Ask the Parrot

5

Lindahl kept yawning as they walked over to the boarded-up house. It was ten-thirty in the morning, and they’d been up half an hour, finishing a silent breakfast before coming out here to cold damp air, the sky a grayish white as though starting to mildew. Parker led the way to the rear door of the house, where he reached up to the top of the plywood and pulled it back.

“Uh!” Lindahl broke off in midyawn, staring in astonishment. “Was that always like that?”

“I fixed it yesterday.”

Lindahl came closer to study the plywood, touching a finger to the stubby end of a sawed-off screw. “You cut them back.”

“Right.”

“And what’s that one in the middle for?”

“To pull it closed when you’re inside. Come on.”

Parker pushed open the door and motioned for Lindahl to precede him. As he then stepped in and maneuvered the plywood back into place, Lindahl said, “Is that my flashlight?”

“Yes. We’ll need it. In fact, turn it on now.”

Lindahl did, and Parker closed them in, then said, “Give me the light, I’ve been through here before.”

“Fine.”

They went up through the black house to the attic, and Lindahl went over to look out the unblocked window. “This is where you were when I got back last night,” he said. “In case I brought the police or something.”

“That’s right.” Parker pointed the flashlight to the area behind the stairwell, where the roof angled down closest to the floor, leaving only a three-foot height of wall. Discarded there were a bent old cardboard suitcase and some rolls of curtains and curtain rods. “You put your duffel bag in with that stuff, and you leave it there until you go to your someplace warm. And once it’s there, you put a couple full-length screws in the plywood, just in case anybody ever comes around to be sure everything’s sealed solid.”

“And I’ll rub a little dirt on them.”

“Good.”

They went back downstairs and out, and while Parker put the plywood in place, he said, “I’ll come along with you to this mall, see if there’s anything I need. Let’s go put those money boxes into your van.”

“All right.”

Parker put the pistol in his jacket pocket before they left. He had to drive again, because Lindahl was feeling the effects of four hours’ sleep. The seven metal boxes in their sheathe of black plastic filled the rear seat so high Parker could only use the outside mirrors.

The first police blockade they came to was manned by the same sour older trooper as yesterday. “I saw you two before,” he said as Parker handed over his new license.

“Untrained men with guns,” Parker reminded him. “Hickory Rod and Gun. No guns today, though.”

“At least nobody got killed yesterday,” the trooper said, giving him back the license.

“Any more word on those two guys?”

“Not a peep.” His total disaffection dragged the trooper’s face down like a double dose of gravity. “You ask me,” he said, “those two are on the beach in Florida this very minute. But nobody asked me.”

“See if your boss will send you down there to look for them,” Parker suggested.

“You can move along now,” the trooper said.

They drove on, and Lindahl said, “You don’t get nervous, do you?”

“Nothing to get nervous about. Keep an eye out for someplace to get rid of these boxes.”

That was twenty miles farther on, a demolition site where an old bowling alley was being torn down, the two Dumpsters already half full of a great miscellany of stuff, the site empty and unguarded on a Sunday morning. They transferred the seven money boxes, dividing them into both Dumpsters to make them a little less of a presence, then drove on to the mall, a smaller older place with only one of its two anchor stores still up and running. The shops down the line between the living major retailer and the dead one made an anthology of national brand names. The parking area was a quarter full, so they could leave the car very close to the entrance, just beyond the empty handicapped spaces.

They went inside, and Parker said, “You go ahead. You want two duffel bags and two pairs of plastic gloves. I’m gonna look around, and I’ll meet you on the way out.”

“Okay.”

Lindahl took a shopping cart and pushed it away into the sparsely populated store. Parker watched him go, then turned and walked back outside and headed down the row of secondary shops. On the way in, he’d picked the one he thought he probably wanted, a youth clothing store featuring baggy jeans and baseball caps and sweatshirts with penitentiary names on them.

Yes. Reaching that store, looking in the plate-glass window past the display of elaborate sneakers designed like space stations, he saw no customers, only the clerk, a skinny high school kid wearing the store’s product as he moved slowly around, halfheartedly neatening the stock.

Parker went into the store, and the kid looked up, first hopeful and then blank when he realized this was unlikely to be a customer. “Yes, sir? What can I do for you?”

“Well,” Parker said, and showed him the pistol, “you can open that cash register over there and then you can lie facedown on the floor behind the counter.”

The kid gaped at the pistol and then at Parker, as though he’d lost the ability to understand English. Parker lifted the gun so it pointed at the kid’s nose from a foot away. “Or,” he said, “I can shoot you in the face and open the cash register myself.”

“No, I’ll do it!”

The kid abruptly moved, all jangly limbs, bumping into things as he hurried around the end of the counter and opened the cash register. He stepped back from it and stared at Parker. “You won’t shoot me?”

“Not if you’re facedown on the floor.”

The kid dropped as though in fact he had been shot, and when he was on the floor, he put his hands over the back of his head, trembling fingers entwined.

Parker reached over the counter into the cash register drawer and removed the twenties and tens, touching only the money. Then he looked down at the kid and said, “Look at your watch.”

The enlaced hands sprang apart, and the kid arched his back to look at the large round watch on his left wrist.

“I’ll be outside for five minutes. If I look through the window and see you up, I’ll shoot. Five minutes. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.” The kid kept staring at the watch, body arched.

Parker turned away, left the shop, and walked back to the large store, where he went inside and found Lindahl on line at a checkout counter, only one other shopper in front of him. In his shopping cart were two dark brown duffel bags folded into clear plastic bags and two pairs of yellow kitchen gloves mounted on cardboard in shrink-wrap. He nodded to Parker: “Found it. You get anything?”

“No, I just looked around.”

Lindahl’s turn came, and he paid and got his purchases in a large plastic bag with the store’s name over a smiley face. They walked out of the store, Lindahl carrying the bag and saying, “Should I drive back?”

“Sure.”

Parker gave him the keys. In the car, they started out to the road, but then had to wait while a police car rushed by, lights flashing and siren ablare. Lindahl watched them go by, startled. “What do you think that is?”

“Nothing to do with us,” Parker said.