Ask the Parrot

10

What do you call a parrot? Does it have to start with “P”? Polly Parrot; Peaches Parrot. Penitentiary Parrot; not good. Greeny Parrot.

There was less traffic tonight, and fewer roadblocks. It seemed to Tom the authorities no longer believed they had the fugitives trapped; they were just going through the motions.

How was Ed going to get there, without a car and without an ally? Or had he somehow phoned someone, while Tom was away from the house, and arranged to meet with another professional like himself, another hard man, who would come with him to Gro-More to help in the robbery? And get what out of it?

Tom’s share, of course.

He could still pull over, at any open gas station, and call the state troopers to tell them where they could find one of the men they were looking for. Unless Ed had left the house almost immediately after Tom.

But it didn’t matter; he wasn’t going to stop. It was too late to change anything now, too late to decide to do something other than this.

Different cars appeared in his rearview mirror, and some passed him because, with all this fretful thinking inside his head, he couldn’t keep up to his normal speed, but poked along at probably ten miles an hour below his regular average. There was a gray Volkswagen Jetta in his mirror for miles, somebody else as poky as he was, but then he came to another of the rare roadblocks, and after that pause, the Jetta was gone, and for some miles his mirror was dark.

He next became aware of other traffic when a different car’s lights appeared well behind him, coming on fast. This one was pretty much a speed demon, who tailgated Tom a mile or so and then, at the next passing zone, roared on by him like a freight train. In Tom’s headlights, as it raced away, he could see it was a black Infiniti, a faster, more powerful car than his, soon out of sight up ahead.

Perry Parrot? Ed Parrot? Madonna Parrot? William G. Dodd Parrot?

What if he doesn’t show up? What if, after all this, I get there and I never see Ed Smith again? What if he’s gone from my life just as abruptly as he came into it?

There would be a relief in that, but Tom knew it wasn’t the right question. The question was, if Ed Smith disappeared, could Tom do it himself, come back with both duffel bags full, take the whole gate from the track on his own, double the secret inside the boarded-up house?

Tom didn’t believe it. If he got there, and waited half an hour and Ed never appeared, he knew damn well what he’d do. He’d turn tail. He was still the same gutless wonder he’d always been. He needed Ed Smith to give him a backbone. He hated that he needed the man, but he knew it was true. Even after all this, he wouldn’t be able to take the track’s money on his own.

Do I want him to show up? Do I want this thing to happen, or do I want an excuse just to go back to my crappy little house and vegetate in there forever? Which do I want, which do I really want?

Like the parrot’s name, he just didn’t know.