Ask the Parrot

2

Parker carried the duffel bags, still folded into their plastic wrap, and followed Lindahl through the same routine as last time, first punching the code into the alarm box beside the gate, then keying the gate open so he could drive the Ford in to stop at the closed top of the ramp that led down to the safe room. Getting out of the Ford there, as Parker walked up to him, he looked back at the fence and said, “Do you have a car here?”

“We’ll get to it later. We want to be in and out of this.”

“Sure. Fine.”

Once again Lindahl keyed them into the building and led them among the rooms through the same route around the spy cams. This time there was no leftover food in the accounts department to be knocked over, and no sign of the mess they’d made before. At the end, Lindahl waited for that camera in the corridor to start its sweep away from them, then they strode down to the stairwell door and inside. Down one flight, Lindahl pressed his face to the small window in the door there, to see where this camera was in its cycle, then led them out and to the door at the end of this corridor, the key already in his hand.

Once again, when the door closed behind them, they were in full dark. Parker knew Lindahl was afraid the camera outside would be able to see light through the small window in this door here, so he waited in the darkness, holding the packages of duffel bag and pressing one elbow back against the closed door to keep his orientation.

Out ahead was the sound of Lindahl’s scuffing feet as he moved cautiously toward the door they wanted. There was a little silence, then the sound of the key in the lock and the door opening, and at last the ceiling fluorescents clicked on in the safe room off to the right, so Parker could see this outer room with the forklift truck in the corner and the windowless garage door at the far end.

There were two pallets of the money boxes on the floor in here tonight. Lindahl, a nervous grin flickering on his frightened-looking face, said, “Double our money, huh?”

“That’s what we’re doing. Here.”

He handed one of the duffel bags to Lindahl, who took it and said, “How do you want to work this?”

“We open the boxes and put the cash in the bags. Don’t bother with singles and fives.”

“No, I meant, how do we divide this?”

Parker shook his head. “We aren’t gonna divvy it up,” he said. “What you put in the bag, you carry home.”

“Fine.”

They started to strip the plastic off the duffel bags, and a glaring light snapped on in the next room. They stopped, looking at each other, and a voice out there called, “Anybody here?” The voice tried to sound in control, but there was a quaver in it.

Parker handed the duffel to Lindahl and pointed at the corner behind the open door as he started toward that doorway, calling, “Hello? How do I get out of here?”

Behind him, Lindahl moved silently into the corner, his face drained of blood, and Parker stepped through to the outer room, where he saw, over by the door they’d come in, a guy in a brown guard uniform. He was big, maybe six and a half feet, and once brawny, but now out of condition, older and too long comfortable. In the glare of the overhead fluorescents, his eyes and cheekbones showed fear. He was armed with a revolver, but it wasn’t in his hand, it was still in its holster on his right hip, and his right hand was still on the light switch just to the right of the door.

Now, seeing Parker, he lowered that hand to the butt of the revolver but didn’t unsnap the safety strap that held it in the holster. He patched over the fear with a deep frown and said, “What the hell you doing here?”

“Trying to get out.” Parker looked back over his shoulder at the safe room. “What kind of place is that?”

“What do you mean, trying to get out of here?” The guard, not sensing threat, had settled into the indifferently bullying tactic that would always have been his method with civilians.

Parker spread his hands. “Everything’s locked. I can’t get out of the goddam place.”

“That’s kept locked,” the guard told him, jutting his jaw toward the safe room.

“No, it wasn’t,” Parker said. “I saw the light in there, maybe it’s a way out at last.”

“I don’t get this,” the guard said. “What are you doing in here? The end of the day, every day, there’s a sweep, make sure everybody’s out.”

“I fell asleep,” Parker said. “In the men’s room, in a stall.” He didn’t try to act embarrassed, just matter-of-fact. “I didn’t have that much to drink. I been working double shifts for a while now . . .” He shrugged it off. “Can you get me out of here?”

The guard was suspicious, but he wasn’t sure of what. Nodding at the safe room, he said, “That door’s kept locked.”

“It was open, just like that,” Parker told him, pointing at the doorway. “Door hooked open and the lights on. You think I got keys to this place? Look at the door, I didn’t bust in, it was just like that. Listen, I’m sorry. If you wanna call the cops on me, go ahead, but I just gotta get out of here.”

The guard considered him. “We’ll go to the office,” he decided.

“If that’s on the way out,” Parker said, “fine.”

“You lead the way.”

“Sure. But you’ll have to tell me which way I’m leading.”

The guard’s right hand went from the revolver butt to the doorknob behind him. Opening the door, stepping to one side, he said, “Just go out and down the hall.”

“Sure.”

As Parker went by him, the guard frowned at the door he was holding. “Was this unlocked, too?”

“No, it wasn’t shut.”

“It’s always shut.”

Parker waited while the guard followed him out and pulled the door closed. “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “It was almost shut, but not all. I could just push it. And I saw those lights in there.”

“Something’s funny here,” the guard said, and nodded at the corridor. “Just go straight down.”

“Right.”

They walked past the door on the left leading to the stairwell that Parker and Lindahl had used. Parker didn’t look that way but faced straight, and at the end the guard directed him to turn left down a different corridor. This was a completely different route from the one he’d taken before with Lindahl, and it led finally to an elevator. So this guard didn’t like climbing stairs.

He also didn’t like being in the enclosed space of the metal elevator with Parker. He stood against the back wall, hand on the revolver butt again, this time his fingers toying with the safety strap as he looked sidelong at Parker.

At the top, the corridor was carpeted. “To the left.”

They walked down the corridor, Parker in front, and the guard said, “The open door on the right.”

“What?” Somebody past that open door had heard the voice.

Parker made the turn, and this was the security room, with banks of television monitors, shotguns locked into racks on the wall, and several desks, only one of them occupied, by a slightly smaller version of the first guard, equally out of shape.

This one started to rise when he saw Parker, then settled back again when his partner came in. Looking at the partner, he said, “Bill? Whatchu got here?”

“He was in the safe room.”

“He what?” Now he did get up from the desk and frowned at Parker but kept talking to his partner. “What’s he doing in there?”

“Says he’s trying to find the way out. Says he went asleep in the john.” Pointing at the monitors, he said, “You see him on any of the screens?”

“I saw you, that’s all.” Now he did speak to Parker: “How’d you get in there?”

“Walked.”

He didn’t like that. “Don’t get snotty with me, fella.”

“I told this guy,” Parker said with a gesture at Bill, “I fell asleep, I woke up, I’m trying to get out of here. Everything’s locked.”

“Except the safe room,” said Bill. “How d’ya like that?”

“I don’t,” the second one said, and to Parker he said, “You got anybody with you?”

“I didn’t see anybody,” Bill said.

“When I sleep in the men’s room,” Parker said, “I sleep alone.”

The second one was getting steamed. He glared at Parker a long minute, then said, “I may have to tenderize you.”

“We’d better call the troopers,” Bill said.

“We’ll get to that,” his partner said. Still glaring at Parker, he pointed at the top of his desk and said, “Empty your pockets.”

“Sure.” Parker took the automatic out of his pocket and showed it to them as he stepped to the left, so he could see them both. “Is this good enough?”

“God damn you—” The second one was red-faced now and angrier than ever. He moved as though to come around the desk.

“Max! Jesus, Max, fourteen months, remember?”

That stopped Max, or at least slowed him down. “What a hell of a thing you brought me,” he said.

Parker said, “On the floor, both of you, over there. Facedown.”

Neither moved. Max said, “There’s two of us.”

“There could be none of you. You go on the floor without a bullet in you, or you go on the floor with a bullet in you. Now.”

“Fourteen months, Max,” Bill said, and, stiffly lowered himself to the floor, having trouble getting down, and then having more trouble rolling onto his stomach.

Max watched him, tense, not wanting the humiliation in front of this armed stranger, but finally realized there was no choice. He tried to be more graceful getting down, but failed, and finally lost his balance and landed on his bottom with a thump. Quickly, then, he scrambled around to lie prone, turning his face away.

Parker said, “Where do you keep the cuffs?”

“Fuck you,” Max told the carpet.

Parker said, “I may have to tenderize you, friend.”

Bill said, “They’re in the desk with the flowerpot on it, bottom side drawer.”

Parker found them and tossed them onto the floor between the two guards. “Bill, you put them on Max.”

Max was muttering, “Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit,” but he stopped when he sensed Bill getting up onto his knees. They all waited to see what Bill would do, which for a few seconds was nothing.

Parker said, “That’s far enough up, Bill. Do it.”

Bill was sheepish. “Sorry, Max,” he said as he clipped the cuffs onto the other man’s wrists, behind his back.

“How do we let him do this, goddammit?”

“He’s got the gun, Max.”

“So do we!”

“His is in his hand.”

“Facedown, Bill,” Parker said, and quickly cuffed him, then placed two chairs between the men’s legs, to keep them from rolling over or moving around. With a last look at all the empty corridors and rooms on the monitor screens, he headed fast for the elevator.