The Jugger (10 page)

But Younger shook his head, sure of his ground. 'On what?' he wanted to know. 'How the hell can you spend more than twenty-five thousand dollars a year? it's impossible. Unless you're a millionaire already, everybody knows it and you got nothing to worry about. But somebody like Joe Sheer? He wouldn't dare spend too much. Twenty-five thousand a year is figuring
high
. Willis, believe me.'

Parker didn't believe him. He spent more than twenty-five thousand a year himself, and so had Joe for most of his life. But Younger was at a different level; he'd never had twenty-five thousand dollars all to himself in one year, so he couldn't understand what could be done with money.

Younger took his hands away from the second sheet. 'All right,' he said. 'Here's the figures.' There were more numbers on this second sheet, but they weren't what caught Parker's eye. Besides the numbers there was a list of names, scattered down the right side of the paper. Loomis, McKay, Parker, Littlefield, Clinger… a long, long list of thirty or more names, all of them men Joe Sheer had worked with at one time or another.

But not in Joe's handwriting. The list of names, and the figures over on the other side of the page, were all done in the same handwriting as the total on the first sheet.

Younger looked up, smiling his smug smile, tapping a finger against the list of names. 'See that there? It wouldn't surprise me none if your name's down there. Don't think I ever bought that Willis name.'

Parker looked at him, seeing him definitely for the first time as a dead man. 'Let's get on with it,' he said.

Younger's smile faded. Looking at Parker, his eyes began to get a little uncertain. He lowered his head, cleared his throat, and tapped the sheet of paper. 'This is it, here,' he said. 'Never mind that other stuff, that doesn't matter. This is what matters.'

Parker waited.

Tracing the numbers with his fingers, Younger said, 'Sheer made one million, eight hundred seventy-six thousand dollars, right? In forty-three years. Now, we figure he spent twenty-five thousand a year, forty-three years, that a million and seventy-five thousand dollars. You subtract that from what he made, you got eight hundred and one thousand dollars left over. Eight hundred thousand he never spent, Willis!'

Parker nodded. It was a pretty castle Younger had in the air there.

Younger said, 'Sheer showed me some bank-books and mutual fund records and other stuff like that, just about a hundred and twenty thousand bucks worth. That's the money he had out in the open, to explain what he was living on. But the rest he had hidden away. He had to; he couldn't have explained it otherwise, see? A hundred and twenty thousand from eight hundred thousand, that's six hundred and eighty thousand dollars left over! You see it, Willis? Six hundred and eighty thousand dollars! Even if he was spending like crazy the last five years, buying this house and all, there's still got to be at
least
half a million left, at
least
half a million! And that's a conservative estimate, Willis, a conservative estimate! Way back in 1915, 1916, he didn't spend any twenty-five thousand a year
then
, not by a long shot. There may be even more than half a million left.'

Parker got to his feet. It was the way he'd thought. Tiftus had figured Joe's goods closer to the truth, but Tiftus, too, hadn't been able to think more sensibly than a box of dough stashed away somewhere. That was what Tiftus would do, hide it in a mattress or bury it in the ground out by the old oak tree, but Joe Sheer had more sense; he invested it, in safe stocks and good mutual funds, and let the money work for him.

Parker lit a cigarette, and walked around the room, back and forth. He said, 'You talked to Joe Sheer about this, huh?'

'Sure I did. Where you think I got all these figures?' Younger picked up the two sheets of paper again and folded them to put back in the envelope. 'And the names,' he said. 'The figures and the names, all straight from Sheer.'

'When you told him about the half million, what did he say?'

Younger smiled, remembering. 'He tried to give me a lot of crap, Willis,' he said. 'Just like you tried once or twice.'

'What did he say?'

'He said he'd spent it all. He said the hundred and twenty thousand was all he had left.'

'But you don't think so.'

'Come off it, Willis. Let me give you the proof. I put a little pressure on him, and he came up with the thousand bucks from the flour canister. Not only that, he told me he'd give me the whole hundred and twenty thousand, he'd write letters off and get it all back from the mutual funds and everywhere and give me the whole damn thing. Now, would he give me all that if he didn't have a hell of a lot more stashed away somewhere else?'

Parker nodded, seeing the whole thing. Younger said, 'If he hadn't of died, I'd of found out where the rest of it was.'

That was a surprise. It meant Younger hadn't killed Joe after all. But Younger was still the trouble Joe had talked about in the letters, the trouble that had made Joe a stupid old man.

Everything, Joe had given Younger everything, his history, his friends, his savings, and all he'd done was make Younger want more. It was a good thing Joe died when he did, before he started giving Younger his friends' addresses.

Younger said, 'So I'm not the hick cop you thought I was, huh?'

Parker looked at him and shook his head. 'No,' he said.

'There's half a million,' Younger said. 'Half a million hidden away somewhere. Isn't there, Willis? Isn't there?'

If it wasn't for the Willis name, he'd kill Younger right now and clear out of here. But there was Regan to think about, and the Willis name. Until this whole mess got cleared up, the only thing to do was to play along with Younger. Grab the ball and run. He nodded and said, 'There's half a million. Sheer was lying to you.'

'I know damn well he was. And we'll find that dough, won't we? There's enough for both of us, and we'll find it.'

'Sure we will,' Parker told him.

Younger smiled, a big fat happy beaming round toothy stupid smile. 'Sure we will,' he said.

ABNER L. YOUNGER was nobody's fool. He'd been around. Thirty-seven states and fourteen foreign lands including Germany, Japan, England, and the Canal Zone. When a man spends thirty years in the United States Army, he doesn't come out of it a hick, no sir. He comes out of it knowing what's what.

Younger had had some sort of title in front of his name for almost as long as he could remember. At twenty, a green frightened dumb kid from the hick town of Sagamore, in Nebraska, he'd become Private Abner L. Younger, USA. That was the time of the Great Depression; there was no work for Abner's father anywhere to be found, and if there was no work for the father there was sure as hell no work for the son. If he wanted three meals every day and a bed indoors every night, the only thing in the world for Abner to do was join the Army.

Promotion came slow both sides of the ocean in those days, and when the Second World War came along in 1941 Younger had advanced only one small step, up to a Pfc. But with the war came promotions for everybody, and soft jobs for those who'd been smart enough to be in the Army already when the war started. Younger spent his wartime service at a basic training camp, and wound up a buck sergeant when the war was over.

He had twenty years of duty behind him a few years later, and could have retired then, but he'd just got another promotion, and knew he had a good chance to make master sergeant by the time thirty years was up, which would mean a hell of a lot more pension, so he decided to stick it out the extra ten.

He made master sergeant. Almost anybody can, if he stays in the Army long enough. Then his thirty years were done, and while he was going through the discharge red tape a clerk asked him what his civilian address was going to be.

And he didn't know. Neither of his parents was still alive, and he'd been out of touch with any other relatives for decades. He finally told the clerk General Delivery, Sagamore, Nebraska, as a temporary address, because he couldn't think of anything else. He'd forward a permanent address when he had one.

That was the only reason he went back to Sagamore, to pick up his pension cheques. But once there, there was no reason to leave, nowhere else to go, no one anywhere in the world that he wanted to see or that wanted to see him. So he stayed on. He joined the local American Legion Post, and through that got to know some of the better element in town, and settled down to enjoy his retirement.

But he was only fifty. He'd had something to do all his life, doning a uniform every day and going to a specific place and having specific things to do. Time hung heavy, now he was retired. He had no hobbies, and his pension wasn't lavish. He found he was lying around the house late in the mornings, and going too often to the movies, and spending too much time in front of the television set either at home or down at the bar in the cellar of the American Legion Post. He was drinking too much beer, eating badly, getting too little exercise. He was putting on weight, and his digestion was going bad.

Then the police job came along. He heard talk about it down at the American Legion, about old Captain Greene retiring and wonder who'll take over, there's no men with good leadership qualities on the force at all. The pay's too low to attract first-rate men, somebody said, and that led straight into the old argument about property taxes, but Younger had heard enough.

So now he had the highest rank of all. Not Private Younger any more, not Pfc Younger, not even Master Sergeant Younger.
Captain
Younger. Yes, and it could just as well be General Younger, because he was the highest-ranking man on the force. Seventeen men, and he was their captain.

At first he wore the uniform all the time, dark blue with modified riding pants, and boots and a garrison cap. But the weight he'd put on never came off again, and he had to admit he didn't look good in the uniform. Besides, R.H.I.P. Rank Has Its Privileges. As captain, he could wear civvies if he wanted. As captain, he was the only man on the force who could wear civvies. So he started wearing civvies.

But that made a problem. In the uniform, he was declaring his rank for the whole world to see, but in civvies what was he but just another stocky civilian? He thought about it and thought about it, and finally settled on the cowboy hat. A good ten-gallon hat would set him apart, announce to the world that here was a man who held
some
rank, that was for sure. A cowboy hat and a good suit, the combination would show he was something special. Besides, he thought he looked good dressed that way.

At fifty-one, he'd reached the peak. Captain of the Police department, a respected citizen, secretary of the American Legion Post; he was content, he had everything he wanted.

And then he was shown the possibility of wanting a lot more.

It happened almost by accident. In his first months on the force, Younger was working all the time. He revamped the files, worked out new shift rotation for the men, started correspondence with the county sheriff's office and various state police offices, and decided to familiarize himself with everyone in town. He wanted to be able to know, just from looking at a man, if he was local or a stranger. If he was local, Younger wanted to know everything there was to know about him; what he did for a living, if he was married or not, if he owned his own home, if he'd ever been in trouble.

Sagamore was a small town, and a dull one. Troublemakers and other lively types left early, and didn't come back. As a result, making up a mental card-file on the town wasn't very hard, or very interesting, except for one man, one citizen who stood out from all the rest.

Joseph T. Shardin.

The facts about Shardin were few. He owned his home, he was retired, he'd lived in town about five years. He made frequent trips down to Omaha, staying a day or two or sometimes up to a week, and every once in a great while he had a visitor or two at his house, always strangers from out of town. He didn't have any relatives around here, and no one had ever seen him before he'd come here to retire.

Beyond that, it was all a blank. Younger couldn't find out exactly what Shardin had retired from. At the bank he learned Shardin had a banking account, and kept it supplied by depositing cheques that were dividends on investments or payments on life-insurance policies or Social Security dribbles. But no pension cheque, from a company or the government, no income to suggest what kind of work he'd done before retiring.

Younger got more and more interested. He wasn't suspicious at first, just stretching a bit in his new job. He was running a police force, and here was a chance to do a bit of detective work, unravel a mystery. He did it for fun, more than anything else.

Not learning much from the people around Shardin, Younger next tried to learn from Shardin himself. He coached one of his patrolmen, a youngster with an honest, stupid face, and sent him off to see Shardin as a census-taker. Among the questions about age and sex and how many occupants in the house, he also asked about Shardin's background: place of birth, principal occupation, most recent employer, last three addresses. Shardin, according to the patrolman's report, answered all the questions easily and calmly, and didn't suspect a thing.