Ask the Parrot

12

Where was Tom going? It didn’t make any sense.

Around seven-thirty, Tom Lindahl’s Ford SUV had driven away from the little converted garage he lived in and headed south out of Pooley, with Cory and Cal in the Volkswagen Jetta far behind, and an hour later they were all still driving, heading steadily southwest across New York State, away from Pooley and away from Massachusetts, the site of the bank robbery that Ed Smith’s money was supposed to be from.

Were Tom and Smith on their way to get the money? What else could they be doing? Cory had more and more questions in his mind about what was going on here, but he didn’t want to voice them, afraid Cal would insist on doing something rash, like ramming that vehicle up ahead just to see what would happen. So Cory kept his doubts to himself and just drove, hoping this journey would soon come to an end.

Cory’d had no trouble borrowing the Jetta from his sister. In fact, she’d been so happy at the idea that Cory might get himself a real job—by which she meant white collar, not the factory-floor stuff he and Cal usually did—that he felt guilty lying to her. But he assured himself it was all going to work out fine, and she wouldn’t ever have to know the truth, so he wasn’t going to worry about it.

What was a little worrying, at least at first, was that, when Cory went back to the diner, Cal had obviously not limited himself to coffee, the way he’d promised. The beer on his breath wasn’t as plain as if they’d been in the cab of the pickup together, but you could still smell it. Cory could have said something, but what was the point? Cal would just deny it, that’s all, just lie about it and wait for the question to go away.

That was how Cal always handled problems. It wasn’t that he was a good liar—in fact, he was a piss-poor liar, unlike Cory, who had a smooth plausibility about himself—but that once Cal took root in a lie, he would never move from it, so why waste your breath?

At first, when they set up in a driveway next to another of Pooley’s empty houses, having to keep well away from Tom’s place because it was still daylight, Cal had been tensed up and edgy, because of the beer, wanting something to happen right away. His left eye, covered by the black patch, was neutral, but his working eye was staring and agitated, straining to see through walls, around windows. “When are they gonna make their move?”

“We’ll just wait and see.”

“Maybe I oughta go peek in the window.”

“No, we’ll just wait here. We’ll know when they’re going somewhere.”

Cal had to get out and pee then, and that kept him calmed down for a while, but not for long. Three more times he wanted to go over and peek in Tom’s window to see what was going on over there, and three times Cory had to remind him there was nothing those people could do except, sooner or later, leave the house and come out to the road in this direction. Did Cal want to be halfway down their driveway, on foot, when they came out? Of course not. Did he want them to catch him peeking in the window? Definitely not.

As for what they thought was going on, they’d been over all of that more than once, but restless and bored in the car, waiting for something to happen, Cal had to rehash it just once more. “There’s money in it, we know that much for sure,” he said. “Only thing that makes sense. Tom wouldn’t be hanging out with that guy, giving him cover, pretending he used to work with him, if there wasn’t some sort of payoff in there someplace.”

Cory nodded. “That’s what we’re figuring on, anyway.”

“That’s what we’re counting on,” Cal said. “There’s got to be some of that bank robbery money still hid somewhere, or Tom just wouldn’t be fronting for that guy. I mean, that’s a hell of a risk, Cory.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“So that’s the only reason he’s gonna do it. For the money.” Cal laughed in a sudden burst. “I don’t know about you, Cory, but I could use that money. Better than a job over at that college, anyway.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind that, either,” Cory admitted.

Cal grinned at him and gave his arm a reassuring pat. “You’ll come through,” he said. “You’re the smart one.”

“And you’re the funny one.”

“Damn hysterical. Why don’t I find a phone somewhere and give them a call, just to see what they do?”

“Because,” Cory said, “I don’t want them thinking about us, or thinking there’s anybody at all interested in them, that would keep them from what they mean to do.”

“Well, maybe.”

“Remember, I’m the smart one.”

So Cal laughed at that and relaxed a little more, and they waited in companionable silence. Gradually evening came on, and then, just at that tricky twilight moment when it’s very hard to see because it’s neither day nor night, here came the Ford out of Tom Lindahl’s driveway and turned south, away from them.

“There it is!”

“I see it, Cal. Take it easy.”

Cory watched the Ford recede almost out of sight before he started the Jetta and followed, keeping well back. Beside him, Cal, breathing loudly through his mouth, pulled up his shirttail in front and reached down inside to come out with a smallish automatic, the High Standard GI model in .45 caliber.

Cory stared. “What are you doing with that?”

Cal laughed. “Don’t leave home without it.” He hadn’t seemed drunk before this, but now, hours since he’d had that beer, there was a sudden slurry electricity to him as he sat there holding the automatic with both hands.

“Oh, come on, Cal,” Cory said. “You never said you were gonna bring that.” Up ahead, Tom Lindahl’s Ford moved at a slow and steady pace, easy to follow.

“Well, I just knew you’d give me a hard time if I said anything about it,” Cal said. “So I figured, I’ll just bring it, and then there won’t be any argument.”

“If we get stopped by a cop—”

“What for? We’re doing”—Cal leaned the left side of his head against Cory’s upper arm so his right eye could see the dashboard—“forty-five miles per hour. Who’s gonna stop us for that?”

“Cal, I don’t want to see that thing.”

“No, no, you’re not gonna see it.” Cal leaned forward to put the gun on the floor, then sat back and rested his right foot on it. “See? Just sitting there.”

“Is the safety on, anyway?”

“Sure it is. Whada you think?”

“When we talk to those guys,” Cory said, “please, Cal, don’t start waving that goddam gun around.”

“He’s the one talking tough, do you remember that? ‘You’d be dead now.’ Oh, yeah, would I? We’ll just have this little fella down here on the floor here, out of sight, out of mind, and if there has to be a little surprise, somewhere down the road, well, guess what, we got one.”

“Just leave it there,” Cory said.

“It’s there.”

Somehow the idea of his brother’s gun in his sister’s car made Cory nervous, as though he’d got himself involved in some kind of serious mistake here somewhere. Cal had bought that goddam thing years ago, in a pawnshop, on a visit to Buffalo, for no reason at all he could ever explain. He’d just seen it and he wanted it, that’s all. From time to time, the first year or so, he’d take it out in the woods and practice, shooting at trees or fence posts, but eventually it more or less just stayed in a drawer in his bedroom, barely even thought about. Cory hadn’t thought about it for so long it was like something brand-new, a Gila monster or something, when it suddenly appeared in Cal’s lap in the car.

All right, let it stay on the floor. If it made Cal feel more secure to have it down there, fine. When it came time, though, to get out of this car, Cory would make damn sure that stupid gun didn’t come out with them.

It was a few miles later they saw the bright red and white lights of their first roadblock of the night. Slowing down, Cory said, “Put the damn gun under the seat.”

“Right.”

Even Cal seemed a little chastened, as he bent down to hide the gun. Cory drove as slowly as he dared, to give Tom a chance to clear the roadblock, then eased to a stop beside the waiting trooper as he reached for his wallet.

The trooper had a long flashlight that he shone first on Cory and then across him on Cal, not quite shining the beam in their eyes. He was the most bored trooper they’d met yet, and he studied Cory’s license without saying a word. Cal had the glove compartment open, but the trooper didn’t even bother to ask for registration, just handed the license back and used his flashlight to wave them through.

Tom’s Ford hadn’t gained much ground, was still slowly moving along as though in no hurry to get anywhere in particular tonight. When Cory caught up, and slowed to maintain the same distance as before, Cal said, “What’s goin on, Cory? Is he just out for a drive?”

“I don’t know,” Cory admitted. “But I just figured out what’s out there, down this way.”

“Yeah, what?”

“That racetrack where he used to work.”

“What? Tom?”

“He worked there for years, and then they fired him for something.”

“What the hell would he be going down to that racetrack for?”

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Cory said. “I mean, there they are, they came out tonight, everything like we thought they’d do, but now I don’t get it. They aren’t leading us to any money.”

“Maybe Tom’s helping the guy get away from here.”

“At forty-five miles an hour? Besides, he could’ve done that last night. Or today.”

“Get up closer,” Cal said. “Let’s see what they’re up to.”

“They’re driving,” Cory said.

“Come on, Cory, close it up.”

“You can’t see inside a car at night.”

“Close it up, goddammit.”

So Cory moved up much closer, not quite tailgating the Ford, and they drove like that awhile, trying to figure it out, getting nowhere. Then, way ahead, Cory saw the lights of the next roadblock and said, “I gotta ease back,” just as Cal yelled, “Goddammit!”

“What?” Cory’s foot was off the gas, the Jetta slowing, the Ford moving toward the distant roadblock, its brake lights not yet on.

“He’s alone in there!”

“What?”

“Pull over here, pull over here, goddammit!”

A closed gas station was on the right. Cory pulled in, drifting past the pumps as he said, “What do you mean, he’s alone in there?”

“Tom! I could see those lights down there through his windshield, and he’s goddammit alone in the goddam car! Stop!”

Cory stopped. “Then where is he? Maybe he’s lying down in back.”

“For a roadblock? He isn’t there,” Cal insisted, and a black car suddenly passed them on their left and angled to a stop across the front of the Jetta. Cal’s one eye stared. “What is this?”

The driver of the other car got out, looking over its roof at them, and, of course, it was Ed Smith. Cory reflexively shifted into reverse as Smith took a step down the other side of his car, as though he wanted to come around and talk to them.

Cal didn’t give him the chance. All at once he was lunging out of the Jetta, and when Cory turned to him, he had that automatic in his hand. Cory yelled, “Don’t!” at the same time Cal yelled some damn thing at Smith and lifted the automatic as though to shoot Smith, and in the same instant Smith laid his own hand on the roof of his car, with something small and black in it that coughed a dot of red flame and Cal went reeling backward, the automatic dropping onto the gas station’s concrete.

Cory screamed, and tromped on the accelerator, and the Jetta tore backward past the pumps, the open passenger door not quite hitting them but rocking as though it would come off its hinges, until Cory pounded his foot on the brake and the door slammed.

Ahead of him across the gas station, Smith was striding forward, that gun in his hand down at his side. Cory spun the wheel, shifted into drive, and tore away from there northward, leaving Cal and Smith and the Ford and the roadblock and everything else to shrink and disappear in the rearview mirror.

Absolute panic compelled him to drive hard for three or four minutes on a road with no traffic until he overtook a slow-moving pickup and had to decelerate. As he slowed, the panic receded and clear thought came back, and he knew he had to go take care of Cal. He was the younger brother, but he’d always been the one with brains, the one who went along with Cal’s stunts but then—sometimes—got them both out of trouble when things went too far.

Cal was hit. Shot. How bad?

Cory made a U-turn and headed south again, and would have missed the gas station this time if he hadn’t seen that roadblock far ahead. But there was the station, and Cory pulled in, went past the pumps to where he’d stopped the last time, and stopped again. Smith and the black car were gone.

Afraid of what he would find, Cory got out of the Jetta and looked around on the right side of the car. Cal’s automatic lay on the pavement where it had fallen, but there was nothing else there. No Cal.

Cory got back into the car, put the automatic on the passenger seat, and drove this way and that so he could use the headlights to look at every part of the gas station property. He found nothing.

There was a night-light inside the station office. Cory got out of the Jetta again and looked through the windows there. He looked everywhere. Cal was gone.