Phillips waved a greeting. “Welcome to our happy home,” he said.
Edgars said, “It looks okay, doesn’t it?”
“It’s okay,” Parker told him. But he felt exposed, these little sheds on the flat brown plain.
Phillips said, “It was a deal of work for two old men, I’ll tell you that. Me and Littlefield, we took down some walls to make garages, we transported food, we buried jugs of water under one of the sheds, we swept up, hung some curtains, planted azaeleas outside the windows, and hired a butler.”
“It looks good,” Parker said. He looked at Kerwin. “How’s the town?”
“Easy.”
“Can we do it this week?”
“Sure.”
“No problems?”
“None.”
“Of course,” Pop Phillips said, “Wycza and Salsa, here, they did help a bit. But for two old codgers, Littlefield and me, we did our share.”
“Sure you did,” Wycza told him. Wycza always seemed proud of Phillips, as though he’d invented him.
Paulus, from the corner, said, “I’m not sure we’ve got enough food.”
“We’ve got enough,” Phillips told him. “We’ve got plenty, don’t you worry.”
Littlefield stuck his head in the doorway. “Somebody coming.” He went away again.
Parker went over to a window and watched a green Ford coming closer. It stopped. Littlefield went over to talk to the driver and then pointed. The car moved again. When it went by, Parker saw it was Wiss and Elkins.
Salsa came over. “I got the walkie-talkies. Shall I explain them to you?”
“Sure.”
They went over to where the walkie-talkies were, nesting in four boxes like outsize shoeboxes. Salsa explained they were a matched set, he’d had them fixed for him. Talk into any one and the voice came out of all the other three. You couldn’t talk to just one of the other walkie-talkies, but you couldn’t talk to any walkie-talkies except these three, either. “I told the man we were a group of hunters,” he said. He smiled, and his teeth were white and even. The Latin Lover, with a tan. “I told the truth,” he said. “We are a group of hunters.”
“They look good,” Parker told him. “Good work.”
Wiss and Elkins came in then, and Wiss said to Phillips, “I need a cool place to keep the juice. Littlefield says to talk to you.”
“One second.” Phillips looked at his cards, said, “Fold,” and got to his feet. “I’ll show you. Sit in for me, Elkins.”
Elkins sat down at the table, and Wiss and Phillips left. Salsa, still standing beside Parker, said, “This Thursday?”
“Right.”
“Three days. Good. Three days before, four days after. One week is about all I will be able to take of this place.”
Parker nodded. Their original plan had been to stay in towns around the general area until the night of the raid, but they’d decided instead to gather here today, and stay until after the job was finished. This way there wouldn’t be any strangers in nearby towns for the locals to remember later.
Edgars came over and said, “We’re set, huh? This is like I told you, isn’t it?”
“It’s fine. When Phillips comes back, have him show you some place to stow the ammunition. That shed’s too hot.”
“Will do.”
Littlefield stuck his head in again. “Chambers’s coming.”
Parker followed him outside and watched. Chambers was wrestling the truck across the uneven ground, and the trailer, empty, was jogging back and forth. The cab was a Mack, painted red, and the trailer a metal-color Fruehauf, just about the biggest standard size made. Neither cab nor trailer had any sort of company name or markings visible on them.
Parker stuck his head back in the door and called, “Edgars! Where’s the road down into the ravine?”
Edgars came outside and pointed. “Down past those sheds. You see the dropoff?”
“All right.”
Chambers had pulled the truck to a stop near the shed. Parker went over and climbed up into the cab and shut the door. Chambers was grinning, his face dirty, streaked with sweat. “This is a big old bastard,” he said.
“How was the road, coming in?”
“Not too bad. Couldn’t top thirty-five, but I got no load. When we come back with the ass full of men and gold, she’ll sit just fine on that road. You got a cigarette?”
Parker gave him a cigarette and lit one for himself. Chambers said, “I got it offen Chemy. He says to tell you hello, and his brother run that woman off. That make sense to you?”
“Yeah. Edgars says the road down to the bottom’s over that way. Let’s see if this truck’ll do it.”
“If it don’t, we can sing hymns while we fall.” Chambers started the truck forward again, slowly, and after a minute Parker could see the edge. The brown earth just stopped, and there was midair. Across the way, a good distance off, the earth started again; over there he could see the sheer brown wall going downward.
“Son of a bitch,” said Chambers. “I bet that’s it there.” He pointed out the cab window.
Chambers stopped the truck, and they both got down and walked over to look at the road. Down below, eighty feet down, there was a flat brown expanse with nothing growing on it. Two streams of red water angled and wandered through it. It looked like a sunny part of Hell.
“Look at that,” said Chambers. “Red water. What do you think, maybe it’s wine.”
“There’s the road.”
They both looked at it. It ran down the side of the wall, one lane wide, a dirt road with two broad ruts running down it. It went down at a steep slope, but it was straight all the way, reaching bottom at the far end of the ravine, where the ravine sloped up somewhat. The ruts circled there and came back along the ravine floor.
“I don’t know,” said Chambers. “I don’t like the looks of it.”
“Ore trucks did it.”
“They’re built low to the ground. Low center of gravity. I got me an empty trailer on there.”
“It’s straight. Just take it slow, that’s all.”
“Come on along, Parker. It’s your idea.”
They went back and got into the cab again. Chambers released the brake and eased the truck forward to the edge and slowly down the incline. They could hear the trailer couplings banging.
“She wants to run,” said Chambers. “She wants to fly down this goddam road.”
“You’ll make it,” Parker told him. “No problem.”
“Sure.”
The truck inched down the wall to the bottom, and Chambers swung the wheel to bring it around facing the other way. He stopped it, shifted into neutral, and said, “Give me another cigarette.”
They smoked a minute in silence, Chambers wiping sweat off his face onto his sleeve, and then Parker said, “Looks like they cut into the wall over there. Let’s go over and look.”
“I shoulda got me a biddy panel truck.”
Chambers wrestled the truck forward, and they came to a part where the side of the ravine angled inward sharply from top to bottom, leaving a narrow strip of the bottom in shadow. Chambers backed and filled till he got the truck in close to the side, in the shadow, and then they both got out and looked at it. Parker said, “We want to get some black paint. That metal shines too much.”
“Brown paint. Make it blend right in. Camio-flage.”
“All right, brown.”
“Now we walk up, right?”
“Right.”
“Christ. I’d be better off working.”
“Come on.”
Chambers took a step, stopped, and said, “Rotten eggs. Smell it?”
“That’s your wine rivers. Sulphur.”
“Real homey place.”
They walked back up the road to the top and went into the shed where the others were. Grofield was there now, making everybody present. Parker looked at him and waited for him to say, “All fools in a circle.”
But what he said was, “Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!”
“This isn’t summer stock.”
“Good old Parker. This Thursday, huh?”