Ask the Parrot

11

Just a minute,” Hopwood said, and when Parker turned back, his hand not quite touching the doorknob, Hopwood had opened a drawer in his messy desk and now there was a tiny automatic pistol in his hand, its eye looking at Parker. Flat in the still-open drawer was a smudged copy of the artist’s rendering.

“Maybe you’ll put your hands on your head,” Hopwood said.

Parker didn’t. Instead, he gestured toward the picture in the drawer. “You don’t think that’s me, do you? This isn’t even a joke any more.”

“I’m not foolin, mister,” Hopwood said. The automatic that almost disappeared inside his fist was small but serious, the Seecamp LWS32, with a magazine of six .32-caliber cartridges. With its one-inch barrel, it couldn’t have much effect across a highway, but inside this room it would do the job.

Now Hopwood moved the gun-holding hand in a small arc, downward and to the right, to aim at Parker’s left leg. “If I have to wing you, I will.”

“I told you,” Parker said, “I’m staying with Tom Lindahl. Call him if you want. That’s his car right—”

“Last chance. Hands on top of your head.”

With no choice, Parker started to lift his arms when the door directly behind him opened and somebody walked in. Hopwood lost his concentration as Parker took a quick step to his left, turning to see that the newcomer was the nosy woman who’d driven past him last night and stopped to ask him if she could help.

She was confused by the scene she’d walked into, reacting to the tension in the air but not yet noticing the small automatic closed in Hopwood’s fist. “I’m sorry, did I—”

With both hands, Parker took her by the left elbow, spun, and threw her hard across the room and into Hopwood, who tried too late to backtrack out of the way, hitting the corner of his desk instead, knocking himself off balance. Then the woman crashed into him, and they fell diagonally in a jumble from the desk onto the floor. By the time they were separated and turned around and staring upward, Parker’s pistol was in his hand.

“Stay right there,” he said, and showed Hopwood the Ranger. “I don’t wing.”

“What is—what’s—” She was still more bewildered than anything else, but then she saw the Ranger in Parker’s hand and her eyes widened and she cried, “You! You’re the one stole Jack’s gun!”