Ask the Parrot

4

Parker stood and crossed to the door, then raised the blind covering the window next to it. The boarded-up house standing between here and the road was a two-and-a-half-story wood-framed structure, probably one hundred years old, its original color long since time-bleached down to gray. Every door and window, except one small round window in the attic, was covered by large sheets of plywood, themselves also gray with age. Parker said, “Tell me about that place.”

Lindahl got up to come over and stand beside him, saying, “A woman named Grothe lived there, forever. She was retired from somewhere in state government, lived there by herself, she was in her nineties when she finally died.”

“Why’s it boarded up?”

“Some cousins inherited the place, had nothing to do with this part of the world, gave it to a real estate agent to sell, years ago. But nobody’s buying anything around here, so after a while the town took it over for taxes, boarded it up to keep the bums out.”

“Ever been inside it?”

“Can’t. It’s sealed up. And who’d want to? Nothing in there but dust and dry rot.”

“Who do you rent this place from?”

“The town. It’s goddam cheap, and it oughta be. Who’s this?”

A black Taurus had turned in from the road, was driving past the boarded-up house, headed this way. Lindahl gave Parker a quick look: “Are you here?”

When there’s no place to hide, stand where you are. Parker said, “I’m Ed Smith, I used to work with you years ago at the track, I moved to Chicago, I’m back for a visit.”

“Smith?”

“There are people named Smith,” Parker said as a heavyset man in a maroon windbreaker got out of the car. “Who’s he?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lindahl said as the man shut the car door, glanced at Lindahl’s Ford parked beside him, and started forward. “What the hell is his name? Fred, Fred something.”

Fred saw them both in the window and waved. Under a red billed cap, his face was broad and thick, dominated by a ridge of bone horizontally above his eyes.

“Rod and Gun Club,” Lindahl said, and opened the door. “Fred! Jesus, it’s been years.”

“You’re still on the rolls,” Fred said, and gave a quick nod and grin at Parker.

“Come in, come in,” Lindahl said, stepping back from the doorway. “This is Ed Smith, he’s visiting. You aren’t after me for dues, are you?”

Fred gave that a dutiful laugh and stuck his hand out to Parker, saying, “Fred Thiemann. You a hunter, Ed?”

“Sometimes.”

“I can offer you a beer,” Lindahl said, sounding doubtful.

“No, no, no drinking,” Fred said, “not at a time like this. You know about those bank robbers come over from Massachusetts.”

Parker could sense the strain in Lindahl’s neck muscles as he didn’t turn to look at Parker, but instead said, “They caught one of them, didn’t they?”

“Not that far from here. The state police figure the other two are holed up in this area someplace, so they sent out a request, American Legion and VFW posts, outfits like ours, just take a walk around any woods or empty spaces we’ve got, see do we turn up anything. It’s the weekend, so we’re getting a big turnout.” He shrugged, grinning with both delight and embarrassment. “Like a bunch of kids, playing cops and robbers.”

“Like a posse,” Lindahl said.

“Exactly,” Fred said. “Except, no horses. Anyway, a bunch of us are meeting at St. Stanislas, we’ll look around the Hickory Hill area. Nobody expects to find anything, but we might help keep those guys on the run.”

Parker said, “How’d they catch the first one?”

“He tried spending the bank’s money,” Fred said. “Turns out most of that was new cash, they had the serial numbers.”

The four thousand dollars in Parker’s pocket was new money. He said, “That guy was careless.”

“Let’s hope the other two are just as careless,” Fred said. “We didn’t have a phone number for you, Tom, so I said I’d come over on the way, see do you want to come along. You, too, Ed.”

Lindahl looked at Parker. “Would you want to do that?”

“Sure,” Parker said. “The safest place around is gonna be with the posse.”