Richard Stark - The Jugger

Parker didn’t believe him. He spent more than twenty-five thousand a year himself, and so had Joe for most of his life. But Younger was at a different level; he’d never had twenty-five thousand dollars all to himself in one year, so he couldn’t understand what could be done with money.

Younger took his hands away from the second sheet. “All right,” he said. “Here’s the figures.”

There were more numbers on this second sheet, but they weren’t what caught Parker’s eye. Besides the numbers there was a list of names, scattered down the right side of the paper. Loomis, McKay, Parker, Little-field, Clinger... a long, long list of thirty or more names, all of them men Joe Sheer had worked with at one time or another.

But not in Joe’s handwriting. The list of names, and the figures over on the other side of the page, were all done in the same handwriting as the total on the first sheet.

Younger looked up, smiling his smug smile, tapping a finger against the list of names. “See that there? It wouldn’t surprise me none if your name’s down there. Don’t think I ever bought that Willis name.”

Parker looked at him, seeing him definitely for the first time as a dead man. “Let’s get on with it,” he said.

Younger’s smile faded. Looking at Parker, his eyes began to get a little uncertain. He lowered his head, cleared his throat, and tapped the sheet of paper. “This is it, here,” he said. “Never mind that other stuff, that doesn’t matter. This is what matters.”

Parker waited.

Tracing the numbers with his fingers, Younger said, “Sheer made one million, eight hundred seventy-six thousand dollars, right? In forty-three years. Now, we figure he spent twenty-five thousand a year, forty-three years, that’s a million and seventy-five thousand dollars. You subtract that from what he made, you got eight hundred and one thousand dollars left over. Eight hundred thousand he never spent, Willis!”

Parker nodded. It was a pretty castle Younger had in the air there.

Younger said, “Sheer showed me some bankbooks and mutual fund records and other stuff like that, just about a hundred and twenty thousand bucks worth. That’s the money he had out in the open, to explain what he was living on. But the rest he had hidden away. He had to; he couldn’t have explained it otherwise, see? A hundred and twenty thousand from eight hundred thousand, that’s six hundred and eighty thousand dollars left over! You see it, Willis? Six hundred and eighty thousand dollars! Even if he was spending like crazy the last five years, buying this house and all, there’s still got to be at least half a million left, at least half a million! And that’s a conservative estimate, Willis, a conservative estimate! Way back in 1915, 1916, he didn’t spend any twenty-five thousand a year then , not by a long shot. There may be even more than half a million left.”

Parker got to his feet. It was the way he’d thought. Tiftus had figured Joe’s goods closer to the truth, but Tiftus, too, hadn’t been able to think more sensibly than a box of dough stashed away somewhere. That was what Tiftus would do, hide it in a mattress or bury it in the ground out by the old oak tree, but Joe Sheer had more sense; he invested it, in safe stocks and good mutual funds, and let the money work for him.

Parker lit a cigarette, and walked around the room, back and forth. He said, “You talked to Joe Sheer about this, huh?”

“Sure I did. Where you think I got all these figures?” Younger picked up the two sheets of paper again and folded them to put back in the envelope. “And the names,” he said. “The figures and the names, all straight from Sheer.”

“When you told him about the half million, what did he say?”

Younger smiled, remembering. “He tried to give me a lot of crap, Willis,” he said. “Just like you tried once or twice.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d spent it all. He said the hundred and twenty thousand was all he had left.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“Come off it, Willis. Let me give you the proof. I put a little pressure on him, and he came up with the thousand bucks from the flour canister. Not only that, he told me he’d give me the whole hundred and twenty thousand, he’d write letters off and get it all back from the mutual funds and everywhere and give me the whole damn thing. Now, would he give me all that if he didn’t have a hell of a lot more stashed away somewhere else?”

Parker nodded, seeing the whole thing.

Younger said, “If he hadn’t of died, I’d of found out where the rest of it was.”

That was a surprise. It meant Younger hadn’t killed Joe after all. But Younger was still the trouble Joe had talked about in the letters, the trouble that had made Joe a stupid old man.

Everything, Joe had given Younger everything, his history, his friends, his savings, and all he’d done was make Younger want more. It was a good thing Joe died when he did, before he started giving Younger his friends’ addresses.

Younger said, “So I’m not the hick cop you thought I was, huh?”

Parker looked at him and shook his head. “No,” he said.

“There’s half a million,” Younger said. “Half a million hidden away somewhere. Isn’t there, Willis? Isn’t there?”

If it wasn’t for the Willis name, he’d kill Younger right now and clear out of here. But there was Regan to think about, and the Willis name. Until this whole mess got cleared up, the only thing to do was to play along with Younger. Grab the ball and run. He nodded and said, “There’s half a million. Sheer was lying to you.”

“I know damn well he was. And we’ll find that dough, won’t we? There’s enough for both of us, and we’ll find it.”

“Sure we will,” Parker told him.

Younger smiled, a big fat happy beaming round toothy stupid smile. “Sure we will,” he said.

Abner L. Younger was nobody’s fool. He’d been around. Thirty-seven states and fourteen foreign lands including Germany, Japan, England, and the Canal Zone. When a man spends thirty years in the United States Army, he doesn’t come out of it a hick, no sir. He comes out of it knowing what’s what.

Younger had had some sort of title in front of his name for almost as long as he could remember. At twenty, a green frightened dumb kid from the hick town of Sagamore, in Nebraska, he’d become Private Abner L. Younger, USA. That was the time of the Great Depression; there was no work for Abner’s father anywhere to be found, and if there was no work for the father there was sure as hell no work for the son. If he wanted three meals every day and a bed indoors every night, the only thing in the world for Abner to do was join the Army.

Promotion came slow both sides of the ocean in those days, and when the Second World War came along in 1941 Younger had advanced only one small step, up to a Pfc. But with the war came promotions for everybody, and soft jobs for those who’d been smart enough to be in the Army already when the war started. Younger spent his wartime service at a basic training camp, and wound up a buck sergeant when the war was over.

He had twenty years of duty behind him a few years later, and could have retired then, but he’d just got another promotion, and knew he had a good chance to make master sergeant by the time thirty years was up, which would mean a hell of a lot more pension, so he decided to stick it out the extra ten.

He made master sergeant. Almost anybody can, if he stays in the Army long enough. Then his thirty years were done, and while he was going through the discharge red tape a clerk asked him what his civilian address was going to be.