The armored car pulled in to the diner and stopped in its normal place, next to the good truck. The driver got out and went to the back and let the guard out. They locked the door and went into the diner. As they were going through the door, Parker showed up in the bad truck and slid it into the slot to the left of the armored car. He got down from the cab and went into the diner. He sat on the stool nearest the cash register, and ordered coffee.
Skimm came north again, passing the diner to make sure the bad truck blotted out the view of the armored car, and kept going north. At the junction with 35 he did the loop-the-loop and wound up going south again. He stopped just shy of the entrance to the diner parking lot, and got out his roadmap. He left the engine running.
Handy came north, took the first crossover, went by Skimm in the Dodge, and drove around behind the diner. He already had the blue pants on, and now he changed to the blue shirt and put on a tie. He strapped on the belt and holster and slid the .38 in the holster. He put on the sunglasses, but held the garrison cap in his hand.
Inside the diner, Parker saw the driver and the guard getting ready to leave. He was at the register already, so he paid before they did, and went outside. When they came out, they saw him kicking at the right front tire of the cab, standing between the cab and the armored car. Then he walked back and looked at the double rear tires of the cab on the same side, and shook his head. When the driver and the guard were almost to him, he moved again, and studied the double tires at the back of the trailer. He shook his head angrily and said, “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
He said it loud, and the driver and the guard looked at him and grinned.
When they had disappeared from Skimm’s sight behind the bad truck, he had put the roadmap down and shifted the Dodge into first. He drove slowly into the parking lot and stopped facing the woods behind the diner, his left front fender next to the rear of the good truck and his left rear fender next to the rear of the bad truck.
When Handy heard Parker say, “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he put his garrison cap on and walked around the side of the diner toward the good truck.
The driver took out a key and turned it in the back door of the armored car. Then he stepped back and the guard took out another key and finished the job of unlocking the door. He pulled the door open as Parker came walking forward, and when he started up into the back of the armored car Parker clipped him with the butt of the Sauer.
Just then Handy came around the back of the good truck, with the .38 in his right hand and a small pocketknife in his left. He put the point of the gun in the driver’s back and pricked the side of his neck with the knife.
“Hold very still,” he said, low and flat. The gun was the real threat, but the knife was psychological. Most people were more afraid of a knife than a gun.
The driver shivered, and his eyes widened. Parker said to him, talking low, “Go on up and have the other guard open the door for you.”
Handy moved his left hand down and pricked the knife gently into the driver’s hip. “One wrong move,” he said, “and I castrate you.”
Skimm got out of the Dodge, bringing the rope and gags. He and Parker tied and gagged the unconscious guard, and carried him to the side of the good truck. Parker opened the door, and they tossed the guard inside. Then he went around to the other side of the armored car to help Handy.
The guard in the cab of the armored car saw the driver, and caught a glimpse of another uniformed figure behind him. He opened the door on the driver’s side, and saw a flash of reflected light as the driver went down. Then Handy had the .38 on him. “Come on out!”
The guard hesitated. He could see the driver lying on his face on the gravel. He swallowed, and came carefully out of the armored car.
Parker sapped him as he stepped down. He and Skimm tied and gagged the driver and the second guard, while Handy started moving the sacks and boxes from the armored car to the Dodge. Parker and Skimm tossed the trussed two into the good truck with the first guard, and then Parker locked the door while Skimm went to help Handy. When the door was locked, Parker helped finish the transfer from the armored car to the Dodge.
Inside the diner, Alma walked across Benjy’s wet floor while Benjy glared at her, and looked out the window. She saw they were finishing, so she went through the kitchen and out the back door, slipping a paring knife into her purse.
Skimm got behind the wheel of the Dodge, and Parker and Handy walked back around to the Ford. The job had taken three minutes. Alma came out as Handy was changing his shirt, and said, “See you at the farmhouse.”
“Right,” said Handy. Parker was behind the wheel of the Ford and didn’t say anything.
The Dodge came around the corner of the building, its rear end low because of the weight in it now, and stopped. Skimm slid over, and Alma got behind the wheel. The Dodge shot off along the dirt road.
Handy finished changing his shirt and came around to get into the Ford on the passenger’s side. He tossed the blue shirt and the belt and holster and the garrison cap on the floor behind the front seat. Parker started the Ford and they went around the diner and paused near the two trucks and the armored car.
Traffic went by, headed south, and then there was no traffic. When the traffic started again, Parker joined it and they went over the course with no trouble, catching all the lights. They went across the bridge and paid the fifty cent toll at the Mission-style toll booth and went around the circle to 440. They felt easier now, because they were in a different state, but Parker still drove fast. There was a car far ahead of them, nothing behind them. One car went by in the other direction, toward the bridge.
When they got to the spot they’d chosen for the trap, Parker turned left through the gap in the mall. He shifted into neutral, put on the emergency brake, and got out of the car. In the trunk were sunglasses and a red baseball cap and a red flag and a large metal sign that said, “Detour,” in black letters on a yellow background.
Parker put on the sunglasses and the baseball cap, and stuck the red flag in his back pocket. He looked both ways, but there was no traffic, so he crossed the road and found a dead branch on the other side. He used that to prop up the detour sign in the righthand lane, just beyond the dead-end turnoff. In the meantime, Handy turned the Ford around so it was backed into the bushes and facing across the road. When Alma took the detour, he’d drive across and block her exit.
Parker lit a cigarette and waited. A pale green Volkswagen came along, and slowed when it saw Parker and the detour sign. Parker took out the red flag and motioned for the Volkswagen to go by in the passing lane. The Volkswagen did, with a young man driving and the girl beside him wearing a yellow bandana and reflecting sunglasses. She looked at Parker as they went by, and then twisted around to look at him some more through the rear window. “He looked tough.”
The young man looked at her, but because of the reflecting sunglasses he saw his own face instead of her eyes. But then she licked her upper lip, the top of her tongue moist and trembling, and he said, “Ah. A ditch-digger.”
Parker finished smoking his cigarette, and looked across at Handy. Handy was hunched at the wheel, the position of his body looking nervous. Parker began to wonder if Skimm had been in on the cross. If he had been, she wouldn’t be coming along this road. But it didn’t make sense that Skimm had been in it, it didn’t figure that way at all.
Another car came into sight way down the road and Parker stood up straighter. But when it came closer it turned out to be an old black Packard with a prim old woman at the wheel, and Parker motioned for her to go by in the passing lane. She stopped instead, and leaned out the righthand window. “What seems to be the trouble, young man?”