“Behind my place. If there was room, I’d have put the truck back there, too, but it’s too tight.”
“We’ll switch the boxes of books to the pickup,” Parker said, “then take care of the money.”
“Okay, fine.”
Along their walk they came to a deli, where Parker bought a box of ten large Hefty bags. Then they went on to reclaim the van and drive it the four blocks to the body shop and auto paint place, a sprawling low dark-brick building taking up most of this industrial block. The closed garage door in the middle of the otherwise blank wall had a big sign, red letters on white, honk, so McWhitney honked, and in a minute a smaller door that was part of the garage door opened and a guy in coveralls looked out.
McWhitney called, “Tell George it’s Nelson,” and the guy nodded and went back inside, shutting the door.
They waited another two or three minutes, and then the full garage door lifted and another guy in coveralls came out, this one also wearing a baseball cap, black-framed eyeglasses, and a thick black moustache. He came over to McWhitney at the wheel of the van, grinned at him, grinned at the name on the door, and said, “Well, it looks like you got religion and then you lost it again.”
“That’s about it.”
“It’s a quick job, but I need to do it inside, I need the compressor.”
“Sure.”
George leaned closer to McWhitney’s window, “The job may be quick,” he said, with a friendly smile, “but it isn’t cheap.”
McWhitney slid a hundred-dollar bill from his shirt pocket, and extended it, palm down, toward George, saying, “A quick job like this, it doesn’t even have to show up in the cash register.”
“That’s very true,” George said, and made the hundred disappear. “You can both stay in the car,” he said. “Follow me.” And he turned away, walking back into the building, McWhitney following.
Inside, the building was mostly one broad open space, concrete-floored, full of racket. Auto-body parts were being pounded or painted, other parts were being moved on metal-wheeled dollies over the concrete floor, and at least two portable radios were playing different ideas about music. A couple of dozen men were working in here, all of them in coveralls, most of them either shouting or singing.
There was no way to have a conversation in here, not once you got half a dozen feet in from the door. George directed them with hand gestures. While the first guy shut the door behind them, George guided them on a path through automobiles, automobile parts, and machinery to a large oblong cleared area with a big rectangular metal grid suspended above it. From the grid, large shiny metal ductwork extended up to the ceiling.
George had McWhitney park directly beneath the grid, then went away and the loud whine of an air compressor joined the mix of noise. George came up the left side of the van from behind, carrying a spray gun attached to a black rubber hose, and hunkered down beside McWhitney’s door. The whining went to a higher pitch, then lower again, and George walked his spray gun and hose back down the left side and up the right side to do the same to the other door. He stepped back, looked at his work, nodded to himself, and carried the spray gun away again.
When he next came into view, he motioned to them to follow him, and McWhitney steered the van along more lanes through the work to a different garage door that opened onto the side street. They drove out and stopped on the sidewalk, so both Parker and McWhitney could get out and look at the doors.
The words were gone, without a trace. The fresh paint was darker and shinier than the rest, but nevertheless the same color.
George, standing beside McWhitney to look at his work, said, “It’ll dry pretty fast, and then it’ll be the same color as the body.”
“Good.”
“Being out here and not in the shop, it’ll get some dust and dirt on it, so it won’t be as perfect as it might be. You’ll get some little roughness.”
“George,” McWhitney said, “that really doesn’t matter. This is fine.”
“I thought so,” George said. He was still happy. “Any time we can be of service,” he said, “just give us a call.”
9
The alley beside McW led to a small bare area behind the building, paved long ago with irregular slabs of slate. The area was confined by the rear of McWhitney’s building, the flank of the building next door across the alley, and by two eight-foot-high brick walls on the other two sides. The local building code required two exits from any commercial establishment, and in McW’s case the second exit was through the door that led to this area from the bedroom of McWhitney’s apartment behind the bar. The space was large enough for McWhitney to park his pickup back there and K-turn himself out again, but not much more.
Now McWhitney backed the van down the narrow alley until he was past his building, with the pickup in the clear area to the left. He and Parker got out of the van, McWhitney backed the pickup closer to the van’s rear doors, and they started emptying the van.
The first boxes out were filled with hymnals, heavy but not awkward to move. Then there were the money boxes.
The money inside the boxes was all banded into stacks of fifty bills, always of the same denomination. The bands, two-inch-wide strips of pale yellow paper, were marked deer hill bank, deer hill, ma. The stacks made a tight fit inside the boxes.
It turned out to be easiest to dump a box over, empty the money onto the floor of the van, and then stuff it all into the Hefty bags. The emptied box, with its cover restored, would be stacked with the others in the bed of the pickup.
As they worked, McWhitney said, “It’s a pity about this stuff. Look how beautiful it is.”
“It’ll tempt you,” Parker said. “But it’s got a disease.”
“Oh, I know.”
When they were finished, the pickup, sagging a bit, was crammed with boxes, empty and full, and three roundly stuffed Hefty bags squatted in the back of the van. McWhitney looked at his watch. “My barman’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” he said, “and then we can take off. Come on inside.”
To obey the fire code, the door at the back of his building had to be openable from inside at all times during business hours, but from outside it took a key to get in. McWhitney unlocked the door and they went through his small but neat living quarters to the bar, where McWhitney said, “You want a beer for the road?”
“Later.”
“I don’t trust later, I’ll take mine now. You want to call Sandra?”
“Sure. Give me the phone.”
McWhitney slid the phone across the bar to Parker, drew himself a draft, and watched the conversation.
“Keenan.”
“Hello, Sandra.”
“I’m on my way,” she said. “I think I should be there ahead of everybody so I can see if anybody has extra company.”
“Good idea. We’ll be in the same van, but it doesn’t have any words on it any more.”
