Ask the Parrot

10

Parker got into the Ford, and Lindahl immediately shifted into drive. Then, looking at the empty suburban street as it curved away in front of them, he said, “How is he?”

“You know him better than I do.”

“Not in something like this.” Lindahl gave Parker a quick uneasy look, as though not sure how to explain himself, then faced the road. “This isn’t something that just happened,” he said. “He shot a man. I can’t even imagine that.”

“You tried to stop him.”

“He was just too—” Lindahl paused while he turned out of the suburb onto a country road. “Fred likes to be in charge,” he said. “He likes to think he’s the guy can take care of it, whatever it is.”

“Can he take care of what he’s got now?”

Another quick glance. “What do you mean?”

“He’s in shock,” Parker said. “So right now he doesn’t know what he’s thinking. Also, down inside, he has the idea he ought to be punished. That could lead him to the law, which would be bad for everybody.”

“Especially you.”

“No, especially Fred. He may like to pretend he’s in charge, but he’s in foreign territory now. His grandfather’s memories aren’t gonna help him.”

Lindahl snorted. “I bet he’s sorry he said that.”

“Maybe, later.”

“I’ll tell you something could help him,” Lindahl said, “that he wouldn’t ever talk about. His oldest son is in jail.”

“How did that happen?”

“He was in the army, they sent him to the Middle East, teach those people all about democracy. He met a couple young local guys taught him a few things of their own. These are fellas walk into your house, walk out with stuff they didn’t have before.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not like you. Small-time. Impressed George, though. He came back, he told everybody about them. They even had a special slang for them. Hawasim, it means looter.” Lindahl shrugged. “I guess it’s not as easy to be a looter in a war zone.”

“Probably not.”

“Young George thought he was hawasim himself, now he’s doing three to five in Attica, the last thing Fred wants is to be in the next cell.”

“Good.”

They drove on, silent a while. Parker thought the shock of a son in prison must have been almost as strong for Thiemann as the second shock that had hit him today. Would the double hit make him likelier to withdraw into himself, stay quiet, not make trouble? Or would it make him spin out of control?

“I want to do it,” Lindahl said.

There had been close to ten minutes of silence in the car, and now Lindahl spoke abruptly, as though not wanting to forget what he had to say. Or as though not wanting the chance to change his mind. The words had been forceful but flat, Lindahl’s expression intense.

Parker said, “The track?”

“I hadn’t seen any of those people for years,” Lindahl said. “What’d Fred say? Three years? He’s right, I don’t know them any more, and they don’t know me. They don’t give a shit about me.”

“They haven’t seen you.”

“They have an opinion about me,” Lindahl said, “and that’s all they need. You heard what Fred said. I lost my job, lost my wife, turned sour, end of story.”

“You didn’t give them any other story.”

“Because it’s true.” Lindahl nodded at the road in front of them, agreeing with himself. “As long as I stay around here,” he said, “I’m just what they think I am. A hermit, Fred said. Didn’t destroy my life just the once, destroy it all over again every day.” Another emphatic nod, this time with an emphatic glare in Parker’s direction. “As long as I’m here,” he said, “that’s who I am, there’s no hope I’ll ever get out of this. I have to go down and take that money from the track because otherwise I’m dead here, I’m just walking around dead, all by myself.” He laughed, a bitter sound. “With a parrot that doesn’t talk.”

“We’ll drive down there,” Parker said. “After dark.”

Lindahl took a long shuddering inhale and slowly let it out. “I’m a new guy,” he said. “I don’t look it yet, but that’s what I am.”