Ask the Parrot

5

Pistol in his hand, Parker went up the ramp in the darkness, stopping by the closed gate to wait for his eyes to adjust. There was no moon right now, but many high stars that gave the world a slight velvet gray illumination. Beyond the chain-link gate, he could see the bulk of Lindahl’s black SUV and beyond that the gray Jetta. A number of parked track vehicles were an indistinct mass to the left, along the wall beyond the end of the clubhouse. To left and right, the wall curved away into darkness.

Parker knew this area was a large enclosed trapezoid with this end of the clubhouse as its narrow edge, and eight-foot-high wooden walls curving out from it to meet the main wooden wall that surrounded the property. Inside the wall, there was nothing but grass and dirt, except for those vehicles parked to the left. So that’s where Cory would be.

There was no way to be silent when opening the gate. A U-shaped metal bar had to be lifted out of the way. The noise it made was small but sharp; Cory would have heard it.

The gate was built in two sections, hinged at the far sides. Parker pulled open the right side just far enough so he could slip through, then went to the ground in front of the Ford and made his way, prone, leftward past the car, then straight out toward those parked vehicles, crawling forward with the gun out ahead of himself. If he were to move to left or right, there was a chance Cory could see his movements against the white wall or the white end of the clubhouse. As long as he kept that bulk of the two cars and the gate behind him, there’d be nothing to make him a silhouette.

The world was absolutely silent, except for the tiny scuffing sounds he made as he moved across the weedy ground. Then, out ahead, he heard a metallic click, and an instant later a pair of headlights flashed on.

It was some sort of big vehicle, the headlights higher than on a car, pointed at an angle to his right, but with plenty of leftover glare to show him on the ground, midway between the trucks ahead and the gate behind.

Parker shot the nearer headlight, then rolled to his right, closer to the beam, as he heard an answering shot from out in front and the smash of a car window behind him. Prone again, he shot out the second headlight, then rolled back to his left as Cory fired twice more, still shooting too high, the way most people do when they’re firing at something below them.

Cory didn’t waste any more ammunition. Parker got his elbows underneath himself, then pushed up to his feet and ran forward at a crouch. The headlights had spoiled his night vision for a few seconds, but they would have done the same for Cory.

The rear doors of an ambulance. The vehicle with the headlights had been facing outward and was down to the right. Parker moved around the left side of the ambulance, came to the wall beyond it, and stopped. He looked left and right but saw nothing against the wall. He waited and listened.

Silence. Cory was still in here somewhere, in this collection of vehicles. If he was smart, he’d stay in one place and wait for Parker to move, knowing Parker would have to move, he couldn’t still be stuck in here at daybreak.

Cory wouldn’t have been inside the vehicle with the lights but would have reached in through an open side window to switch them on. Probably he’d had to stand on an exterior step of the thing, which was why it had been a few seconds before he’d started firing, the time he’d needed to step back down to the ground.

Would he still be over there, near that vehicle? Had he seen Parker’s run? Would he have any idea where Parker was now?

Time to move. Keeping his back against the wooden wall, Parker sidled leftward. Next past the ambulance was a pickup truck, also facing this way, then a two-wheeled horse trailer tilted forward, and then a small fire engine, facing out.

Was this the thing with the lights? The next vehicle was another pickup, facing outward, but too small to be the one with those lights.

Parker went down prone behind the fire engine and looked under the vehicles to see if he could find Cory’s feet. No; Cory wasn’t in the immediate area of the fire engine, and farther away it was impossible to see anything.

He was getting back up on his feet when another set of headlights flashed on, farther to the left. He turned toward them, but almost instantly the lights switched off again, making the darkness darker than before.

So Cory hadn’t known where Parker was, and now knew he had to be in here among the vehicles. Parker started toward where the headlights had flashed, and abruptly heard running.

The window in this pickup’s driver’s door was shut, but the door wasn’t locked. Parker pulled it open, causing more light as the interior bulb went on, and switched on the headlights, to see Cory running as fast as he could toward the gate and the ramp. He dove around the far end of the Ford as Parker fired at him, just too late.

Parker slapped off these headlights, slammed the pickup door, and trotted after Cory, calling, “Tom! Get back!”

When he reached the gate, he stopped to listen. Not a sound from down there. Had Lindahl managed to get deeper into the clubhouse, locking doors after himself, or was Cory now moving around inside the building? Or was Cory waiting down there in the darkness for Parker to come after him?

Parker crouched low and slid over in front of the Ford, which would keep him invisible from down below. He waited, and still heard nothing, and gradually became aware that the darkness down there wasn’t absolute. The lights were still on in the corridor beyond that room, and they gleamed a faint dark yellow through the thick glass of the small window in the door.

The gate was still slightly open, the way he’d left it. He sidled through, waited, inched forward. Infinitely slow, he traveled in a deep crouch down the ramp, left hand on the tilted concrete floor behind him, right hand holding the pistol out in front, eyes on that dim rectangle of light, hoping to see someone pass across in front of it.

As he advanced, he took shallow silent breaths through open mouth. He listened for any sound that would tell him where Cory was, but heard nothing.

At the bottom of the ramp, he stayed in the crouch, left hand now on the floor in front of himself. The duffel bag he’d brought in here from the safe room would be ahead and to his left; he moved toward it, always keeping his eye on that dim-lit window.

He had the bag. Turning slowly, bracing himself, he sat on it, knees wide, forearms on legs, hands and gun hanging downward. There was very little time to waste here, but there was time enough for this. He would wait, and Cory would reveal himself, and Parker would kill him. He would wait, and Lindahl would come back and make some sort of disturbance, flushing Cory out, and Parker would kill him.

The small rectangular amber gleam high up in the door was like a window in a castle far up a mountainside. Parker watched it, and breathed evenly, and permitted his body to relax, and waited.