Ask the Parrot

3

Cal glowered out his side of the windshield as Cory drove the pickup truck. “If he was the guy, we’d be dead now,” he quoted, twisting the words as though he wanted to spit. “That guy talks pretty big, Cory. We should of called his bluff right there.”

“That doesn’t do us any good.”

“Does me some good.” Cal looked around, and they were out in the country, Pooley well behind them. “Where we goin?”

“To Judy’s.”

Their sister, younger than them, living on her own since the guy she thought she was going to marry went into the navy instead. “What for?”

“To borrow her car.”

Cal scoffed. “Judy won’t give us her car.”

Watching the road, Cory said, “She won’t give it to you. She’ll loan it to me.”

“Why? What do we want with her little dinky car?”

“We have to have a different vehicle,” Cory told him, “because Tom and that other guy know this truck. They’ll see it in their rearview mirror, they’ll know just what we’re up to.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure, naturally,” Cal said, trying to pretend he’d thought of it himself, or at least might have. Then, needing to prove he could think of the details, too, he said, “But how you gonna get her to give it to you? You show up in this, you already got wheels, then you say, ‘Gimme your car,’ what are you gonna say? Because we’re gonna take down a bank robber?”

“I got a job interview,” Cory said.

Cal gave him a skeptical look. “What job interview?”

“I say I got a job interview. At that community college, in the computer arts department.”

“They already turned you down over there.”

“I know they did, and so does Judy.” Cory nodded at the road ahead, agreeing with himself. “So what I tell Judy, I got another interview over there, this time I’m not gonna dress like a farmer and I’m not gonna show up in some pickup truck. I’m gonna dress like a guy teaches computer arts, and I’m gonna show up in Judy’s nice Volkswagen Jetta. I’ll tell her, and it’s true, I’ll even run it through the car wash first.”

“Judy’s down on me, you know,” Cal pointed out. “If she sees me, she’s gonna say, ‘What are you taking that bozo to college for?’”

Cory laughed. “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t have you in the truck when I get there. It’s got to be just Judy and me.”

“So whadaya gonna do with me while you’re off bullshitting Judy?”

“There’s that diner about a mile before her place,” Cory reminded him.

“Randall’s.”

“That’s the one. I’ll let you off, you have a cup of coffee—”

“Or a beer.”

“Make it a cup of coffee. We gotta be sharp tonight, Cal.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll make it coffee. And you go off to Judy by yourself.”

“And come back with the Jetta.”

“And that so-called tough guy won’t have an idea in the world we’re sitting right on his ass.”

“Right.”

Cal frowned at the windshield, struck by a sudden thought. “What if they’re already gone when we get back?”

“Whatever they’re gonna do,” Cory assured him, “they won’t start in on it until after dark.”

And that also made sense. Cal nodded at the road awhile, thinking, then said, “What do you suppose they’re up to?”

“We’ll find out when we see them do it,” Cory said, and that was the end of that conversation until they reached the diner, a sprawling place that had originally been a little railroad car type of greasy spoon, but then kept adding on dining rooms and kitchens and bigger neon signs out front until now it looked more like an Indian casino than a place to eat. It was at the intersection of the smallish state road they were on and a bigger U.S. highway, and was always pretty full, though the food wouldn’t bring anyone back.

Cory stopped near the entrance and said, “I’ll be maybe half an hour.”

“I’ll sit by the window,” Cal told him as he opened his door.

“Just have coffee, Cal, okay?”

“Sure, sure. Don’t worry about me.”

Cal got out, Cory drove away, and Cal went into the diner, where he had a cheeseburger, onion rings, and a beer.