THIRTY

The following Saturday Little called me and said that Perkins had agreed to do the job, and that he wanted to meet me that coming Tuesday at a place called the City Grill in Sweetwater, a small town about two hours to the north. I was on time and so was Perkins. It was well before the lunch hour, and the place was almost deserted. Perkins knew the owner, and the man let us use a small private dining room. We both asked for coffee.

“Glad to have you aboard,” I said.

“I hope I’m glad to be here,” he said with a twisted grin. “I’ve never been mixed up in anything like this. I’ve always been more ordinary. I won’t even begin to ask you who all is involved with this thing.…”

“That’s good, because I can’t tell you. I can say that my associates were informed of your service in the first war, and they appreciate it and respect you for it.”

He looked like he didn’t know how to respond. Finally he managed, “Thanks,” and reached up to scratch his head.

“When do you want to look things over?” I asked.

“That’s already been done,” he replied.

“You didn’t go down there yourself, did you?” I asked. “I mean if you’re going to testify later we don’t want anybody to remember seeing you—”

He held up his hand to silence me. Then he smiled. “Relax. My wife came down with me to case the job for us. She’s asleep back at the hotel right now.”

“Your wife?” I asked, dumfounded.

His smile got bigger. “She works in an architect’s office up in Kansas City, and she’s damn near got a photographic memory. I trust her more than I trust myself on casing a job. A woman’s attention to detail and all that…”

I shook my head in wonder. “That’s a new one on me.”

“She drew me a quick floor plan, and let me tell you, that whole damn place is a crackerbox deal.”

“Okay,” I said. “It sounds good. You go in at eleven-thirty on the night of the twenty-ninth. Now, the timing of this is very important.…”

“How come?”

I gave him a serene smile. “Because if everything goes right the cops are going to be busy elsewhere.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“Don’t worry. You don’t have to get it. You’ll find out all about it later. It’s just a profitable little diversion I have planned, and it should make your job that much safer. Now, back to your end … You should be in and out in an hour … right?”

“That’s about it,” he replied. “Maybe a little quicker than that.”

“Afterward you come directly here to Sweetwater and check into the Alamo Plaza Tourist Court—”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Why not check in earlier that afternoon before the job to save time?”

“Good thinking,” I said. “So come back to your room and wait. At four o’clock, two guys will come to the door.” I reached in my inside coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Here are their pictures so you’ll know it’s them,” I told him. “They’ll have the exchange money, and from the time they knock on that door you’re home free.”

“Not really,” he said. “I’ve still got to get that money back to Kansas City. A man’s always vulnerable on the road with the take from a robbery.”

“No, it’s going to be different this time,” I said with a grin. “You let your partner take your car and go his own route back north. Then you and my men go in their car, and they’ll take you and the money on back to Kansas City.”

“Okay…” he said dubiously.

“Now, as soon as you get in your room at the motel I want you to separate off about ninety-two or ninety-three thousand dollars and put it in a separate satchel. That’s the money you’re going to leave behind in the room. Be sure to leave the money just the way you got it. It’ll be replaced with what I’m sending with the guys who are coming up. You can count it if you want, but—”

“Shit, your men will have me in a position to kill me and take it all. Why expect them to cheat me for only part of it? This is either going to work or it’s not. I’m either going to walk away from it or I’m not. I figure it’s worth the risk.”

I nodded in understanding. “Please try to feel as secure as you can. The amount of money we’re talking about here is negligible to me since I got involved in the oil business, so I have no reason to be setting you up.”

“I really don’t think you do, either,” he said.

“The ninety-odd thousand will have to be left in the room,” I said. “You do understand that, right?”

“Oh, sure,” he replied. “It will be.”

“Okay. You’ll all leave the room around breakfasttime. The guys I’m sending will know when it’s time to go. You just do what they tell you to do, and everything will fall into place.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just one other point about this business of testifying later on … How would you like a second witness?”

“That depends,” I said. “How good would he be?”

“As good as me, and he could back up my story.”

“Tell me about him,” I said.

He gave a dismissive shrug. “Nothing to tell. He’s my partner on the job, Charlie Needam. I’ve known him all my life, and we’ve pulled some pretty big jobs together. He won’t stool on anybody he works with, but this is different and he’ll go for it. He’s smart, he can hold it together on the stand. But it’ll cost you another fifty thousand.”

I thought quickly. A second witness was infinitely better than just one. If he could pull it off. But I didn’t know if Tobe could pull it off either, though I had no reason to think he couldn’t. For all I knew, he might be the greatest actor since Barrymore. Or he might be a bumbling fool on the stand. It was just a chance I had to take. “Sure,” I said. “You each get the first half after you talk to Crowder, then the other half after the trial.”

“Fine. You won’t be disappointed in the guy. See, I ain’t done a job since I got out of the pen ten years ago. I mean I been hewing the straight and narrow right down the line. Charlie ain’t been quite so clean, but he ain’t got no arrests in the last few years either. So…”

“So on paper you both look pretty good as witnesses.”

“Right.”

“Okay, the two of you go over the story I cooked up and make sure you’ve got it down right. Don’t make every little point agree, though—”

He grinned and held up his hand to silence me. “Please. Me and Charlie know how to run out a story.”

A few minutes later we walked out to our cars and shook hands in the bright sunlight. “The only thing that still worries me,” he said, “is that long trip back home with the money. That’s when you’re always the most vulnerable.”

“I told you that you can relax from the moment my two men get to the door. Believe it.”

He shook his head in doubt. “I don’t see how.”

I smiled at him and put my hand on his shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze. “Because the guys you’re going to be traveling with will have documents identifying them as high-level employees of the United States government.”

“Aw, man … That’s real dangerous,” he said. “Using bogus government IDs is hard to pull off.”

“Tobe, these papers aren’t bogus,” I said, looking him right in the eye. “They’ll be the real thing, and so will the guys carrying them.”