn’t Parker tell you there were other people coming? Doesn’t it make sense there’d be one or two on this plane? I’ll tell you, I worked with Parker twice before this. I’m the one set up the air-base payroll job upstate here about five years ago. You ever hear of that?”
“You’re still making a mistake,” Wycza said, but he was no longer entirely sure that was true. He didn’t know anything about an air-base payroll job, but Devers’ line had a ring of reality to it.
“The other one,” Devers said, still talking low and fast, “was hijacking some paintings last year. We worked with, uh, Ed Mackey. You know him?”
”No.”
“Handy McKay.”
That was a name Wycza knew. He also knew that McKay had retired a few years ago. Meaning to be clever, he said, “You worked with Handy McKay last year?”
“Don’t be silly,” Devers said. “He’s up there in his diner in Presque Isle, Maine. I hid out with him when I first went on the bent. You want me to describe him to you? He lips his cigarettes something fierce.”
That was true. Wycza found himself grinning, then immediately sobered up again. “You got a good line of talk,” he said.
“You’re a tough man to convince,” Devers said. “What does it take?”
Wycza wanted to believe the kid, but caution was strong in him. It had to be. “Why brace me?” he said. “What’s the point?”
Devers shrugged. “Why not? We’re both going the same place for the same reason. Why not talk, have a pleasant trip?”
Wycza studied him a minute longer. “You’re a strange guy, Devers,” he said.
Devers’ smile broadened. “Stan,” he said, and held out his hand.
One more hesitation, a brief one. Then Wycza shook his head and said, “Yeah, I guess I believe you.” Taking Devers’ hand, he said, “I’m Dan Wycza.”
“Dan and Stan.” They shook on it, and Devers said, “Glad to know you, Dan.”
* * *
Fred Ducasse barely made the plane on time. The passengers were already boarding when he got to the gate. He submitted his small canvas bag to a luggage search, and was the last person to board the plane.
It was a fairly small plane, one class, with three seats to the left of the aisle and two to the right. Less than half the seats were occupied, so even though he was last, Ducasse could just about pick his spot. He preferred the rear, so he moved that way down the narrow aisle, holding his bag ahead of himself.
On the left, two men were in casual low-voiced conversation. One of them was a young good-looking guy with curly blond hair, and the other was a bald giant of about forty. They made a strange-looking pair, and Ducasse glanced at them curiously on the way by. The young one looked up at the same time, and for just a second their eyes met. It seemed to Ducasse, as he looked quickly away, that the guy had had a questioning look in his eyes, as though wondering if he maybe knew Ducasse from somewhere. Ducasse looked back at him again, but he wasn’t looking up any more. He was deep in his conversation with the bald one, and Ducasse was sure he’d never seen either of those two before.
He was just settling himself into a window seat well back of the wing when the plane started taxiing, and a minute later the stewardess started broadcasting safety announcements. Ducasse settled in, watched out the window as the plane took off, and then drifted away into his own thoughts.
He hoped this one was really it. He’d been living on his case money for over a year now, he definitely needed something good, and he needed something soon.
He was a little worried about this being Parker again. Not that he had anything against Parker, or Parker’s ability; it was just that Parker, too, seemed to be running a bad streak, and Ducasse was just superstitious enough to wish he was teaming up with somebody who’d been riding winners lately.
Two things with Parker last year, and both of them had gone to hell. A department-store robbery set up by a guy named Kirwan, and then an art-treasure robbery in California set up by a fool named Beaghler. Ducasse and Parker had been in on both of them, and neither one had happened. Then Ducasse had gone in on an armored-car job that hadn’t worked out, but while it was still on he’d tipped Parker to something involving hijacking paintings, and he’d heard that one, too, had fallen apart. So it had been a bad year all the way around, and all Ducasse hoped was that he and Parker wouldn’t between them jinx this new score, whatever it turned out to be. Something simple, that’s what he wanted, simple and clean and profitable and fast.
Gazing at that bald head up toward the middle of the plane, idly thinking his thoughts, Ducasse dropped off to sleep and didn’t wake up again till the plane set down at Tyler.
Thirty-nine
Hurley and Dalesia drove west toward Tyler, Dalesia behind the wheel of the stolen three-year-old gray
