Ask the Parrot

by Richard Stark

  Because once the law was interested in Thiemann, they would also be interested in Thiemann’s partners in the manhunt. The wife would lead them to Lindahl, and that was the end.

  What were the choices? He could tie up Lindahl right now, or shoot him if the man wanted to make trouble, and leave here in the SUV. He’d have the car’s registration and the new driver’s license belonging to William G. Dodd, and if stopped he’d say his friend Tom Lindahl had loaned him the car.

  But if he did do that, and it turned out at the same time that Thiemann was eating his rifle, Parker would be on the road in a hot car and not know it. Or he could wait the six hours, ignoring the Dennison brothers and trusting Jane Thiemann to keep her husband in line, and the disaster would find him sitting here in Lindahl’s living room with his feet up.

  Another car. He needed a car he could safely drive, a car he could show up in at the roadblocks. A car with paperwork that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, no matter what was happening back here in this neighborhood.

  After the Dennisons left, Parker said, “I’ll drive down to the corner, put some gas in the car.”

  Sounding bitter, Lindahl said, “Using some of the money you stole from that boy?”

  Parker looked at him. “You got that wrong, Tom,” he said. “I didn’t take anything from that boy. I took some cash from a company has nine hundred stores. I needed the cash. You know that.”

  “You had that gun all along?”

  “I’ll be right back,” Parker said, and turned to the door.

  “No, wait.”

  Parker looked back and could see that Lindahl was trying to adjust his thinking. He waited, and Lindahl nodded and said, “All right. I know who you are, I already knew who you were. I shouldn’t act as though it’s any of my business.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s hard,” Lindahl said. “It’s hard to be around . . .”

  The sentence trailed off, but Parker understood. It’s hard to be around a carnivore. “It won’t be for long,” he said.

  “No, I know. And I wanted to tell you,” Lindahl hurried on, obviously in a rush to change the subject, “you don’t want to go to that gas station on the corner. Go out to the right, eight miles, there’s a Getty station. A straight run there and back.”

  “But this guy’s right here. He’s open on Sunday, I saw the sign.”

  “You don’t want to go there,” Lindahl insisted. “He charges ten, fifteen cents more per gallon than anybody else.”

  “How does he get away with that?”

  “He doesn’t,” Lindahl said. “The only people that stop there are tourists or lost.”

  “Then how does he make a living?”

  “Social Security,” Lindahl said. “And he sells lottery tickets there, that’s mostly what people go to him for. A lot of people around here are nuts for the lottery. And he also does some repair work on cars.”

  “I saw some cars there, I didn’t know if that meant he fixed them or sold them.”

  “He fixes them, he’s a mechanic,” Lindahl said. “That’s what he mostly used to do, somewhere down in Pennsylvania. He worked for some big auto dealer down there. When he retired, he came up here and bought that station, because his wife’s family came from around here somewhere.”

  “But why charge so much for gas?”

  “Just crankiness,” Lindahl said. “He’s a loner, he likes working on engines and things, listening to the radio in his station.”

  “Is he a good mechanic?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Lindahl nodded, emphatic with it. “He’ll do a good job on your car, and he won’t cheat you, he’s fair about that. That part he takes pride in. I’ve taken my own car to him, and he’s been fine. What it is, he’ll fix your car, but he doesn’t want to talk to you. I think he likes cars more than people.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Brian Hopwood. But you don’t want to go there.”

  “No, I’ll stay away from him,” Parker said. “I don’t need somebody cranky, that overcharges. The Getty station, you say, eight miles that way.”

  “That’s what you want,” Lindahl agreed.

  10

  The Dennisons’ red Ram pickup was nowhere in sight as Parker drove a mile out of town, U-turned back past Lindahl’s place tucked back in behind the boarded-up house, and stopped at the gas station, which was brightly lit in the daytime like most such places, but still had an air of emptiness about it.

  There was one set of pumps, with service on both sides. Behind them was a broad low white clapboard building that was mostly overhead garage doors except for a small office at the right end with fuel additive posters obscuring the plate-glass window and the smaller panes of glass in the door. To the right of the building, along the rear line of the blacktop, were parked half a dozen older cars, all with license plates attached, so they were here for service, not for sale.

  Parker got out of the Ford and read the hand-printed notice taped to each pump: PAY INSIDE FIRST. Taking out two of The Rad’s twenties, he walked over to the office, where another hand-printed sign beside the door gave the hours of operation, including SUN 10-4.

  He opened the door and heard the jangle of a warning bell, which was followed by classical music, something loud with a lot of strings that the bell had obscured for just an instant. Parker had expected a different kind of music, given Lindahl’s description of Brian Hopwood, but that was the reason he’d come here, to understand the man and the operation.

  The office was small and dark and crowded, as though brushed with a thin coating of oil. The desk was dark metal, covered with specs and repair books and appointment schedules and an old black telephone. A dark wood swivel chair behind it was very low, with the seat and back draped in a variety of cloth: old blankets, quilts, a couple of tan chamois cloths. On the back wall, a wooden shelf held an old cash register, next to a key rack with several sets of keys on it, each of them with a cardboard tag attached.

  On the left wall of the office was an open doorway to the service area, through which a man now came, frowning as though he hadn’t expected to be interrupted. He was short and scrawny and any age above Social Security eligibility. He wore what looked like army issue eyeglasses with the thin metal wings bent into dips and rises, and grease-covered work clothes. Wiping his hands on a small towel looped through his belt, he said, “Afternoon.”

  “Afternoon.” Extending the twenties, Parker said, “I’m not sure it’ll take that much. If not, I’ll come back for change.”

  It was clear that Hopwood wasn’t happy about that; two exchanges with a customer over one transaction. Still, he took the twenties, put them on the shelf in front of the cash register, and said, “Which pump you at?”

  Parker peered through the poster-blocked window: “Three.”

  Hopwood bent behind the desk to set that pump and said, “I’ll ring it up when you’re done.”

  “Fine.”

  Hopwood was already on his way back to his work in the service area before Parker left the office. The man was without curiosity and would not be watching what Parker did, so he went first to the cars parked along the rear of the station blacktop. All were locked, their keys certainly on that rack in the office. A couple of them had personal items showing inside: a thermos, a blanket.

  The law wanted people to keep their automobile registrations in their wallet or purse, but, in fact, most people leave it in the glove compartment with the insurance card, so at least some of these would be ready to go. If he needed one.

  Parker went back to the Ford and pumped thirty-eight dollars and fifty cents’ worth of gas. The car would have taken more than that, particularly with the high price Hopwood charged, but he wanted that second encounter.

  Back in the office, Hopwood came from his work in response to the bell, and Parker said, “Sorry, that’s all it took.”

  “Not a problem.” Hopwood bent to see what the charge had come to.

  “I’m staying with Tom Lindahl,” Pa
rker said.

  “Thirty-eight-fifty. I recognized the car.”

  “On a little vacation.”

  “That right?” Hopwood made the transaction in the cash register and handed Parker a dollar bill and two quarters.

  Parker said, “It says you close today at four.”

  “That’s right.” Squinting at the round white wall clock next to the service area entrance, Hopwood said, “You had plenty of time. An hour.”

  “When you close,” Parker said, “is that it, you’re closed, nobody here in case somebody shows up a little late? Or do you stay and work on the cars a little more?”

  “Not me,” Hopwood said, sounding almost outraged, as though somebody had asked him to lie under oath. “Four o’clock, I shut down, go home, say hello to the missus, have my shower, read the Sunday funnies until suppertime. I don’t know what Tom Lindahl told you, but I’m not a nut.”

  “Tom said you were a good mechanic.”

  “Well, thank him for me.” Nodding toward the Ford out by the pumps, he said, “I’ve managed to keep that thing going. Rides okay, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” Parker agreed. He pocketed his change, said, “Enjoy the funnies,” and turned to leave.

  11

  Just a minute,” Hopwood said, and when Parker turned back, his hand not quite touching the doorknob, Hopwood had opened a drawer in his messy desk and now there was a tiny automatic pistol in his hand, its eye looking at Parker. Flat in the still-open drawer was a smudged copy of the artist’s rendering.

  “Maybe you’ll put your hands on your head,” Hopwood said.

  Parker didn’t. Instead, he gestured toward the picture in the drawer. “You don’t think that’s me, do you? This isn’t even a joke any more.”

  “I’m not foolin, mister,” Hopwood said. The automatic that almost disappeared inside his fist was small but serious, the Seecamp LWS32, with a magazine of six .32-caliber cartridges. With its one-inch barrel, it couldn’t have much effect across a highway, but inside this room it would do the job.

  Now Hopwood moved the gun-holding hand in a small arc, downward and to the right, to aim at Parker’s left leg. “If I have to wing you, I will.”

  “I told you,” Parker said, “I’m staying with Tom Lindahl. Call him if you want. That’s his car right—”

  “Last chance. Hands on top of your head.”

  With no choice, Parker started to lift his arms when the door directly behind him opened and somebody walked in. Hopwood lost his concentration as Parker took a quick step to his left, turning to see that the newcomer was the nosy woman who’d driven past him last night and stopped to ask him if she could help.

  She was confused by the scene she’d walked into, reacting to the tension in the air but not yet noticing the small automatic closed in Hopwood’s fist. “I’m sorry, did I—”

  With both hands, Parker took her by the left elbow, spun, and threw her hard across the room and into Hopwood, who tried too late to backtrack out of the way, hitting the corner of his desk instead, knocking himself off balance. Then the woman crashed into him, and they fell diagonally in a jumble from the desk onto the floor. By the time they were separated and turned around and staring upward, Parker’s pistol was in his hand.

  “Stay right there,” he said, and showed Hopwood the Ranger. “I don’t wing.”

  “What is—what’s—” She was still more bewildered than anything else, but then she saw the Ranger in Parker’s hand and her eyes widened and she cried, “You! You’re the one stole Jack’s gun!”

  THREE

  1

  Of the three men who’d pulled the bank job in Massachusetts, Nelson McWhitney was the only one who’d left the place carrying his own legitimate identification and driving his own properly registered pickup truck. The cops at the various roadblocks where he’d been stopped and the pickup searched had warned him against driving south toward the Mass Pike, because the heavy police activity had backed up traffic in all directions, so, even though his goal was Long Island, McWhitney drove steadily westward for hours, into the same areas where Parker found himself bogged down and Nick Dalesia found himself arrested.

  He heard the news of the arrest on the truck radio and gave the radio an ironic nod and salute in response, saying, “Well, so long, Nick.” A couple of miles farther on, having thought about it some more, he nodded and told the radio, “And so long money, too.” That would be Nick’s only bargaining chip, wouldn’t it?

  After Syracuse, McWhitney turned south, keeping to smaller roads because they were less backed up, but still making slow progress. He finally gave up and found a motel outside Binghamton, then early Sunday morning got up into a still-police-infested world and made his way southeast toward Long Island, where his home was and where the small bar he owned was and where he had an appointment coming up with a woman named Sharon.

  On even a normal day, he would have known better than to drive through New York City to get to Long Island, and this was far from a normal day. It was amazing how much fuss three guys with a simple bank plan could create. And, of course, having grabbed Nick Dalesia, the law was now hungrier than ever to gobble up the other two.

  Driving down across New York State, he found himself wondering, was he himself maybe a bargaining chip for Nick? He thought back, and he didn’t believe he and Nick had shared that much private detail, not enough so that Nick could pinpoint McWhitney on Long Island. He hoped not.

  What he’d do, when he finally got to the neighborhood, was case it first. If Nick did know enough about him to turn him up, the surveillance on his home and bar would be far too large for him not to notice. Just go there and see.

  He stopped for lunch at a diner in Westchester, then headed south to the Throgs Neck Bridge to take him across to Long Island. The roadblock inspection at the bridge was the most thorough and intense yet, but then, once he got on the Island, life suddenly became much calmer. There were only a limited number of routes on and off the Island, so clearly the authorities believed they hadn’t so far let any of the bank robbers through.

  His neighborhood was quiet, like any Sunday afternoon. His bar, where he’d left a guy he knew in charge while he took his little “vacation,” was also very quiet, almost empty-looking, which was also standard for a Sunday afternoon.

  McWhitney parked the truck in the alley behind his building, went into his empty and stuffy-smelling apartment, opened a few windows, opened a beer, and switched on CNN. No further news on the bank-robbing front.

  He wondered how Parker was doing among the straights.

  2

  Brian Hopwood, asprawl on his back on his dirty office floor, grinding pain in his left side where his rib cage had smacked into the sharp corner of his desk, useless little toy automatic still clutched in his fist, stared up past Suzanne Gilbert’s thick mass of wavy auburn hair at the hardcase he’d been stupid enough to try to get the drop on, and he thought, Well, I’m not dead, so that’s good.

  Yes, it was good. If this hardcase here, this bank robber, had just wanted to clear these two pests out of his path, he’d have shot them without a word, without a warning like, “I don’t wing.” So in fact, he didn’t want to shoot them, not unless they made it necessary.

  Brian Hopwood had lived this long a time partly by never making it necessary for anybody to shoot him, and he was prepared to go on that way the rest of his life. Which meant shutting up Suzanne here. Heavier than she looked, now draped across him like a deer carcass lashed to a fender, half-twisted around with her elbow propping her torso up by bearing down into Hopwood’s stomach, she glared in discovery and outrage at the hardcase who had their lives in his hands, yelling at him, “You! You’re the one stole Jack’s gun!” As though this were Twenty questions or something.

  Jack Riley? It would have to be Jack Riley, but what the hell would Jack Riley want with a gun? Fighting that off, fighting his mind’s habit of digression—that’s what made him the first-rate loner mechanic he was, in a job that let hi
s mind wander wherever it would while his hands and some other parts of his brain dealt with the particular problems of this particular automobile of the moment—Brian yelled, or tried to yell in a raspy hoarse croak that was all he seemed to have right now, “Suzanne, shut up and get off me! Mister, I’m putting the gun down, see? On the floor here, I can give it a push if you— Suzanne, get off me!”

  She managed it, finally, rolling rightward off him, rolling over completely in a flurry of legs and tossing hair. She was dressed in black slacks and a gray wool sweater, so she didn’t flash any parts of herself, but Brian’s digression-ready brain did notice there was something very nicely womanly about that body in motion.

  The hardcase hadn’t moved, but now he pointed a finger of his left hand at Suzanne while holding the revolver still trained on Brian, and said to Suzanne, “Right there’s good.”

  Suzanne had wound up in a splay-legged seated position, and did move some more, folding her legs in close into something like a loose lotus position while she glared up at him, but at least she didn’t say anything else.

  Then, as though Suzanne had been by that order effectively locked into a cage and put out of play, the hardcase looked at Brian again and said, “Tell me about her.”

  Tell me about her? She’s right here; why doesn’t he ask her himself?

  He’s the man with the gun, Brian, he gets to do it any way he wants. Brian said, “Her name’s Suzanne Gilbert. She works nights at Holy Mary Hospital in emergency room admittance. Her grandfather lives just down that way.”

  “Jack?”

  “Jack Riley, yeah, that’s her grandfather.”

  And now Suzanne spoke up again; doesn’t she understand the situation here? Apparently not, because, sounding aggrieved, she said, “Why did you take Jack’s gun?”

  He looked at her, and though his face didn’t change into anything you could call a smile, Brian still had the feeling the question had given him some kind of amusement. “Just in case Brian here,” he told her, “would draw down on me. You didn’t stop to see your grandfather last night.”