Ducasse said, “Thirty miles isn’t very far.”
“Yes it is,” Beaghler said. “Thirty miles on Interstate 80 isn’t very far at all, but thirty miles of forest is one hell of a long distance.”
Parker said, “But this vehicle of yours leaves tracks, doesn’t it?”
“For the first five miles we’ll be on ranger trails. We can leave the trail almost anyplace and cut off into the woods. A lot of people do that and go in a mile or two, so which set of tracks do the cops follow?”
Walheim said, “What if they bring up a helicopter?”
“We’re under the trees,” Beaghler told him. “It’s really dense in there, man, you could hide an army in that forest, you wouldn’t see a thing from the air.”
Parker said, “All right. I’ll want to look at this place, but for now let’s say it can be done. That still leaves the question of the buyer.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” Beaghler said.
Ducasse said, “You want one of us to find the buyer?”
“I’ll tell you the God’s honest truth,” Beaghler said, “I just don’t have that kind of contact. All I’ve ever done is drive.”
Which meant, Parker knew, that he’d driven exclusively small-time operations. A suburban bank, a loan office in a shopping center, places where the take is eleven thousand dollars and if they catch you they’ll put you away for just as long as if you’d been after a million.
Walheim said, “Bob, I know the same people you do.”
Parker said, “You mean it’s up to Ducasse and me.”
“I have the caper,” Beaghler said, “and I have the way to get the thing and get away. But I don’t have anybody to turn it into cash for me.”
“Until you do,” Parker said, “you don’t have anything at all.”
“I know that,’ Beaghler said. “Can you help me?”
Ducasse said, doubtfully, “I can ask around.”
“Give us a name for these statues,” Parker said. “Something a buyer will recognize. We’ll see what we can do.”
“I’ll have to ask my cousin. Can you guys stick around till tomorrow?”
Parker and Ducasse looked at one another, and Parker saw his own feelings reflected in the other man’s eyes. There was a sense of this job as being too loosely assembled, not tightly enough controlled or organized; but on the other hand, there was the need to put something together and make some money. Beaghler’s plan had some crazinesses in it, but most workable plans did.
If he’d been flush, Parker would have walked away from it right there. But he said. “I can stay over.”
Ducasse shrugged and said, “So can I. What can we lose?”
Four
The knocking at the motel-room door was soft but persistent. Parker had been asleep, but he came awake all at once, his eyes opening and staring upward in darkness that was almost total.
The faint rapping sounded again. Parker turned his head slowly, and oriented himself by the slit of light outlining the window draperies. He was in a motel room down near Fremont, the other side of Oakland from Beaghler’s suburb, and Ducasse was in the next room to the left. But there was no connecting door, and in any case, the sound came from someone outside, someone at the room entrance, which was down past the foot of the bed and to the right.
Parker waited a few seconds, until he felt sure there was no one in the room with him, and then he slipped quickly out of the bed. He put on clothing and went over to the broad window beside the door. Peering around the edge of the draperies, he saw the dim form of a woman out there, and as he watched she looked to right and to left and then knocked again, a little more loudly and demandingly than before.
Sharon.
Parker grimaced in irritation. The playlet in the woman’s head was so clear and obvious he could practically see it as though on a movie screen: “I had to come thank you for covering for me today.” “That’s all right.” “No, you were really wonderful. You just don’t know how Bob—” etc. “Come on in.” “Oh, thank you. What a lovely room! Is that bed as comfortable as it looks?”
If a thing is no good, it’s no good. There was no point sticking around until everything went absolutely to hell. Parker moved away from the window toward the door, found the light switch on the wall, and clicked it on. The tapping at the door immediately stopped.
Packing wouldn’t take long. The attache case was standing in the closet. Parker got his toilet kit from the bathroom and change of clothing out of the dresser drawer. Then he sat down on the bed again, picked up the phone, and asked the motel operator to connect him with the airport. It was while he was waiting for someone to answer that the knocking started at the door again. He also thought he heard her call something, in a voice that tried to be loud and soft at the same time.
His watch said it was two-twenty-five. After a dozen rings the phone was answered by a female voice giving the name of an airline and thanking him for calling. He said, “What’s the next flight non-stop to Newark?”
“Does it matter which airline, sir?”
“No.”
“Does it have to be Newark? There’s a flight leaving for Kennedy—”
“It has to be Newark.” That was where he’d left his car, when he’d driven down from Claire’s house.
“Yes, sir. One moment, please.”
While he waited, there was a sudden commotion outside. First a shriek of brakes, then a woman squealing, then different kinds of shouting and contention, and finally a loud angry hammering at the door.
The female voice came back to say that the next non-stop to Newark wasn’t until seven-ten. Nearly five hours away. “Thank you,” he said, and hung up, his expression disgusted.
Outside, Beaghler’s voice suddenly shouted out his name: Parker, not Latham. Parker looked over at the door. He got to his feet, walked over there, opened the door, and Beaghler came bursting in, his mouth full of words. Sharon was quivering in the background, rump against the hood of Parker’s rental car, eyes glittering in the light-spill from the open door.
Beaghler was still yelling. Parker shut the door, closed his hand into a fist, turned around, and hit Beaghler in the face. Beaghler went windmilling, his eyes wide open, and tripped over a corner of the bed to land on his butt on the floor. “Now shut up,” Parker said, and went over to the bed.
Sitting there on the floor, Beaghler looked too surprised to think. The fist had caught him on the left cheekbone, and his left eye was already beginning to blink and water.
Parker went to one knee beside the bed, and reached underneath. First he pulled out the revolver he had under there, a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson, a stubby defense gun similar to Kirwan’s, the one that hadn’t shot George Uhl. Parker switched this gun to his left hand and reached under the bed again, when Beaghler suddenly yelled, “Jesus Christ!” and threw himself face down on the floor, covering his head with his hands.
Parker ignored him. Working by feel, he released the spring-clip holster from under the bed, and then got to his feet again. He put the revolver in the holster, and both in the attache case still open on the bed.
By this time it had occurred to Beaghler he wasn’t being killed. He moved his hands away from his head, lifted his face, and blinked open-mouthed up at Parker. He watched Parker shut the attache case and snap the two catches. Then he said, “What are you doing?” All anger was out of him now, he was just baffled and curious.
Parker picked up the attache case, and paused to look down at Beaghler, who was shifting position again. He waited till Beaghler was sitting up on the floor the same as earlier, and then said, “I’m going home. I’m not interested in you or your heist. And if you ever shout my name out in a public place again, I’ll take your jaw off.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Beaghler was scrambling to his feet. “What are you going away for?”Parker turned toward the door.