Flashfire p-19

by Richard Stark

  ‘I’m going to sleep,’ he said.

  The laugh she gave had hysteria in it. ‘Are you kidding? In the spot we’re in, and in the condition you’re in, who’s going to do anything exceptsleep? I’ll turn off the light.’

  4

  She said, ‘What’s Claire like?’

  ‘No, Lesley.’

  But she was following her own line of thought, answering her own question. ‘I think she’s very beautiful and very self-sufficient. Neither of you leans on the other, you both stand up straight.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  She considered him. ‘I need somebody

  a little different,’ she decided.

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t need anybody, Lesley.’

  She surprised him by blushing. She turned away, then turned back and smiled sheepishly and said, ‘I’d like to need somebody. I keep thinking, if I find the right guy, I’ll need him.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘That’s how it is with you and Claire, I suppose.’

  He knew this talk was simply so she could distract herself from the people downstairs. Her watch had told them it was almost eight-thirty in the morning, so whatever was going to happen would happen soon. But he didn’t feel like playing the game anymore, so he walked around instead, in and among the swivel chairs, rolling his shoulders, judging how his body felt this morning.

  A little better, maybe, just a little better. His voice seemed stronger to him, and the night on the fairly hard flat surface the insulation hadn’t done much seemed to have been good for his ribs.

  She sat in a swivel chair, swiveling slowly back and forth, watching him move. They were both silent for a few minutes, and then she said, ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Should we knock on the door or something?’

  ‘Let them have their own pace.’

  ‘Okay.’ Then, in a rush: ‘Are they going to kill us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and stood still, hand on the back of one of the chairs. Now that she was ready, they could talk. He said, ‘Melander’s the main guy, the big one with all the hair, and as far as he’s concerned they were all reasonable back when. He just borrowed money from me, and he meant to pay me back, and he might even pay me back someday. He thinks he’s straight in our world, that he doesn’t heist a heister, and what happened with me was just business or something.’

  She said, ‘Could you let it bejust business or something?’

  ‘We’ll see how it plays out,’ he said, to keep her calm. ‘There’s Carlson, I think he’d prefer we were dead. He doesn’t like it that I didn’t wait at home like a good boy, that I’m here.’

  ‘And the other one?’

  ‘Ross follows. He’ll follow whoever’s on top.’

  She thought about all that, slowly shaking her head. Her right shoe was half off, and she waggled it up and down with her toes. Then she said, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’

  ‘Nobody can leave this house for a few days,’ Parker told her, ‘that’s the problem. If we could all just split now, go our separate ways, they’d lock us up here and take off, and that would be it. But you know this island’s shut down, they’re checking every car on every bridge, every boat in the water, they’ll keep it up for three or four days.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to make Melander itchy after a while,’ Parker said. ‘Just by being here.’

  ‘And you can’t leave, not now,’ she said. ‘Or could you? Could we leave together? We wouldn’t tell anybody.’

  He was already shaking his head. ‘They don’t want us loose. They want us under control. And for now, that means here. Later on, it could mean dead.’

  ‘But not this morning, you think.’

  ‘Parker!’ Ross’s voice called up the stairwell. ‘You two up?’

  ‘Yes,’ Parker called. Lesley stooped to pull her shoe back on.

  ‘Come on downstairs.’

  Low, Parker said, ‘Now we’ll find out.’

  5

  Ross led them to the dining room, where Melander sat at the table with his back to the sea. The guns were gone from the table, and in their place were a box of doughnuts, a coffeepot, pound box of sugar, quart of half-and-half, white china cups, metal spoons, paper plates, and paper napkins. The shotguns leaned against the wall in a corner. The automatics were out of sight, probably being worn by the three. On a side table were three black mesh pouches attached to belts; Parker caught a glint of gold through the mesh. Carlson wasn’t in sight.

  Ross had gone into the room first, followed by Lesley, then Parker, so he was too late to stop it when Melander gestured to the chair on his left and said, ‘Have a seat, Claire. You don’t mind if we’re informal here, do you?’

  She was moving with small steps, arms against her sides; holding it in. ‘No, that’s all right,’ she said, and went over to sit where Parker had salted the Sentinel.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Ross told Parker, while Melander said to Lesley, ‘I’m glad. We can all be pals. I’m Boyd, and that’s Jerry. Hal’s in the kitchen, trying to figure out the stove. Maybe you could help him later.’

  Parker, sitting to Melander’s right, opposite Lesley, said, ‘Claire’s not too much for stoves.’

  ‘No?’ Melander grinned and shrugged. ‘Okay, fine. Either Hal figures it out, or he blows us all up.’ He gestured at the things on the table. ‘This is it for breakfast. Help yourselves.’

  Lesley looked uncertainly at Parker, who pushed the doughnut box toward her, saying, ‘Go ahead.’ The coffeepot was near Parker. Melander said, ‘Parker, why don’t you pour for her?’

  ‘Claire likes to do that for herself,’ he said, and pushed the coffeepot toward her, too, because they might think it strange that he didn’t know if his Claire took milk or sugar in her coffee.

  She took it black, as did Parker, and they both took doughnuts, as Melander continued the conversation, saying, ‘Now, Parker, what are we gonna do about you?’

  ‘Hold me until you leave,’ Parker said, and sensed movement behind him. That would be Carlson, coming in from the kitchen. Parker faced Melander but kept aware of Lesley; her reaction would let him know if Carlson had anything in mind. He said, ‘Then you’ll get your money from the fences, and you’ll send me what you owe me, and that’s the end of it.’

  Behind him, Carlson said, ‘Forgive and forget, is that it?’

  ‘No,’ Parker said, still talking to Melander. ‘I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget, but I don’t waste time on the past, either. I won’t work with you people again, but if you pay me my money I won’t think about you anymore, either.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ Melander said. ‘We were talking about that last night, Hal and Jerry and me, how we didn’t like the idea of you thinking about us.’

  ‘Showing up here,’ Carlson said. He was still behind Parker, not coming into view.

  Parker kept looking at Melander. ‘This is where my money is,’ he said.

  Melander laughed. He was buying Parker’s story, though maybe Carlson wasn’t. He said, ‘This is where your money is.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What happens if we would have screwed up on the job? If we went up there and something went wrong?’

  ‘I’d try to come in, get what I can.’

  Carlson, back there, said, ‘And help us out?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Parker said.

  ‘I just wish,’ Melander said, ‘you were a more easygoing guy,’ and door chimes sounded.

  Everybody in the room tensed. Carlson stepped forward to Parker’s right, looking at him, saying, ‘You got friends?’

  ‘Only you people.’

  Melander said, ‘Jerry, take a look.’

  Ross hurried from the room while Carlson crossed to pick up two of the shotguns, bringing one to Melander, neither shotgun pointed exactly at anybody.

  Stupid with fear, mouth open, Lesley stared at Parker, and Ross ducke
d back into the room: ‘It’s cops!’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, why?’ Carlson complained, glaring at Parker.

  Parker said, ‘They’re searching the island. Hello, Mr Householder, you see anybody looked suspicious?’

  Melander laughed and got to his feet, handing his shotgun back to Carlson as he said, ‘Everybody I see looks suspicious. I’m the householder.’ He left the room, smoothing his hair back.

  Carlson and Ross went to stand to both sides of the parlor doorway, where they’d be able to hear. Parker waved a hand to get Lesley’s attention, then pointed to her side of the table. She stared at him, not getting it. He tapped his temple: Think. Carlson and Ross wouldn’t be distracted forever.

  ‘Hello, Officers, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Mr George Roderick?’

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s me.’

  Parker put both hands under the table, gesturing that his hands were touching the underside, then again pointed at her side of the table.

  ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Sure. Could I ask’

  ‘Are you moving in or out, sir?’

  At last she reached under her table, and her eyes widened.

  ‘Moving in. Slowly, slowly.’

  ‘I suppose that would explain it.’

  Parker patted the air with palms down: Don’t move it yet.

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘You are aware of the robbery last night.’

  ‘Robbery? No, what robbery?’

  ‘Mr Roderick, a massive jewel theft and fire took place last night just up the road from here, and you don’t knowabout it?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t have a TV here, I don’t even have a radio. I stayed home and read last night. I didn’t’

  ‘You don’t have a phone, either.’

  ‘No, I don’t it isn’t in yet.’

  ‘We’re phoning residents, asking if anyone saw anything, but you don’t have a phone.’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘You haven’t applied for a phone.’

  ‘No, I haven’t got a’

  ‘There’s a Dumpster out here, but you have no contractor. No one’s doing work on the property.’

  ‘Officer, I live mostly in Texas. There’ve been business problems there recently. I’ve been delayed in’

  ‘How many of you are staying here, Mr Roderick?’

  ‘At the moment, just me. My family’s still’

  A different cop voice said, ‘Someone else came into the living room, went back out again. I saw it through the window.’

  ‘That was me,’ Melander said, still sounding affable, while Carlson and Ross were getting more and more edgy, hands flexing on the shotguns. ‘I had my coffee cup in my hand, went back to’

  ‘It wasn’t you,’ the second cop voice said. ‘It was somebody shorter.’

  The first cop, sounding tougher, less polite, said, ‘Mr Roderick, how many of you are in the house right now?’

  ‘Just me, I’m telling’

  ‘Mr Roderick, I’m afraid I’m going to have to search the house.’

  ‘I don’t see why. I’m just a guy from Texas trying to fix up this’

  ‘And we’ll have to begin with a search of your person, sir.’

  ‘Me? Search me?’

  ‘Sir, if you’ll lean against the wall, arms spread

  ‘

  It was now. Parker snapped his fingers to get Lesley’s attention, and gestured she should toss him the gun. Carlson heard the snap, saw the gesture, saw the Sentinel come up from under the table in Lesley’s two hands, a piece of clear tape still curling away from it, and he swung the shotgun around to shoot at Lesley, trigger going click as he squeezed.

  Lesley flinched and screamedand fired the Sentinel, the flat crackof it bouncing in the room, the bullet missing Carlson, beelining somewhere into the living room, where the cops and Melander were.

  Parker was on his feet, turning in a quick circle to his left, away from the doorway, reaching for the chairback behind him with his left hand. The pains in his torso drove knives into him, shot arcs of lightning across his vision, popped the sweat beads onto his forehead, but he kept turning, picking up the chair at the end of his left arm, swinging it in a loop that intersected with Ross, who had already fired his shotgun uselessly twice at Parker’s head. The chair knocked him off balance to his right, into the doorway.

  There was already shooting out there. Melander had probably drawn his automatic when he saw the situation going to hell, and had gone down pulling a trigger that just wouldn’t deliver.

  Ross reeled into the doorway space to the living room, clutching the shotgun, and was brought up short by a sudden squadron of bullets that knocked him backward, knocked the shotgun from his hands, knocked him to the ground.

  Lesley had emptied the Sentinel, two-handed, into Carlson, who sprawled in a seated position on the floor against the wall, gaping at her, stupefied.

  Parker clapped once, to get her attention. When she stared at him, glassy-eyed, he pointed to himself, fast, urgent, then violently shook his head. I’m not here, I don’t exist, I’m not part of it. She managed an openmouthed nod, and he turned, grabbed the three pouches full of jewelry, and ran.

  But he couldn’t run. His body wasn’t up to it; he was reeling from what he’d already done. He was one room ahead of them and couldn’t go much farther.

  He made it to the terrace. The morning sun glared dead ahead, breathing its humidity on him, sapping the rest of his strength.

  They weren’t pursuing anybody; they didn’t know there was anybody else to pursue. They were staying with the mess they already had. But he couldn’t just wander the beach, physically battered, carrying the loot from the robbery.

  To the left was the chain-link fence he’d climbed the first time he’d come here, with the neighbor’s sea grape crowding against it on the inside. Parker went to the corner of the terrace, looped the three pouch belts through his own belt, and went down the neighbor’s side of the fence.

  It was slow going, for many reasons. He didn’t want to break a lot of branches, leave a trail straight to himself. He was bulky and cumbersome and the jewelry pouches kept snagging on branches and leaves. And his body kept trying to pass out.

  At the bottom, the tangled stringy trunks were a failed Boy Scout knot. Years of dead leaves had made a mush of the ground. The air was cooler, but just as wet. A foot from the fence, you couldn’t see the fence or the ocean beyond it.

  Parker, feeling darkness iris in around his eyes, sank slowly into crotches and curves of branch until he’d given over his entire weight to the tree, as though he’d been hanging there forever and it had grown around him. He’d done what he could do. Arms around a trunk, cheek against a branch, he let the iris close.

  6

  Darkness and cramping, forcing him to be conscious. He tried to move, to ease the cramps, but he was all tangled in branches and leaves. Too dark to see where he was or what he could do.

  He stopped the useless moving about. He ignored the cramps, in his ribs, in his legs, and took a slow deep breath while he oriented himself. Where he was. What had happened.

  He’d slept the day away, laced into a sea grape. They hadn’t found him, so they hadn’t looked for him or they wouldhave found him, so Lesley’s story whatever it had been had not included him.

  Could he get up out of here? The first thing was to try to stand, untie himself from this tree. Reaching this way and that for handholds, his knuckles brushed the chain-link fence, and he grabbed onto it, used it to pull himself forward and then upward until he was vertical and could try to do something about the cramps.

  For the torso, just slow breathing, slow and regular breathing, holding it in. For the legs, flexing them and flexing them and flexing them, waiting it out. Until finally only the familiar pains in his chest were left, a little worse than before, but not crippling.

  He could see nothing, but he could feel the three jewelry pouches, still looped onto his belt i
n front and on the left side. He still had hold of the fence, and now he began to climb it, slowly, with long pauses. The legs threatened to bind up on him again, and the breathing was very thick and soupy, but he kept moving upward, a bit at a time, and finally came out onto the terrace behind the late Mr Roderick’s house. He sprawled there, on his back.

  Light. A quarter-moon and many stars. The hushing sound of the ocean, rising and falling. No other sound and no other light.

  Finally, when he felt he had the strength for it, he gathered his arms and legs under himself, and levered himself upward, and used the protective wrought-iron fence for support, and then he was on his feet.

  The house was dark, its many glass doors dully reflecting the bright night sky. Something ribbonlike fluttered over there, horizontal, at waist height, and when he moved slowly closer to the building it was a yellow police crime-scene tape. They’d sealed the house.

  How sealed was it? He needed this house. In slow stages, with many pauses, he worked his way around to the front, where the Dumpster still loomed in the moonlight and more crime-scene tape semaphored in the night breeze. But there were no vehicles, no guards. The crime at the crime scene, as far as the law was concerned, was over.

  It took longer this time to find the suction-cup handles, but eventually he did, and got into the house the same way as before, but feeling the damage to his body even worse. He did pass out, for a while, lying on the floor inside the house, the window open beside him, but then he came out of it and stood and finished the job, tossing the suction-cup handles outside again, hoping never to need those anymore. He reinserted the loose pane of glass, and then he was inside.

  The alarm pad by the front door gleamed its red warning, but had the police checked to be certain the alarm hadn’t been tampered with? No, they hadn’t. If the alarm was doing its job, his opening the window would have set it off.

  And if he were his usual self, he’d have been much more cautious about coming in here. He could see that the physical toll was beginning to make him careless, sloppy in his thinking. He couldn’t let that happen.

  It wasn’t really possible to search the place in this darkness, even if he had the strength. But the air had the flat silence of an empty house, and he was sure he was alone.