The Green Eagle Score

2

The plate beside the door read: Monequois Professional Building. On the other side was a white painted board with a list of the tenants in black lettering: doctors, lawyers and a firm of accountants. Dr Fred Godden’s name was fourth from the top.

The building was of fairly recent construction, red brick with white trim, built in a neighborhood gradually changing over from expensive homes to expensive offices. Air conditioners stuck their squared-off crenelated black rumps out of most of the windows, and there were bushes planted across the front of the building, plus a small well-kept lawn extending out to the street. And more than enough illumination; in addition to the streetlight just across the way, a pair of carriage lamps bracketing the front entrance were kept burning all night.

There was a blacktop driveway beside the building. Webb had switched his headlights off three blocks ago, and when he reached the building now he kept them off as he turned the Buick into the driveway and aimed for the blackness beside the building. Brick wall went by on their left, a high hedge on their right, both unseen. When the tires left blacktop and crunched on gravel Webb hit the brakes and cut the ignition.

They were all three in the front seat, Devers in the middle. Parker opened the door and got out and Devers slid out after him. Webb left the car on the other side. No interior light went on when the car doors were open. Leaving them open, they moved away through almost perfect darkness to the brick rear wall of the building and felt their way to the rear door

If they’d had to go through without leaving any marks it might have taken half an hour or more, but now they didn’t care about marks, only about time. They went through the door in three minutes and moved quickly up the stairs to the second floor.

The office doors had frosted glass in their upper panels names on the glass in gold letters. Behind the one that read DR FRED GODDEN, small yellowish red light glowed.

Standing against the wall out of direct line of the doorway, Parker tried the knob. When he pushed, the door gave. It was unlocked.

All three had revolvers in their hands. Devers had left his at the lodge to be disposed of, but Parker had brought it back to him.

Parker pushed the door slowly. There was no pressure wanting to close it, but it didn’t swing loosely, probably because it needed oiling or adjusting. It opened willingly as far as Parker would push it, but no more.

When it was halfway open, Parker eased his head over until he could look one-eyed through the opening. He saw a pie wedge of outer office, a corner of Naugahyde sofa, a part of a desk, a partially open door across the way. The light was coming from that inner room.

There was no sound. Parker pushed the door open the rest of the way, hesitated, stepped inside. Nobody here, not in this outer room.

Devers and Webb followed him in. They came cautiously at the next door and again Parker leaned into it from the side, the revolver ready in his hand, his other hand flat against the wall behind him to lever him back out of the way if it was needed.

Another pie slice. A desk again, this one larger. Patterned carpet. Glass-fronted bookcases. The light came from a table lamp with an orange shade, sitting on one corner of the desk.

Again no sound, nothing moving. Parker entered as carefully as before, and still nothing happened.

Now he could see the rest of the room. A sofa along the left wall, an armchair at its far end. A couple more lamps, a library table, a filing cabinet, a coffee table in front of the sofa.

A sound. From behind the desk.

Parker dropped. He lay on the rug, listening, and when he turned his head and looked across the carpet into the darkness under the desk and beyond the desk, near where the wheeled legs of the office chair came down, he saw a pair of eyes, blinking whitely.

Sideways. Someone lying on his back, head turned this way, eyes slowly opening and closing.

Parker got to his feet. Behind him to the left was a wall switch. He hit it, and indirect lighting filled the room from troughs along the top of the walls. He went around behind the desk as Webb and Devers came in.

The man on the floor was tall, muscular with an overlay of flab. He was wearing scuffed brown oxfords, baggy brown trousers, a bulky dark-green sweater frayed here and there. The sweater was caked and smeared dark brown in two places over his chest and stomach. A dark slender ribbon glinted along his cheek from his mouth, disappeared into his hair beneath his ear. He must have been lying with his head tilted a little the other way for a while. Maybe he’d heard Parker and the others coming in, had managed to turn his head. He wasn’t moving now.

Devers had come around the desk from the other side, stood with his shoes near the guy’s head. He said. “Dead?”

“Not yet. You know him?”

“I don’t think so. I can’t see his face.” Parker went on one knee beside the wounded man, put his hand on the guy’s chin, turned his head so Devers could see it. Blood had started to trickle out the other side of the mouth now. His eyes were open again. They blinked, very slowly, shut and then open. They did it again. When they were open the eyes didn’t focus on anything, just looked straight ahead at the ceiling. They kept blinking at the same slow steady rhythm.

Devers looked sick. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t know who he is.”

”You never saw him at all?”

“Never. I’d remember.”

Parker let the chin go, and the head stayed where he’d left it. Some blood was on the first finger of Parker’s left hand He cleaned it on the guy’s sweater, then pushed the body partway over to get at the hip pocket, where the wallet should be.

It was there. Parker opened it, found a driver’s license read the name aloud. “Ralph Hochberg. Mean anything?”

“Nothing,” Devers said.

Hochberg’s head was facing front again, his eyes staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly without let-up. He began to gurgle in his throat, a small damp choking sound.

Devers said, “He’s strangling on his blood.”

Parker pushed Hochberg’s face to the side, so the blood could flow out, and got to his feet. “They were here,” he said, more to himself than Devers. “Godden and this one. Just the two of them? They’ve started to doublecross each other.”

“Godden wouldn’t try it with just one other man,” Devers said. “Not going up against three pros, even with surprise on his side. He’d want to make it three against three at least. More, if he could find the people. You suppose this guy’s a patient of his?”

Webb came over, an envelope in his hand. He’d been searching the room and going through the filing-cabinet while Parker and Devers concentrated on the wounded man. Webb said, “Nobody else. The cases are over there, past the sofa. Empty.”

“This is where they divvied,” Parker said.

“I found this,” Webb said, handing out the envelope.

Parker took it. It was addressed to Dr Fred Godden, 16 Rosemont Road, West Monequois, New York. That wasn’t the office address.

Parker handed the envelope to Devers, saying, “You know this town. Would that be a residence?”

“Sure,” Devers said. “West Monequois, that’s high class.”

Webb said, “Let’s go there.”