Lindahl said, “Cory, come on, turn on the light down there, let’s figure out what to do here.”
“Where is it?”
“You see the window lit in the door there, to your left? It’s just beyond that, on the left side of the door.”
“Okay.”
Parker raised the gun. Cory was now going to cross that light.
But Lindahl, up there at the top of the ramp, was at an angle to see first when Cory went by the door to block the window light for just an instant, so it was Lindahl who fired one of the guard’s pistols. And missed.
Parker rolled to the floor on the far side of the duffel bag as Cory yelled and pulled open the door. He ran out of the room as Lindahl wasted two more shots from above.
There had been just that one instant of light when the door was open, and then dark again. Had Lindahl seen the shape of Parker, on the floor beyond the duffel bag, in that instant? Parker waited, listening, but didn’t hear Lindahl coming down, so he got to his feet, crossed over to the door, and looked quickly out through that window to see only the empty corridor. Cory had run fast.
What would Cory do now? Most likely find a place where he could protect his back, hunker down, hope for an opportunity to get to Lindahl before Lindahl could get to him. And why had Lindahl taken those shots? Because he’d understood, just as Parker had, that Cory wanted revenge against both of them for the death of his brother.
So what was Lindahl doing now? Parker walked up the ramp, and at the top he could hear rustling sounds, out ahead. He moved along the side of the Ford and saw that the Jetta was rocking slightly. Lindahl was doing something inside there.
It took him a minute to figure out what had happened. Cory’s first shot at Parker had smashed the rear side window of the Jetta on the driver’s side. He had, of course, locked the car, but Lindahl had reached through the broken window to unlock that door. From outside, though, he couldn’t reach far enough to unlock the driver’s door, so he was now inside the Jetta, climbing over from the backseat to the front, grunting with the effort, clumsy in his haste.
Let them play it out. Lindahl was too busy with what he was doing to notice anything else, so Parker turned away, to stride by the clubhouse wall past that door they’d used for entry and along the wooden wall toward the parked vehicles. He stopped when he came to the first of them, a big boxy horse carrier.
By now, Lindahl was getting out of the Jetta, finished with whatever he’d needed to do in there. Cory would have the keys with him, so all Lindahl could have done was put the car in neutral.
Yes. Lindahl’s Ford faced the gate and the ramp, its rear bumper against the rear bumper of the Jetta. Now Lindahl got behind the wheel of the Ford and backed it away from the gate, forcing the Jetta to roll forward. When he had the Jetta well out of his path, he looped around to back up against the gate and get out of the car.
Didn’t he plan to do anything about Cory? Or had he understood he wouldn’t be able to go back to his old life after this, so it wouldn’t matter if somebody from those days wanted to kill him? Did he think the two duffel bags would give him a stronger chance at escape than just the one? Or did he believe Cory that Parker was dead, although Cory had only said so to try to bring Parker into the open, or to convince Lindahl that the shooting was over.
Lindahl got out of the Ford long enough to open the gates wide, then backed the car down the ramp and out of sight. An instant later the lights down there switched on, and an instant after that the near door opened and Cory stepped out.
7
There wasn’t much more light up here than before. It looked as though Lindahl had only switched on the deeper lights, the ones in the safe room. He must have been afraid to draw attention from the outside world. But there was enough added illumination to show Cory come out that door, gun in hand, and pause, first looking over toward that light, then looking at the parked vehicles instead.
Parker could hear Cory’s thoughts as though he were saying them out loud. He wasn’t sure if any of his bullets had hit Parker. Until he knew where Parker was, or where his body was, he didn’t dare turn his back on anything. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time before Lindahl would drive up out of there with the money, but first he had to account for Parker.
While Cory was working that out, standing in front of the still-open clubhouse door, as though he might reverse himself and go back inside again, Parker made his own move. The ambulance had ladder rungs bolted to its back, next to the door. Parker went up them and lay flat on the flat roof, facedown, head turned to watch Cory, who finally understood he’d have to come over here and search the vehicles for Parker, and that he’d better be both fast and careful.
All of which was making him nervous, taking some of the steel out of his rage. Down in the darkness, in the waiting time, Cory’d been as silent as Parker, or he wouldn’t be alive now. But up here, as he moved in among the vehicles, he was gasping, quick rattle breaths that were like a road map showing his route through the dark.
The time for shooting Cory was gone, because the sound would set Lindahl off in some new scattered direction, and Parker wanted Lindahl, for the moment, just where he was. So he waited, lying on top of the ambulance, and below him Cory moved back and forth among the vehicles, looking inside, looking underneath, always with that gasping noise around him and that pistol hand stuck out front.
Parker waited, and the road map of breath-sounds turned the front of the ambulance, jittered down along its side, and Parker, pistol reversed, swung it down hard onto the back of that shaking head, driving Cory forward and facedown into the ground. He slammed to a stop down there like a broken film projector, frozen on that last frame.
Parker climbed down from the ambulance and didn’t bother to check Cory’s condition. If dead, he was dead. If alive he wouldn’t be any use to anybody for a while.
When Parker reached the open gate at the top of the ramp, Lindahl was just stuffing the second of the duffel bags into the SUV, filling up the storage area behind the backseat. Parker left him to it and loped away to the outer gate in the surrounding wall, which they had left closed but not locked. He stepped through the opening as back there at the clubhouse bright headlights angled upward at the sky from below ground, then leveled out as the Ford appeared. The headlights disappeared for Parker as he moved to his right along the wooden wall.
Lindahl had to stop to open the gate, and when he did, Parker stepped forward into the headlights, saying, “You got our money.”
Lindahl staggered. In grabbing the gate to try to brace himself, he made the gate swing instead, and nearly fell down. “Ed! For God’s sake!”
Lindahl was not carrying a gun, so Parker put his in his pocket as he came around the end of the gate and said, “Help me carry my duffel out of there.”
“Sure— You— He said you were dead.”
“He was wrong. Come on, Tom, let’s get this over with.”
Parker opened the rear cargo door and looked in at the two long mounds, like body bags. Lindahl came and stood beside him, looking in at the bags. “I did it,” he said, his voice quiet but proud. “I know, you and me together did it, but I did it. After all this time.”
“We’ll just put it on the ground outside,” Parker said, reaching for the top duffel, “beside the wall.”
“You don’t want me to see your car.”
“You don’t need to see my car. Come on, Tom.”
They put their arms around the end of the duffel and carried it around the car and through the gate and put it on the ground beside the wall. Looking down at it, Lindahl said, “Half the time, I was sure, if we ever got it, and I never thought we’d get it, but I was sure . . .” His voice trailed off, with a little vague hand gesture.
“You were sure I’d shoot you,” Parker said. “I know.”
“You could have, anytime.”
Parker said, “You brought me the job, you went in on the job with me, that’s yours.”
Lindahl giggled; a strange sou
nd out here. “You mean,” he said, “like, honor among thieves?”
“No,” Parker said. “I mean a professional is a professional. Take off, Tom, and stay away from roadblocks. That car might be burned by now.”
“I’ll be okay,” Lindahl said. The giggle had opened some looseness inside him, some confidence, as though he’d suddenly had a drink. “So long,” he said, and got behind the wheel of the Ford. His window was open; he looked out and might have said something else, but Parker shook his head, so Lindahl simply put the Ford in gear and drove away from there.
Once Lindahl had made the turn onto the dirt road leading to the county road, Parker went over to bring the Infiniti up close to the duffel. By then, Lindahl was out of sight. Parker wondered how far he’d get.
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Richard Stark
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Ask the Parrot p-23 Page 18