Ask the Parrot

13

Lindahl drove off a little before nine. Ten minutes later a knock sounded at the door. Parker was seated in the living room, beside the silent television set, not looking at it, waiting a little longer before going out to explore, but now somebody was here.

Parker waited, not moving. The front door, and the window next to it, were fitted into the original garage door space so sloppily that sound came through from outside, one or two people talking low, somebody scuffing his feet. Then there was a louder, harder knock and a voice called, “Ed! Ed, you in there?” Very aggressive, pushing hard.

Ed? Not looking for Lindahl. No; somebody who had watched and waited for Lindahl to leave, then came over to knock on the door, because it was Ed he wanted to see.

The voice was slightly familiar, recently heard somewhere. Not Thiemann, somebody else.

“Goddammit, Ed, be sociable! Open up this door!” And whoever it was rattled the doorknob, but since the door wasn’t locked, he unexpectedly lurched into the living room, holding the knob to save himself, barking a laugh of surprise and embarrassment.

It was the one-eyed guy with the black patch from the meeting this afternoon at St. Stanislas, and coming in behind him, more cautious and wary, his coat holder, Cory. They both looked at Parker, who stayed in his chair.

The one-eyed man said, “What’s the matter, Ed? How come you don’t open your door?”

“It’s not my door,” Parker told him.

“You can answer,” the guy insisted. “When somebody comes along, polite, and knocks in a very polite way, and calls out your name, you can answer, can’t you?”

“I’m not in a mood for visitors,” Parker told him.

The one-eyed man was both surprised and offended. “Not in a mood! You hear that, Cory?”

“Cal,” Cory said, a small warning.

But Cal wasn’t a man to take warnings. Glaring around the room, he stepped over and dropped backward onto the sofa, facing Parker, saying, “Well, I feel like a visit.” Then he blinked with sudden delight and pointed past Parker, crying, “Cory, looka that!”

“It’s a parrot,” Cory said.

“Goddam, it is a parrot! That’s what I oughta have.” Leaning toward Parker, gesturing at the patch that covered his left eye, he said, “You can see how that would go with me, can’t you?”

“It belongs to Tom,” Parker said.

Taking a step forward, Cory said, “Cal doesn’t mean he wants it. It just tickled him, that’s all. You know, because of the patch.”

“I don’t want a goddam bird,” Cal said, and now he was discontented again. Leaning forward ever closer to Parker, he said, “I bet you don’t know we’re twins.”

“I knew you were brothers,” Parker said.

“Yeah, but not twins. It’s because of this goddam—” He made an angry swiping gesture toward the patch. “If I could get,” he started, then erased that in the air, and sat back, showing himself calm and logical. “The situation is,” he said, “if I could get the plastic surgery and the glass eye, I could look just exactly like this handsome fella here.”

“The insurance wouldn’t pay,” Cory explained.

“I wasn’t that drunk!” Cal yelled, angry again. “And it was that other sonofabitch’s fault, anyway.” Leaning forward toward Parker again, now confidential, he said, “All I need’s a little money, Ed, you can see that. Where’m I gonna get that kinda money, Ed? I’m a carpenter at the modular home plant over in LeForestville, me and Cory both, where we gonna get fifteen, twenty thousand dollars?”

“I don’t know,” Parker said.

“I bet you got some money, Ed,” Cal said, smiling like he was friendly, showing crooked teeth. “I bet you could help out a fella, if you wanted.”

“Quid pro quo,” Cory said, to explain things.

So the artist’s renderings had done their work, after all, at least with these two. Parker said to Cory, “What’s the quo?”

“We don’t need to go into all that,” Cal said, impatient, sitting back, waving that idea away. “We’re just friendly, that’s all, a couple friendly guys, helping each other out. Just Cal and Cory Dennison and good old Ed—what was it? Smith?”

“That’s right,” Parker said.

“Funny kind of name, that, Smith,” Cal said, twisting the name to make it sound strange as he winked his good eye at his brother and said, “You don’t hear it much. Not around here, you don’t.”

Parker said, “Get to the point.”

“The point?” Cal seemed surprised, as though he’d thought they’d already reached the point. “It’s just to be pals, that’s all,” he said. “Be of, you know, use to each other. Like if we could do something for you. Or like, it should happen, you might have a stash of money around somewhere, you’d probably want to help a friend with this bad fucking eye here.”

Parker said, “That’s Tom Lindahl’s sofa you’re sitting on.”

Cal grinned and shrugged. “So?”

“Get up from it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Cal spread his arms and legs out, settling into the sofa. “Everybody’s gotta be somewhere, you know. Even those—”

“No, they don’t,” Parker said.

Thrown off, not getting to make his clever remark about how even the missing bank robbers have to be somewhere, wink, wink, Cal blinked his one eye at Parker and said, “What?”

“Some people,” Parker said, “don’t have to be anywhere.” He got to his feet, aware of them both tensing up as they watched him. To Cory, he said, “You’re the one with brains. What do you do now?”

“Hey, listen,” Cal said.

But Cory patted a hand downward in his brother’s direction, looking at Parker as he said, “Maybe we’ll talk tomorrow. Maybe with Tom here.”

“Ask him,” Parker said.

Cory nodded. “We’ll do that. Come on, Cal.”

Cal looked up at his brother and decided not to argue. He moved to get up, but the sofa, rump-sprung and saggy, was hard to get out of. As he tried to get to his feet while making it look easy, Parker made a small fast gesture with his hands, nothing in particular, but Cal lost his balance and sprawled back onto the sofa.

“You want to be careful,” Parker told him.

“Come on, Cal,” Cory said, and stuck a hand out, which Cal angrily took, to be hauled up out of the sofa.

They moved toward the still-open door, Parker following, seeing their battered red Dodge Ram out there, with the fitted steel toolbox bolted to the bed. They stepped through, and Parker stood in the doorway behind them. “Always be careful,” he told Cal. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that other eye.”

As Cory pulled him toward the pickup with a hand on his elbow, Cal glared back, face distorted, crying, “Never mind the good one! What about this one? What about this one?”

Parker shrugged. “Ask the parrot.”