The Jugger

Captain Younger pointed and said, You chopped up the side of your face there pretty good.'

Parker said nothing. He closed his eyes and tried to make his brain come into focus.

Captain Younger said, 'Don't pass out again. I got questions for you.'

'Don't worry.'

'Like for instance,' Captain Younger said, 'What were you digging for?'

Parker opened his eyes. 'What?'

Captain Younger pointed off to the right. 'What were you digging for, Willis? What were you trying to find?'

Parker turned his head, slowly, and looked over where the captain was pointing. There was a coal-bin over there, with wooden slat sides. There wasn't any coal in the coal-bin, because the furnace had long since been converted to oil, and the concrete floor didn't extend into the coal-bin. The coal-bin had a dirt floor, most of which had been dug into. A big mound of dirt was out on the concrete.

Captain Younger said, 'Well?'

'I didn't do that.'

'Come on, Willis, you think I'm stupid?'

Parker squinted up at him, trying to think. Younger wasn't kidding around; he really did think Parker had done that digging. So Parker's first thought, that Younger or somebody working for Younger had been down in the cellar and had slugged him, was probably wrong. There was somebody else in this, too, somebody Younger didn't know anything about.

Tiftus? Could it possibly be Tiftus? Could that little bastard have been the one down here?

Captain Younger leaned forward, his round face inches from Parker's. A thin sheen of perspiration covered his face, glinting like wet varnish. In a hoarser and quieter tone, he said, 'I know what you're looking for, Willis. I knew what you were up to the second you came to town. You found out the old bastard was dead and you figured to just come in here and have everything your own way.'

He wasn't making any sense all. Parker shook his head and said, You're talking Chinese. I'm going to stand up now.'

'Go right ahead.'

Parker reached out and grabbed the staircase banister and used it to drag himself up to standing. Captain Younger had got to his feet in the meantime and retreated, up three more steps, so he was out of Parker's reach.

Parker looked up at him and said, 'Let's go upstairs.'

'What were you digging for, Willis?'

'It's the way I exercise.' He put his hand on the banister again, and started up the steps.

Captain Younger retreated backwards up the stairs, looking affronted. 'You'll tell me, Willis,' he said. His voice was a little thrill. 'You'll tell me anything I want to know. Before I'm done with you…' He didn't finish the sentence; he'd reached the top of the stairs. He backed out of the way and glared, and Parker came on up the stairs and through the hall and into the bathroom.

The face he looked at in the mirror over the sink was a mess. The left side of it, from the jawline up into the hair above his ear, was all mottled red and purple and black, as though somebody had thrown bright-coloured mud on him. A puffiness and darkness was developing around his left eye; unless he did something about it soon, he was going to have a hell of a shiner.

Captain Younger came and stood in the doorway and said, 'That's a real job you did on yourself.'

'Call your tame doctor, I need him.'

'Sure, Willis. Just as soon as you tell me what I want to know.'

Parker was feeling impatient, and he was still rocky from having been slugged, so he said more than he would have usually. He turned to look at Captain Younger and say, 'You know everything already. You know I was digging down there without a shovel, and you know I hit myself on the side of the face. You know what I was looking for. What else do you want?'

'What was that you said? About the shovel?' Captain Younger was so startled he almost crossed the threshold and got close enough for Parker to reach out for him.

Parker said, 'Did you see a shovel down there? What do you think the guy hit me with?'

All of a sudden there was a gun in Captain Younger's hand. 'So you found it,' he said. 'You had an accomplice, and you found it, and he took off with it.'

'With what? When do you start making sense?'

'Where's he going, Willis? There's still a chance for you to get a cut. You tell me where he's going, what he looks like, what name he travels under. I can get out an alarm on him, have him picked up for questioning no matter where he goes. You can't get him, but I can.'

Parker shook his head. 'There's a hell of a lot of morons with guns,' he said. 'I talk to you after I see the doctor.'

Captain Younger seemed to consider for a minute, and then he said, 'So you're not worried about wasting time. So maybe you know where he's going.'

Parker waited. Sooner or later Younger was going to have to start making sense.

Younger motioned with the gun. 'All right, Willis,' he said. 'Let's go into the living-room. I'll call Dr. Rayborn for you. He can come right over here and take care of you, and then we'll talk. I'm not taking you down to headquarters; I'm keeping you right here, and when we're done with the doctor you'll tell me everything I want to know.'

They walked into the living-room, Parker first, and Parker settled himself in an overstuffed armchair where the light from the windows was all behind him, where Captain Younger wouldn't be able to see his face very well. Younger got on the phone and made his call and then sat down fat and smug on the sofa, the gun held casually in his lap. His brown suit was baggy and creaseless, his cowboy hat was tipped back on his head. He looked like a yokel Khrushchev.

They sat in silence a minute or two, and then Younger said, 'I know what you think. You think I'm just another hick cop. Well, that's all right, Willis, I don't mind. You go on thinking that, you think that just as long as you can. Dr. Rayborn'll be here in a little while, and he'll get you all fixed up nice and new, and then you can start telling me all about yourself and what your connection was with Joe Sheer.'

It took Parker a few seconds to realize that Captain Younger had just said Joe's real name, not the cover name he'd been buried under. Parker squinted, and saw Captain Younger sitting over there pleased and contented, smiling like the Cheshire cat.

SEVEN

'… all about yourself and what your connection was with Joe Sheer.'

That was easy. What his connection was with Joe Sheer most recently, he had come up to this rotten little town to find out if it was going to be necessary to kill Joe Sheer or not. And all about himself, that was even easier; he was a thief.

Once or twice a year, Parker was in on an institutional robbery – the robbing from organizations rather than from individuals. It wasn't out of humanity that he limited himself to organizations, it was just that organizations had more money than individuals; organizations like banks or jewellery stores or one of those firms that still paid its employees in cash.

Parker wasn't a single-o. He always worked with a pickup group gathered for that single specific job. Every man was a specialist, and Parker's specialities were two; planning and violence. Other men were specialists in opening safes or scaling walls or making up blueprints from nothing more than observation, but Parker was a specialist at planning an operation so it ran smoothly, and at stopping any outsider who might be thinking of lousing things up.