The Green Eagle Score

6

The doctor was sitting on the floor where they’d left him, still tied and gagged. Webb went directly to the dresser when Parker turned on the light, picked up Godden’s keys, and went out to switch cars, putting Godden’s car in the drive and the Buick in the garage.

Parker sat on the bed. “Listen close,” he said. “Because of you, things got screwed up. We can’t use our hideout now, we’d never get out there any more, it’s almost light already. Three of my friends are dead, and two thirds of the money is gone. If I didn’t have any use for you I’d kill you now with a wire hanger. But I can use you, so you’ve got a shot at living. Cooperate and you’ll be all right. Screw up again and it’s all over.”

Godden nodded vigorously.

“All right.” Parker went over and removed the gag. “Don’t do a lot of talking,” he said. “Just answer the questions I ask you.”

Godden nodded again. “I will.” His voice sounded rusty, there were red marks on his cheeks where the gag had bit. The blood on his forehead had dried, so no more was seeping out.

Parker went back and sat on the edge of the bed again. He said, “How long is your wife out of town for?”

“Five more days. She’ll be back Monday afternoon. That is, the two of us are supposed to be back Monday afternoon.”

“You were leaving?”

“Friday. Friday afternoon.”

“Were you due in your office today?”

”You mean tomorrow? The day that’s starting?”

“It’s twenty after four in the morning. I mean today.”

“Yes, of course.”

“How many patients today?”

“Four. Well, three, not counting Ralph Hochberg.”

“Roger St Cloud?”

“Yes. Is he—?”

“That’s two,” Parker said. “What time’s the first session?”

“Ten o’clock. But that would have been Ralph. The next one would be at eleven.”

“In the morning,” Parker said, “call those two patients, tell them you won’t be in today.”

Godden nodded. “All right.”

“But wait till after the law talks to you.”

Godden looked surprised. “The law? You mean the police?”

“Your boy Roger barricaded himself in the house and shot it out with the cops.”

“My God!”

“They’ll be calling you. If you hear about it some other legitimate way first, you call them, offer full cooperation. Offer to talk to them, tell them anything they want to know. But you don’t want to go to them, you want them to come to you.”

“What if they insist?”

“You insist.”

“But, won’t they be suspicious?”

“No,” Parker said. “When they come here, give them the whole rundown on Roger, anything you want to say. But you keep cool about us.”

“You’ll be here? This is where you’re going to hide out?”

“If you tip about us,” Parker said, “the least you’ll get is your connection with the air base heist found out by the law. The worst you’ll get is a bullet in the head.”

“If I come out of this with my skin,” Godden said, “I’ll consider myself well ahead. Ellen Fusco told me about you, Parker, but I underestimated you, I didn’t really listen to what she was saying.” His face clouded. “I underestimated Roger, too.”

“Just keep remembering that,” Parker said. He got to his feet. “See you in the morning.”

“You’re going to leave me here like this?”

Parker went out, switching off the light.

There was a small light on in the kitchen now, enough to allow him to make his way around in the house. He went down to the kitchen and found Webb at the refrigerator. Webb looked around, a container of milk in one hand and a piece of pound cake in the other. “I was starved.”

“Where’s Devers?”

“Here,” Devers said, coming in grinning, lugging the suitcase. “I thought we could divvy up before I went back.”

Parker looked at him. “Back where?”

Devers was blank. “Back to Ellen’s place, where else?”

Parker said, “Some time tomorrow the law’s going to find those three bodies up by the lodge. Either tomorrow or the next day they’ll get a fingerprint report, and one of those bodies is going to belong to a guy named Martin Fusco. They’re going to look around, and they’re going to see an ex-wife of Martin Fusco’s living right here in town. Coincidence. They’ll go talk to the ex-wife, and they’ll find out she’s shacked up with a guy from the finance office out at the air base. Coincidence number two.”

Devers was pale. “Christ on a crutch. How do I get out of it? I just keep saying no. What can they do? I keep saying no, it’s a coincidence, what can they do about it?”

Webb, his mouth full of pound cake, said, “They’ll lean on you, buddy. They’ll lean hard.”

“I can hold out.”

Parker said, “Can Ellen? They’ll lean on her, too.”

“I’d say kill her,” Webb said thoughtfully, “but then they’d lean on you harder. And then if they get you they’ve got you on murder one.”

Devers was looking from one to the other. “What do I do?”

“You take your forty thousand,” Parker said, “and you go away.”

“But I’ve got to finish out my enlistment!”

Parker shook his head. “Not now. Between the woman and him upstairs, they’ve screwed you.”

“Only if they get Fusco’s body,” Devers said.

Webb said, “Forget it. You’re pretty safe to drive around in town, but you go out on the road now they’ll be all over you. You can’t even get to the lodge without going by the base.”

“So they stop me. I’m clean.”

“Finance office clerk. Driving around four o’clock in the morning. No destination.”

Parker added, “If they pick you up on the way back, you won’t be clean. Not with Fusco in the car.”

Devers was getting frantic. “God damn it, there’s got to be some way! What the hell am I going to do?”

“You’re going to find the registration to Godden’s car,” Parker told him. “In case you get stopped. Then you’re going to take his car and go over to the house and get Ellen and the kid. If she doesn’t want to come with you, you’ll kill her.”

“I can’t—”

“Then call us and tell us you can’t and give us a shot at making a run for it.”

Devers looked from Parker to Webb to Parker. “All right,” he said. “I get her. Then what?”

“You bring her here. If the law finds her, she’ll tell them about Godden, and we need Godden clean so we can hole up here. So she has to come here, too.”

“How long do we hole up here?”

“Two or three days. Till the first heat lets up.”

Devers made an angry bitter gesture. “Then what do I do?”

“Pick a new name for yourself, buddy,” Webb told him. “And keep your head down. And hope for the best.”

“You mean be on the run the rest of my life.”

Webb grinned, “Like in the movies? Sleeping in hay-lofts, riding in freight cars, that what you mean?” He shook his head. “I been wanted under my own name for fifteen years. Parker here, he’s wanted under more names than he can remember. We both been on the run, we’re always on the run. It’s a nice easy run if you know how to take it.”

“You were in Puerto Rico,” he said.

Webb spread his hands. “There, you see? On the run, at the Hilton hotel.”