Plunder Squad Read Online Free PDF Page A

have been if he’d found himself unexpectedly in some kind of sexual arena, and when the woman met Parker’s eye, there was no invitation in her glance, nothing but a bored and muted curiosity. The machinery was all there, but it wasn’t turned on; which probably meant she’d married a man stronger than herself. Away from him, things might be different, but there’d be no reason for Parker or the others in the string to ever have to find that out.
    Beaghler made the introductions, and in introducing theman at the table first he gave further demonstration of the relationship he’d established with his wife. “Parker, this is George Walheim. And that’s my wife, Sharon.”
    Parker and Sharon nodded at one another, and Parker turned his attention to Walheim, who was getting to his feet to shake hands, saying, “Good to know you. You’re from the East, aren’t you?”
    “Mostly. You do locks?”
    Walheim grinned. “I can’t get away from it, people can always tell.”
    “You look the part, George,” Beaghler said. “You look like nothing on God’s green earth but a lockman. Just like I look like a grease monkey.” And he did a simian pose, arms hanging curved at his sides. With his chest and upper arm development, he did look something like an ape. Then he straightened and said to Parker, “Beer?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “Coke, then.”
    Apparently Beaghler felt the need to behave like a host. “Fine,” Parker said.
    Beaghler turned to call to his wife, “Sharon, a Coke for Mr. Parker.”
    A very small trace of resentment showed in the woman’s eyes and in the lines at the corners of her mouth, but there was no hesitation; she got to her feet and left the living room.
    Beaghler gestured to the round table. “Come on and sit down. You have a good flight?”
    The next twenty minutes were filled with small-talk. Beaghler was sensible not to outline his story until everybody was present, but Parker had never been any good at small-talk, preferring silence when there wasn’t anything meaningful to say. Still, half of the success or failure of any job lay in the personalities of the people involved, and in this one Ducasse was the only other guy in the string that he knew at all, so it was good to get a chance to watch these two and listen to them while they were relaxed and easy.
    The impression he built up was mostly good. George Walheimlooked to be as steady and calm as a rock beside the road. At work, he would be smooth and methodical, he would get his job done, he wouldn’t let the tension of the situation work on his nerves. Bob Beaghler was less controlled, but he had a fighting-cock kind of approach to the world, tough but with good humor; he looked to be the kind of guy who was in love with his own virility. Very often, good drivers had this style, it made them both skillful and competitive. He would be faster and tougher than Walheim, but not quite as steady and reliable.
    The woman, Sharon, was a disaster area with a lid on it. She was the kind of woman a Bob Beaghler would be attracted to, simply so he could prove himself capable of domesticating her; like the kind of man who seeks work breaking horses. And he had obviously succeeded, at least while she was under his eye. The slight mulishness she showed whenever he gave her an order hinted at undercover revolution when his back was turned, but she’d obviously learned not to cross him directly.
    In the course of the talk, it came out that the Beaghlers had three children; the baby was now asleep, and the two older ones were having dinner at a friend’s house. And Bob Beaghler was an auto customizer and drag racer: “That’s where my money goes,” he said, at one point. “Smeared against the wall out at Altamont.”
    At a break in the conversation, Parker asked if either of them had ever heard of George Uhl, but they hadn’t. He didn’t bother to explain, and they didn’t ask anything. In the two weeks since Uhl had loused up the