Ask the Parrot

14

Cory drove, so there was no squealing of tires, burning of rubber. Parker watched the Ram go, then stood in the open doorway another five minutes, listening to an absolutely silent night, before he stepped outside, shut the door, and walked down the driveway.

There were two tall streetlights at diagonal corners of the intersection down to his left, but otherwise the road was dark, with here and there the dull gleam of lights inside houses. Parker walked first to his right, past a dark house, then a house where an older couple played some sort of board game in a brightly lit living room, then another dark house, a boarded-up house, and then the last on this side, where a woman muffled up in robes and blankets as though she were on a sleigh in Siberia sat alone to watch TV.

This first walk through the town was simply to get a sense of it, and the sense was of leftovers, of people still in the stadium after the game is done. There were no children watching television, no toys on porches, never more than two people visible in any house. These were the respectable poor, living in retirement in the only place they’d ever known. They wouldn’t have much that would be of use to Parker, though there might be one thing. Older not-rich people in an isolated community: Some of them might have handguns.

Down the other side of the road, Parker passed the gas station, closed for the night, with light from a soda machine in front of the office illuminating the pumps and a small night-light gleaming on the wall above the desk inside.

Up till now, there had been no traffic at all through this town at this hour, the blinking signal lights at the intersection controlling nothing. But as he walked just beyond the gas station, Parker did see a car coming this way from the blackness outside the town. He continued to walk, continued to look at the houses, and the car rapidly approached, its high beams becoming troublesome just before the driver dimmed them; which meant he’d seen Parker and was doing the polite thing.

The car slowed, coming into the town, then went on by Parker, who kept walking at a steady pace. A few seconds later he heard the tire-squeal as the car made a U-turn, and here it came again, the opposite way, slowing beside him.

Not a cop. A beat-up older Toyota four-door, some dark color. The passenger window slid down as the car came to a stop beside Parker, and the driver alone in there, a woman, leaned toward him to say, “Can I help you?”

He could keep walking, but she’d just pace him, so he stopped and turned to her. “To do what?” he said.

She didn’t seem to know what to do with that answer. She looked younger than the people of this town, probably in her thirties, dashboard-lit in such a way as to give her face harsh angles and extremes of light and shadow. She said, “Are you looking for an address or something?”

“No.”

“I just thought— People don’t usually walk around here.”

“I do.”

“But you don’t live here.”

“I visit here.”

“Oh.” Now at last on familiar ground, she pasted what was supposed to be a friendly smile on her face and said, “Who are you visiting?”

It would cause less trouble and suspicion just to answer her. “Tom Lindahl.”

“Tom! I’m surprised. I thought he was—” Then it occurred to her she might be about to say something insulting about Lindahl, and this might be a friend or relative, so she laughed, an uncomfortable sound, and said, “You know what I mean.”

“You thought he was a hermit.”

“Yes, I suppose. Yes.”

“He is a hermit,” Parker said. “But I visit him.”

“Well, why not?” she said, moving her hands on the steering wheel as though sorry she’d stopped. “I’m glad he has I’m glad he has visitors.”

“And now,” Parker said, “I’m doing my after-dinner walk.”

“Of course. Well . . .”

She didn’t know how to end the encounter, but he did. He nodded and walked on, not looking back. After a long moment of silence back there, the car abruptly burst into life, with another U-turn squeal of tires, and receded quickly into silence.

A few minutes later, nearing the end of his walk-through, he came to the house where the old man had been asleep earlier today on the front porch. Now the only illumination from that house was the fitful blue-gray glitter from a television set, and when Parker looked in the living room window, the same man, in the same clothing, sat asleep straight up on the sofa, the television light playing across him like reflections from a waterfall.

So this was as good a place as any to start. When Parker looked back, the Toyota with the inquisitive woman was gone. He walked around to the back of the house, which from this angle was similar to the boarded-up house he’d entered earlier, including even the concrete steps up to the back door flanked by filigree iron railings.

Taking from his pocket a credit card that had no function any more except what he was going to use it for now, because it had the same burned name on it as the driver’s license Lindahl had taken away with him, he slid it down the jamb between frame and door, worked the bolt back from its recess, and pushed the door open. It squeaked, very slightly, but above that he could hear the screams of police sirens and raucous music from the television set at the other end of the house.

This was a smaller structure than the boarded-up house, only one story high, not much larger than Lindahl’s converted garage. The messy kitchen was unlit, and so was the small dining room in front of it, crowded with furniture as though the owner had at one point moved here from somewhere larger. A bedroom off the dining room was clearly a seldom-used guest room, so he backtracked to the kitchen, opened a side door there, and found the bedroom.

There were two places people usually kept a handgun inside a house, both in the bedroom: either in a locked box atop a dresser or in a locked drawer in a bedside table. There was no box on top of the dresser in here, only coins, socks, magazines, and a very thin wallet, but the lower of two drawers in the bedside table was locked.

Parker opened the drawer above that one, felt in the near-darkness through a jumble of medicines, flashlight, eyeglasses, and a deck of playing cards, and found the key. He closed that drawer, unlocked the other, and took out a Smith & Wesson Ranger in .22 caliber, a stubby blue-black revolver with a two-inch barrel, moderately accurate across an average room, not much good beyond that. But it would do.

Parker pocketed the revolver, felt some more in the drawer, and found a small heavy cardboard box. When he took it out and opened it, it contained more cartridges. The box was almost full. Had the revolver never been fired? Possibly.

He pocketed both the gun and the box of ammunition, relocked the drawer, and put the key back in the drawer above. To the sounds of forensic explanation from the living room, he silently let himself back out of the house.

As he walked down the side driveway toward the road, the television sound abruptly shut off and lights came on in the living room, spilling out of the windows. Skirting that glow, Parker continued on out to the road, saw the old man just exiting the living room toward the rear of the house, and walked on back to Lindahl’s place.

Would any of the people in these houses here have anything else of use to him? No. What he needed was a good amount of cash and clean transportation. He’d start to assemble those once he got the altered driver’s license. If he got it.

Back at Lindahl’s house, he saw that the answering machine had collected no messages, so possibly Lindahl was simply doing the job. Parker sat down to wait.

Lindahl had said the trip would take a little over an hour each way, and he’d left just before nine, so when the silent television set started the eleven o’clock news, Parker stood, watched the set until he saw there was no fresh news about the bank robbers, then left the house, still with all its lights on, and went over to let himself into the boarded-up house, pulling the plywood panel shut behind him. Using Lindahl’s flashlight, he went upstairs, found the pull-down staircase to the attic, and climbed up.

The round window that was the only opening in the house that hadn’t been covered with plywood was a pale blur to his right. Switching off the flashlight, he crossed to it and looked out. The window, at the rear of the house, was at head height, about a foot wide. Through it he could see Lindahl’s place and a bit of the driveway, but nothing more. Revolver in one pocket and flashlight in the other, he leaned against the wall, looked out the window, and settled down to see what would arrive.