Hinch said, “We parking here all night?”

“Let me think!”

Goldie let him think. When she thought the time was ripe she said, “Maybe if we think out loud.”

Furia immediately said, “So?”

“The watchman can’t finger you, you hit him in the dark. Nobody saw us at the plant except Howland, and he’s dead.”

“That’s why I hit him. That and the extra cut. But you got to make out like I’m a dumdum.”

“If we’d worked it the way I said,” Goldie said, “he’d have cut his throat before he fingered us. But I’m not going to argue with you, Fure. The big thing went sour was the manager driving past the plant. So now we’re hung up here. For a while they’re going to stop every car trying to leave New Bradford.”

“I know,” Hinch said brightly. “We bury it.”

“And have the paper rot or be chewed up? Or somebody find it?” Goldie said.

“We sure as a bitch ain’t throwing it away,” Hinch growled.

“Who said anything about throwing it away? It’s got to be put somewhere safe till they stop searching cars. The shack would be good, but we’re cut off from there till they get fed up and figure we made it out before they set up the blocks. Meantime-the way I see it, Fure-we need help.”

“The way she sees it,” Hinch said. “Who’s fixing this match, Fure, you or her?”

But Furia said, “What help, Goldie?”

“Somebody to keep it for us.”

“That’s a great idea that is,” Furia said. “Who you going to ask, the fuzz?”

Goldie said, “Yes.”

Hinch jiggled his bowling-ball head. “I tell you, Fure, this broad is bad news. Some joke.”

“No joke,” Goldie said. “I mean it.”

“She means it,” Hinch said with disgust.

Furia picked a sliver of steak out of his teeth. “With a far-out idea like that there’s got to be something in it. What’s on your mind, Goldie?”

“Look,” Goldie said. “I’ve been keeping in touch with my family off and on through my kid sister Nanette-”