The Jugger (9 page)

'That's right.' He shut the door and led the way into the living-room. 'Sit down.'

'I want something to drink.'

'In the kitchen.'

'Oh, a real gentleman.'

Parker turned to look at her. 'We don't have much time before Younger gets here,' he said.

'So what's that to me?'

Parker shook his head. She wanted to be snotty, and there was no reason for her to be snotty. He said, 'Whatever the drag is here, you inherit Tiftus' cut. Don't that mean anything to you?'

'How come I'm in? You kept throwing my man out, but me you let in. What is this, be kind to widows' week?'

'Your name ain't Tiftus.'

'Thank God it ain't. What do you want from me, buster? You figure to move in now my man's gone?'

'No,' Parker told her, and it was the truth. He had a woman in Miami for one thing, and for another he was working. This wasn't his usual kind of work, but it had the same smell to it, and when he was working he had no time for women. Before and after, but not during.

She cocked her head and studied him, trying to decide if he was telling the truth or not. She finally shrugged and said, 'Okay, so much for my sex appeal. You already seen me naked so now you don't want any more. If that ain't it, what do you want?'

'I want to know the game.'

'The what?'

Parker said, 'Tiftus came here looking for something. Younger's looking for it. Whoever killed Tiftus is looking for it. Everybody figures I got the inside track on where it is, but I don't.'

'Why not?'

'I don't know
what
it is.'

She opened her eyes wide and looked at him. 'You don't?'

'It has something to do with Joe Sheer, but I don't know what.'

'Who the hell is Joe Sheer?'

Parker pointed at the floor. 'You're in his house.'

'I thought that was Shardin. It was Shardin in the phone book, that's how I found the place.'

'He changed his name. The question is, did Tiftus tell you what he was looking for?'

'Sure.'

'What?'

'Money,' she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

'Yeah, but how? Cash? Jewellery? Goods of some kind?'

She shrugged. 'Beats me,' she said. 'Money is all I know. He said we were coming here to make us a hundred G's or maybe more.'

Parker said, 'From Joe Sheer? Joe Shardin?'

'You got me, buster. All I know is what I told you.'

'He never said anything about Joe.'

'Not one word. He never said anything about anybody, except you. He seen you, when we went in the lobby, and he said, "Oh oh, there's somebody else standing in line. I know that bo." And as soon as we checked in he went to see you.'

Parker shook his head. 'Go make yourself that drink,' he said.

'You're a real sport,' she said, and went on into the kitchen.

Parker went over by the window and looked out. That teen-age kid was on the porch next door again, looking in this direction. All this activity, people going in and out of a dead man's house, it was going to get all the neighbours looking after a while. This thing couldn't drag on much longer.

But he couldn't seem to learn anything. Tiftus had come here looking for a hundred thousand dollars, maybe more, but there was no way to tell what the hundred thousand looked like right now. It could be cash, or it could be jewellery. It could even be a few paintings stolen from museums, works of art, precious documents of one kind or another. A hundred thousand dollars could be in a lot of different shapes, a lot of different colours.

What about the woman? Maybe she was the one killed Tiftus herself, and maybe she knew the whole story and was keeping it to herself.

Except it hadn't been Tiftus down in that cellar, and it hadn't been the woman, and it hadn't been Younger. There was someone else involved, ready to kill, in too damn much of a hurry to kill.

It didn't feel like a professional. The way he'd got himself cornered in the cellar and the way he'd got out of it again, both of them smacked like the doings of an impulsive amateur. Same with the killing; cutting Tiftus down hadn't solved anything or proved anything. All he'd done by killing Tiftus was alert all the law for miles around, make it that much tougher on himself and everybody else.

So it was an amateur, probably somebody local. Dr. Rayborn? Or Gliffe, the undertaker? Parker didn't know enough about either, or know how much either of them knew. He'd have to talk to Younger about them.

In the meantime, there were other things to do. He turned away from the window and went out to the kitchen. The woman was there searching the cabinets. She looked startled when Parker came in, and then frightened, and then innocent. The last expression didn't work too well.

Parker said, 'I'll take care of that.'

'I was looking for swizzle sticks,' she said.

He said, 'You go sit in the living-room, keep a watch out front. When Younger shows up, you let me know and then get out the back way without him seeing you. Go on back to the hotel, and I'll get in touch with you.'

'What are you gonna do, search the place?'

'Look for swizzle sticks.'

'And I inherit, huh?'

'That's right.'

'Huh. I'll believe it when I see it.'

But she went on into the living-room, and Parker went to work.

YOUNGER came in and said, 'That Regan's a pain in the ass. I'll put a complaint in on him, I swear to Christ I will.'

'What does he think about us?' Parker asked him.

'What the hell do I care? I'm running that goddam show, not him.'

'Sure.' Parker shut the door.

Younger said, 'What did you say to that Samuels woman?'

'Who?'

'Your partner's girl-friend. Rhonda Samuels. She clammed up the second time she came in, said it was all a mistake, you looked like somebody else, she didn't mean it anyway. What did you say to her?'

'Nothing. Come on in the living-room.'

They went into the living-room, and Younger said, 'I've been thinking.'

'Yeah?'

'The guy that killed your partner, he's the same one hit you, the one that was digging in the cellar.'

That was too obvious to answer. Parker lit a cigarette and went over by the front window. The Harold Teen was gone from the next door porch.

Younger said, 'That means he didn't find it, you see that? If it was buried in the cellar and he'd found it, he would of took off with it, right? He wouldn't still be around, he wouldn't of killed your partner.'

Parker said, 'What if Regan gets to him?' Looking out the window he saw Tiftus' woman go across the front lawn to the sidewalk and walk away. She done it the dumb way, but it had worked out; Younger couldn't see her from where he was sitting.

Younger said, 'You mean, before I do? Don't worry about it, Willis, I'm still in charge. Regan can throw his weight around, I let him get away with it, but when the chips are down I'm still the one in charge. If the killer's found, he'll be turned over right away to me. I'll have him in one of my own cells, don't you worry about a thing.'

'What about that doctor, Rayborn? And Gliffe?'

Younger frowned. 'What about them?'

'They're in this. What if it's one of them, the guy that killed Tiftus?'

But Younger shook his head. 'Not them, not either of them. They don't know anything about this, Willis.'

'They're in it up to their ears. Gliffe called you when I went to see him. You called Rayborn to keep me at his place.'

'They don't know anything about the money.'

Younger seemed sure of himself, but he was always sure of himself. Parker said, 'Check them out. Find out where they were when I was clubbed in this house here and when Tiftus was killed.'

Younger shrugged. 'All right, I'll do it, but it isn't either one of them, I guarantee it.'

'Fine. Let's get to business.' Parker went over and sat down in an armchair. Now was the time to get the full story. He said, 'Where do you think it's hidden? In the house?' He already knew it wasn't; while waiting for Younger, he'd finished up the searching he'd started earlier in the day. He'd looked in the cellar and found nothing but the half-dug hole, and then he'd searched the attic, which was hot and filthy and low-ceilinged and just about empty. It looked as though Joe himself had never been up there, but Parker had gone over it anyway and found nothing but dust.

Still, he tossed the suggestion at Younger, to push the idea of his own ignorance, and Younger tossed it back: 'Not here,' he said. 'Take my word for it, Willis, that money isn't in this house. All the old bastard kept in here was a thousand bucks in the flour canister, and I already got that.'

Parker covered his surprise, and said, 'How'd you find that?'

'Don't you worry, Willis, I'm not as dumb as you think I am. Or as Joe Sheer thought I was, either. I know what's going on.'

'Yeah. So you figure there's still a hundred thousand hidden away somewhere, but not in—'

'A hundred thousand? That's low, Willis, that's so low it's funny. You don't know as much as you think you do.'

'I don't? Then how much?'

'Hidden away?' Younger sat forward on the sofa, leaning over in a confidential way, and half whispered, 'The way I figure it, it has to be at least half a million. Maybe more.'

Parker looked at him. Half a million, in cash? Joe Sheer had never had half a million bucks in his life, for one thing, and if he ever had that much dough he wouldn't have hidden it somewhere in cash. There were better things to do with money, safer and more useful.

The whole thing had to be a pipe-dream. Tiftus, Younger, the third guy whoever he was, all after the wild goose. Tiftus was stupid enough, and Younger was greedy enough, and the third guy was amateur enough.

If all this trouble was coming out of a bedtime story, it was too much.

Parker shook his head; he still couldn't believe it. He had to know for sure. He said, 'Spell it out for me, Younger. Show me how it adds up that high.'

'Well, it just figures,' Younger told him, like a man explaining his religion. 'It figures, that's all. It's bound to be anyway that much. Anyway that much.'

'Show me.'

'I will. I will.' Younger pulled a legal-size envelope from his inside coat pocket and waved it in the air, saying, 'I worked out the numbers on it, I worked it out all the way down the line.'

'Let's see.'

'Well, just look. Come on over here and look.'

Younger pulled some papers from the envelope and unfolded it. It was two sheets of large-size blank stationery, written on with pen and ink in a cramped and spidery script. Younger spread the sheets out on the coffee table and said, 'Come over here and look.'

Parker went over and sat on the sofa and looked. On the first sheet, the one Younger was pointing at, there was a long list, three items across. The first was a year, the second the name of a city, the third a number in the thousands. The list started off:

1915 Louisville      12,000
1915 Sacramento   14,500
1916 Troy, N.Y.      9,000

It went on that way, a long, long list, and down at the bottom of the page the numbers on the right had been totalled up, and the final sum written in: 1,876,000.

Except for that final number, Parker recognized the handwriting; it was Joe Sheer's. And the number at the bottom of the page, would that be Captain Younger's writing?

Younger was saying, 'See, this is Joe Sheer's history, every robbery he was ever connected with, right from when he started in 1915 right up till when he retired. See, that's the date, and that's the city where the robbery was, and that's how much he got out of it. His cut, see? And down there at the bottom, that's how much he earned over his whole lifetime, almost two million dollars. That's a hell of a lot of money, isn't it? Almost two million dollars. Fifty-seven robberies in forty-three years. Almost two million dollars.'

Parker nodded. It was what he'd thought; a fable. 'What next?' he said.

'Simple arithmetic,' Younger told him. 'Just simple figuring, that's all.'

'Show me.'

Younger's hands were covering the second sheet of paper. He said, 'Such as, how much do you figure he spent a year? He made a lot of money, right, but how much do you think he spent? He had to be careful, not be too noticeable so people would wonder where his money came from, so what do you think? Twenty-five thousand a year? Maybe not even that much.'

'Maybe more,' Parker told him.