Free Plunder Squad by Richard Stark Page A

self-absorbed, like apprentices learning to build ship models in bottles.
    The music was very much louder out here, drowning all other sounds. Parker had to lean close to Mackey’s ear and shout, “You know what he looks like, you lead the way.”
    Mackey nodded, and gazed out over the lawn. About forty people, the men in shirt sleeves and the women in expensively casual day wear, were scattered across the lawn between the house and the bamboo hedge. Down at the far end, a long white-cloth-covered table had been set up in front of the hedge, functioning as a bar at one end and a buffet at the other, with white-uniformed and black-bow-tied men efficiently at work behind it. Although here on the patio nothing could be heard but the music, the guests out on the lawn seemed to be talking to one another.
    Mackey scanned the crowd, and then turned back to Parker and shrugged, with an eyebrow-raising movement; he didn’t see Griffith out there. He made a stirring motion with one downpointing finger; he would circulate around the lawn and look for Griffith. Parker nodded and jabbed a thumb at the French doors; he would wait inside, away from the worst of the noise.
    When he went back in, he shut the doors behind him, which cut the volume of the music in half. He wandered around the room looking at the paintings; they were all recently done, but traditional in style, naturalistic. No abstractions here, though he had seen some in other rooms he’d passed while coming through the house. He stopped in front of one painting that showed a civilized cocktail party in a quietly wealthy room. People stood in small groups across the surface of the painting, chatting with one another. There weren’t too many guests for the size of the room, and those present were all middle-aged, well-dressed, obviously well-bred. The quiet sounds of their conversations couldalmost be heard emanating from the painting, blotting out the rock music from the patio.
    “That is a contrast, isn’t it?”
    Parker turned his head, and standing beside him was a fairly short man in a white Norfolk jacket, pale blue turtleneck shirt, and dark blue slacks. The drink he was holding was tall, carbonated, iced, and transparent. There was something a little too graceful about the way he was standing. He had black hair, thinning on top and worn long over his collar in back. Between his wide mouth and narrow nose ran a thin line of mustache.
    Parker looked back at the painting. A contrast. “Yes,” he said.
    “I mean, with that crowd out there.”
    Parker said nothing.
    “Oddly enough,” the short man said, as though the fact were for some reason sad, “two of the guests depicted in that painting are outside on the lawn right now.”
    “Is that right?”
    “I don’t believe I know you,” the man said.
    Parker shrugged. “You don’t.” He kept on looking at the painting.
    “But that isn’t acceptable. I have to know everyone here, that’s one of the rules of the house.”
    Now Parker looked at him. “You mean you’re Griffith?”
    Griffith’s expression suddenly changed again, became almost petulant. “Oh, of course,” he said. “You must be Mackey’s friend, the one who absolutely had to have a face-to-face.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, I really can’t talk now. You may not believe it, but this little affair isn’t quite off the ground yet. I have to keep breathing on the guests till they come to life. Where’s Mackey?”
    “Outside.”
    “Why don’t you join him? I’ll have time to chat with you soon.”
    “I’ll wait in a quiet room in here,” Parker said.
    Griffith frowned, disapproving and not liking to have to explainhis orders. “You’re supposed to behave,” he said, “as though you’re here for social reasons only.”
    “Mackey brought his woman. I didn’t. I’ll wait in here, in a quiet room.”
    Griffith gave an irritable shrug. “Oh, all right, suit yourself. I don’t like this anyway, I don’t see what the