Free Plunder Squad by Richard Stark Page B

point is. I told Mackey what I want and what I’ll pay for it and where it is. What more is there to talk about, for heaven’s sake?”
    “You want to talk now?”
    “No. I already said no.” He moved his hands in an agitated way. “I don’t have the time.”
    Parker shrugged. “What room should I wait in?”
    “At least get yourself a drink. Try not to look as though you’re here to repossess the furniture.”
    “All right. I’ll get a drink.”
    “Thank you,” Griffith said, being half sardonic and half grateful. He said, “Then, if you insist on a quiet room, go out that door over there and down the hall and through the second arch on your right. Then go across that room and through the door on the other side. That’s my office, you can wait in there.”
    “Good.”
    “If someone blunders onto you, pretend you’re making a long-distance call or something.”
    “All right,” Parker said.
    “Now come along and get a drink.”
    Parker went with him outside again, past the loud and sober musicians and down across the lawn toward the bar along the hedge. Midway, Griffith got dragged into somebody else’s conversation, and Parker went on alone. He arrived at a slight lull in the bar’s activity, and got himself a light gin and tonic. Mackey came wandering over to him as he turned away from the bar; they nodded to one another, and Mackey said, “You talk to him?”
    “We met,” Parker said. “We didn’t talk. You and Brenda hang around out here.”
    “Brenda’s having a big time,” Mackey said, and grinned. Hewas fond of her. “I’ll tell you a rule of human nature, Parker,” he said. “All women are social climbers.”
    There was nothing to say to that. Parker nodded again and walked back up the slope toward the patio. A man stepped in front of him, frowning slightly, and said, “Aren’t you Greene?”
    “No,” Parker said.
    “My God, that’s fantastic.” He was a little drunk, but carrying it well. “Hubert Greene?” he said, as though Parker might be the right man after all and had merely forgotten his own name. “You don’t know him? Surely people have told you you look like him.”
    “No,” Parker said.
    “Listen, come along here. Do you mind?” Taking Parker’s arm, he turned and started off, calling, “Helen! Come over here!”
    A nearby group of three women and two men now shifted to include Parker and the other man, and one of the women said, looking curiously at Parker, “What is it? What’s the matter?”
    “Who does this fellow look like?”
    Everybody looked at him. Parker stood looking back, waiting for something else to attract their attention.
    Nobody could guess who it was he was supposed to look like, and when the first man mentioned the name of Hubert Greene, it prompted a long discussion, half the group agreeing more or less and the other half in violent opposition, one of the women constantly assuring Parker, “You don’t look anything like Hubie Greene, you really don’t.” And one of the men grinned at him and said, “If you knew Hubie, you’d punch Fred right in the face.”
    The conversation finally shifted gears when one of the women said, “Why isn’t Hubie here, anyway?”
    “I suppose he isn’t a potential customer.”
    “Don’t be catty.”
    “Face it, dear, the only reason Leon invited any of us here is in the wild hope we’ll take some of his stock off his hands.”
    The man who’d thought Parker looked like Hubert Greene now got caught up in this new discussion. Finally releasing Parker’selbow, he said, “Do you really think that’s true? I thought Leon was loaded.”
    “Leon,” said one of the women, “is loaded with valuable paintings, which isn’t quite the same thing.”
    “Not the way the tax laws are changing,” one of the other men said, and a couple of people nodded grimly.
    The woman named Helen said, “Tax laws? You mean paintings aren’t a good investment any more?” She sounded worried enough to have a