He handed it over, and the florid man counted the money, slowly, his lips moving as his blunt fingers shuffled the bills. There were six twenties, and these he held out over the dashboard where the light from the street light would hit them. “There’s been some trouble with twenties lately.”
“I’m not in that business,” Parker said.
“It always pays to be careful.” The florid man finished inspecting the bills. “That’s fine. Well, you’re all set now. You got yourself a good buy.”
He opened the door and clambered down to the street. He slammed the door and waved, and went on into the garage, stuffing the bills back into the envelope. Parker fought the gearshift into second again, and started off.
He took 117 north out of Goldsboro and picked up 301 the other side of Fremont, then 301 north into Virginia. The friction tape on the hoses hadn’t been enough. The radiator itself leaked. Parker had to make his first stop at Richmond, after going one hundred and seventy miles. He had the radiator filled, and a can of sealant added. They checked the oil, and he needed a quart already.
The other side of Richmond, he stayed on 301 to bypass Washington and Baltimore. He crossed Chesapeake Bay, kept on 301 across the state line into Delaware, and had to stop short of Wilmington because the radiator had run dry again. The truck also took another quart of oil.
He’d now done three hundred and fifty some miles, and it was ten o’clock in the morning. The steady hard jouncing in the cab and the number of hours he’d gone without sleep caught up with him, and he pulled into a motel south of Wilmington. He didn’t start again until eleven o’clock that night. It was better to drive at night anyway, less likelihood of being stopped by the law.
After Wilmington, he crossed into Pennsylvania for a while, on 202, bypassing Philadelphia, then crossed into New Jersey at New Hope. He passed through Flemington at three in the morning, and just the other side of there the oil gauge told him he had trouble. He pushed fifteen miles to Somerville, but couldn’t find a gas station open, so he kept going, switching to 22, and picking up 18, to limp into New Brunswick.
He found a good-sized garage open, but they had no mediarne on duty Sunday night. He’d come on at seven o’clock, so Parker left the truck there and went away to get something to eat. He was glad to be out of the cab for a while. It had bucked and tossed him for five hundred miles, and he was a little surprised it had made it this far.
After eating, he went back and talked with the nightman at the garage. The pumps were all lit up out on the tarmac, but at five o’clock on a Monday morning there were no customers. After a while the nightman took a nap and Parker sat in the office, smoking and looking out at the truck. It was a bad truck, but it had done better than he’d expected. So maybe the job wouldn’t go completely sour after all, despite Alma and Stubbs and the bored state trooper.
When the mechanic came in at seven o’clock he looked at the truck in disgust. He got interested, though, being a professional, and worked on it till nine-thirty. By then, the boss was in, and he charged Parker thirty-seven dollars.
Parker asked for a receipt, and thanked the mechanic. The mechanic told him he had maybe five hundred miles left in the truck, and where he should drive was straight to a dealer for a trade-in, while it could still make it under its own power. “The way I got it fixed,” he said, “a dealer might think it was worth taking in and doing some work on.”
Parker gave him five for himself and told him he’d probably be back with the truck some time. Then he’d left New Brunswick on route 1, took it north to where it met 9, and turned south.
He got to the Shore Points Diner at ten after ten and pulled in to the side lot, just to the left of where the armored car usually stopped. He climbed down from the cab and went across the highway to the furniture store parking lot. Handy was there, in the Ford. Parker slipped in beside him. “That’s it. Over there. Cost me thirty-seven bucks in New Brunswick to keep it going.”
“That’s a real nice scow,” Handy said.
“Take it up to Newark and stash it on a side street tonight.”
“Right.”
Parker handed over the ignition key. “And take some paint and fix up the doors, will you? Put some kind of brand name on them.”
“Will do.” Handy looked down to the right. “Here she comes.”
They watched the red armored car come down the highway, slow, and turn at the diner. It rolled up the blacktop to the gravel at the side and slid into its usual parking slot. Parker and Handy watched it disappear behind the truck, and Handy grinned. “Right out of sight.”
Parker nodded. “The job’s going to work out.”
5
The man who had the guns was named Fox. Maurice Fox, it said on the window of the store, Plumbing Equipment. Inside, the store was long and narrow and dark. There were dusty toilets in one row, porcelain sinks in another row, and bins full of pipe joints and faucets along one wall.
A short balding man in a rumpled gray suit and bent glasses came down the aisle between the rows of toilets and sinks. “Yes?”
“I’m Flynn. You’ve got three pipes for me.”
“Yes. I didn’t like holding them so long.” He blinked steadily behind the glasses, and his eyes looked watery. “All the way from Thursday, and now Tuesday already.”
“I couldn’t make it before.”
“It’s bad business.” He shook his head, eyes still blinking steadily. “Come along.”
He turned and led the way down the aisle, Parker behind him. They went through a doorway to the back and down a flight of stairs with just steps and no risers to a plaster-walled basement. Fox clicked a light switch on a beam, and to the left a bare bulb came on.
Fox led the way to a wooden partition with a heavy wooden door. He took a ring full of keys from his pocket, selected the one he wanted, and unlocked the door. They went inside, and Fox lit another bare bulb. He closed the door after Parker.
The room was small and made smaller by the cases lining it on all four sides. The floor was wooden slats over concrete, except for one square in the middle, where there was no wood over the drain. Along the back wall the crates were on shelves, and Fox went over to them and reached into one of the crates and took out a Sauer 7.65-mm. automatic. He handed this to Parker, reached in again, and brought out a Police Positive .38 revolver. On the third dip, he came up with a short-barreled Smith & Wesson .32 revolver.
Parker looked them over. The Sauer still had its serial number, but it had been filed off the other two. He looked closer at the .32 and saw that acid had been used, after the filing.
Fox rummaged in another crate, and came up with two small boxes marked “Nails.” One also had an X on it. “The one with the X is .32 calibre. The other one is .38.”
“All right.”
For the last time, Fox felt around in one of the crates, and this time he brought out two clips for the Sauer. “You’ll want to check them?”
“Right.”
Fox went to the middle of the room, got down on his knees, and lifted up the drain plate. Underneath was loose dirt. “In here,” he said, getting to his feet again. “Don’t worry about the sound. The boxes keep it all in. It will be very loud, because the room’s so small, but outside no one will hear a thing.”
Parker put the two revolvers and the boxes of ammunition on top of a closed wooden crate, and slipped one of the clips into the Sauer. He stood wide-legged and aimed straight down into the drain. He switched the safety off, and fired. There was a tremendous noise, ricocheting off the walls and cases. Parker clicked the safety back on, removed the clip, and sighted through the barrel at the light bulb. The gun was in good condition.