The Fifth Quarter(2)

"We're going into the house. You first, Keenan, then Sarge, then me. Without incident, okay?"

We all trooped up the steps and into the kitchen. It was one of those germless chrome-and-tile jobs that looks like it was spit whole out of some mass-production womb in the Midwest somewhere, the work of hearty Methodist ass**les who all look like Mr. Goodwrench and smell like Cherry Blend tobacco. I doubt if it ever needed anything so vulgar as cleaning; Keenan probably just closed the doors and turned on the hidden sprinklers once a week.

I paraded them through into the living room, another treat for the eyes. A pansy decorator who never got over his crush on Ernest Hemingway had apparently done it. There was a flagstone fireplace almost as big as an elevator car, a teak buffet table with a moosehead mounted above it, and a drinks cart stashed below a gunrack loaded with premium artillery. The stereo had turned itself off.

I waved the gun at the couch. "One on each end."

They sat, Keenan on the right, Sarge on the left. The Sarge looked even bigger sitting down. An ugly, dented scar twisted its way through his slightly overgrown crewcut. I put his weight at about two-thirty, and wondered why a man with the size and physical presence of Mike Tyson owned a Volkswagen.

I grabbed an easy chair and dragged it over Keenan's quicksand-colored rug until it was in front and between them. I sat down and let the.45 rest on my thigh. Keenan stared at it like a bird stares at a snake. The Sarge, on the other hand, was staring at me like he was the snake and I was the bird. "Now what?" he asked.

"Let's talk about maps and money," I said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sarge said. "All I know is that little boys shouldn't play with guns."

"How's Cappy MacFarland these days?" I asked casually.

It didn't get jack shit from the Sarge, but Keenan popped his cork. "He knows. He knows!" The words shot out of him like bullets.

"Shut up!" the Sarge told him. "Shut up your goddam trap!"

Keenan moaned a little. This was one part of the scenario he had never imagined. I smiled. "He's right, Sarge." I said. "I know. Almost all of it."

"Who are you?"

"No one you know. A friend of Barney's."

"Barney who?" Sarge asked indifferently. "Barney Google, with the goo-goo-googly eyes?''

"He wasn't dead, Sarge. Not quite dead."

Sarge turned a slow and murderous look on Keenan. Keenan shuddered and opened his mouth. "Don't talk," Sarge said to him. "Not one f**king word. I'll snap your neck like a chicken if you do."

Keenan's mouth shut with a snap.

Sarge looked at me again. "What does almost all of it mean?"

"Everything but the fine details. I know about the armored car. The island. Cappy MacFarland. How you and Keenan and some bastard named Jagger killed Barney. And the map. I know about that."

"It wasn't the way he told you," Sarge said. "He was going to cross us."

"He couldn't cross the street," I said. "He was just a patsy who could drive."

He shrugged; it was like watching a minor earthquake. "Okay. Be as dumb as you look."

"I knew Barney had something on as early as last March. I just didn't know what. And then one night he had a gun. This gun. How did you connect with him, Sarge?"

"A mutual friend -- someone who did time with him. We needed a driver who knew eastern Maine and the Bar Harbor area. Keenan and I went to see him and laid it out for him. He liked it."

"I did time with him in the Shank," I said. "I liked him. You couldn't help but like him. He was dumb, but he was a good kid. He needed a keeper more than a partner."

"George and Lennie," Sarge sneered.

"Good to know you spent your own jail time improving what passes for your mind, sweetheart," I said. "We were thinking about a bank in Lewiston. He couldn't wait for me to finish doping it out. So now he's underground."

"Jeepers, this is really sad," Sarge said. "I'm gettin, like, all soft and mushy inside."

I picked up the gun and showed him the muzzle, and for a second or two he was the bird and it was the snake. "One more wisecrack and I'll put a bullet in your belly. Do you believe that?"

His tongue flickered in and out with startling quickness, lapped across his lower lip, and disappeared again. He nodded. Keenan was frozen. He looked like he wanted to retch but didn't quite dare.

"He told me it was big time, a big score," I resumed. "That's all I could get out of him. He took off on April third. Two days later four guys knock over the Portland-Bangor Federated truck just outside of Carmel. All three guards dead. The newspapers said the robbers ran two roadblocks in a souped-up '78 Plymouth. Barney had a '78 up on blocks, thinking about turning it into a stacker. I'm betting Keenan put up the front money for him to turn it into something a little better and a lot faster."

I looked at him. Keenan's face was the color of cheese.

"On May sixth I get a card postmarked Bar Harbor, but that doesn't mean anything -- there are dozens of little islands that channel their mail through there. A mailboat does the circuit, picks it up. The card says: 'Mom and family fine, store doing good. See you in July.' It was signed with Barney's middle name. I leased a cottage on the coast, because Barney knew that would be the deal. July comes and goes, no Barney."