Ask the Parrot

2

Parker didn’t speak until they were well away from the track, headed north, and then he said, “If we’re going to do this, you’ll have to do what I say.”

“You’re the pro, you mean.”

“I care whether I get arrested or not.”

“Oh, I care,” Lindahl said. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have some kind of death wish over here. If those bastards catch me and put me in jail, they’ve beat me again. I don’t want that. I’m not going to jail, trust me, that’s not going to happen.”

“You’d rather die first.”

Lindahl grimaced, trying to work out an answer to that, and finally said, “Would you give up?”

“I don’t want them on my tail,” Parker said. “That’s the point.”

“They were on your tail. When I first saw you, they were right down the hill behind you.”

“It’s fresh in my memory,” Parker assured him. “That’s why, if we go ahead and do it, we do it my way, and you don’t argue.”

“But I can say no, I guess,” Lindahl said. “I can say no, I don’t want to do that, and then we don’t do it. Like if you say, ‘Now we go kill the two guys in security,’ I can say no, and we don’t do it.”

“I’m not out to kill anybody,” Parker said. “It only makes the heat worse.”

“Well, whatever it might be,” Lindahl said. “If I don’t like it, I can say no, and we don’t do it.”

“You’re right,” Parker told him. “You can always say no.”

“Good. We understand each other.” Lindahl nodded at the windshield. “Lights out there.”

They had met only the occasional other moving car, this time of night, but up the road ahead of them now were the unmistakable lights of another roadblock. Those roadblocks would be in position all night tonight, and maybe tomorrow night, too.

The law was looking for two men, possibly separate but possibly together, so any car out late at night with two men in it attracted their interest. Also, with so little traffic out here on the rural roads in the middle of the night, the guys on duty were getting bored. For the first time, Parker and Lindahl were asked to step out of the Ford while the troopers did a quick flashlight scan of the interior. They weren’t patted down, though, and once again Parker’s new license was accepted without question.

They were the only car at the roadblock, and when they left it, driving north into darkness, that cluster of lights in the rearview mirror was still the only illumination to be seen. Lindahl kept twisting around to look back at those lights, and it wasn’t until they disappeared that he spoke again. “I guess you have an idea of what to do. About the track, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“I think it must be different from mine.”

“Parts of it.”

“Which parts?”

“In the first place,” Parker said, “we don’t take those metal boxes with us. There’s no reason to lug all that weight around.”

“The money’s gotta be in something.”

“Is there a mall around where you are? Someplace open on Sunday?”

“About forty miles away,” Lindahl said, “over toward Albany.”

“Tomorrow,” Parker told him, “you drive over there. Get two duffel bags. You know what I mean, big canvas bags.”

“Like the army uses.”

“That’s right.”

Lindahl shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “You saw how much money was there.”

“All we want is the big bills,” Parker told him. “Nothing under a ten. And no change.”

“Oh.” Nodding slowly, Lindahl said, “I guess that makes sense.”

“And also get two pairs of plastic kitchen gloves.”

“For fingerprints; fine. Anything else?”

“No, that’s all we’ll need. And fill the gas tank, it’s getting low.”

“Sure.” Lindahl was quiet for a minute, but then he frowned and said, “Why do I have to do all this tomorrow? There’s closer places I can go to on Monday.”

“Because we’re taking the money tomorrow night,” Parker said.