The Score

No fire-fighting equipment in town, and no way to call to Madison or anywhere else to get some help. It would be hours before they could get organized to fight the fire, hours. With luck, the whole goddam town would burn down.

And Parker and the others would have to help. All this racket would attract the attention of the state police, at the barracks down 22A. Parker and the others would have to put that barracks out of commission; they’d have no choice.

“I toldyou you’d regret it, Thorndike!”

He ran past the railroad station, over the blacktop driveway of Ekonomee and around the corner of the building. Three tanks cars there. The spreading fire back at the plant glinted in smudged reflection on their sides.

Edgars paused at the corner of the building. He had the last grenade in his hands, and heard someone shout his name. He turned and saw two of the others running toward him, the prowl car standing behind them.

“Keep away!” he shouted. “Keep away!”

“Stop!”

He pulled the pin. He whirled, and threw the grenade at the tank cars.

9

The blast knocked Wycza off his feet. He went sprawling, his revolver flying out of his hand. He rolled and started to his feet, and a second blast knocked him down again. He was a wrestler sometimes and his body reacted instinctively to a lack of balance, adjusting itself, shifting, rolling, avoiding falls that could hurt.

He made it to his feet this time, and saw Parker braced against one of the pumps. The gas station building had fallen forward, and leaping flames behind it lit the whole area. He looked around but couldn’t see Edgars.

He shouted the name, and Parker shook his head, pointing at the rubble. “Under there.”

“We’ve got to get out of here, Parker.”

“I know.”

They ran back to the car, and Parker got his walkie-talkie. “G! Get hold of Littlefield, fast. Tell him to get down to the east gate, we’ll pick him up there. Then you get over to Raymond, on the double.”

Wycza, getting into the prowl car on the passenger side, heard Grofield’s voice saying, “What the hell’s going on?”

“Later. Get moving. S, watch that road, the troopers may come in. If they do, don’t stop them, just warn us.”

Salsa’s voice said, “Will do.”

“I never did like that trooper barracks,” said Wycza. “I never did.”

Parker had started the prowl car. He spun out away from the station, headed toward Raymond Avenue.

People were coming out on the sidewalks. Some of them, recognizing the prowl car, waved their arms, wanting the police to stop and answer questions. Wycza looked at them and muttered, “It’s sour, Parker. It’s gone sour.”

“I know. You drive the truck, I’ll take the wagon. Get your people in it and get going. Pick up Salsa and Grofield. I’ll get Littlefield and Phillips.”

“Right.”

Raymond Avenue. Parker turned the wheel hard right, and braked next to the truck. “Don’t wait for me,” he said.

Wycza grinned under the hood. “Don’t worry.” He clambered out of the prowl car and ran around the truck cab.

They were all clustered there, Paulus and Kerwin and Wiss and Elkins. Wycza told them, “Get in. All in back, I got others to pick up.”

Everybody moved but Paulus, who wasted time asking, “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

“Get in or I leave you.”

Wycza got up in the cab, kicked the engine on, and pulled away from the curb. They’d taken the truck around the block when they’d first come in, so it would be facing the right way; he was grateful for that now.

He went four blocks and there was Grofield waiting for him, on a corner, without his hood. And not alone.

Wycza braked to a stop, and Grofield pulled open the door. Wycza said, “Get her the hell out of here!”

“She’s coming along.”

Wycza wouldn’t agree to that for a second, but there wasn’t time to argue. They were both in the cab, so he hit the accelerator again. “Parker’ll kill you,” he said.

“Let me worry about it.”

The girl said, “Don’t worry about me. You don’t have to worry about me. What’s going on?”

Grofield said, “We’ll find out later, honey. Just be quiet now.”

Wycza said, ‘Throw her out when we pick up Salsa. I’m telling you.”

“She’s coming along, so shut up, huh?”

“There’s no room for Salsa.”

“She’ll sit on my lap.”

Wycza ground his teeth in frustration. Of all the stupidities tonight, Edgars’s had suddenly taken second place behind Grofield’s. “I’m liable to kill you myself,” he said, and stopped the truck again to pick up Salsa.

Salsa squeezed into the cab and reported, “No troopers yet.”

They were all crammed in together, Grofield in the middle, the girl on his lap, the girl holding Wycza’s walkie-talkie and Grofield’s rifle. Salsa had a machine gun on the floor between his feet, and a walkie-talkie in his lap.

Wycza said, “Tell Parker it’s still clear.”

“Sure,” said Salsa. He picked up the walkie-talkie.

“No sense telling him about the broad.” Wycza turned his head and gave Grofield a cold eye, then looked front again. “He’ll find out soon enough.”

“Sure,” said Salsa. The presence of the girl didn’t seem to ruffle him a bit. He spoke into the walkie-talkie, saying, “Everything’s clear so far. We’re out of town, and no troopers have come in yet.”

Parker’s voice came out of both walkie-talkies in the cab: “I’ve got Littlefield and Phillips, I’m coming out now.”

Wycza looked in the rear-view mirror. Behind him was the town. He saw flames shooting upward, deep within it, and way back on Raymond Avenue he saw a pair of headlights. “He’d better move,” he muttered.

Ahead, on the right, was the trooper barracks, still lit up. As they passed it, they saw two men in uniform running from the front door toward one of the cars. Wycza said, “Salsa, keep an eye on them. See which way they go.”

“Right.”

Wycza’s foot was heavy on the accelerator. The truck was doing seventy now, and the speedometer was still creeping upward. He kept telling himself he should get down to the speed limit, but he couldn’t lift his foot off the accelerator; it was as though his foot were nailed there.

He’d never taken a fall. He’d never spent even one night in jail. He kept thinking about that now, never a single night in jail. And he didn’t want to go to jail, because he knew what would happen to him if he went to jail. He would die. A year, maybe two years, and he’d be dead.

There were things he needed, in order to stay alive. Food and shelter and water, of course, but other things, too, that for him were just as important. Exercise, for instance. He had to be able to run, to run for miles, and to do it every single day. he had to be able to go into a gym and work out whenever he wanted. He had to keep using his body, or it would dry up and die.

And women. He needed women almost as much as he needed exercise. Not in the goddam truck on the get, but other times, other places. And sunshine, plenty of sunshine. And certain kinds of food; steak, and milk, and green vegetables. And food supplements, vitamin pills and mineral pills and protein pills.

Not in jail. In jail, he wouldn’t be able to exercise his body as much as was necessary. And there’d be no women. And little sunshine. And none of the foods or pills he needed. In jail, he would shrivel up like a leaf in September. He’d shrink and get pasty, his teeth would rot, his muscles would sag, his body would shrink in on itself and start to decay.

“They’re going toward the town.”

Wycza nodded. “Good. Tell Parker.”

He wasn’t going to jail. If it came down to it, if it ever came right down to it, he knew he wouldn’t go to jail. There are two ways to die, fast and slow, and he’d prefer the fast way. He wouldn’t go to jail because in order to put him in jail they’d have to lay hands on him, and before they’d be able to lay hands on him they’d have to kill him.

Salsa was talking to Parker on the walkie-talkie: “State police, coming in.”

“Yeah, I see the red light. I’m going to park and let them go by.”

Then the cab was silent. Everybody was listening, waiting for the walkie-talkies to speak again. Wycza glanced at the speedometer; five miles to go to the highway. Doing seventy-five now.

“They went by. They’re headed for the fire. I’m coming out now.”

Salsa said, “Fine. I can’t see the barracks any more, but I didn’t see any other cars leave there.”

“There’s nothing coming this way. I just passed the town line.”

Wycza realized he’d been hunching his shoulders over the wheel. He sat back now, and let them relax; they’d started to ache. He lifted his foot from the accelerator, and let the truck slow down to the speed limit.

“We made it anyway,” he said.

The girl said, “You don’t have to worry about me, you really don’t.”

“I’m not going to,” Wycza told her. “Grofield is.” Ahead was the highway turnoff.

10

Four a.m.

Most of Copper Canyon was awake. The sidewalks were full of people, and other people were standing on their porches, and other people had gotten into their cars and were jamming up the streets around the fires.

There were three fires. Behind the plant fence, four buildings were aflame. On Caulkins Street, the firehouse was still burning, but was nearly out; the exterior walls, made of brick, were unharmed except for the chunk blown out by the hand grenade, but the interior of the building had been gutted. The square block bounded by Orange Street and Hector Avenue and Loomis Street and George Avenue was one mass of flame. The railroad station was in that block, and Ekonomee Gas, and a few other buildings, stores mostly, plus the garage and storage building of Elmore Trucking. Just at four o’clock the fire leaped Loomis Street; two residences on the south side of the street caught fire as embers fell on their roofs.

The two state troopers had discovered the destruction of Copper Canyon’s fire-fighting apparatus, had radioed to the barracks to have fire engines rushed in from Madison and Polk, and had entered police headquarters, baffled by the absence of all local police officials. Just at four a.m. they entered the Command Room and found the three bodies; all three were now dead.

In all the confusion, with the gigantic distraction of the triple fire, no one had yet noticed the broken windows and gaping doorways along Raymond Avenue.

Eight miles south, a brown tractor trailer was making the turn from 22A to the highway, eastbound. Two miles behind it a station wagon was speeding along at eighty miles an hour.

Three other cars were leaving the state trooper barracks two miles south of town, but all three of them were heading north, toward Copper Canyon.

Five a.m.

The three fires were one. The plant fire had moved south, and the Ekonomee fire had moved north, and they’d met at Caulkins Street, one block west of the firehouse. The suction of the fires was forcing winds into Copper Canyon from the south, fresh cold air rushing in to supply more oxygen for the flames, hot dry air blasting upward along the rear canyon wall. The direction of the wind confined the fire, for the most part, to the area north of Loomis Street, but nearly everything in an area three blocks wide and five blocks long was or had been aflame.

Fire engines from Madison and Polk had arrived half an hour ago. The firemen were primarily trying to contain the blaze, trying to keep it from stretching east and west of the area it had already consumed. The morning and evening shifts of the town police department had come out in uniform to help the state police maintain some sort of order, keeping the curious back out of harm’s and the firemen’s way.

Somebody had found Eddie Wheeler, and he’d been brought to one of the troopers, so now the law knew about the robberies, or at least some of them. The two women at the telephone company had been found and released, so now the law also knew that the robbers had taken a hostage with them. Eddie Wheeler had described the truck he’d seen, and state police cars were combing the highway and route 22A and other secondary routes in this part of the state, but they hadn’t as yet found any brown truck. Two police helicopters were being readied at Bismarck, the state capital, and would be in the air shortly. Reporters and wire service stringers were driving pell-mell toward Copper Canyon from all over the state.

It would be late afternoon before the fire would be completely extinguished, and tomorrow morning before the rubble would have cooled enough to permit inspection. Bodies would be found in the ruins, and tentatively identified, but the body of Edgars would never be discovered, it had been too close to the hottest core of the fire. All the next day, merchants and accountants would be toting up figures, learning just exactly how much had been stolen in all. Police technicians would be dusting virtually the whole town for fingerprints, and would find none left by the robbers, but would be surprised that there were still on various surfaces in police headquarters fingerprints left by former Chief of Police Edgars, who’d left town nearly a year ago and was not likely to show his face here ever again.

The roadblocks would be left up for another day, to be on the safe side. The two helicopters would continue their search. The police expected to apprehend the responsible parties very soon.

Eddie Wheeler spent the rest of the week in his own bed, with a headcold. By the time he was well enough to get up and move around, Betty’s parents were back in town.

Three days after the holocaust, two architects and a lawyer and a minister formed the Citizens for Copper Canyon, CCC. Their goal was to convince their fellow citizens to rebuild the gutted section of town according to this plan they’d whipped up. Copper Canyon Plaza. Official buildings here at this end, new railroad station at the other end, the fountain here, the gardens here, and so on. The architects would be happy to prepare plans for the new integrated area, and the lawyer would be happy to handle the legal work involved. The minister was selfless.

PART FOUR

1

Parker watched Wycza drive the truck over to the edge and start it down the road to the bottom of the ravine. The loot was still in it; it would be light in an hour, so the best thing was to get the truck out of sight right away. Tomorrow night would be soon enough to make the split.

After the taillights had dropped down out of sight, he turned and went back toward the shed, thinking about the job. It had been beautiful. It could have been the cleanest and sweetest job he’d ever been in on. The closest thing to a foul-up was that night-owl kid that stumbled over Paulus working the bank. And that had turned out to be no problem; they’d handled it smooth and quiet and sweet. The whole thing was smooth and quiet and sweet, no killings, no messiness, no problems.

Except Edgars.

He’d known, God damn it, he’d known all along there was something wrong with Edgars. Edgars and his personal reasons. Those personal reasons had to blow the whole job sky high, they hadto.

It had still worked out. They’d had to leave a little of the take behind, dribs and drabs from a couple of store safes, nothing important. They’d had to do the get a hell of a lot faster than they’d planned. But still and all it had worked out. Chambers was dead, and Edgars was dead, and there was no telling how many locals were dead, but at least they’d managed to get themselves out from under with the loot.

The dead locals were what bothered him. He didn’t give a damn one way or the other, not personally, couldn’t care less if they lived or died, but it was never good to cut down a citizen in a robbery. There’s trouble enough from the law if they’re just after you for a payroll, but if they’re after you for Murder One you’re in big trouble.

He pushed open the door of the shed and looked in. They were all there, Paulus and Wiss and Elkins and Kerwin and Littlefield and Salsa and Grofield and Phillips.

And Grofield’s girl, sitting with Grofield on one of the army cots.

Parker looked at her, and then looked at Grofield. Grofield had the look on his face that a man gets when he’s done something too stupid to be possible and he knows it but still wants to justify it.

Parker motioned to him to come outside. Grofield murmured something at the girl and got to his feet. She made as though to come along, but he shook his head and murmured some more, and this time she nodded and sat down again on the army cot. Her hands were in her lap, her knees were together, and her face looked pinched and frightened. She looked like the heroine of a silent movie.

Parker stepped aside and let Grofield out, then followed him and shut the door. He led the way out toward the edge, walking forward through the dim starlight, the sheds bulking around him. He stopped near the edge and said, “You can bury her down there some place.”

“Forget it, Parker. You don’t kill that girl.”

“That’s right, I don’t. She’s your responsibility.”

“You don’t have to worry about her, Parker.” Grofield’s voice had the shaky belligerence of a man who’s pretty sure he’s in the wrong but will be damned if he’ll admit it.

“I’m not worrying about her, Grofield. Youworry about her. In a day or two, she’ll want to go home.”

“No, she won’t.”

“When she tells you she’s changed her mind, she wants to go home, but she’ll never tell anybody where we are or what we look like or what our names are, that’s when you take care of her.”

“It won’t happen. She won’t say that.”

“And you take her down there and bury her. Deep, Grofield. I don’t want her found.”

“What if it doesn’t happen? What if she doesn’t change her mind?”

“We’ll be here three or four days. Then what?”

“New York. We’ll get a place in the Village for the summer. In the fall we’ll go south and do winter stock together. She’s always wanted to be an actress.”

“I always thought you were a pro.”

“I am. I know what I’m doing.”

Parker shook his head. “I didn’t know I’d have to spell it all out for you. All right, listen.”

“None of this is necessary, Parker, honest to Christ.”

“Shut up and listen. You know how to keep the law off your tail. She doesn’t. They’ll pick her up for jay-walking in New York City, and before the cop gets the ticket wrote out she’ll be so rattled she’ll spill the whole works.”

“No, she won’t. She can learn.”

“Shut up. That’s just one thing. She’ll louse up somehow, and get the law down on you. Number two, she’ll change her mind. Maybe tomorrow, maybe six months from now. She thought it’d be exciting to run off with an honest-to-god bank robber, and how long you think she’ll think it’s exciting?”

“I can keep her interested, Parker. That girl’s never been anywhere or done anything. I’ll show her New York this summer, Miami this winter, a season of winter stock, maybe New England next summer, maybe after a while go out and try Hollywood. She won’t get bored, believe me.”

“No, she’ll get homesick.”

“Parker, listen. She told me about herself. Her folks are dead; she was living with her uncle. Just the two of them.”

“That’s another thing. She’ll not only get homesick for the uncle, the uncle’ll keep the law looking for her.”

“No, he won’t. She doesn’t know it yet, but the uncle’s dead. He was that fireman, that George.”

Parker looked at him in the small light; too small to see his face. “You think that’s good?”

“She’s got no home to get sick for, no place to go back to.”

“She’ll want to be at the funeral, number one. Number two, you were part of the gang that killed him.”

“That was Edgars, that wasn’t us. I can tell her about that so she’ll believe me. And so what about the funeral? I can keep her from even thinking about it.”

“The other two women at the phone company know she went with you. The law know she’s with us.”

“She’ll dye her hair. She wanted to anyway, but her uncle wouldn’t let her. For Christ’s sake, Parker, she’s twenty-two years old, she’s nobody’s ward.”

“I don’t want her going back. I don’t want her saying it was a guy named Parker and a guy named Grofield and a guy named this and that, and that’s Grofield’s picture there, and that’s Phillips’ picture there, and all that crap.”

“She won’t go back, Parker.”

“I know that. I want to be sure youknow it.”

“Parker, I wouldn’t have brought her along if I wasn’t sure.”

“Yeah. Go get her. Send her out here.”

“Parker, I don’t want you to lay a hand on her.”

“That’s not my job. That’s your job. I want to talk to her.”

Grofield shuffled his feet, and the silence lengthened between them until he finally said, “You going to tell her about her uncle?”

“Maybe.”

“Then tell her about Edgars.”

“Go get her, Grofield.”

“Don’t try to pushher away, Parker.”

“I won’t. Go get her.”

“All right.”

Grofield took a few steps away, and then Parker called his name and said, “I want to see her alone first.”

“I know. I figured that out already.”

Parker looked up at the sky. Four-thirty in the morning, it was still fully night, but the stars seemed to be getting a bit fainter, the sky a bit less totally black. Except for the stars, there was no light anywhere; black cloth covered the windows of the shed they were living in.

There was a crunching sound from the left, opposite the shed. Parker listened to it, frowning, and then realized who it was. “Wycza,” he said.

Wycza loomed up out of the darkness. “That’s a long walk,” he said.

“What do you think about Grofield’s girl?”

“I think he’s stupid.”

“That’s him. What about her?”

“I dunno. She doesn’t yack a lot. He didn’t have to twist her arm to bring her. I dunno about her.”

“This could have been a sweet job.”

“Tell me about that Edgars sometime.”

“I wish I knew myself.”

The girl was suddenly there, saying softly, “You wanted to talk to me?”

Parker turned and said, “Yeah. Wait there a second.” He turned back to Wycza. “What happens if it rains out here?”

“You mean with the sheds?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess they leak. But I don’t think it rains here this time of year.”

“Is that right?” Parker turned to the girl. “Does it rain here this time of year?”

“Not very often.” Her voice was very low and soft, but not shy in particular, just self-contained. The frightenedness that had been in her face before was completely missing from her voice.

Parker didn’t give a damn about rain or leaking sheds; he wanted to rattle her by talking at her instead of to her for a while, to see how she’d react. He said to Wycza, “What’ll we do if it does rain? You got any ideas?”

“Not me.”

He turned to the girl. “What about you? You got any ideas?”

“You robbed the banks, didn’t you?”

He was alert now. “That’s right,” he said, and waited.

But what she said was, “They keep their money in those canvas sacks, don’t they? You could cut them open and spread the sacks out on the roof on the parts where it leaks.”

Wycza laughed, and said, “I’ll be seeing you, Parker.” He trudged away toward the shed.

Parker said, “They’ll have helicopters out. We can’t have banks sacks on the roof.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that.”

“Did you ever hear of a guy named Edgars?”

“The man who used to be police chief?”

“That’s the one.”

“He was with you tonight, wasn’t he?”

“What did he have against your town?”

“There was a big scandal. A grand jury asked him questions and tried to get evidence against him about something; I don’t know exactly what. I don’t think they ever tried him for anything, but he was dismissed anyway.”

“That figures. He tried to blow up your whole damn city tonight.”

“I saw the fires.”

“Blew up part of the plant, and a gas station by the railroad depot, and the firehouse.”

“The firehouse?”

“Killed the man I had in there guarding your uncle.”

“Oh.” She was silent, but he didn’t have anything to say to her, he could outwait her. After a minute she said, “My uncle?”

“He got it, too. Everybody in the firehouse. The man I had in there was named Chambers. Hillbilly from Kentucky or somewhere like that. Has a brother named Ernie, in jail now. He’s the one was supposed to drive the truck.”

“What are you trying to do to me?”

He took a last drag on his cigarette, and flicked the butt out over the edge. “See if you’ll crack.”

“Why?”

“You know my name. You know my face. I don’t want you going back and talking to the law.”

“I see.”

They waited again. Parker got out his cigarettes, lit one, then said, “You want one?”

“Yes, please.”

He lit it for her. She looked up and studied his face in the matchlight, and when it was dark again she said, “The simplest thing would just be to throw me off the cliff here, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.”

“Why don’t you? You’re not afraid of Grofield.”

“I don’t kill as the easy way out of something. If I kill, it’s because I don’t have any choice.”

“You mean self-defense.”

“Wrong. I mean it’s the only way to get what I want.”

“Do you want me to promise I’ll stay with Grofield forever? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I know I won’t go back to Copper Canyon, and there’s no reason for me to go to the police.”

“Why’d you come along with Grofield?”

“He’s my chance. He’s smart and exciting and fun, and he knows a lot of things. He can show me the whole world, and make it all fun. I had to scream and holler before he’d take me along, so don’t blame him too much.”

“Grofield’ll be in jail within five years.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he’s impulsive. He’s smart, but he doesn’t always act smart. Also, he doesn’t pay his income tax. Also, he spends too loose and works too often.”

“So maybe I can help him, then.”

Parker debated. He walked up and down along the cliff edge, thinking it out. The girl was a lot better than he’d expected. The only false note was that she’d run off in the first place, that she’d decided to come along with Grofield. She was too cool and sure of herself to be the run-off type. But maybe the running off was cool and methodical, too, maybe she was just running a calculated risk. Looked at that way, it made better sense.

And made her a better risk for him, too.

He said, “Go tell Grofield to show you where his car is. That’s where you two will stay nights; we can’t have you in the shed with the rest of us.”

“All right. Thank you.”

She went away, and Parker stayed outside a while longer. Far to the east, a narrow band of faint lightness was beginning to mark the horizon. Parker walked back and forth, back and forth, unwinding, getting the tension out of his body and mind.

He’d never been involved with such a contradictory job in his life. A job where he deliberately put himself in a box with only one exit, but in this particular case it didn’t matter. A job where everything went smooth and sweet and precise, right up the end, and then all hell broke loose, with one madman going around trying to blow up the city and another madman bringing a girl along for the ride. But the first madman’s explosions and fires helped to cover the getaway in spite of themselves, and the second madman’s girl turned out to be a safe risk.

Thinking of the girl, he felt a quickening in his loins, the sudden return of desire that always followed a job. He walked back and forth, back and forth, smoking his cigarette, thinking of women, thinking about the next opportunity he’d have to get next to a woman.

Not Grofield’s girl. Messing with another man’s woman was always dangerous, and never more dangerous than while hiding out. Besides, she acted too cool and composed for his taste. He wanted something with more abandon to her.

He knew who, knew exactly who. Three or four days, and he’d go see her.

Somebody had to tell her Edgars wouldn’t be showing up.

2

The helicopter passed over again with a great flapping sound, like a huge bird of prey, and everyone in the shed crouched instinctively lower and stared upward at the roof.

It was late afternoon, and stifling hot in the shed. They were all there, all eleven of them. Parker and Wycza and Phillips and Salsa and Elkins were sitting around the card table, a hand of seven-card stud half dealt in front of them, halted temporarily while they all listened to the helicopter. Grofield and his girl were sitting on an army cot in the corner, with Littlefield standing next to them; the three of them had been playing charades and Littlefield had stopped in the middle of the third word. Wiss and Paulus and Kerwin, the three safe men, had been shop-talking in a corner, but they too were now quiet.

Pop Phillips said, “It’s enough to make a man think of reforming.”

“Tire tracks,” said Parker. He looked over at Littlefield. “What about them?”

“Brushed away,” Littlefield told him. “All brushed away.”

Wycza said, “What about on the road going down, where I took the truck?”

“That’s all hard-packed,” Littlefield told him. “No tracks show.”

Paulus said, “I don’t like this place. Edgars set this place up, what do we know about it? We ought to get the hell out of here.”

Parker shook his head. “And go where? None of us knows this territory. The roadblocks’ll still be up.”

“I just don’t like this place. I want out of here tonight.”

Parker shrugged and looked at his hole cards. Five and seven of spades. Six of spades and queen of hearts up, so far. Three cards to go.

Two days to go. This was always the worst part, afterward. The best jobs were the ones you could walk away from and keep on going. But the jobs where you had to hole up for a while, they were bad for the nerves. Particularly with a crowd this size. Eleven people stuck in a big empty shed with no interior walls, no proper furniture, no way to get away from each other. A lot of jobs that had run sweet all the way through suddenly went sour at this point, after the tough part was supposedly all over. One or two people decided not to wait it out any more, took off, got themselves picked up and backtracked, and there was the law all of a sudden at the hideout door.

Paulus said, “We make the split tonight, and then I go. Littlefield? You’re supposed to ride with me, you want to come along?”

Littlefield seemed to consider it, and then said, “I don’t think so, Paulus. I think I’ll stay here and keep out of jail, if I can get a ride with somebody else.”

Salsa said, “Chambers was supposed to ride with me. You can take his place.”

“Thank you.”

Paulus said, “Well, I’mgoing. Tonight, right after the split.”

Parker, looking at his cards, said, “We don’t split tonight. We make the split day after tomorrow.”

Paulus said, “I’m taking myshare tonight.”

Wycza said, “Shut your face, Paulus, you ain’t going nowhere.”

“I don’t likethis place, I tell you!”

Grofield said, “Shut up a second. Listen. Is he coming back?”

The sound of the helicopter had faded to a murmur, but that murmur had remained unchanged as the copter circled the general area over the mining cut. Now the murmur was getting louder again.

Phillips said, “What does he think he seesout there?”

Nobody answered him. The murmur increased and then faded again, without having come close. It faded almost out of hearing, and then came back a little, and then faded again.

Salsa said, “He’s doing a grid-check, that’s all. A methodical search pattern. These sheds were a landmark for him, a hub, but now he’s got some other hub.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Phillips.

They listened some more. The helicopter was a distant hum, and then silence. Very briefly, a humming again, like a far-off bee, and then silence. Still silence. Silence.

Parker said, “Deal. He’s gone.”

Elkins picked up the cards and dealt another round. Parker got the jack of spades. He called Phillips’ bet without raising, and got the four of spades on the sixth card. He bumped small, fed Phillips’ large return raise, bet more heavily after the last card, and took the pot.

Paulus said, “I’m going tonight, and I’m going with my piece of the score.”

Parker and Wycza looked at each other. It was Wycza who said it: “You’re staying here, Paulus, and we’re making the split the day after tomorrow. Now shut your trap about it.”

Paulus shut his trap, but he looked mutinous.

Grofield guessed Littlefield’s charade: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Phillips took the next pot. Raking it in, he said, “All things come to him who waits.”

“That’s the tough part,” Parker told him.

3

Parker came awake all at once to find Wycza’s hand on his shoulder. Wycza whispered, “Paulus.”

Parker nodded and got to his feet. The shed was full of the hushes of sleeping breath. Cots were placed every which way around the room, and men were sleeping on all of them.

Wycza whispered, “Salsa, too?”

Parker nodded.

They moved forward, and Wycza touched Salsa’s shoulder. Salsa too came straight awake and sat up. Wycza whispered Paulus’s name, and then the three of them went outside and shut the shed door behind them.

It was cool at night here, and tonight there was a dampness in the air that hadn’t been present before. The stars were obscured, the sky heavy and black.

Parker whispered, “Where?”

“I heard him when he started the car. He took it down below.”

“Gone to get his share.”

“Yeah.”

Salsa said, “He may start up before we can get down. He’ll be tough to get hold of, in his car.”

Parker said, “Is there any other way out of there?”

Wycza shook his head. “Just this one road. Chambers and I looked that over when we first come out.”

“We can block it at the top with one car.”

“Okay, good.”

They went to the shed where they’d stashed the wagon, and pulled the corrugated sections of wall away, moving as silently as they could. The darkness was almost complete. Parker backed the wagon out, turning the parking lights on, and with that small illumination drove over to the dropoff and the beginning of the road down to the bottom. He left the wagon parked across the road at the very top, pointing out into space. He switched the lights off and climbed out, and rejoined Wycza and Salsa, a little way off, standing at the edge over the road. They stood there and waited.

“Here he comes,” said Salsa.

Wycza said, “The damn fool’s using his parking lights.”

Salsa said, “I wouldn’t try to come up that without light.”

They waited. The car crept slowly upward and was almost to the wagon before it stopped. The parking lights went out immediately. Paulus didn’t make a sound.

Whispering, Wycza asked, “What do we do with him?”

“I don’t want to have to bury him,” said Parker.

“We tie him and leave him on one of the cots,” said Salsa. “Grofield’s girl can feed him.”

“I don’t work with him again,” said Wycza. “That much I know.”

Paulus’ voice came up to them suddenly, with startling loudness: “Get that car out of the way!”

“Forget it, Paulus.”

“I’ll ram it!”

Salsa squatted down on his heels and called softly down to Paulus: “Don’t make things so difficult for yourself. Come back to the shed and we’ll tie you up a few days.”

“There’ll be law here by tomorrow! Edgars set us up to be collared, don’t you damn fools seethat?”

Salsa said, “You’re all excited, Paulus. Don’t they know we have rifles, machine guns? Don’t they know how many of us there are? If they thought we were in here, would that helicopter pilot come back two three times all by himself, and down so low?”

“Why’d he come back, then?”

“Paulus, you don’t know anything about search patterns, do you?”

“This place is naked, we stick out like boils. I want to be away from here, a thousand miles away from here.”

Parker was tired, and a little chilly. He wanted to be back asleep. He said, “Quit screwing around, Paulus, you aren’t going anywhere.”

“God damn you, Parker!”

The headlights of Paulus’ car came on all at once, on high beam, flooding the station wagon with light, light reflecting away on all sides to show Parker and Wycza standing big and heavy by the edge, Salsa hunkered down like a bandit beside them, the three looking down over the edge at the car just below them. Paulus’ car was so close, they could have stepped down onto the roof.

The car began to back, Paulus gunning the engine. Salsa called something to him, but the roaring of the engine drowned it out. The car backed downward, and then they could see Paulus at the steering wheel, facing backward, twisted around and straining to see. There was only darkness behind the car, tinged with red by the taillights.

Paulus was excited, so maybe he forgot to reverse the turning direction on the steering wheel when going backward. Or maybe he just couldn’t see well enough back there. His left rear wheel went off the edge.

Salsa hollered, “Jump!”

Parker dropped down to the road surface, landing on his hands and feet, going down to his knees and getting up again.

But Paulus was on the wrong side of the car to jump. And the engine was still roaring, so his foot was still heavily on the accelerator. The car seemed to tremble a minute, while Parker ran down toward its headlights, and then it swung sharp left, the front of the car with its blinding headlights snapping out into space to stare out over the ravine, and then it dropped.

Parker was running back up the other way long before they heard the crashing sound down below. He ran up to the wagon, and Wycza and Salsa were there. He said, “Wycza, get Phillips. Have him show you the shovels. Get Elkins and come down, bring a car. Salsa, let’s go.”

They got into the wagon, and Parker backed it away from the edge, then turned the wheel hard and they started down. Parker had the parking lights on again and went as fast as he could.

Salsa, sitting on the outside near the cliff, said, “It’s burning.”

“We got to put it out.”

“That Paulus was a real chancy type.”

“He always tensed up, always.”

“I guess none of us works with him again, huh?” Salsa grinned. “You sure get the interesting jobs, Parker.”

“Crap.”

At the bottom they made the U-turn. Paulus’s wreck was ahead of them, outlined by flames; it looked like a mound of black spare parts.

It wasn’t much of a fire; by the time Parker and Salsa got there the only things left burning were the upholstery and the roof padding and the body hanging halfway out the front seat.

“He’s taking it with him,” said Salsa. “His split, you know?”

Parker was down on one knee, feeling the ground, trying to find loose sand. “We got to get that fire out.”

“Wait, Parker. Here they come with the shovels.”

The other car was coming. Wycza and Elkins climbed out and passed out shovels. The four of them started digging, throwing dirt generally on the wreck and especially on the parts that were still burning. When the fire was put out, they brought the two cars closer in and switched on their parking lights to see by. Then they kept shoveling.

They moved around, not taking too much dirt from any one place, spreading it out so the ground wouldn’t look more than usually uneven. When they were done, the mound of earth over the wreck was nearly waist-high, but it would look all right from the air.

“One thing,” said Elkins, “Now it’s a nine-way split.”

“He took his with him,” said Salsa. He seemed pleased by the remark.

4

The stink of sulphur was everywhere. In the dimness of twilight, the red waters of the stream looked a dark maroon, and velvety. Parker threw a machine gun into the stream and watched the bubbles rise, then turned back to the station wagon.

Grofield was coming over with the two rifles, wrinkling his nose. “I counted two-and-seventy stenches, all well defined, and several stinks.”

Parker shrugged. He wasn’t talking; when he opened his mouth he smelled the stink more.

The rear of the wagon was still full of revolvers. Parker picked up four of them by the trigger guards and carried them over to the stream and threw them in. Nobody’d stumble over them here, not too readily.

The guns could have been kept, but it would have been a false economy, and maybe dangerous. Until the next job, none of them would be needing a gun, and certainly not a rifle or chopper. In the meantime, they were difficult to transport, difficult to hide, and a cheap little rap if the law happened to stumble across them. So guns were just part of the overhead, bought before each job and gotten rid of afterward. Sometimes, if the job was done somewhere close to someone like Scofe, the blind man, or Amos Klee, the guns were sold back again at half-price, but only if that was the easiest way to get rid of them.

After they’d all been dumped into the sulphurous stream, Parker and Grofield drove the station wagon over to the truck. Wycza and Salsa and Elkins were there, dragging the bags and trays of the score down to the end of the truck by the open doors. Parker swung the wagon around and backed it up to the rear of the truck, and then he and Grofield got out and started transferring the stuff from truck to wagon. There was another car there, too; when they finished filling the wagon they loaded the rest into the trunk of the other car.

This was the third day. Tonight, if everything was clear, they’d leave this place. The sky was overcast and heavy, had been all day, building up from a lighter cloudiness yesterday. It hadn’t rained yet; with luck, it wouldn’t for a day or two.

Parker and Grofield and Wycza rode up in the station wagon, and the other two in the car. When they passed the mound of dirt covering Paulus’s wreck, Grofield said, “If it rains, the dirt’ll get washed away.”

“You got any ideas?”

“No. I was just saying.”

Parker grunted. What was the sense of talking about a problem if you didn’t have a way to solve it?

They drove up to the top and unloaded the two cars, carrying everything into the shed. Phillips and Littlefield and Wiss and Kerwin came out to help, making it like a bucket brigade, passing the sacks and bags and trays from hand to hand, piling it all up in a corner of the shed. Grofield’s girl sat on an army cot and watched it mount up. In the last few days, sleeping in Grofield’s car, with no fresh clothes to change to, she’d gotten a little bedraggled-looking, but it didn’t really hurt her appearance. She’d gotten, if anything, sexier-looking now. Parker had seen Salsa and a couple of the others looking at her. If they couldn’t all leave here tonight, there might be trouble yet.

When the cars were unloaded, Parker and Wycza put them back in their sheds and put the sides up, then went back to the living shed, where the others had started the count.

They’d taken nothing but money. They’d left the jewelry store stock alone because the only way to make a profit on jewelry was to sell it back to the insurance company covering the store’s loss, and in an operation like this, with so much other stuff taken, it would be too risky to try to get in touch with the insurance companies. As for the money, they’d taken only bills, leaving all sacks of change. Change was too heavy to carry, too bulky for the value, and too awkward to spend.

It took a long time to make the count; and outside, evening became night. The black curtains were put up in front of the windows and the electric lanterns were lit, and they went on counting. Their final total was $294,660.

Next, Grofield made his accounting of the $4,000 front money. He had a list of who had gotten how much and for what, and he had $730 left. He added $7,270 to it from the score to make the $8,000 that was to be paid to the doctor in New York. The $8,000 was put in an unmarked canvas sack and given to Grofield to deliver.

That left $287,390. Phillips got out pencil and paper and did the long division, and it came out $31,932.22. “Plus a fraction,” Phillips told them. “Two two two, it keeps going on.

They worked it out. If each man took $31,900 there’d be $290 left over. Salsa said, “Give it to Grofield for a wedding present.” He bowed and smiled at Grofield’s girl.

That was the way they did it. Salsa presented the girl with the $290, making a little ceremony out of it. Parker watched Grofield watching Salsa, but Salsa didn’t push it, and the tense minute passed.

When the split was finished, Phillips got ready to leave. His cut was still sitting on the card table, not yet claimed. He put on an old black-and-red check hunting jacket and a gray cap, and then he looked exactly like a dairy farmer getting ready to go out and milk the cows. He stuck a pipe in his mouth to complete the picture and went out to get the station wagon, which was dirty enough by now to add to the general picture. He drove off in the wagon, and the rest settled down to wait. Phillips was the best man to try this because he looked the least like a desperado. He was to drive around the general area but not too close to Copper Canyon and see if things had quieted down yet or not. When he came back, he’d tell them if it was safe to leave here. If he didn’t come back, that would be an answer, too.

While he was gone, Parker and Wycza took shovels over to one of the sheds with a dirt floor and dug a deep hole and buried the money sacks and trays in it. The others were gathering up the gear in the living shed, getting ready to move it out if Phillips said everything was okay.

He was gone three hours. It was a little after eleven when he came back, his headlights gleaming ahead of him. He left the wagon in front, came into the shed, and said, “As clear as water. No roadblocks or anything. I heard on the radio where they think we escaped into Canada already.”

“That’s the one direction none of us goes,” said Parker. “They’ll still be watching the border.”

Phillips got his little cardboard suitcase and shoveled his share of the score into it. They all had suitcases or bags of one kind or another for their part of the loot.

They all worked together, moving all the equipment out of the shed and loading it into the station wagon. Army cots, the card table and folding chairs, cartons of rubbish, unused food, everything went into the station wagon, filling it from front to back with just enough room for Phillips to get behind the wheel. He drove it down to put it with the truck, and Wycza took his own car and followed, to drive Phillips back up.

They got their cars out of the sheds and, using as little light as possible, arranged the sheds to look the same as when they’d come here. Sooner or later the truck and station wagon would be found, but they were at the bottom where, because of the fumes, people were less likely to go. Hunters or kids or whatnot might come around these sheds up at the top any time. It might be months before the truck and wagon were found, and even then there was nothing in either to connect them directly with the score. Unless the law had one or the other identified, maybe when they’d driven out.

They left at fifteen-minute intervals, Wycza and Phillips first. Kerwin and Grofield and Grofield’s girl left in the second car, and Wiss and Elkin in the third, and Salsa and Littlefield in the fourth.

Parker was last. He took one more look around, then loaded his luggage into the trunk of the Mercury. It was one o’clock Monday morning. Parker drove out to the highway and turned east.

5

The blonde looked past him and said, “Where’s Edgars?”

“He isn’t coming.” Parker pushed on by her and dropped his suitcase on the floor. The room was stuffy, smelling of woman and alcohol. The windows were closed, the Venetian blinds shut, the drapes pulled. The sun was shining outside, but she had the lights on in here.

She shut the door after him and said, “What happened to him?” She seemed sober, or close enough to it. She was wearing a blue robe, and she was barefoot; red nail polish was half chipped off her toenails.

Parker said, “He died. Open a window.”

“I like the windows shut. How come he died?”

“Because he was a damn fool.” Parker went over to a window, yanked the drapes aside, pulled the blinds up, and opened the window all the way. A cool breath of fresh air came in.

“You move right in, don’t you?”

“You been out of this room at all?”

“What do you care?”

Parker crossed the room and opened the other window. Now a breeze came through, clearing out the underground aura.

She said, “You killed him, huh?”

“No. He killed himself.”

“That big hooraw at Copper Canyon, that was you people, wasn’t it?”

“What big hooraw?”

She shrugged and went over to the dresser, where the bottle and glass were. She poured and said, “What do I care if he’s alive or dead?”

“He was sick in the head. He tried to blow up the whole town, and one of his grenades knocked a wall over on him.”

“What was the matter with him?”

“He had a peeve against the town. We had a nice quiet operation going, and all of a sudden he blew up. Killed one of the boys, and a lot of locals, started fires all over the place, and got himself killed by a wall.”

She shook her head, a sour grin on her face. “I pick ‘em, don’t I? Tell me, Parker, what’s wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“There’s got to be something, Parker, or I wouldn’t pick you.”

“You didn’t pick me. Get another glass.”

“Oh, don’t act so goddam tough. Where are you going from here?”

“Drive to Chicago, take a plane to Miami. You like Miami?”

“How the hell do I know? This is the farthest I’ve ever been from New York in my life.”

Parker looked at her, and thought of Grofield’s girl. Where do you find one like that? Forget it, there’d be something wrong with her, too. He stretched and said, “Get the glass, I’m thirsty.”

“Will you treat me nice? Will you for Christ’s sake treat me nice?”

He looked at her. “What happens if I treat you nice?”

“How do I know? Nobody ever did. Maybe I turn into a butterfly.”

“Let’s find out. Come here.”

She put the glass down on the dresser and came over. There was a pensive expression on her face, and she seemed oddly shy. It was out of character.

He reached for her, and she said, “The windows are all open.”

“Will you forget the goddam windows?”

“All right. Anything you say.”

His hands removed her robe. “Butterfly. Sure.”

THE PARKER SERIES

Point Blank (1962) aka The Hunter

The Mourner (1963)

The Outfit (1963)

The Steel Hit (1963) aka The Man with the Getaway Face

The Score (1964) aka Killtown

The Black Ice Score (1965)

The Jugger (1965)

The Handle (1966) aka Run Lethal

The Seventh (1966) aka The Split

The Green Eagle Score (1967)

The Rare Coin Score (1967)

The Sour Lemon Score (1969)

Deadly Edge (1971)

Slayground (1971)

Plunder Squad (1972)

Butcher’s Moon (1974)

Comeback (1997)

Backflash (1998)

Payback (1999)

Flashfire (2000)

Firebreak (2001)

Breakout (2002)

Nobody Runs Forever (2004)

Ask the Parrot (2006)