Ask the Parrot

7

They sat in the Ford the same as before, Lindahl driving, Parker beside him, Thiemann in the back with the three guns. The first few minutes, driving down the washboard road, no one spoke, but then Thiemann, as though he’d been brooding on this a long time, said, “I’m really in your hands now, aren’t I? You guys.”

Lindahl shot a quick glance at the rearview mirror but then had to watch the road. “In our hands? What do you mean, in our hands?”

“Well, you know this . . . thing about me. You know I killed a man.”

Parker half turned so he could look at Thiemann, and rested his forearm atop the seat back. “We all have to trust each other, Fred. Tom and me, we’re not reporting it, so that puts us in the same boat as you.”

“Not exactly,” Thiemann said, sounding bitter. “Not quite, Ed Smith. Not exactly.”

With another quick look at the mirror, Lindahl said, “What’s the matter, Fred? You know me. We’ve known each other a long time.”

“Not for a long time, Tom,” Thiemann told him. “Not for years. You don’t come to meetings, you don’t go anywhere. I haven’t seen your face in three years. You’re like a hermit.”

“I’m not that bad,” Lindahl said, but as though admitting that yes, maybe he was that bad.

“Everybody knows,” Thiemann told him, “you turned sour when you lost your job.”

Lindahl didn’t like that. “Oh, do they? Everybody knows? Everybody talks about it a lot, do they, Fred?”

“Nobody has to talk about it,” Thiemann said. “Everybody already knows. You lost that job, you turned sour, your wife walked out, you don’t act like you’re anybody’s friend. I don’t know you any more. I don’t know you much more than I know this fella here, except I know he talks smooth and he talks fast.”

“Fred,” Parker said, “you just tell your wife, Jane, what happened today and see if she wants you to turn yourself in. If she does, it doesn’t matter what I say.”

“Oh, I know what she’ll say,” Thiemann said, as though the knowledge made him angry. “Keep out of trouble, don’t make things worse, you can’t bring that man back, it’s over and done with.”

“Absolutely right,” Lindahl said.

Leaning forward, his face closer to Parker so he could talk to Lindahl’s profile, Thiemann said, “The one thing she won’t tell me is forget it. I’m never gonna forget it.”

Lindahl said, “None of us are, Fred. That was a bad moment for all of us.”

Parker could see that Thiemann thought he was supposed to be punished now, but he was smart enough to understand he couldn’t punish himself without punishing other people, too. First his wife, and the daughter still in college. But Tom Lindahl after that.

So what Thiemann was doing back there now was trying to separate himself from the other people who’d get hurt. Tom Lindahl was a stranger to him, a hermit who had turned sour. His wife wouldn’t give him understanding, she’d just give him boilerplate stock responses. He couldn’t think about these unworthy people, he could only think about himself.

The daughter would be harder to dismiss. That might hold him in place. In any case, the dangerous time was between now and when Thiemann reached his home. If his wife was there.

Parker said, “Fred, is your wife home now?”

“Yeah,” Thiemann said without much interest. “She works at a hospital, but not on Saturdays.”

“That’s good,” Parker said.

They drove in silence again until they were back down on the county road and along it to the intersection with the roadblock, where the smiling trooper recognized them and waved them through. Lindahl and Parker waved back, but Thiemann sat crouched into himself, staring at the back of the seat in front of him. Then, just after that, Thiemann roused himself and said, not to either of them in particular, “I don’t know if I can drive.”

Parker looked at him, and Thiemann’s face was very pale now. He’d been in shock since it had happened, but the shock was just beginning to bite in, taking blood from the parts of him where it was needed, like his brain.

Lindahl said, “You want me to drive you home, Fred?”

“But then there’s the car,” Thiemann said, “way the hell in St. Stanislas.”

Parker said, “I could drive you in your car, Fred, and Tom could follow and pick me up at your place.”

Lindahl tossed a sharp look at Parker. “You mean, I follow right behind you.”

Parker said, “That’s the only way I’m gonna get back to your house, Tom. Fred, you want me to do that?”

Thiemann frowned at Parker, then at the back of Lindahl’s head, then at Parker again. “I think so,” he said. “I think I got to do that. Thanks.”