Ask the Parrot

1

Of the three men who’d pulled the bank job in Massachusetts, Nelson McWhitney was the only one who’d left the place carrying his own legitimate identification and driving his own properly registered pickup truck. The cops at the various roadblocks where he’d been stopped and the pickup searched had warned him against driving south toward the Mass Pike, because the heavy police activity had backed up traffic in all directions, so, even though his goal was Long Island, McWhitney drove steadily westward for hours, into the same areas where Parker found himself bogged down and Nick Dalesia found himself arrested.

He heard the news of the arrest on the truck radio and gave the radio an ironic nod and salute in response, saying, “Well, so long, Nick.” A couple of miles farther on, having thought about it some more, he nodded and told the radio, “And so long money, too.” That would be Nick’s only bargaining chip, wouldn’t it?

After Syracuse, McWhitney turned south, keeping to smaller roads because they were less backed up, but still making slow progress. He finally gave up and found a motel outside Binghamton, then early Sunday morning got up into a still-police-infested world and made his way southeast toward Long Island, where his home was and where the small bar he owned was and where he had an appointment coming up with a woman named Sharon.

On even a normal day, he would have known better than to drive through New York City to get to Long Island, and this was far from a normal day. It was amazing how much fuss three guys with a simple bank plan could create. And, of course, having grabbed Nick Dalesia, the law was now hungrier than ever to gobble up the other two.

Driving down across New York State, he found himself wondering, was he himself maybe a bargaining chip for Nick? He thought back, and he didn’t believe he and Nick had shared that much private detail, not enough so that Nick could pinpoint McWhitney on Long Island. He hoped not.

What he’d do, when he finally got to the neighborhood, was case it first. If Nick did know enough about him to turn him up, the surveillance on his home and bar would be far too large for him not to notice. Just go there and see.

He stopped for lunch at a diner in Westchester, then headed south to the Throgs Neck Bridge to take him across to Long Island. The roadblock inspection at the bridge was the most thorough and intense yet, but then, once he got on the Island, life suddenly became much calmer. There were only a limited number of routes on and off the Island, so clearly the authorities believed they hadn’t so far let any of the bank robbers through.

His neighborhood was quiet, like any Sunday afternoon. His bar, where he’d left a guy he knew in charge while he took his little “vacation,” was also very quiet, almost empty-looking, which was also standard for a Sunday afternoon.

McWhitney parked the truck in the alley behind his building, went into his empty and stuffy-smelling apartment, opened a few windows, opened a beer, and switched on CNN. No further news on the bank-robbing front.

He wondered how Parker was doing among the straights.