The Green Eagle Score

1

Parker found them both in the bedroom. Up until one second ago they’d been having sex, and when Parker hit the light switch Devers came up off the bed, looking as foolish as a naked man can look. Ellen blinked in terror at the light.

Parker looked at Ellen and said, “She still here.”

Devers said, “Parker?” He was still too shocked to be able to think. “What’s going on?”

Parker ignored him. He went over to the foot of the bed and said to Ellen, “Didn’t you think I’d tip?”

“What—what—”

“Parker,” Devers said. “For Christ’s sake—”

“It’s gone,” Parker told him. “Webb and I ditched the bus, went back to the lodge, and the cash was gone.”

Webb, still in the doorway, said quietly, “Three dead, pal.”

Devers just blinked. “Dead?”

“Fusco,” Parker said. “And Stockton. And Kengle.”

Webb said, “We found them over by the work-shed. They’d been lined up and shot down.”

Devers and Ellen were both beginning to unscramble their brains now. Ellen reached for a blanket to cover herself, and Devers said, “We were hijacked? It’s gone?”

“Somebody hit us for the bundle,” Parker said. “They had to be waiting up there for us.”

“In the work-shed,” Webb said.

“Wherever it was,” Parker said, not caring. “They waited for us to show up, they waited for you to go and me and Webb to go. They waited till the one time when there’d be only three men on the stash.”

Webb said, “You know what that means, buddy?”

“They had to know,” Devers said. His face was bloodless there was no strength in his voice. “They had to know the whole caper,”

Webb said. “In advance,” Parker said.

“Right,” Webb said. “They had to know not only we were scoring tonight, they had to know where the hideout was and when we were due to get there and how we were going to split up then, with Parker and me off to get rid of the bus and you coming back here.”

Devers said, “It had to be somebody on the inside.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, dropping there as though his legs wouldn’t hold him any more. “You think it’s me,” he said. He looked hopeless, as though it didn’t seem to him there was any way to keep them from thinking it was him and acting on that assumption.

Parker said, “I don’t think you’re that stupid, Devers. You don’t want to be hunted, not by the cops and not by us. If you work a cross on us, you can’t hang around, you’ve got to clear out. If you clear out, you’re a deserter from the Air Force. If you desert the day after the heist, they know you were in on it. That isn’t what you want.”

Webb said, “I’ll tell you the truth, Devers, I’m not as sold as Parker. I think you’re young and cocky, I think you just might try it, figure you could stick around and look innocent and bewildered when we show up.”

“Sixty-five thousand is enough,” Devers said to him. “That’s the only point, sixty-five thousand is plenty. If I’ve got sixty-five thousand dollars I’m not hungry enough to go up against you five guys.”

“That’s a point in your favor,” Webb said. “And I don’t think you could have taken those three out at the lodge by yourself. But why bump them unless it was somebody they knew and could remember? You see the kind of question I ask myself. Maybe you had a couple buddies from the air base stashed up there, helping you out.”

“So I split with them? What difference does it make who split with if all I get is a piece anyway?”

Webb moved the hand that didn’t have a gun in it. “You’re probably clean,” he said. “All I’m saying, I’m not as one hundred per cent sold as Parker.”

“Sure,” Devers said. He was getting his wits about him more and more now. “If it isn’t me,” he said, “you’re stuck. There’s nobody left.”

Parker gestured his revolver at Ellen. “Was she here when you came back?”

Ellen had been staring at Parker wide-eyed all the time, clutching the blanket around herself. She was huddled up against the headboard of the bed, her mouth was slack with terror, and there was no way to tell whether she’d heard or understood a word that had been said, except that she flinched now when Parker moved the gun and referred to her.

Devers looked at Parker in astonishment, then at Ellen, then back at Parker. “Sure she was. Ellen? You don’t think she—”

“She’s the one,” Parker said.

“She was here. And she wouldn’t set up something like that, for God’s sake. Kill Marty? Why?”

Ellen said something, muffled and jumbled. They all looked at her and she said it again: “Marty isn’t dead.”

Parker said to Devers, “She set it up. I don’t know why, maybe not for the money, maybe just to keep you from getting into another of these things, maybe she’s not taking a piece at all. But she turned somebody loose on us, gave them the whole thing. She almost told me about it this afternoon, she was nervous, acting weird, afraid to go through with it.”

Devers was steadily shaking his head, and now he said, “Parker, Ellen wouldn’t do a thing like that. She isn’t that kind of woman, she’d never fink on anybody like that.”

Webb said, “That’s why I’m not a hundred per cent solid on you, pal. Because I don’t think she’s right to play finger either.”

Parker said to her. “Where are they? Tell us where they are, I won’t touch you. I’ll leave Devers to figure out what to do with you. That won’t be much trouble, he loves you. Where are they?”

“Marty isn’t dead,” she said.

Parker said, “Devers, slap her face. I want her awake.”

But then Ellen shrieked, “Why would he do a thing like that?” Face contorted with rage, she leaped off the bed and tried to run out of the room. Parker grabbed her and she twisted and squirmed, trying to get away, shouting, “I’ve got to talk to him, I’ve got to find out! I’ve got to know why he did it, why he’d do something like that!”

Parker slapped her with his free hand, open palm across the face, and she sagged against him, her body abruptly boneless. Holding her up, Parker said, “Who? Who did it?”

“I was supposed to be able to trust him,” she said, her eyes closed, her body slack with defeat.

Parker shook her. “Who?”

Devers said, “For Christ’s sake, Parker, don’t you get it. She’s talking about her analyst!”

At the sound of the word Ellen tensed again, but she kept her eyes closed and continued to sag against Parker’s chest. Over her shoulder Parker said to Devers, “Why?”

“She told him the whole dodge,” Devers said. “Don’t you see? Not to set up anything against us, but because it was shaking her up. She figured she could trust him, it was like going to confession, she spilled the whole thing to the son of a bitch.”

“You know where he lives?”

“I know where his office is.”

“Where’s a phone book?”

“Unlisted,” Ellen said. It was a near-whisper, almost a sigh.

Parker held her out where he could look at her lolling face and closed eyes. He said, “What’s the home address?”

“I don’t know, he won’t tell, he doesn’t want patients bothering him late at night.”

Parker shoved Ellen over to Webb, saying, “Tie her.” To Devers he said, “Get dressed.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We’ve got till first light, if we’re lucky, to get it back and get ourselves out of sight.”

Devers reached for his clothing.