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 workshed. 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 workshed,” 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.

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. Glassfronted 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.”

3

Rosemont Road curved gracefully back and forth among brick ranches and frame split levels, each on its own grassy lot, with its wide driveway, attached garage, TV antenna and sloped roof. It was almost three-thirty in the morning now, and every house they passed was completely dark, except that every now and then a night light showed faintly through a window.

Number sixteen was on the right, a split level with the garage in the lower part of the two-story section. It was as dark as the rest of the neighborhood, a white frame house built up on a rise of land above the road, with a steep rock garden at the front of the lawn, a broad driveway that angled upward sharply, and a look of innocence and sleep.

Webb drove on until the curve of the road hid them from the Godden house, and then he parked. All three got out and walked back along the sidewalk, cutting across the lawn of the house next door in order to come at the Godden house from the back, on the garage side.

There was a door at the back of the house, leading into the garage. They approached it slowly, the darkness as deep as velvet all around them, the house a vaguely seen pale shape looming up in front of them. They were silent, moving on grass. They reached the rear wall and slid along it to the door.

Parker tried the knob. It clicked faintly, but the door was locked.

A voice said, “Roger?”

Parker flattened against the house.

The voice was above him, somebody in a second-story window. It said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Roger.” It was a male voice, but womanish and trembling with fear.

Parker waited.

The voice said, “I have a gun. You’d better get away from here.”

Moving slowly, Parker turned his head. He could see that Webb was no longer there behind him, which was good. Devers, a few feet away, was pressed close to the wall just as Parker was.

The voice said, “You’ve got all the money, what more do you want?”

Whispers don’t have much individuality. Making his shrill, Parker whispered, “Ralph is still alive!”

“What do you want me to do about it?” The voice was getting shrill itself, the tension in it twanged like a plucked zither string.

“Help him,” Parker whispered.

“Help him! Why shoot him? What’s the matter with you?”

“I need your help,” Parker whispered. “Let me in.”

“So you can kill me, too?”

“Why would I kill you?”

“Why did you shoot Ralph? Roger, I’m sorry, I can’t trust you. Maybe tomorrow. What are we going to do about Ralph? I thought he was dead. I though I’d have to go back later and take him out and leave his body somewhere. But if he’s alive, I—” With sudden suspicion, the voice said, “Is he alive? How do you know?”

“I went back.”

“How did you know where to find me? Roger? Is that Roger down there?”

“Yes.” If Devers was right, that Godden’s partners were probably patients of his, a little hysteria might be in order now. Parker suddenly rattled the doorknob loudly, whispering, “Let me in! I threw the gun away, I don’t want to kill anybody any more! Let me in! I need your help!”

“That isn’t Roger!”

Where the hell was Webb? “Help me!” Parker whispered, flapping his arms against the door, moving around like someone too agitated to stand still. Or like someone trying to be a bad target.

There was a sudden light from above, and Parker was in the middle of it. A flashlight. Parker dove for the darkness and above him a rifle sounded, loud and flat.

Parker landed on his shoulder, rolled, got to his feet in darkness, with the flashlight aimed out past where he was. He ran in close again, against the wall, and suddenly the flashlight dropped from the window and landed on the grass. It lay there, still lit, shining with great precision and clarity on a cone of green grass.

Parker saw the outline of Devers on the other side of the light, moving toward it. He whispered, “Keep away!” and Devers faded back again.

Nothing happened for almost a minute, and then Webb’s voice came from up above, softly, saying, “Clear.”

“There’s got to be other people in the house,” Parker said, speaking just as softly. “Cover them.”

“Right. I came in the garage window on the side of the house. People never lock that one.”

Parker and Devers went around to the side where there was a smallish window, now standing open. They climbed through, landing in a mass of garden hose, edged around some kind of long broad car, and went through a doorway and up a half-flight of stairs to a kitchen.

There was light now, filtering from another part of the house. Moving toward it, they left the kitchen through an arched doorway, turned right down a short hall, and went up another half-flight of stairs. There was another short hall up here, with light spilling from a doorway on the right.

It was a bedroom, done in colonial, with a canopy bed. Webb was standing by the foot of the bed, revolver in his hand. Sitting on the floor was a balding man of about forty-five, dressed in pajamas. There was a gash on the side of his head, bleeding slightly. He’d touched it at one point, and now there was blood on his fingertips. He looked frightened, and calculating.

When Parker and Devers came into the room, Webb said, “Nobody else here. Empty kid’s room across the way.”

Parker said to the man on the floor, “Where’s your family?”

“I’m remarried. My children live with my ex-wife.”

“Where’s your new wife?”

“Visiting her brother. I didn’t want her around during—” He gestured vaguely.

Webb nodded and said, “Didn’t want to have to tell her where he was going at two o’clock in the morning.”

Parker said, “You’re Godden?”

The man nodded wearily. “Of course.”

“Ellen Fusco told you the caper.”

“Yes. And I tried to steal the money away from you.” He looked up, squinting. “I almost made it, too,” he said. “Except Roger went crazy.”

“Roger who?”

“Roger St. Cloud. A local boy.”

“Like Ralph?”

“Is he really still alive?”

“He was when we were there. Maybe he isn’t now. Were they both patients of yours?”

“Yes. I didn’t have anything to do with killing your friends.”

Parker said, “It was all Roger.”

“He swore one of them reached for a gun. The tall thin one. He was guarding them while Ralph and I put the money cases in the car.” Godden shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know how he could have been reaching for a gun,” he said. “We’d already searched them all, we had their guns.”

Parker said, “What happened at the office?”

“We’d been arguing. I said he didn’t have to shoot all three of them, even if one did reach for a gun. We got to the office, and split up the money. We had suitcases there, we’d already each brought a suitcase and left it in the office. Everything was fine, and then Roger started up again, about how he’d been given the dangerous job, how I’d known those were dangerous men and they’d try something and he’d have to kill them. Blaming me, you see. And then deciding what I meant to do was turn him over to the police for murder, and then Ralph and I would split his share between us. It was all very obvious, justifying what he meant to do by blaming us in advance.”

Devers said, “Cut out the shoptalk, Doc. What happened?”

“Yes,” Godden said, and nodded wearily. “Ralph said something. I don’t know, something innocuous, Ralph was never anything but innocuous. Something about how Roger didn’t really mean all that. And Roger didn’t say a word. He just went over to the sofa and picked up the rifle and shot Ralph. Ralph came staggering back by the desk, still on his feet, and Roger shot him again. That’s how I got away. Without the money.”

Godden seemed done. Parker prodded him, saying, “What next!”

“I got the car and drove home. I didn’t think Roger would be able to find out where I lived, at least not tonight. I didn’t know if anyone had heard the shots, so I came home and put the car away and got ready for bed. In case the police showed up, you know, to say there was somebody dead in my office. So I wouldn’t know anything about it. But I couldn’t sleep, I kept prowling around in the dark in here, and then I heard you people at the back door. I thought it was Roger.”

Parker said, “You soured a very sweet operation tonight, Doctor.”

Godden peered up at him again. “You’re Parker, aren’t you?” he said. “Ellen described you very well.”

“Time for you to describe your boy Roger,” Parker said. “I want to know what he looks like, where he lives, and what he’s going to do next.”

“How should I know what he’s going to do next?”

“You’re his analyst. Analyze him.”

Godden managed a nervous smile. “It’s not that simple,” he said.

Parker turned to Webb. “You two look the place over. In case this bird got the boodle after all.”

“I really didn’t.”

As Webb and Devers left the room, Parker sat down on the edge of the bed. “Roger St. Cloud,” he said. “Tell me about him.”

Godden licked his lips, touched again the still-oozing wound in his forehead. He sighed. “Roger’s twenty-two, about six feet tall, very thin. Acne on his face, very bad. His father’s a banker in town.”

“Address?”

“Uhhhh, 123 Haines Avenue.”

“Will he go there?”

“I don’t know. He’s very erratic, very unreliable. You see how badly I misjudged him tonight. I thought I could control him, but I couldn’t. He’d never had power before, you see. And there he was, standing there with the rifle in his hand and three men in front of him, completely in his power. He had to use it, he had to try it out.”

Parker said, “I want to know if he’ll go home. What was he going to do with his share, you ever talk about that with him?”

“He had different plans at different times. He was going to go to New York, or Hollywood, or Europe, he didn’t know where.”

“But he was going to leave town.”

“It wasn’t real to him,” Godden said. “He didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“Does he have a car?”

“A motorcycle.”

“Did he have it at the office tonight?”

“No. I picked him up in my car, near his house.”

Parker sat back and tried to figure it. There were three suitcases full of cash. This Roger wasn’t going to load all that on a motorcycle. The way the timing worked, he couldn’t have gotten out of the office more than about fifteen minutes before Parker and the others arrived. And he was on foot then.

With three suitcases?

Parker said, “Does his father have a car?”

When Godden didn’t answer right away, Parker looked at him and saw an odd expression on his face, startled, absorbed, as though he was seeing something in the middle distance that he didn’t at all like.

Parker said, “What is it?”

His voice hushed, Godden said, “I think I know what Roger’s going to do.”

4

“The doc called it,” Devers said.

They were on Haines Avenue, and they’d pulled to the curb a block from the house where Godden had said Roger St. Cloud lived. Down there, a block away, at just about the right location to be house number 123, there was all the light in the world, contrasting with the darkness here where Parker and Devers and Webb sat in the front seat of the station wagon and looked out the windshield at all the activity.

There was plenty of activity. At the intersection between here and the St. Cloud house there was a patrolman in uniform, standing in the middle of the street, prepared to divert all traffic from continuing on down Haines Avenue. Beyond him three police cars — one black municipal police car and two black and white State Trooper cars — were stopped at angles across the street, their doors hanging open. Beyond that there was a large searchlight mounted on a truck bed, the light on and beamed directly at the house that had to be 123. Uniformed policemen moved in vague spurts on the opposite side of the street, and every once in a while there was the isolated sound of a shot.

It was nearly four o’clock in the morning now, but a crowd had already formed on the sidewalks on this side of the intersection, jostling each other to get a better look. From a few cars parked along the curb, and the number of people in robes, they were probably still mostly neighborhood residents, most likely including people evacuated from the houses right around the St. Cloud place. If there were local all-night radio a lot more people would be crowding around the perimeter of the action by now, turning Roger St. Cloud’s death throes into live television.

What Dr. Godden had said was, “He’ll kill his father.” And when Parker asked him why, Godden said, “That’s the only reason he needs power, to free himself from his father. He’s used clothing, the motorcycle, sarcasm, all limited forms of power, all aimed at his father. Now he’s got real power. He’s tested it, and proved it works. He has three hundred and eighty thousand dollars, which is another kind of power, his father’s kind of power, and he’s going to want to go away and try using that power, too, but first he’s going to want to use the power on his father.”

Parker said, “The rifle.”

“Yes. The first thing he’ll do is go home and shoot his father. May I use the phone?”

“No.”

“But there may still be a chance to warn him.”

“You mean tip him.”

“The father I’m talking about.”

“The son I’m talking about,” Parker told him, and then they tied Dr. Godden and left his house and drove here, and a block away a searchlight borrowed from the air base was flooding white light onto the St. Cloud house, policemen crouched behind automobile fenders were shooting at an upstairs window, and a hundred people were standing on the sidelines and watching.

Webb said, “That’s it.”

“Wait a while,” Parker said.

Devers said, “Let’s get out, move a little closer.”

“We can see from here,” Parker told him.

Webb added, “Without anybody seeing us.”

Someone was using a loudhailer. They could hear it plainly, but just as noise, not broken into words. But they didn’t have to hear the words to know what Roger St. Cloud was being told.

Several windows had been lit on this block when they’d arrived, and now that the loudhailer had started up more windows were springing into yellow light. The law couldn’t have gotten here more than five minutes before Parker and the other two. That was better than the other way around.

They watched for three or four minutes. The loudhailer spoke, was silent a while, spoke again, was silent again. Policemen dodged from car fender to car fender, with no apparent destination. It seemed as though everybody was just milling around.

“They’ll think of tear gas in a little while,” Webb said.

Parker nodded. “It’ll be on its way already.”

In the meantime there was sporadic gunfire, with long seconds of silence. The law was using different kinds of gun, revolvers and rifles and at least one riot gun that twice made its monkey jabber, hemstitching a line of bullets across the front of the house.

St. Cloud was firing back, too. A policeman went running, crouching, zig-zagging across a bit of open space, and then crumpled and somersaulted and lay spread out on the ground. There was a hail of answering fire, and under its cover two cops ran out, grabbed the fallen one by the arms and dragged him back out of the line of fire.

After that there was another period of silence, with here and there a shot as though just to keep up appearances.

Webb said, “Why don’t he hit the light?”

“He doesn’t want to get away,” Devers said. “He wants to kill people.”

Webb frowned. “Why?”

The loudhailer spoke again. When it was still they could hear another sound, high-pitched, twanging, shrill. Devers whispered, “That’s him. Listen to him.”

“It don’t sound human,” said Webb. He looked past Devers at Parker. “Let’s get out of here. He’s got our cash, he’s surrounded by cops, it’s all up.”

Parker said, “Look.”

They looked. Snow was fluttering out of an upstairs window in the house, paper snow, cascading out, glide-glide-gliding to the ground like leaves, green leaves, pouring and billowing out of the window.

Webb said, “Our money.”

“It’s what Godden said,” Devers said, as though to himself. “He’s using power.”

“What the hell is he trying for?” Webb wanted to know. He was getting mad.

“He’s buying them off,” Devers told him. “He’s crazy as a loon in there, he’s using up all his power at once, killing people, buying them off.”

A suitcase had come flying out of the window, spilling the rest of its cash, bills flapping down, tossed by breezes. The people held back at the intersection by the police line didn’t know yet what it was, they just kept watching.

More money came out of the window, and then a second suitcase, open like the first, shooting out of the window as though catapulted, turning over and over in the air, spewing money out in gobs and flurries.

Then nothing happened. Nothing at all. The second suitcase hit the ground not far from the first, the money fluttered slowly downward through the air, that was all.

The shrill voice started again, its words as indistinguishable as the loudhailer’s, but the voice that drowned it out was as clear as glass. It was a voice from the spectators, and what it shouted was: “That’s money!”

Everthing seemed to stop. The shrill voice kept on, saying whatever it had to say, but nobody was listening any more. Everybody was tensed, everybody knew what was going to happen, everybody was waiting for whatever the signal was going to be.

The policemen across from the house were all looking down this way now, toward the crowd, and in the harsh light their faces looked pale and tense and worried.

Webb said, “They’re going to—”

The crowd broke.

One second they’d all been back, standing there, straining forward but staying outside the perimeter the police had set up for them. The next second they were all in motion, rushing forward across the intersection and into the bath of light, down on their hands and knees, clutching handfuls of money, swarming on the lawn, the sidewalk, the driveway.

“That’s our money,” Webb said. He glared through the windshield at the mass of people.

Devers pointed higher. “Look at him!”

He was a black comma, leaning out a second-story window, and the vertical line was a rifle. He was firing into the crowd under him, plinking away, quickly but methodically.

There were screams from down below now, and some people ran back out of the light, but most of them stayed there, scrabbling for the bills, ignoring everything else.

Parker looked across the street, saw a uniformed cop there with a rifle to his shoulder. He was damn finicky, under the circumstances, taking his time, being extra sure of his aim. With all the noise, Parker couldn’t hear the sound of the shot, but he saw the rifle kick in the cop’s hands. He looked back and saw St. Cloud drop into the people. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right.” Webb put the Buick into gear, made a tight U-turn, and they headed away from there.

Devers, disappointment thick in his voice, said, “What now?”

“Godden’s office,” Parker said.

Webb leaned forward to glance at him past Devers, then looked straight again, saying, “Why?”

“Because two suitcases went out the window,” Parker said. “There were three. He was on foot and two was all he could manage. The third one is hidden around there somewhere handy.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Webb, and leaned on the accelerator.

5

“It’s here!” Devers shouted, and the other two came running.

They hadn’t worried about noise or light this trip; time was the important element now. With the Buick sitting with its high beams on in the middle of the gravel parking-lot behind the Monequois Professional Building the three of them had spread out like competitors in a scavenger hunt, first inside the building itself and then around the area in back.

And now it was Devers who’d found it, after fifteen minutes of searching, stuffed into a large metal garbage bin against the rear wall, with papers strewn over it to keep it from casual eyes.

Webb had been going through the pile of leaves at the far corner of the lot, Parker had been searching the hedge along the rear boundary line of the property. They both trotted over to find Devers grinning in the light from the Buick, an old canvas suitcase sitting on top of the now-closed garbage bin.

Webb said, “Is that it?”

“We’ll see,” Parker said. “Open it.”

“Right,” said Devers.

It wasn’t locked. Devers flipped open the two catches, raised the lid, and they were looking at a jumbled untidy mass of bills.

Parker said, “Good. Put it in the car, switch the lights off, come up to the office.” He turned to Webb. “Come on with me.”

“Right.”

The back door wouldn’t close properly since they’d gone through it the last time. Parker led the way into the building and up the stairs, Webb following him, saying as they started down the hall toward Godden’s office, “What do we want up here?”

“The body.”

“If he’s dead.”

“He’ll be dead,” Parker said.

They’d left the office as they’d found it, light on and door ajar, and when they went in now nothing had changed. Ralph was lying with his face turned so he was staring under the desk. Parker went on one knee beside him, closed his hand against Ralph’s throat.

Webb, leaning over the desk, said, “Alive or dead?”

Parker didn’t answer for a moment. His arm showed strain. Then he took his hand away and said, “Dead. We need something to roll him in, so we don’t trail blood.”

“Rug in the other office.”

“Good. Take his feet.”

They carried the body to the outer office, put it on the small rug in front of the receptionist’s desk. When they rolled the rug, Ralph’s feet protruded from the knees down.

Parker said, “We want the money cases, too.”

They went back to the inner office, got the two money cases, carried them out to the hall. Then Parker went back to the office to look things over. There were stains on the carpet behind the desk, but there was nothing to be done about that. No other signs out of the ordinary, and the stains could only be seen if you went around behind the desk. Parker switched off the light, went to the outer office, and he and Webb carried the body out to the hall. They shut the door so it locked, and Devers arrived saying, “What’s up?”

Webb told him, “We’re transporting a stiff.”

Parker said, “Can you carry those two cases? Don’t make a lot of marks on the walls.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Parker and Webb picked up the body again and carried it out to the car. Devers followed, carrying the cases one at a time, bringing one partway and going back for the other and carrying that farther and going back for the first and so on. Because Parker and Webb moved more slowly, Devers could keep up with them and even run ahead and open the tailgate of the Buick for them.

The back of the Buick was crowded with the suitcase, metal cases and body. Parker and the other two climbed in the front and Webb said, “Where now?”

“Godden’s house.”

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.”

Devers looked at Parker. He was seeing things a new way. “You were in Puerto Rico,” he said.

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

7

When the two plainclothesmen left, Parker came out of the kitchen and made a show of putting his revolver away. “That was nice,” he said.

Godden was sweating, the adhesive bandage on his forehead making a dull tan patch against the gleaming pale skin. “I wouldn’t want to go through that twice,” he said. “Not for a million dollars.”

Webb and Devers came in from the other side. “You did it for a hundred G,” Webb said, “and you don’t even get that.”

Devers didn’t say anything. He was resigned now to the impossibility of his going back, but he hated Godden for having caused it. He stood there and glared at Godden, his fists clenched at his sides.

Godden nervously touched his bandage. “Do you think they believed me about this?”

“They believed everything,” Parker told him. “You did good.”

The story Parker had given him to tell tied together neatly enough, being grounded sufficiently in truth. When the phone had rung at ten minutes to seven this morning it was Parker who’d answered it, saying he was Godden. It was a reporter on the line, representing one of the wire services and phoning from Syracuse. Parker, being Godden, told him the news about the Roger St. Cloud affair was a complete surprise to him, and of course he wouldn’t be able to make a statement until he’d talked to the police.

Then Parker had roused Godden and had him phone the police and say he’d just been called by a reporter saying Roger St. Cloud had run amok. When the man at the other end substantiated the story, Godden volunteered to tell what he could about St. Cloud’s motives and state of mind, explaining he’d prefer the police to come to him because he’d fallen in getting out of bed to answer the reporter’s call, he’d cut his head, and he didn’t yet know how serious it was. Also, this news about a patient of his had shaken him badly.

The cop was sympathetic, and said a couple of men would be around sometime in the morning. They’d arrived at ten-fifteen, two plainclothesmen who already knew about the head injury, who were polite and deferential, and who obviously didn’t suspect Dr. Fred Godden of anything. But why should they?

Now it was quarter to eleven, and in the half-hour they’d been here the two cops had shown nothing but interest in Godden’s monologue on Roger St. Cloud. Godden had been nervous at first, but the police would have other explanations for that, and when he’d warmed into his description of Roger the nervousness vanished. He was, after all, engaging in shoptalk.

The plainclothesmen hadn’t said anything about Roger being involved in last night’s robbery at the air base, but the two events had been linked in the radio news since the nine o’clock broadcast. Nor had the radio said anything about the bodies up at the lodge yet, but the nine-thirty news had reported the finding of the bus. “Some of the bandits may have crossed the border into Canada under cover of darkness.”

They should be safe now, at least for a while. Godden had already called those of his patients he was to have seen that day and the next, telling them that under the circumstances naturally he wouldn’t be in the office till next week. After a few more reporters had called — the criminal’s analyst having replaced the criminal’s clergyman as a source of sidelight stories — there was nothing unusual in Godden leaving his phone off the hook.

The last item was Godden’s wife. Parker said, “Call your wife now. She’ll want to come back here, but tell her no. Tell her you’ll be coming along Friday as planned, unless the police want to talk to you again, and if they do you’ll be there Saturday. Tell her not to try calling you back because reporters have been bothering you and you aren’t answering the phone.”

“All right,” Godden said. He made the call, did more listening than talking, and finally got across all of the message that Parker wanted. When he hung up he looked uncertainly at Parker and said, “There’s another call I should make.”

“Who?”

“There’s a young lady. I would have seen her tonight.”

“Here?”

“No, her place.”

“Call her. Devers, get on the kitchen extension. If the woman doesn’t sound right, let me know.”

“Right.” Devers went out to the kitchen on the double, and it was clear he hoped Godden was trying something cute.

But Godden wasn’t. He called his young lady, explained that the Roger St. Cloud business had loused everything up, and promised to see her next week, Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.

When he was done with that call, and Devers had come back into the living room to give a disgusted shake of the head, Parker said, “All right. Back to your room.”

Godden got to his feet, trying a smile. “You don’t have to tie me up again, you know,” he said. “You can trust me. I want to get clear of this mess just as much as you do.”

“You bastard,” Devers said.

Godden turned to him, spreading his hands. “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, believe me I am. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t want anybody dead, anybody ruined. The worst I wanted was to take your money away.”

“You rotten bastard,” Devers said.

Parker said, “That’s all. Godden, go upstairs. Webb, take him. Devers, take a look at your woman.”

Devers grimaced. “My woman,” he said in disgust, and turned away, and walked out of the room.

Ellen and her baby were being kept in the room once occupied by Godden’s children. According to Devers, she hadn’t wanted to come with him at first when he’d gone for her last night, she’d been sure she could bluff it out with the police. But when he’d assured her it was all up for them all, that being the ex-wife of one of the heistmen and at the same time shacked up with a finance office clerk from the air base left her in no position to try a bluff with the law, and that her choice was between coming with him or being silenced for ever as dangerous to the ones who were left, she’d reluctantly seen the light. Then she’d wanted to do a lot of packing, but Devers had cut that short, and she’d arrived with her daughter and one hastily stuffed overnight case.

When Devers had brought her in she was being so erratic, fluctuating so badly among panic and guilt and despair and indignation, that Parker decided she was untrustworthy, and she’d been kept under lock and key ever since. Parker had guaranteed her silence during the plainclothesmen’s visit just now by letting her know her daughter would pay as much as she would for any trouble she caused. Any more trouble.

Now Parker went out to the kitchen and turned on the radio to hear the eleven o’clock news. They had a breathing spell now, shaky and complicated but with a chance of working out. Ralph Hochberg’s body was with the two money cases under a tarp in the basement. The money was still in the suitcase over by the refrigerator. Godden was a prisoner in one room, Ellen and her kid were prisoners in another, and no one else was left for the law to talk to and learn anything troublesome. They were covered against visitors and callers on the telephone. With luck, they’d be able to stay here another two days, until Saturday. With luck, another two days was all they’d need.

When Webb and Devers came into the kitchen, both to say their charges were under control, Parker said, “Let’s have that suitcase. Time to see how much we’ve got left.”

They sat around the kitchen table with the suitcase open in front of them and started counting. When they were done it came to a total of one hundred twenty-six thousand, five hundred eighty-three dollars. Parker did some figuring with pencil and paper and said, “That’s forty-two thousand, one hundred ninety-four for each of us, with a dollar left over.”

Webb rooted through the pile of money on the table found a single, crumpled it and threw it on the floor. “Now it’s even,” he said.

Devers began to laugh. When it seemed as though the laughter was getting hysterical Parker said, “Stop it.” Devers stopped, looked at Parker, and got up from the table and went into the living room.

Webb said, “What about him?”

“We’ll wait and see.”

They kept the radio on. The one o’clock news led off with the discovery of the bodies at the lodge, though with no identification of any of them, and followed with an authorities-are-looking-for on Devers and Ellen Fusco. No accusations, no statement that either of them was believed to be part of the mob. Just that they were being sought for questioning. The descriptions the newscaster gave fit Devers and Ellen, but they also fit a million or so other people in the world.

Webb said, “They must of found the lodge this morning. They were keeping it quiet until they were sure Devers wasn’t coming home.”

After a while Devers came in from the living room. He’d found Godden’s liquor cabinet, and had a glass of warm Scotch in his hand. “You ought to come in and watch television,” he said. “They got my picture on television.”

Webb looked up at him. “Is that right? You’re a celebrity.”

“I’m a celebrity.” Devers was a little drunk already, just enough to dull all his responses.

Webb said, “A celebrity oughta have ice. Lemme bring you in some ice.”

Devers stood in the middle of the kitchen floor while Webb found an ice bucket and emptied two trays of cubes into it. Devers had the frown of the morose drunk on his face, the look of a man who suspects someone is pulling a huge complicated unfathomable practical joke on him.

Webb grabbed up the ice bucket and said, “Come on, Stan, I’ll drink you under the table.” He led Devers back to the living room.

Later on Parker let Ellen out to make dinner. She too was dulled in her reactions now, docile but sullen. Pam, her little girl, knowing something was wrong, stuck close to her mother’s knee all the time, looking round-eyed out at the world.

They all had dinner together, with the exception of Godden, who afterwards got a tray in his room. Parker felt there were too many people at the table who hated Godden, there was no point looking for trouble.

Devers wasn’t sobered much by dinner. Afterwards, while Ellen went back to her room and Parker went into the living room to watch television, Devers and Webb took over the kitchen. Devers told sex stories, Webb told crime stories. They both laughed a lot. Parker stayed sober, watched television, watched on the eleven o’clock news films of the lodge and of the ambulance bringing the bodies down the dirt road. Ellen Fusco’s mother appeared on the screen, asking her daughter to come back, to at least let Pamela come to live with her grandma. There were photos of Devers and Ellen.

Devers passed out around two in the morning, and Webb went to Parker, weaving a little, and said, “He’ll be all right. He’ll be okay, Parker. He’s just got to get used to it.”

“I thought he’d work out,” Parker said.

Friday was slow and dull. People came to the door a few times, but always gave up after a while. Devers had a hangover and spent most of the day in the kitchen trying different cures. Webb found a deck of cards and played game after game of solitaire. Ellen was calmer now, and more sensible, and realized she had no place else to go, so she and her daughter had the run of the house. Godden was still being tied up and kept in his room. Parker prowled around watching and waiting.

Friday night, Devers and Webb got drunk again, played gin rummy, told the same stories they’d told the night before. Ellen put her daughter to bed and came to Parker and said, “Stan isn’t going to want me to go with him now. I don’t blame him. But I don’t have any money, any place to go.”

Parker looked at her. “What do you want?”

“A little money. Not a lot.”

“Maybe Devers will give you a piece of his cut. Ask him.”

“I don’t have any place to go,” she said, and panic began to play again behind her eyes.

Parker didn’t want her going back to being frantic and erratic. To keep her calm, he said, “I’ll talk it over with Webb. We’ll work something out for you by tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” she said tonelessly, and walked away.

Devers passed out about one o’clock that night, and Webb came into the living room to finish his drinking with Parker. “Great kid,” he said. “He’ll stay in this line, won’t he?”

“Probably,” Parker said.

Webb finished his drink, put the glass on the floor beside his chair. “When do you figure we can get out of here?”

“Maybe tomorrow night. They’re not really looking around here any more.”

“They figure we’re in Alaska by now.”

Parker didn’t say anything, and when he looked over toward Webb a minute later he was asleep.

The only light in the house now came from the television set. Parker sat in front of it, looking at it, not really paying attention to it, and when the sermon ended and the national anthem ended and the screen went to snow he didn’t bother turning it off. A while later, still facing the empty screen he went to sleep.

8

Parker woke up when Webb touched his arm. Cartoons were jumping on the television screen. Gray light touched the drapes covering the picture window. Parker looked at his watch and the time was seven-forty.

Webb looked serious. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Better come take a look.”

Parker went with him, up to Godden’s room. Godden, his arms and legs still tied, was lying on his side on the bed, his throat cut. The sheet was soaked with his blood.

Parker said, “The woman.”

“Gone. Left this.”

The note was scrawled hastily with pencil on brown wrapping-paper, the letters large and ragged. It said:

I won’t say where you are. I have to bring Pam to my mother. I’m sorry.

Webb said, “What now?”

Parker shook his head. “I wish I knew when she left.”

“I heard the door close, that’s what woke me. Less than five minutes.”

“Then we get out of here,” Parker said.

They went down to the kitchen and woke Devers and showed him the note and told him about Godden. Parker said, “Be sober, boy. We’ve got to get out of here now.”

“Why? You think she’ll talk?”

“She won’t have to talk. A crazy woman staggering around a little town like this, seven-thirty in the morning, how far do you think she’ll get? Six blocks? Ten blocks? Then they pick her up, they say maybe the others are in the same neighborhood. Somebody says, that head doctor’s in that neighborhood. Somebody says, take a look over there, Joe.”

Devers was sober. He said, “How much time have we got?”

“Until they get organized. Until somebody notices it’s Godden’s neighborhood. Maybe an hour, maybe less.”

“Christ.” Devers went over to the kitchen sink, ran cold water, splashed it on his face, dried with a dish towel. “Where do we go?” he said.

“You ride with me for a while,” Parker told him.

They got their gear and went out to the cars. Parker and Devers took Godden’s dark green Cadillac. Parker’s suitcase, with his gear and his part of the money, and a small case of Godden’s that Devers had taken to carry his cut, went into the trunk. Parker drove.

They were in West Monequois, and the best direction to go was away, so they headed out to Route 11 and traveled west toward Potsdam. Webb’s Buick stayed behind them a while, but he turned south at Moria. Parker went on to Lawrenceville, switched to an unnumbered back road down through Buckton and Southville, and picked up 56 at Colton. He headed south.

They kept the car radio on. The robbery news was already becoming stale, being now into its third day with nothing sensational happening for the last two. No mention of Ellen Fusco yet.

Devers said, “This car’s going to get hot soon. Once they get to Godden’s house.”

“I know it.”

“What’s our chances?”

“We need a city,” Parker said. “You can disappear in a city. There’s nothing up here but mountains.”

There was a New York State roadmap in the glove compartment. Devers studied it and finally said, “Our best bet’s Albany.”

“How far?”

“Where are we?”

“Coming into something called Sevey,” Parker told him.

Devers studied the map. “About a hundred and sixty. Some of it’s good road.” He gave a bitter grin. “Same road I took you up on,” he said.

9

It made the eleven o’clock news, just as they were passing Glen Falls on the Northway, about fifty miles from Albany. “Mrs Ellen Fusco, sought in connection with Wednesday night’s payroll robbery at Monequois Air Force Base in upstate New York, walked into the home of her parents, Mr and Mrs Herbert Atkinson of Monequois, early this morning, her three-year-old daughter Pamela in her arms. Dazed, distraught, unable to tell police her whereabouts the last three days—”

“Good,” Devers said. He looked over at Parker. “She’s making up for it,” he said.

“If they let the news out,” Parker said, “it’s because they’ve already traced her back to the Godden house. Time to ditch this car. What’s the next exit off this thing?”

Devers looked at the map. “Saratoga.”

“We’ll unload it there.”

Parker kept it at the legal maximum the ten miles to the Saratoga exit, one eye always on the rear-view mirror. Saturday traffic was building up, and a green Cadillac wasn’t that out of place, but they could only push their luck so far.

Parker left the car in downtown Saratoga, at a meter. He and Devers walked the three blocks to the bus depot and boarded the eleven-thirty express to Albany. They got to Albany at twelve-oh-five, and Parker said, “This is where we split. You need somebody to show you how things work, and I don’t have the time for that now. There’s a friend of mine named Handy McKay, he’s retired now, runs a diner in a place called Presque Isle, in Maine. You go up there, tell him you’re from me. You can give him the story. He’ll take care of you.”

Devers said, “Thanks. This isn’t the way I had it planned, but what the hell.”

“That’s right,” Parker said.

10

She was on her chaise longue, face up to the sun. She was wearing the suit with the black trunks and the black and white top. Her sunglasses had white rims. Towel and book and cigarettes and suntan lotion were on the sand beside her. She seemed to be asleep.

Parker had gone up to the room first and put on his trunks. He padded across the sand and sat down on the chaise beside her. “You’re more tanned now than you were,” he said.

Claire started. She looked at him, lifted her sunglasses and squinted at him under them. “You did come back,” she said.

“I always will.”

“Good. Where shall we eat tonight?”

“Mallorquina.”

“Good, I like that. Shall we go to the casino afterwards?”

“Yes,” he said.