Stone 588 (37 page)

Mattie stopped to say a goodbye hello. She was bound for a Psychical Society seminar being held somewhere in Maryland, cheerily looking forward to a whole ten days of being around no one other than sensitives and believers. Springer and Audrey would have to fend for themselves. The fridge needed restocking, Mattie said, and she thought but wasn't certain she'd changed the linens on their bed a few days ago. "Pick the raspberries" were her last words before she shaped her mouth into a kiss and threw it at them. The wheels of the Audi spun up pebbles and dust as, with Maryland in mind, she took to Route 37.

The house was as welcoming as ever. The huge chairs in front of the fireplace and by the side windows seemed to be begging to be sat in. It was impossible to be in any room and not be within reach of a challenging book or magazine. There was a two-month stack of Manchester Guardians by the commode in the main floor bathroom. Now serving as a stop for the kitchen door was a sizable new brook-polished speckled black rock. Springer noticed. And Buddha was gone from the top of the piano. Was he in disfavor this month or gone for good to one of the consignment shops down on Route 7?

In his place was a frosted Lalique vase that contained wild phlox. Picked that morning but already dropping. Many tiny blossoms had sown pink on the black mahogany surface.

Audrey and, especially, Springer should have known by now what a loving fibber and surpriser Mattie enjoyed being. The refrigerator with many of their favorite things in it told them she'd shopped that morning, and when they went to their room, that done-over former slaughtering shed they called the boucherie, they found their bed freshly made and folded open neat and clean as a new envelope. The room was well aired and wildflowers, expecting to be appreciated, were here and there in cut glass containers. For Audrey, on her bedside table, a new supply of bookmarks: feathers blown loose by the wind or the vigorous rufflings of flickers and cardinals and jays.

Mattie's efforts, thoughtful as they were, did nothing to ease Springer's self-conscious feeling about using these surroundings to plan a burglary.

At seven o'clock Strand and Scoot drove up, in a five-year-old Mustang that Scoot had borrowed from a girlfriend who was so straight he was 95 percent sure it wasn't stolen. Strand's driver's license had expired while he was in prison, and neither he nor Scoot had any credit cards that were really their own, so it had been impossible to rent a car.

Springer showed them up to their bedrooms. Like most old New England houses, the second-floor ceilings were lower and, although there was ample clearance, Strand and Scoot moved about hunched down. They appeared out of place in their suits and white dress shirts. Their leather-heeled black shoes clacked on the bare wideboard floors.

Springer believed from the size of their satchels they couldn't have brought an adequate change of clothes, an error commonly made by those unfamiliar with country life. No doubt tomorrow he'd be digging up some proper rough wear and some mucking-around shoes for them. No problem. Springer left them seated on their respective beds, checking out the quality of the mattresses with small bounces.

A quarter hour later they came down to the kitchen, changed. Now they had on faded blue jeans, chambray shirts. Puma sneakers. What Springer hadn't known was how compactly they could fold and roll up such clothes, part of the respect for space they'd acquired while living in cells.

Audrey asked if they were hungry.

They said they'd stopped at a place called Schubie's on the way up, had a couple of great burgers and fries.

"Okay," Audrey said, "you guys go find wherever you want to sit, and I'll bring coffee. But you've got to promise not to discuss anything important until I get there. Otherwise I'll stop playing woman." Her eyes let them know she damn well meant it.

Strand and Scoot followed Springer out onto the wide screened-in back porch. The porch faced west but already the sun was gone behind the hump of Connecticut hill across the way, and much of the color, the greens especially, was gone from everything. They sat in white-painted wicker chairs that creaked and caused Scoot to regard his chair dubiously. He kept glancing down at it as though expecting it to collapse.

Actually, Scoot should have been less concerned than anyone. He was a naturally gaunt five-foot-ten, weighed at most one thirty-five. He had thick, coiling, sandy hair and the mealy pale complexion of a full-blooded Irisher. His real first name was known to the authorities and hardly anyone else. His last name was Healy.

"Where are you from?" Springer asked Scoot just to make conversation, naive to the code that under the circumstances it wasn't something to be asked.

"Kansas City," Scoot replied because it sounded knock-around.

"You live in New York now?"

"Detroit."

"Never been to Detroit."

"Me neither," Scoot said pointedly.

Strand was amused. He explained to Springer that Scoot had been one of his team of swifts; in fact, more or less its leader.

"I ain't worked except here and there for six months waiting for Strand to get out," Scoot said.

"I don't know why, but I assumed you and Strand were in Danbury together."

"I've only done time in two places," Scoot told him. "Greenhaven and Dannemora."

"Dannemora has the ring of a nice little Irish village," Audrey remarked brightly as she brought sweating glasses on a tray. "I changed our minds and made iced tea," she said and served around. She chose the chair next to Strand's to offset the possible feeling of factions.

Strand spooned six heapings of sugar into his tea and stirred it methodically. "What we ought to first get settled is the split," he said.

A surprise to Springer. Why at this stage deal with anything so far down the road? It made good sense to Audrey, however. First thing anyone starting a new job wanted to know was how much it paid.

"What would you say the goods in Townsend's vault are worth?" Strand asked Springer.

"I don't know. I suppose the amount varies substantially."

"Give or take a million," Strand prompted.

"Take," Audrey quipped.

Springer told Strand, "You're more qualified to know."

Strand agreed. He was merely plumbing Springer's expectations. "Then let's just work out what kind of cuts would be fair. It's your thing. It's up to you."

Springer wasn't ready for it. He hesitated.

"All we have to decide on is two chunks," Strand said. "I'll take care of Scoot out of mine and you and your lady ..."

"Audrey," she put in.

An apologetic nod from Strand. "... you and Audrey probably already have some kind of arrangement."

"Yeah."

"So, you tell me."

"Well, as you say, it's my thing. I brought you in."

"How about sixty-forty?" Strand suggested.

"Why?"

"Because I think even if we go at it all night that's where we'll end up."

"Who's the sixty?"

"We're the forty," Strand assured him, as though that was obvious.

Springer looked thoughtfully into his emptied glass, tilted it up, and got the melt from the ice cubes. He felt Audrey's eyes on him. "I only want one stone," he said.

Strand believed he'd misheard.

"One particular stone," said Springer.

"Danny mentioned something about that."

"The rest is yours."

Strand looked to Scoot with amused incredulity.

"You think I'm some kind of case," Springer said.

"No," Strand told him, "What I think is when it comes down to it you'll change your mind."

"What about me?" Audrey contended, "How about what I might want?"

"How much?" Strand asked her.

"You offered him sixty-forty."

"Are you saying you want sixty?"

"Maybe I'm saying 1 want to be offered sixty," Audrey said.

"I was under the impression that he was speaking for you."

"He was ... to a point."

Strand smoothed his cowlick. "I don't know about sixty. Perhaps thirty."

"Tell you what." Audrey leaned forward, elbows to knees, fingers loosely laced, a bargainer. "If you guys will promise not to be at my elbow, so to speak, not to concern yourselves with helping me up or helping me down or any of that other chivalrous shit, I might go for thirty."

Strand decided he liked her a lot. Springer was lucky.

"And," she went on, "if during this thing you don't hold back swearing, I could even knock off the thirty."

"We're to forget you're a woman?"

Audrey tossed her chin in Springer's direction. "Except him at times," she said, shamelessly forthright.

"So what would be your split?"

"One stone," she said. "Just any old stone. For a souvenir."

By then the sky was indigo to mauve to vermilion, as though the sun had rolled into a cave. The moon, a slivery scallop, was taking its turn. Darkness pressed the sides of the porch.

Springer lighted a glass oil lamp, adjusted its wick.

Instead of another round of iced tea, Scotch was accepted. Springer broke out a bottle of Usquaebach. They had it, as he suggested, neat in thick glass tumblers. They toasted to the success of the thing they were in together.

Strand, with the luxurious Scotch sliding like a molten gold wire down into him, thought how far he was from Danbury cell 328. He could, he told himself, finish the drink, say thanks and good night, and go sixty miles an hour away from this thing. He had four hundred thousand cash in a safety deposit box, along with another hundred thousand or so in loose stones. Wouldn't that much do? There was no use manipulating himself; he was in this for more than the take. He had to wonder, though, why it wasn't something that had occurred to him. Probably it had. Probably it had been crouching there in some lair of his mind for six-seven years. For some reason it was always easier to get into someone else's idea, as though that way there was partial exoneration.

Strand had a sudden catch inside at the possibility of more years in a cell. That same moment Audrey was laughing at a remark Springer had made. For Strand her laughter was catalytic. He tried to recall the sound of Patricia's laugh and couldn't. The paid-for company over the last few days had been inadequate, not even a fraction of what he'd needed.

They didn't discuss the burglary that night. The mood was wrong for it. And so was the place. Strand was too used to having snitches around, and the exposure of the porch made him uneasy.

Springer topped their drinks.

Audrey asked Scoot why he was called Scoot.

"Because I can run and still look like I'm just walking," he said. "It comes in fucking handy, believe me."

That got Scoot started. It wasn't usual for him to open up so quickly. He had a near infallible antenna when it came to people. He liked Springer and Audrey even though they were straight. Besides, they wouldn't be straight for long.

"Shit, man," Scoot said, "I've hit rich-looking houses that turned out to be so fucking poor inside, instead of me stealing from them I felt like I should leave them something."

He was on.

"I get into this apartment and I'm about to shake it down when I hear the people coming in the front door. Must have changed their minds about going to a movie or something. I jump into this closet that's there. I leave the door open a crack. One of the people notices it's open and shuts it. I can't get out. I spend the whole fucking night on the floor in this little closet. I don't sleep. I can't sleep. Not because I'm nervous but because there's no air and there's all these mothballs. I'm close to passing out. I don't know if I'm fucking dizzy or not in the dark, know what I mean? I'm close to banging on the door and taking the fall. Shit. Better than dying. I'm in fucking solitary, man. I'm in there until two o'clock the next afternoon when finally all the people leave. I bust out. I'm weak. I stick my head out a window for ten minutes to get my breath. Then, of course, I clean the place. I remember there were these nice five-carat pear-shape drops and some other stuff hidden in the most likely place, a douche bag."

Springer's watch told him quarter after ten. He glanced at Audrey.

She did a yawn and blamed it on the country air. She gathered up the glasses and carried them into the kitchen.

Strand asked Springer would it be disturbing anyone if he stayed up and watched television? Sleep was the last thing he needed.

Springer led Strand inside to the den, turned on the television set, adjusted it, and apologized for the poor reception. "By the way"—Springer tried to sound offhand—"How much do you think the goods in Townsend's vault are worth?"

Strand told him. "Counting loose stones, finished pieces, everything, I'd say ... in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty million."

The next morning, Monday morning.

As soon as the sun had dried the dew, Springer, Audrey, Strand, and Scoot went out to be in the meadow. They sat in a spot about two hundred feet from the house. The grass, waist-high and thick, was like a springy net beneath them. There was huge headed purple clover in it and spindly buttercups and seedy horsetail rye that stood around and swished approvingly.

Audrey had brought along a large sketch pad and a fistful of felt-tipped pens. And Strand's pages of Townsend information.

All morning and on into the early afternoon they went up against Townsend's many alarms and other security measures. And got nowhere. They became mired in complexities. Just when they thought they might have a way to beat one alarm, there was another to contend with. It was disheartening.

They took a break.

Audrey went into the house and made sandwiches, hunks of toasted peasant bread slathered with sweet butter and globs of a Fortnum & Mason jam called High Dumpsie Dearie. Springer would have preferred liverwurst and mustard on rye instead of this sweet plum, pear, and apple concoction. Strand, however, gobbled it up, and he and Audrey had a playful verbal battle over the extra sandwich, which they ended up dividing.

Audrey got a big purplish High Dumpsie Dearie smudge on her sketch pad. There was nothing useful on that sheet anyway, just a lot of doodles such as her and Springer's names lettered various ways and combined by design into a corporatelike logo.