Ask the Parrot p-23

by Richard Stark

  And then he stopped. The blood from the hole in his back bubbled less, and pulsed to an end as Thiemann arrived, panting as though he’d run a mile. He stared at the man on the ground as intently as if he’d just given him birth. His voice hoarse, he said, “Which one is he?”

  “Neither,” Parker said.

  Lindahl came to join them, from farther to the left. “How is he?”

  “Dead,” Parker said.

  Thiemann was trying to get the artist’s drawings out of his pocket without letting go of his rifle. “Damn,” he said. “Damn! Tom, hold this a sec.”

  Lindahl took Thiemann’s rifle, and Thiemann got out the two papers, unfolded them, and went down on one knee beside the dead man. He was clearly reluctant to touch the body, but had to turn the head in order to see the face.

  “He’s not one of them,” Parker said.

  Thiemann wasn’t ready for that, not yet. This man on the ground in front of them was small, scrawny, old, with thin gray filthy hair and a thick gray untended beard. He wore tattered gray work pants and a moth-eaten old blue sweater, stained everywhere. Lace up black shoes too big for him were on his feet, without socks, the ankles dirty and scabbed from old cuts.

  The face, when Thiemann used both hands to turn the dead man’s head, was bone thin, deeply lined, with scabs around the mouth and under the eyes. The eyes stared in horror at something a long way off.

  Thiemann squirmed backward, rubbing his fingers on grass and leaves. “He’s some old bum,” he said. His voice sounded the way the dead man’s staring eyes looked.

  Lindahl said, “Fred? You didn’t get a good look at him?”

  “He was . . . running. What the hell was he running for?”

  Parker said, “Men with guns chased him.”

  “Shit.” Thiemann was trying to find some rope to grasp, something, some way to get his balance back. “Doesn’t he know? The whole countryside knows. Everybody’s out looking for the bank robbers. Nobody wants him, what the hell’s he running for?” He stood leaning, looking at nothing, arms at his sides.

  Lindahl said gently, “Fred, that guy wasn’t up on the news. He’s up in here, he’s some old wino, he goes down sometimes and cadges or steals, but he doesn’t keep up with current events, Fred.”

  Thiemann said, “I’m feeling, I can’t, I gotta . . .”

  Parker and Lindahl grabbed him, one on each side, and eased him down until he was seated on the ground, the dead man just to his left. Not looking in that direction, he pushed himself around in a quarter circle until he was faced away from the body. “Do you think,” he said, much more humbly than before, “do you think we should bring—it—him, bring him out? Or should we just tell the troopers where he is?”

  “No,” Parker said.

  Thiemann looked up. “What?”

  “We don’t tell the troopers,” Parker said. “We don’t tell anybody.”

  Lindahl was holding his own rifle in his right hand, Thiemann’s in his left. Looking warily toward Parker, moving as though he wished that left hand were free, he said, “What do you mean, Ed?”

  “They told us,” Parker said, “don’t exchange gunfire. Even if this was one of them, we weren’t supposed to shoot. He isn’t one of them, he isn’t armed, he was shot in the back.” Parker looked at Thiemann. “If you go to the troopers with this, you’ll do time.”

  “But—” Thiemann stared left and right, looking for exits. “That isn’t right. We’re like deputies.”

  “Search,” Parker said. “Observe. Don’t engage. If you go to the law, Fred, it’s bad for you, and it’s bad for us.”

  That snagged Thiemann’s attention. “Bad for you? Jesus, how is this bad for you?”

  Parker could not have the law interested in this trio of hunters. He wouldn’t survive five minutes of being looked at by the law in a serious way. But what Thiemann needed was a different reason. “You shot an unarmed man in the back,” he said, to twist that knife a little. “A man who isn’t one of the ones we’re looking for. Tom and I were right here with you, and we didn’t stop you. That means we’re part of it.” Looking at Lindahl, Parker said, without moving his rifle, “You know what I’m saying, Tom. It’s just as important for us. This thing didn’t happen.”

  Lindahl, face paler than before, understood both what Parker was telling him and what Parker was telling Thiemann. He said, “My God, Ed, you mean, just leave him here? You can’t do that to a human being.”

  “Tom,” Parker said, “what that guy was doing to himself was just as bad, only slower. He didn’t have much of a life, and there wasn’t a lot of it left. What difference does it make if he dies back there in that ruin from exposure or starvation or DTs or liver poisoning, or if he dies out here from Fred’s bullet? He’s dead, and the animals around here’ll take care of the body.”

  “Jesus,” Fred said, and put his shaking left hand up to cover his eyes.

  “I can’t even think that way,” Lindahl said.

  “I’m thinking for you,” Parker told him. “This is a bind we’re in, and the only way out of it is that it didn’t happen.”

  Lindahl looked helplessly at the dead man, at the huddled shape of Thiemann, at Parker. “Should we at least . . . bury him?”

  Parker scuffed his toe on the stony ground. “In this? How? Even if we had three shovels, and we don’t, it would take hours to make a hole in this ground. And what for? Fred, what animals you got up around here, besides deer?”

  Thiemann seemed surprised to be spoken to. Slowly he took his hand away from his eyes and squinted upward, toward Parker, but not quite meeting his eye. “Animals?”

  “Predators. Scavengers.”

  Thiemann sighed, long and shuddering, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. “Well,” he said, “we got coyote, not a whole lot, but some.”

  “Bobcat,” Lindahl said.

  “That’s right,” Thiemann agreed, and gestured skyward. “And a whole lot of turkey buzzards.”

  “They’ll get here,” Lindahl said, “right after we leave.”

  Thiemann shook his head. “Well, no,” he said, “not that fast. A few hours later, it’s gotta get—” He stopped, squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “God damn!”

  “You thought it was the right guy,” Parker told him. Now that Thiemann wouldn’t be any more trouble, it was best that he not get excited. “It could have happened to any of us.”

  “That’s right, Fred,” Lindahl said.

  Thiemann spread his hands. “I was just so— I thought, Wow, I’ve got him! Me! I’ve got him!” He shook his head again, disgusted with himself. “When I said we were acting like kids, I didn’t really mean it, I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t a joke.” Looking now toward Lindahl, he said, asking forgiveness, “I never killed a man before. A human being. I never killed anybody. Deer, you’ve got venison, you’ve got . . .”

  “A reason,” Lindahl suggested.

  “I’m not sure I can even do that any more.” Thiemann looked around, but not toward the body. “Would you guys help me up?”

  They did, and he said, “I can’t do this any more, I gotta go home, I gotta, I don’t know, get by myself somewhere. I can’t do this today.”

  Parker said, “You got a wife at home, Fred?”

  “Sure,” Thiemann said, “And one daughter still in college.”

  “Can you tell your wife things? Can you trust her?”

  That drew Thiemann’s startled attention. “Sure I can trust her. But tell her about”—with a hand gesture behind himself, toward the corpse—“about that?”

  “You’ve got to tell somebody,” Parker said. “You can’t put it where you can’t ever talk about it, because it’ll eat you up. You won’t last. And you can’t talk about it with anybody else, not even Tom here. Tell your wife, talk it out with her.”

  “He’s right, Fred,” Lindahl said. “Jane will help you.”

  Thiemann made an awkward shrug, uncomfortable with himself. “Get me back to my car, will you?�
��

  They started back through the thick shrubbery toward the ruined railroad station. Thiemann hadn’t asked for his rifle back, seemed not to want to know it was his, so Lindahl carried them both under his right arm, leaving his left arm free to push through the branches along the way.

  Parker lagged behind the other two a pace, watched their backs, and decided what to do about them. The continued roadblocks in this part of the world, his lack of usable ID, even his lack of usable cash, meant he had to stick with Lindahl if possible, at least for now.

  But how reliable was Thiemann? If he did talk with his wife, and if she was sensible, if she understood what was best to keep him out of trouble, it should be all right. But if Thiemann started to talk to anybody else, anybody at all, it would unravel in a minute. And Parker wouldn’t know there was a problem until Lindahl’s house was surrounded.

  The other choice was to shoot them both, take Lindahl’s Ford, get away from here. Until he left this county, Lindahl’s membership card in Hickory Rod and Gun Club, displayed on the dashboard, would get him through the police blocks, particularly if he left the rifle prominently on the backseat. Not the Marlin, Lindahl’s Ruger, the only weapon here that would not have been fired.

  But the trouble wasn’t just this county. The trouble extended for a hundred miles in every direction. To have a place to hole up was the most valuable asset he could hope for right now. If either Lindahl or Thiemann looked enough like him to make it possible to use their identification, it would be a different thing.

  Lindahl suddenly turned his head, frowning at Parker with a question in his eyes, but Parker was simply pushing through the brush like the other two, the Marlin held loose in the crook of his right arm, hand nowhere near the lever or the trigger. Parker nodded at him, expressionless, and Lindahl faced the station, just ahead of them now, and pushed on.

  7

  They sat in the Ford the same as before, Lindahl driving, Parker beside him, Thiemann in the back with the three guns. The first few minutes, driving down the washboard road, no one spoke, but then Thiemann, as though he’d been brooding on this a long time, said, “I’m really in your hands now, aren’t I? You guys.”

  Lindahl shot a quick glance at the rearview mirror but then had to watch the road. “In our hands? What do you mean, in our hands?”

  “Well, you know this . . . thing about me. You know I killed a man.”

  Parker half turned so he could look at Thiemann, and rested his forearm atop the seat back. “We all have to trust each other, Fred. Tom and me, we’re not reporting it, so that puts us in the same boat as you.”

  “Not exactly,” Thiemann said, sounding bitter. “Not quite, Ed Smith. Not exactly.”

  With another quick look at the mirror, Lindahl said, “What’s the matter, Fred? You know me. We’ve known each other a long time.”

  “Not for a long time, Tom,” Thiemann told him. “Not for years. You don’t come to meetings, you don’t go anywhere. I haven’t seen your face in three years. You’re like a hermit.”

  “I’m not that bad,” Lindahl said, but as though admitting that yes, maybe he was that bad.

  “Everybody knows,” Thiemann told him, “you turned sour when you lost your job.”

  Lindahl didn’t like that. “Oh, do they? Everybody knows? Everybody talks about it a lot, do they, Fred?”

  “Nobody has to talk about it,” Thiemann said. “Everybody already knows. You lost that job, you turned sour, your wife walked out, you don’t act like you’re anybody’s friend. I don’t know you any more. I don’t know you much more than I know this fella here, except I know he talks smooth and he talks fast.”

  “Fred,” Parker said, “you just tell your wife, Jane, what happened today and see if she wants you to turn yourself in. If she does, it doesn’t matter what I say.”

  “Oh, I know what she’ll say,” Thiemann said, as though the knowledge made him angry. “Keep out of trouble, don’t make things worse, you can’t bring that man back, it’s over and done with.”

  “Absolutely right,” Lindahl said.

  Leaning forward, his face closer to Parker so he could talk to Lindahl’s profile, Thiemann said, “The one thing she won’t tell me is forget it. I’m never gonna forget it.”

  Lindahl said, “None of us are, Fred. That was a bad moment for all of us.”

  Parker could see that Thiemann thought he was supposed to be punished now, but he was smart enough to understand he couldn’t punish himself without punishing other people, too. First his wife, and the daughter still in college. But Tom Lindahl after that.

  So what Thiemann was doing back there now was trying to separate himself from the other people who’d get hurt. Tom Lindahl was a stranger to him, a hermit who had turned sour. His wife wouldn’t give him understanding, she’d just give him boilerplate stock responses. He couldn’t think about these unworthy people, he could only think about himself.

  The daughter would be harder to dismiss. That might hold him in place. In any case, the dangerous time was between now and when Thiemann reached his home. If his wife was there.

  Parker said, “Fred, is your wife home now?”

  “Yeah,” Thiemann said without much interest. “She works at a hospital, but not on Saturdays.”

  “That’s good,” Parker said.

  They drove in silence again until they were back down on the county road and along it to the intersection with the roadblock, where the smiling trooper recognized them and waved them through. Lindahl and Parker waved back, but Thiemann sat crouched into himself, staring at the back of the seat in front of him. Then, just after that, Thiemann roused himself and said, not to either of them in particular, “I don’t know if I can drive.”

  Parker looked at him, and Thiemann’s face was very pale now. He’d been in shock since it had happened, but the shock was just beginning to bite in, taking blood from the parts of him where it was needed, like his brain.

  Lindahl said, “You want me to drive you home, Fred?”

  “But then there’s the car,” Thiemann said, “way the hell in St. Stanislas.”

  Parker said, “I could drive you in your car, Fred, and Tom could follow and pick me up at your place.”

  Lindahl tossed a sharp look at Parker. “You mean, I follow right behind you.”

  Parker said, “That’s the only way I’m gonna get back to your house, Tom. Fred, you want me to do that?”

  Thiemann frowned at Parker, then at the back of Lindahl’s head, then at Parker again. “I think so,” he said. “I think I got to do that. Thanks.”

  8

  Several cars were in the Grange Hall parking lot, left by people doubling into another team member’s car, as Thiemann had done. It looked as though no one else had come back yet. Among the vehicles parked here was a state police car. Seeing it, Parker said to Lindahl, “You talk to the trooper. I’ll go with Fred to his car. Fred took sick after we checked out the railroad station. Nobody there.”

  “Okay.”

  The trooper was getting out of his car. It was the older one with the braid, who’d addressed the group before. Lindahl steered around to park next to Thiemann’s Taurus, then they all got out onto the blacktop.

  As Lindahl went off to talk with the trooper, Thiemann fumbled in his pocket for his keys, finally got them out, then couldn’t get his fingers to work well enough to push the button that would unlock the doors. “Damn. I can’t—”

  “Give it to me.”

  Thiemann looked at Parker and didn’t want to hand over his keys, but then he did. Parker buzzed the doors open and looked past the SUV hood to where Lindahl and the trooper were talking. Lindahl seemed to be doing the job right, with no problem from the trooper.

  Thiemann opened the driver’s door, then stood looking confused. “I should be on the other side,” he said.

  “I’ll get your rifle,” Parker said.

  “No!”

  It was a sharp response, loud enough to make both Lindahl and the trooper loo
k this way. Calm, quiet, Parker said, “You want to leave it with Tom?”

  Thiemann blinked, and nodded. “For now,” he said. “Yeah, just for now. I’ll pick it up . . . sometime.”

  “I’ll tell him. You get in on the other side, I’ll be right back.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  Carrying Thiemann’s car keys, Parker walked over to Lindahl and the trooper, who were both still looking this way. “Afternoon,” he said to the trooper.

  “Afternoon. Everything all right there?”

  “No, Fred’s all loused up.”

  Lindahl said, “You ask me, he’s got Lyme disease.”

  “Well, we’ve got a lot of that around here,” the trooper said.

  “Headache,” Parker said, “and a lot of confusion. I’m gonna drive him home.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Tom, he says you should hold on to his rifle, he’ll pick it up later.” Parker shrugged, and offered the trooper a faint grin. “That was the ‘no’ he shouted,” he said. “I think he’s afraid he might accidentally shoot himself.”

  “Stumble with a rifle in your hands,” the trooper said. “It’s happened.”

  “Tom, you ready to follow me?”

  “I think so. Okay, Captain?”

  “Fine,” the trooper said. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Anytime,” Lindahl told him.

  They started away, and the trooper called, “Tell your friend to get tested. You don’t fool with Lyme disease.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Lindahl promised.

  They walked on, and Parker said quietly, “I guess that’s some sort of local disease around here.”

  “You get it from a tick in the woods,” Lindahl told him. “It’s a very mean disease. But you know, I bet Fred would rather have that right now than what he’s got.”

  9

  Parker got behind the wheel of the Taurus, adjusted the seat for his longer legs, started the engine, and then looked at Thiemann, who sat slumped beside him, staring at nothing, deep in his own thoughts. Parker waited, then said, “Which way?”