Plunder Squad (16 page)

Parker and Mackey and Devers stood and watched the
truck move away. After it left, there was still enough light to see by, with the eastern horizon graying almost to blue.

Mackey nodded in satisfaction. “We did it,” he said.

Parker said nothing. He turned away and walked over to the Dodge, and a second later the other two followed him.

Mackey came in with a newspaper. “It says here they’ve got us,” he said.

Parker was lying on top of the made bed, dressed except for shirt and shoes. He sat up and said, “Let’s see that.”

“I don’t feel like I’m got,” Mackey said, grinning, and handed over the newspaper. “I’m going to go wake up Stan.”

Parker nodded, and looked at the paper as Mackey went out again. The robbery was the number two story on the front page, top left, with something at the UN on the right and a shipping strike in the middle. The headline was, MILLION DOLLAR ART TREASURES HIJACKED, which was already inaccurate. The story was a breathless and slightly garbled account of the robbery, padded with descriptions of some of the stolen paintings. The main story was continued on an inner page, but at the bottom of the front-page column was a separate box with its own headline: THIEVES CAPTURED. “Illinois State Police,” the item read, “announced this afternoon the capture of a part of the gang of art thieves near Galesburg. Also found was one of the vehicles used to transport the stolen paintings. Police anticipate a speedy round-up of the rest of the gang.”

Parker looked at his watch: five to six. He got off the bed
and went over to switch on the television set, and stood there waiting for the six o’clock news to come on.

When Parker and Mackey and Devers had driven away from the gas station early this morning, they’d headed due south, winding up here in Nashville around noon. They’d taken three rooms at this motel and settled in to catch up a little on their sleep. Six hours wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. They’d left the Dodge back in Illinois, and the car they were driving now was clean, but it was still better to keep moving, get where they were going, finish the job as soon as possible.

If things weren’t already loused up.

A war movie was coming to an end on television; the bomber crippled, everybody wounded, all sagging across the French sky toward the Channel, with inter-cut shots of the nurse and the old man staring upward.

Mackey came back in, with Devers trailing after him, yawning and stretching and rubbing his eyes. Grinning, Mackey said, “What do you think of that paper? Show it to Stan.”

“I don’t like it,” Parker said, and told Devers, “It’s on the bed.”

Mackey’s grin turned puzzled. “What’s the matter? They grabbed the wrong people, that’s all. There’s none of us going to Galesburg.”

Parker said, “Galesburg is about twenty-five miles from Davenport. I figure they got Tommy and the girl.”

Devers, standing over by the bed with the paper in his hand, said, “I think you’re right. And the vehicle they got was the Volkswagen.”

Mackey said, “Then why do they say Galesburg? Tommy was getting out of Illinois, going up on the Iowa side.”

Devers said, “We pulled the job in Illinois. It’s the Illinois State Police making the announcement.” He patted the paper. “They got a lot of things almost right here, so maybe they got the town almost right, too. Galesburg could be where the announcement came from.”

“We’ll see what the news says,” Parker said. On the set, the bomber had landed and the commercials were on.

Devers came over, carrying the newspaper, and all three stood there watching the set. It was a long three minutes of commercials and station identification before the news came on, and then the first two items were international and the next one a local thing concerning Nashville. But the fourth was the robbery and the capture. “The two suspects,” the announcer said, “in last night’s daring art robbery in downstate Illinois, captured early this afternoon in Davenport, Iowa—”

“Damn,” Devers said.

“—have been transferred to the Illinois state capital at Springfield.”

Film showed of the Volkswagen Microbus, with troopers and men in civilian clothes all over it. The announcer’s voice said, “The suspect’s vehicle, believed to have been used in removing at least some of the twenty-one paintings valued at nearly three quarters of a million dollars, is being gone over carefully for evidence which could lead to the capture of the rest of the gang and recovery of the stolen artworks. Police say the suspects, twenty-four-year-old Thomas Clark Carpenter and twenty-one-year-old Noelle Kay Brassell, deny any connection with the robbery, but that a positive identification has been made by Illinois State Troopers Robert Jarvis and Floyd MacAndrews, who were briefly held prisoner by the gang in the course of last night’s robbery.”

Mackey said, “I bet Tommy’s regretting that boot in the ass about now.”

The announcer was finished with the robbery news. As he went on to something else, Devers said to Mackey, “How much can we count on them?”

“Tommy?” Mackey looked surprised at the question. “One hundred percent,” he said. “Tommy won’t admit anything, and he won’t talk about us.”

Parker switched off the television set. “What about the girl?” he said.

Mackey shrugged. “I don’t know her. But Tommy trusts her, so what the hell?”

Devers said, “I’ve seen men trust women before.”

Mackey looked worried, but seemed to be trying not to show it. He said, “What does she know anyway?”

“Anything that Tommy knows,” Devers said.

Parker said, “She knows our names and faces, but she doesn’t know where to find us. She knows what city we met in, she knows we were getting paid by an art dealer.”

Devers said, “Does she know Griffith’s name?”

Mackey frowned. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Nobody ever said it in front of her, but Tommy knows it. Would he mention the name to her? What for? And would she remember it?”

Parker said, “We leave here now. We get to Griffith tomorrow morning, we make the arrangements for the switch, we get our money out of the banks. She’s a strong girl, if she does break down, it won’t be for a day or two. We’ll have time to get out from under if we keep moving.”

“God damn it,” Mackey said. “I counted on Tommy. How’d he manage to get himself picked up?”

Parker had stepped into his shoes, and now he shrugged on his shirt. “Let’s go,” he said.

The smell of dew was crisp and clean in the morning air. The sun was an orange circle just above the treetops, and small birds hopped on the wet lawn stretching away from the patio toward the bamboo hedge. The smashing of the windowpane made a quick sharp noise in the silence, and was gone without an echo.

Parker tossed the rock away toward the grass and reached through the hole in the window to unlock the French doors on the inside. Behind him, Mackey and Devers were looking carefully to left and right, but there were no neighbors close enough to have heard, and at seven-thirty in the morning no mailman or delivery boy likely to be arriving around at the front of the house.

They’d phoned Griffith nearly an hour ago, from the edge of town, and had gotten no answer. They had come here and found his car in the garage, but no one had come to the door in response to their ringing of the bell or knocking on the windows. So now they were going in, to find out what the story was. Had Griffith left for some reason, or was he hiding?

Glass shards crackled under Parker’s feet as he stepped into the dim room. No light showed anywhere in the house, and there was no sound other than that made by Parker and Mackey and Devers.

Mackey, standing beside Parker just inside the doorway, said softly, “If that son of a bitch skipped out on us—”

“We’re screwed,” Devers said.

Parker said, “He’s got no reason to run out. Not without the paintings.”

“But what if he did?” Mackey’s voice was low, but angry. “We don’t have any buyer lined up, except Griffith.”

“We’ll worry about that if we have to,” Parker said. He walked across the room and through the doorway on the other side, Mackey and Devers following him.

They found Griffith upstairs, in the tub, in the bathroom connecting with the master bedroom. The water was cold, and a dusky rose in color. The lower half of Griffith’s face was underwater, but the top half was as white as plaster. His eyes were closed, and his hair looked as though it had been glued to his scalp in handfuls.

The three of them crowded into the small room to look at him. Mackey said, irritably, “God damn it. God damn it to hell.”

Devers reached down into the water and took one of Griffith’s thumbs, and lifted his forearm up into the air. The ragged gash in his wrist, flanked by the shallower hesitation cuts, flowed coral-colored water, but no blood. Devers sounded more dismayed than angry when he said, “What did he do this for? What the hell got into him?”

“That,” Parker said, and pointed at the folded newspaper on the closed toilet lid.

Mackey picked up the paper. “Right,” he said. “Here it is.” He handed it to Parker.

This was a different newspaper, but the wording in the separate box was just about the same: part of the gang caught, with a vehicle that had carried at least a part of the stolen paintings. Galesburg was mentioned. It was the same garbled story as in the paper in Nashville, it apparently having been released just barely in time to make most afternoon papers, but not in time to do full coverage on it or check the details.

Devers and Parker looked at the paper together, and Devers said, “He thought it fell through.”

“Why the hell didn’t he wait?” Mackey was getting angrier by the second, glaring at the body as though he might push its head the rest of the way under.

Devers said, “He must have been tight for cash. We really must have strapped him when we made him put the money in savings accounts.”

“No reason to kill himself.” Mackey was sulky.

Parker said, “We search.”

Mackey raised an eyebrow at him. “For what?”

“A lot of things. For a note, in case he left a note with our names in it. For something to tell us the name of his buyer.”

“If he had one,” Devers said.

Parker said, “If he was that tight for cash, he had a way to turn those paintings over right away. At least some of them.”

Mackey said, “What about the bank accounts? We’ve got the passbooks.”

“Not a chance,” Parker said.

Devers said, “Let’s get out of here.”

The three of them moved next door to the bedroom, where Devers switched on the overhead light. Mackey said to Parker, “Why not? I’m a pretty good hand with signatures. I could do a fine Leon Griffith before the bank closes this afternoon. And I walk in with Griffith’s ID.”

Parker said, “He opened the accounts three days ago. A man comes in with fifty thousand in cash to open a savings account, they’re going to notice him at the bank. They’ll remember him three days later. You don’t look like Griffith.”

“All that money,” Mackey said. “Wasted.”

“All our work wasted, too,” Devers said. “Unless we can find a buyer.”

“And soon,” Parker said. “I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”

Devers said, “I’ll start in here.”

The three of them separated into different parts of the house, and spent the next hour searching. There was no note, and no clue to Griffith’s buyer—if he had a buyer—in any of the obvious places: his office, his bedside table. But they kept
searching anyway, as outside the day got brighter, and soon they didn’t have to turn lights on any more when they entered a room.

Parker and Mackey met near the front hall. They both had fingertips black with dust, and Mackey was even more irritable than before. “Not a goddam thing,” he said. “And where the hell else is there to look?”

“The basement.”

“That’s a goddam waste of time, and you know it.”

“We’ll do it anyway,” Parker said.

Mackey grimaced. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Just so we can say we did everything.”

“Come on.”

They walked down the hall together. Mackey said, “Lou isn’t gonna be happy when he hears about this.”

“Nobody’s happy about it,” Parker said.

Devers was coming the other way, a piece of paper in his hand. He looked excited, but in a muted and guarded way. He said, “Take a look at this.”

Parker took the paper, and he and Mackey read it together. It was lavender stationery, thick, good quality, with a purple letterhead in Edwardian script:

Jacques Renard
302 CPW

The letter was handwritten, in clear but rather overly fancy printing. It was dated a month earlier, and it read:

Leon, dear,

So lovely to hear from you. Unfortunate, of course, the news your letter brought. Dear boy, we are all of us biting the bullet these days, and praying for happier times.

Although a direct transfusion just wouldn’t be possible from these limp old veins, it might be that some sort of business arrangement might be worked out between us, if you’re interested. Should you be traveling in these woods, why not rap upon my trunk?

As ever,
Jack

Doubtfully, Mackey said, “Maybe. Sounds more like a brush-off. Like Griffith tried to tap this guy, and the guy didn’t want to be tapped, but was letting Griffith down easy.”

Parker said to Devers, “Why do you think this is it?”

“Because it was in the kitchen,” Devers said. “Hidden in a cookbook.”

Mackey said, “Hidden? Maybe he just used it for a bookmark.”

Parker said, “I saw other letters from Renard in the office.”

“That’s right,” Devers said. “In the office. Not in the kitchen.”

Mackey looked at the letter again. “That’s some address,” he said. “Three-oh-two CPW. What the hell is CPW?”

“Central Park West,” Parker said. “Renard is in New York.”

The man who opened the door was tall and flabby, an unhealthy-looking combination. He was wearing white slacks and a white peasant blouse with yellow and red decorations around the scoop neck and short sleeves. He was barefoot and standing on the balls of his feet, as though he were a ballet dancer prepared at any instant to go up on point.

Parker said, “Jacques Renard?”

The man looked at Parker and Mackey and Devers, the three of them practically filling the small foyer in front of the elevator doors, and he gave a little smile which combined sardonic humor with a touch of nervousness. “I’m not at all sure how I should answer that,” he said. “Who shall I say is calling?”

Parker said, “Friends of Leon Griffith.”

“Leon?” Wariness came into the man’s eyes. “I must say you don’t look like friends of his.”

Mackey, as usual, was made irritable by impatience. He said, “Let’s get off the dime. If you’re Renard, we want to talk about some paintings. If you aren’t him, tell him we’re here.”

The man gave Mackey a jaundiced look. “My, my,” he said, “aren’t we impulsive. Leon usually talks about paintings himself.”

Mackey said, “He couldn’t come this time.”

“Pity. I’d rather speak to friends of mine than friends of his.”

Parker said, “He’s dead. You want us to stand here in the hall and tell you about it?”

The man looked startled. “Dead?” Then fright showed on his face, and his left hand gripped the edge of the door as though he might slam it. “Did you—?”

“Suicide,” Parker said. “Slit his wrists in the bathtub. Money worries. Are you Renard or not?”

“Good God. I never thought he’d—” Releasing the door, the man stepped back a pace, saying, “Come in, come in.”

The three of them stepped into the apartment, and the man shut the door. They were in a square vestibule hung with paintings. An arched doorway on the right led to a room full of Early American furniture; beyond it, a terrace could be seen, filled with plants.

“I am Renard, of course,” the man said, turning toward them from the door. “I knew Leon was troubled about money, but—” He gestured toward the room on the right. “Won’t you go in? Do sit down.”

They all went into the room. Mackey and Devers sat down, but Parker and Renard remained on their feet. Parker said, “We were getting some paintings for Griffith. Now that he’s dead, we’d like to find the buyer he had in mind.”

“Ah, I see.” Renard smiled around at them, having gotten his composure back. “May I offer you anything to drink?”

Parker said, “The main thing is the buyer. We had the idea maybe you were him.”

Renard looked doubtful. “A buyer? I deal in art, of course, but I’m only marginally a collector.”

“The idea we have,” Parker said, “is that you and Griffith had a business deal together, where he’d get these paintings for you and maybe you’d sell them to somebody else.”

Renard smiled vaguely, as though trying to think. “That does seem unlikely,” he said. “So many intermediaries. I normally
do my purchasing myself. If you could tell me exactly what paintings we’re talking about, perhaps it would refresh my memory.”

Mackey said, “Come on, Renard, you know what we’re talking about.”

Renard lifted an eyebrow at him. “Do I, Mr.—?” He glanced smilingly at Parker. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me.”

“I’m Edward Latham,” Parker said.

“Mr. Latham.” Renard bowed his head.

Parker pointed first at Mackey, then at Devers. “That’s Mr. Morrison, and Mr. Danforth.”

“Gentlemen.” Renard smiled around at them all.

Parker said, “The paintings we’re talking about are twenty-one pictures that weren’t available until this week.”

“Well, I just don’t know.” There was some mockery now in Renard’s puzzled frown. “It really doesn’t ring any sort of bell at all.”

Parker frowned back. Renard acted as though he were lying, and enjoying doing it—but why? To get more specific about the stolen paintings could be dangerous, if Renard turned out after all not to be Griffith’s buyer. Parker believed that Renard was the one they wanted, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure, and there was no way to make himself sure other than to get the story from Renard. Why was Renard being so coy?

Devers suddenly said, “Well, maybe we made a mistake. Anyway, there’s other buyers.”

Parker knew that Devers’ idea was to push Renard into making up his mind, but he doubted it would work. He wasn’t surprised when Renard turned a bland face to Devers and said, “That
is
a fortunate thing, isn’t it? That there are always other buyers. And other sellers, as well.”

Parker said, “Maybe you weren’t the buyer Griffith had in mind, but you might be interested anyway.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Renard said. Behind all his expressions—puzzlement, friendliness, and now polite regret—lurked the same glint of mockery.

Parker said, “You’re a dealer in paintings, aren’t you? How
do you know you don’t want to buy these before you find out what they are?”

Renard gave him a sudden flat look, as though to say there’d been enough fooling around. He said, “Do you have photos of the merchandise?”

“No.”

“Reputable dealers carry photographs of the paintings they wish to sell. Are these paintings on display anywhere?”

Mackey said angrily, “You know damn well they aren’t.”

Renard turned an unfriendly face Mackey’s way. “I don’t know anything at all,” he said. “My ignorance is utterly invincible. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me—”

All at once, Parker understood what was wrong. He said, “Renard, we aren’t law.”

Renard was amused at that. “Really?” he said.

Mackey frowned at Parker. “What the hell?”

Parker told him, “Renard thinks we’re cops. He thinks we came here to trap him into talking about his deal with Griffith.”

Mackey pointed at himself in disbelief. “Me a cop? Nobody’s that stupid.”

“Perhaps I’m the one who isn’t stupid,” Renard said. “The three of you come here full of hints and suggestions, without ever saying anything out in the open. And there are three of you, one to ask the questions and two to witness my answers. Now who’s stupid?”

“You are,” Mackey told him.

“Wait a minute,” Parker said. To Renard he said, “We aren’t law. We’re the ones who hijacked the truckload of paintings.”

“Hey,” Mackey called. “Take it easy.”

Parker told him, “Renard doesn’t have any witnesses.”

“But you still do,” Renard said. “Why on earth should I believe you?”

Parker said, “Will you talk to me alone?”

Renard looked very suspicious. “I’m still not sure we have anything to talk about.”

“We’ll see.” Parker turned to the other two. “You wait downstairs. Give me ten minutes.”

“Good,” Devers said, getting to his feet.

Mackey stayed seated. “Anybody with a brain in his head could see we aren’t cops,” he said.

Devers grinned at him. “You did a pretty good imitation the other night,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Grumbling, Mackey got to his feet. He and Devers left the room, and Renard went with them, to make sure they got into the elevator. Parker strolled over to the open terrace doorway and stood looking out at Central Park far below.

Renard came back a minute later. “Why don’t we go out there?” he said. “The air is better.”

The two of them stepped out onto the brick floor of the terrace, and Renard gave Parker an arch look, saying, “You wouldn’t have a tape recorder hidden on your person, would you?”

“No.”

“Nevertheless . . .” Renard switched on a small plastic radio sitting on the window sill, and Vivaldi rippled out amid the plant leaves. Renard turned the radio up, and spoke over it: “You don’t mind if I’m cautious, do you?”

“Just let me know when you feel safe enough to talk.”

“Why don’t you stand near the radio, and I’ll stand over here.”

They shifted positions, and Parker said, “You satisfied now?”

“I think so.” Renard looked sharper and less playful now. “I want you to know,” he said, “I still think you’re a policeman.”

“I’m not. We have the paintings. You were the buyer, weren’t you?”

Renard pursed his lips. He said, “Didn’t Griffith pay you ahead of time? Are you trying to collect twice?”

“Griffith was to pay us when we delivered. He killed himself when he read about the two that were caught.”

“Premature, eh? But Leon was around looking for cash just
recently. Why did he need it beforehand if he wasn’t going to pay you till afterward?”

“We needed proof he had the money.” Parker took the three passbooks from his jacket pocket and handed them across. “Take a look.”

Renard frowningly studied the passbooks, and finally looked up with hesitant belief on his face. “Rather clever,” he said. “I take it the idea was he’d withdraw the money when you gave him the paintings.”

“Right.” Parker reached out for the passbooks.

Renard handed them over. “These are useless now, of course.”

“I know.” He put them away in his pocket again.

“The next question, naturally, is how you happened to come to me. Surely Leon didn’t mention my name.”

Out of another pocket Parker took the letter Devers had found and handed it over. “We searched Griffith’s house and found this.”

Renard read the letter as though he’d never seen it before. “Hmmmm,” he said, as though acknowledging the seriousness of something he’d been ignoring up till now. “This could be somewhat incriminating, couldn’t it?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s the original, I see.” Renard smiled brightly. “You don’t mind if I keep it.”

“No. I’m not law, like I said.”

“I must admit I’m beginning to believe you.” Renard started ripping small pieces from the letter and throwing them over the terrace railing. “You see? I’m littering in front of you.”

“All right,” Parker said. “So now let’s talk. We’ve got the paintings, and you’re the buyer.”

“Not precisely.” Renard was still ripping the letter, throwing one small piece at a time out into the air; a fitful breeze took the pieces this way and that. “I was the buyer for six of the paintings,” he said. “Only six. What Leon planned to do with the others, I really couldn’t say.”

“What were you going to pay for the six?”

Renard hesitated slightly, then said, “Fifty thousand.”

“No. You were going to pay more.”

“Was I?”

“You’ll pay
me
more.”

“I doubt it,” Renard said. Only a third of the letter remained in his hands.

Parker said, “You saw those passbooks. Griffith was going to pay us one-fifty for the whole batch. We’ll make the same deal with you.”

Renard shook his head. “Definitely not.”

“They’re worth more than twice that.”

“But I don’t want them. I only want the six.”

Parker considered pushing the issue, but something in Renard’s manner told him the man wouldn’t budge. He really didn’t want the other fifteen paintings, not at any price.

But he did want the six. Parker said, “All right, we’ll sell you the six. Which ones?”

“Have you paper and pencil?”

“Yes.” Parker took out a notebook and ballpoint pen. Renard gave him six titles, and he wrote them down, then put the notebook and pen away and said, “Sixty thousand. That’s still less than you were going to pay Griffith.”

Renard offered a faint smile. “Is it?” He shrugged. “I always have been too generous,” he said, “that’s my great failing. Very well. In honor of poor Leon’s memory, sixty thousand.”