Richard Stark - The Jugger

“Fine,” said Parker.

Regan walked across the living room to the foyer. “It’s been interesting knowing you, Willis,” he said.

There was nothing to say to that. Parker held the door open. Regan paused in the doorway and said, “I suppose you’ll be leaving town now.”

“Probably.”

“Well. Good-bye, Willis.”

“Good-bye.”

Younger arrived at three o’clock on the button. Parker didn’t wait for him to get out of his Ford and come ring the bell; as soon as he saw Younger pull to a stop at the curb he picked up his suitcase and walked out of the house.

When he opened the car door Younger said, “How come the suitcase?”

“We may have to stay over. We’re getting a late start.”

“You should have told me, I’d’ve packed a bag of my own.”

Parker didn’t want that. He said, “You can borrow from me. No problem.” He tossed the suitcase onto the back seat and slid in beside Younger in front. He pulled the door shut and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right.”

Parker nodded at the Plymouth parked down the block. “You want to wake your boy on the way by?”

“What?”

“He’s been asleep most of the time the last couple of days. He must have found something steady for the nights.”

Younger frowned and said, “How long did you know about him?”

“From the time he parked there.”

“Son of a bitch.” Younger yanked at the steering wheel, started the Ford away from the curb, and they did a tight U-turn and rode away from the house and the Plymouth both. Younger said, “If you know about him, and if he was always asleep, how come you stuck around?”

“The money,” Parker told him. It was an answer Younger could understand.

Younger did. He turned and gave Parker a fat grin. “You want it as bad as I do,” he said. “As bad as I do.”

“Sure.”

“I know it.” Younger faced front again, watching the traffic. He was pleased with himself. He said, “Everything went fine with Regan. That was good, when the Samuels woman started talking about Chambers, too. You worked that real well.”

“She did it right, huh?”

“Listen, I almost believed her myself. A regular actress. The only thing, what happens when Chambers is picked up?”

“He won’t be,” Parker told him.

“You sound sure of it.”

“I am.”

They didn’t do any more talking for a while. Younger took them on a route that didn’t go through downtown and that was good. There was less chance of anyone noticing the two of them together in the car. Not that it made that much difference.

After a while, out on the three-lane road that led to Omaha, Younger started again, saying, “You’re from Miami, huh?”

“I live there sometimes.”

“That’s what I’m gonna do. Once I get my hands on that money, I’m clearing out of here. What do you think, Miami? Or would I do better out of the country, maybe go to the Riviera, or Acapulco?”

“One place is like another,” Parker told him, but he knew Younger wouldn’t be able to understand it.

He didn’t. “Not with half a million dollars,” he said.

“A quarter of a million,” Parker reminded him.

Younger reacted like a kid caught playing hooky; guilty smile and all. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s right, you’re right, Willis. I meant to say quarter of a million, that’s what I meant.”

“Sure.”

“You can trust me.”

“No. I can’t trust you, you know that. And you can’t trust me. You don’t trust me, that’s why you had the guys in the Plymouth and the Dodge.”

“You knew about them both?”

“We don’t trust each other,” Parker told him. “We can’t, there’s too much money in it. And that isn’t any good. Watching each other all the time, we’ll never get anywhere. The guy that killed Tiftus is still around some place, remember.”

“I’m getting close to him, Willis.”

“That isn’t the point.”

Younger nodded, facing straight ahead as he drove.

“I know that. You’re right, we got to be able to trust each other.”

“That’s what I say.”

“But how?” Younger turned his head and glanced at Parker, and then faced front again. “I’ll tell you the truth, Willis, you could swear on a stack of Bibles the sun was shining and I’d have to go out and look for myself. There’s no way on earth you could make me trust you.”

“There’s one way.”

“How?”

“I let you get something on me, so if I double-cross you it backfires.”

Younger squinted at the road, trying to figure it out. “I don’t get what you mean,” he said.

Parker told him, “I write a note. I say, I killed Adolph Tiftus.’ I sign my name to it. It’s all in my handwriting, so you’ve got me cold. I give you the note, and you give it to a lawyer or a friend or somebody for safekeeping. You tell him, if anything happens to you they should give the note to the law. That way, you’re safe. I don’t dare touch you.”

Younger nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “That isn’t a bad idea at all. I could trust you after that.”

“Sure.”

“We’ll do it, then,” he said. “As soon as we get back to town.”

“We can do it in Omaha, at Joe’s apartment. The sooner we do it, the better for both of us.”

Younger shrugged. “Okay, fine. I don’t care. Only thing, what about me giving you an alibi?”

“I’ll cover it in the note. Say I told you it was earlier than it was, and you didn’t have a watch on you, something like that. The whole thing’ll be worked out in the note.”

“Good. That’s a good idea.”

“For you, too,” Parker told him.

Younger looked startled. He glanced at Parker, and away. “What do you mean, me, too?”

“You write a note, too.”

“What? That I killed Tiftus? It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“No, that you killed Joseph Shardin.”

Younger now looked scared. “I didn’t kill him! What the hell are you talking about, Willis, I didn’t kill him!”

“I didn’t kill Tiftus,” Parker reminded him. “That isn’t the point. The point is to have something on you, like you’ll have on me.”

“But it don’t make any sense. How’s it gonna look?”

Parker said, “You write, I killed Joseph Shardin. I was trying to extort money from him, and I didn’t mean to kill him.’ And you sign your name. No, wait a second. Besides that, you write, ‘Doctor Rayborn knows all about it.’ Because he does, doesn’t he?”

Young glowered at the road. “If that bastard’s been opening his mouth—”

“He didn’t have to. I haven’t seen him since he fixed up my face.”

“I don’t like it,” Younger said. “I didn’t kill the old man, why should I say I did?”

Parker told him, “You’ll have my note about killing Tiftus, I’ll have your note about killing Joe. That way, we’re safe from each other.”

Younger gnawed on his lower lip, and shook his head back and forth. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I just don’t like it.”

Parker sat back in the seat and watched the flat countryside roll by. Flat farmland, not a tree in sight. You could see white farmhouses miles away across the flat fields.

Sitting at the wheel, driving down the straight road, Younger chewed his lip and tried to get used to having only a quarter of a million dollars. That was the problem, and Parker knew it. Younger had been counting on the whole pie, and now he was having to shift his thinking, having to gear down to half a pie.

Half a pie in the sky.

With the outskirts of Omaha lumping up ahead of them, Younger finally nodded. “All right,” he said. “It’s the best way.”