The Jugger

Synopsis:

Not many men knew what Parker did for a living, because what he did was steal. But Joe Sheer, a retired safecracker — also known in the business as a jugger — knew. He knew Parker's alias, his whereabouts, his plans... and because he knew too much, he knew to keep his mouth shut. Or die. But Joe was more than ready to trade what he knew for a soft mattress, windows without bars on them, and what every man needs — his freedom. So Parker had come to Nebraska to find the old jugger... and probably murder him. But what Parker found was trouble: Joe was already six feet under; something very valuable was missing; and somebody was planning a funeral... Parker's. Too bad for somebody — that Parker wasn't an easy man to kill.

WHEN the knock came at the door, Parker was just turning to the obituary page. He put the paper down and looked around the room, and everything was clean and ordinary. He walked over and opened the door.

The little guy standing there was dressed like he was kidding around. Dark green trousers, black-and-white shoes, orange shirt with black string tie, tweed sport jacket with leather elbow patches. The fluffy corners of a lavender handkerchief peeped up from his jacket pocket. His left hand was negligently tucked into his trouser pocket, and his right hand was stuck inside his jacket like an imitation of Napoleon. He had the lined and leathery weasel face of an alky or a tout, and he was both. He was somewhere past forty, short of eighty.

He grinned, showing big bad teeth, and said, 'Parker, you're an ugly man. You're uglier with the new face, and that's a wonder.'

Parker recognized him. His name was Tiftus and he claimed to be a lock man. Parker had never worked with him because he was too unreliable.

Tiftus grinned some more and said, 'Invite me in, why don't you? We've got talk to do.'

It couldn't be coincidence; this had to be something to do with Joe Sheer. But Parker, to make sure, said, 'About what? What talk would we have?'

'Not in the hall, Parker. Where's your manners?'

'Go to hell.'

Tiftus kept on grinning. He shook his head and withdrew his right hand from his jacket far enough for Parker to see the silver sparkle of a Hi-Standard .25-calibre automatic. 'Be nice,' he said. 'We have a nice talk about old times. And old friends.'

So it was about Joe. Parker stepped back and motioned for Tiftus to come in. Smug as a peacock, Tiftus stepped over the threshold and into Parker's right hand. Parker chopped him midway between belt buckle and automatic, and Tiftus' face turned from tan leather to grey elephant skin. Parker plucked the automatic from his hand, yanked him farther into the room, and shut the door.

Tiftus was making a sound in his throat like an air-raid siren heard from far away. Parker pushed him into the room's one armchair, and went over to the window to look out. Captain Younger was still down there under his cowboy hat, leaning against the fender of his black Ford in the September sunlight. Across the way was the railroad station. Sagamore, Nebraska. The few cars going by on the main street were dusty in the sunlight.

No one else seemed to be hanging around, not outside. If Tiftus had anyone with him, they were either in the lobby downstairs or waiting for him out of sight somewhere.

Parker put the little automatic in the drawer of the writing table and looked over at Tiftus, but he was still sitting ramrod-straight in the chair, forearms clamped to his belly, the air-raid siren still keening far away in the back of his throat.

Parker took the time to finish looking at the paper. He'd already opened it to the obituaries. He looked down the list, and found it, under Joe's alias:

SHARDIN — Joseph T., Sept. 17, no living relations. Funeral Wednesday 10 a.m. Bernard Gliffe Funeral Chapel. Interment Greenlawn Cemetery.

Wednesday; today. Ten a.m. He looked at his watch, and it was after eleven now, so the funeral was probably over. It wouldn't have taken long, with nobody there who knew Joe.

He turned back to the first page and went through the paper completely, reading all the headlines, looking for some reference to the way Joe died, but there was no mention of Joe at all except the obituary notice. The notice didn't say what Joe died of.

There was a photo on page seven of Captain Abner L. Younger and three other stocky types at a Safety First Conference, figuring out how to keep the schoolchildren from being killed by bad drivers. The cowboy hat made it tough to see Younger's eyes.

Parker closed the paper finally and went over to stand in front of Tiftus, who was now breathing again. Tiftus' face had changed colour one more time, now being flat white all over except for pained brown eyes and two round red spots of colour on leathery cheeks, looking like rouge painted on there to make him look like a clown. He was breathing with his mouth open, and watching Parker with his pained eyes, but he didn't say anything. The bright clothing looked even more out of place than it had before.

Parker said, 'You want to talk. Talk.'

Tiftus moved his lips, but he didn't say anything. Then he closed his mouth, and swallowed noisily, and licked his tongue across his dry lips, and finally he did talk, saying, 'You didn't have to do that.' His voice sounded rusty. 'I almost threw up,' he said. He sounded offended.

Parker said, 'How old are you, Tiftus? A hundred? You don't know about guns, at your age? Don't ever show a gun to a man you don't want to kill. You're a moron, Tiftus. Now, what did you want to talk about?'

'Not with you, you bastard.' Parker had hurt his feelings, and he was going to pout.

Parker said, 'What did Joe die of?'

Tiftus seemed honestly surprised; so surprised, anyway, he forgot about pouting. He said, 'What the hell? How should I know?'

'Weren't you here?'

'Who, me?'

Parker shook his head, irritated. He rapped Tiftus' chest with a knuckle, and Tiftus winced. He rapped again and said, 'Don't ask questions. I ask you a question, what you do next you answer it, you don't ask another question. You ready to try again?'

'You don't have to do like this, Parker. I just come around here friendly, I figure we—'

'With a toy gun.'

'All right. All right, you're right, I apologize about that.' He was recovering at last, coming back up to be the chipper bantam again. 'I shouldn't have flashed the gun on you that way.'

'I already knew that. Tell me something I don't know.'

Tiftus spread his hands in a gesture of peace. 'We've got no reason to fight each other, Parker,' he said. 'We've never been enemies, never in our lives. There's never been any bad blood between us at all.'

'There's never been anything between us. When did you get to town here?'

'Just now. What do you think, for Christ's sake? Parker, I haven't even unpacked yet. I got off the train, I came across the street, I saw you coming into the hotel, I got your room number from the desk clerk, that's all. I got a room, one floor up, left my suitcase there and came right down to see you. Why should we work against each other?'

'Why should we work with each other?'

Tiftus was getting sure of himself again, smug again. 'Because we're both here,' he said. 'We're both after the same thing.'

'We are? What's that?'

But Tiftus smirked and waggled a finger and got coy. 'You know as well as I do, Parker. You want to find out how much I know, is that it?'

What Parker wanted to find out was what the hell Tiftus thought he was talking about. But he couldn't let Tiftus guess he didn't know, so he'd have to fake it and wait for Tiftus to let something slip.

He said, 'I don't give a damn what you know. I still don't see any reason to put in with you. I'd never work with you before this because you can't be counted on, and I'm not going to work with you now.'

'Ah, but this is different,' Tiftus said. 'This time you
can
count on me. You can count on me to be right here in this monotonous little town right down to the finish.
You're
here, and
I'm
here, and neither one of us is leaving. If we fight each other, we'll just draw attention to ourselves. If we work together, we'll be done that much sooner.'

Parker didn't bother to tell him about Captain Younger, that attention had already been drawn. Instead, he said, 'What if I told you I don't know what the hell you're talking about?'

Tiftus laughed and looked cunning and said, 'Oh, come on, Parker! What are you
doing
here, then? I suppose you're here for your health, or you just thought you'd come by for Joe's funeral, is that it?'

Parker considered. Tiftus was stupid in some ways, but clever in others; it wasn't likely he'd tell Parker more than he'd already told. But if Parker kept poking around asking more questions, Tiftus would begin to believe he really didn't know the story after all, and that would be no good.

Parker leaned forward, his left arm straight out, hand resting on the back of the armchair by Tiftus' head. Lowering his voice, he said, 'All right, Tiftus, I'll tell you the truth. I'll tell you why I'm really here.'

Tiftus cocked his head, the better to listen.

Parker clubbed him across the side of the jaw. Tiftus' head snapped over and bounced off Parker's left forearm. He sagged forward and would have fallen out of the chair, but Parker pushed him back.

Parker went through his pockets. Nothing in the jacket at all but that lavender handkerchief, which turned out to be scented. In the pocket of the orange shirt was an unopened five-pack of plastic-tipped little cigars. In the right-hand trouser pocket was a Zippo lighter inscribed FROM DW TO SF, neither set of initials having any connection with Tiftus. In the left-hand trouser pocket were fifty-seven cents in change, his hotel room key, and a rabbit's foot. In his hip pocket was his wallet, and in the wallet were a Social Security card made out to Adolph Tiftus, a Nevada driver's licence, four black-and-white photographs of horses, a photo of Tiftus himself from a coin-operated photo booth, sixty-four dollars in bills, a clipping from a
Daily Telegraph
column that mentioned his name as present at the opening of Freehold Raceway one prewar season, a small torn-off piece of adding-machine paper with two telephone numbers written on it in pencil, and an obscene photograph in colour of a Chinese couple standing up.

Nothing in pockets or wallet told him what Tiftus was doing in Sagamore, Nebraska, a useless town forty miles from Omaha. The telephone numbers were not the Sagamore exchange. There was no race track in the vicinity. Joe Sheer hadn't had anything to do with race tracks, except to hit them maybe sometimes. Joe had never been a gambler of any kind; that was why he was so good, before he retired.

Parker put everything back in Tiftus' pockets except the room key. He picked Tiftus up like a ventriloquist picking up his dummy, threw him over his shoulder, and went over to the hall door.

There was no one in sight in the hall. Parker took the time to go back across the room and get Tiftus' gun out of the dresser and stuff it in his pocket. Then he went out to the hall, locked the room door, and went down towards the red light that showed him where the staircase was.

Tiftus was all bones and leather flesh, as light as a tick. Parker carried him up the one flight and down another deserted hallway, and used Tiftus' key to open the door.

Tiftus hadn't been lying. His suitcase, closed and full, sat on the bed. A camel's hair topcoat, getting a little seedy at collar and cuffs and bottom edge, was sprawled across the armchair in a debonair manner. Tiftus had divested himself of these two things and gone right on down to Parker's room.

Parker went over and dumped Tiftus on his back on the bed. He heard a sound just as he let Tiftus go, and turned. The connecting door to the next room had opened. A woman was standing there in the doorway, wearing a white hotel robe on her left forearm and pink, puffy slippers on her feet and nothing else. She was yellow above, black below, and she'd been out in the sun for a tan while wearing a two-piece bathing suit. She was built heavy but not fat; firm flesh well padded over a big-boned frame. Her face would have been beautiful except that she had the eyes of a pickpocket and the mouth of a whore.