Breakout p-21

by Richard Stark

  This road would eventually circle back to the entrance, where he could swing back to go past Great Lakes Air again. If Mackey was there, he’d stop.

  He was taking the left ramp that would lead him around and into the airport again when he glanced in the mirror and saw the green Plymouth behind him. The cop had been hiding in the traffic, but no one else was taking the turn to go back into the airport, so there he was. He’d made a very quick and sure ID as Parker had driven by him. Parker couldn’t see him well enough, inside the car back there, but he knew the guy would be on his radio.

  This little red car was too identifiable. He couldn’t stay in it, but how could he get clear of it without the cop being all over him?

  He completed the left-turn U, and this time he noticed the additional lanes that went off to the right, before the terminals, with a big sign above: CARGO.

  Those lanes were empty. Parker accelerated into them, widening the distance from the pursuer, the Saab giving him just that much more juice than the Plymouth could deliver. But he wouldn’t have the advantage for long.

  This road curved rightward away from the passenger terminals and soon had large storage buildings on its left side, each with an airline name prominent on it. On the right were a high chain-link fence and scrubby fields. A few trucks moved along this road, and Parker snaked through them, looking for an out.

  There. On the left, a building with a large open hangar-type entrance on the front. Parker hit the brakes, spun the wheel, hit the accelerator, and roared into the building.

  There were trucks in here, too, being loaded or unloaded, with one narrow lane among them and stacks of goods piled high on both sides. Too many workmen moved among the trucks; Parker held down the horn, accelerated, saw the broad open door at the far end, cluttered with electric carts for carrying cargo out to the planes, and braced his forearms on the steering wheel as he slammed down onto the brake, then pushed open his door and slid out of the Saab as it continued to travel at ten miles an hour, straight toward that far opening.

  Parker hit the floor rolling, under a truck and out the other side, coming to his feet with the Terrier in his hand. He ran to the front of the truck, saw that the Saab had stopped when it ran into the carts just outside the building, and the Plymouth was just braking to a stop behind it. He ran toward the Plymouth, and its door opened, and the cop got out, and was Turley.

  The CID man from Stoneveldt, student of game theory. Of course the law would have him part of this detail, since he knew Parker, had sat across a desk from him twice, told him nobody had ever escaped from Stoneveldt. A small bulky red-haired middleweight, now reaching inside his windbreaker as he slammed the Plymouth’s door and took a step toward the Saab.

  ‘Turley!’ Parker yelled.

  Turley spun around, astonished, and Parker took a flat stance, the Terrier held out in front of himself with both hands. ‘Hands where I can see them!’

  Turley stared all around, not sure what to do. His hand was still inside the windbreaker, but he had to know what would happen if it came out full. Half a dozen workmen, wide-eyed, backed away.

  Parker yelled, ‘I’m a police officer! This man is under arrest!’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Turley yelled. Now his hand did come out from inside his windbreaker, empty, so he could wave his arms in outrage. ‘I’mthe cop!’ he yelled. ‘This man’s an escaped’

  Parker had reached him now. ‘Stop yelling,’ he said.

  Turley blinked at him, trying to catch up.

  Parker shook his head. ‘Game theory,’ he said. ‘Chapter two.’

  ‘You’ll never get out of the airport,’ Turley told him. ‘Do you want to add murder one?’

  ‘So everything’s going your way,’ Parker agreed. ‘So all you have to be is calm, am I right?’

  Turley nodded, thinking about that. He’d come down from his rage as quickly as he’d gone up. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘So why don’t you just hand me the weapon and let’s let these people go back to work.’

  ‘We’re getting in your car,’ Parker told him. ‘You’re driving. If you don’t like that idea, I’ll give you some murder one and do my own driving.’

  ‘You would, too,’ Turley said. ‘You proved that with Jelinek.’

  Parker waited for Turley to get used to the idea. Turley thought for a second, glancing toward the useless workmen, and then shrugged. ‘You’re the escape artist. I’ll enjoy watching you at work.’

  ‘That’s the way,’ Parker said. Backing away from Turley, he said, ‘We open our doors at the same time. We get in at the same time.’

  Turley nodded, and stood with his left hand on top of the car while Parker moved around it to the passenger side and said, ‘Now.’

  They opened both doors, slid in, and Parker said, ‘Don’t drive backwards. You can get around the Saab.’

  Turley put the Plymouth in gear and drove them out of there, through the tight fit between the Saab and a couple of the electric carts, out to the business side of the airport, while behind them the workmen clustered into groups to try to decide what they’d just been witnesses to.

  Now they were among the taxiways, with planes landing and taking off some distance away. Clear routes were marked in white paint on the gray concrete, and various vehicles traveled around back here, all staying within the lines.

  Turley said, ‘Do you have some sort of plan in mind?’ As though the idea were ridiculous.

  To the left were the main terminal buildings. To the right the buildings grew fewer, and some chain-link fence could be seen. Whatever was happening with Mackey and Brenda, there was no point in Parker trying to link up with them again. ‘To the right,’ he said.

  Turley nodded, and they drove along the rear of the cargo buildings, hundreds of workmen moving around, dozens of vehicles of all kinds, nobody paying them any attention in their unmarked car.

  Parker said, ‘Call in.’

  Turley seemed surprised. ‘What do I say, I’m bringing you in?’

  ‘You followed me into that cargo building, I abandoned the red car. You’ve got the car, but you don’t have me. You figure I’m hiding in that building somewhere.’

  ‘And I’m standing by?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Parker said. ‘Waiting for backup.’

  Turley snorted. ‘That’ll buy you maybe thirty seconds,’ he said.

  ‘Just do it.’

  Turley did it, saying it the way Parker had told him to, adding nothing, the dispatcher brisk, in a hurry. Putting the microphone back on its hook, Turley said, ‘I’ll look like a real idiot, once I finally do bring you in.’

  Parker said, ‘I didn’t take your gun.’

  Turley looked at him sideways, looked at the road ahead. ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘I’m not out to make you feel bad about yourself,’ Parker told him. ‘It’s just that it’s time for me to get to some other part of the world.’

  ‘And you figure,’ Turley said, ‘if I’m your chauffeur, but you don’t disarm me, I didn’t lose my weapon to you, that way I’ve still got my dignity.’

  ‘Up to you,’ Parker said.

  ‘And I’ll be easier to control,’ Turley said, ‘if I’ve still got my dignity.’

  ‘Up to you.’

  Turley laughed, not as though he meant it, and said, ‘Here I was telling you all about game theory. We could have had some nice discussions, back in Stoneveldt.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Parker said.

  ‘I knew you had something in mind, back there,’ Turley told him. ‘I had my eye on you, just not enough.’

  ‘I felt the eye,’ Parker assured him.

  ‘I hope so,’ Turley said. ‘There’s a gate up there.’

  Ahead, there was an open guarded gate where the delivery trucks drove in. Four rent-a-cops were on duty there. ‘Flash the badge,’ Parker said.

  ‘Naturally.’

  A gasoline truck was just pulling out when they arrived. Turley lowered his window, dangled the leathe
r folder that held his badge, and Parker put his other arm over the Terrier in his lap as the rent-a-cop leaned down to say, ‘Help you guys?’ He was in his fifties, surely a retired cop himself.

  ‘Undercover work,’ Turley told him. ‘Baggage thefts.’

  The rent-a-cop gave an angry laugh. ‘We can slow em down,’ he said, ‘but nothing will ever stop em.’ He stepped back and waved them through.

  A two-lane road ran along the chain-link fence outside the airport property. Closing his window, Turley said, ‘Which way?’

  ‘Left.’ Which would be away from the main bulk of the airport.

  This was the flattest part of this flat state, where they’d chosen to put the airport. Miles away to the right, as they rode along beside the fence, Parker could see Stoneveldt looming. So could Turley. He said, ‘Want me to drop you off there?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  The radio squawked. Turley looked at it, looked at Parker. ‘They’re calling me,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t answer.’

  ‘I don’t have anything cute to say, throw them off the scent?’

  ‘There’s nothing cute,’ Parker told him. ‘There’s just me, going away from here.’

  The radio squawked again, and Parker said, ‘Shut it off. There’s nothing we need to hear.’

  Turley switched the radio off, stopping the voice in midsquawk. They drove a minute in silence, and then Turley said, ‘I’m state, as I guess you know, but this is a local car we’re in.’

  ‘Working together to get the bad guys,’ Parker suggested.

  ‘That’s right,’ Turley said. He seemed serious about it. He said, ‘A couple years ago, the city police union put a proposal on the table, to city government, install locators in all the cars. You know, bounce off the satellite, tells you exactly where you are, also tells the dispatchers at headquarters exactly where you are.’

  Parker said, ‘The politicians didn’t want to spend the money.’

  ‘You know that’strue,’ Turley said. ‘They said, you boys are local law enforcement, you knowexactly where you are.’

  ‘If they’d spent the money,’ Parker said, ‘I’d have to do something else now.’

  ‘If they’d spent the money,’ Turley corrected him, ‘andif I told you about it.’

  ‘You’d tell me,’ Parker said. ‘You don’t want me surprised.’

  ‘Well, you’re right about that, too,’ Turley agreed. ‘We’re coming to an intersection up here, which way you want to go?’

  Stoneveldt was to the right. ‘Left,’ Parker said.

  14

  It was almost three o’clock. He was out of that city at last, away from the airport and the gathering cops, but he wasn’t finished. He couldn’t stay in this car much longer, because they’d be putting planes up soon, to look for him. There were two hours of daylight left, far too much, and they were running southwest-ward away from the city over this tabletop.

  Parker said, ‘What’s out in front of us?’

  ‘Corn,’ Turley said, but then corrected himself. ‘Not this time of year. Farms, a few little towns, railroad towns.’

  Railroad towns sounded good. Wouldn’t the rails run east-west? ‘Take your next left,’ Parker said, which would send them more southerly, to cross a railroad line eventually. Sooner, rather than later.

  An intersection grew ahead of them, a gas station and convenience store on one corner, farm equipment dealer diagonally across, nothing on the other two corners but breezy fields with billboards. The intersection was marked by a yellow blinker; Turley waited for a pickup to go by, then turned left. There was little traffic out here.

  They rolled along for a while and then Turley said, ‘Where’s Williams?’

  ‘Long gone,’ Parker said.

  Turley nodded. ‘Dead?’

  ‘No, just gone. Some other state.’

  ‘You two didn’t stick together?’

  ‘We had different things to do.’

  ‘You were both in the jewelry heist, weren’t you?’

  Parker said, ‘You hearing my confession?’

  Turley chuckled and shook his head. ‘I’m just interested,’ he said. ‘You know, I knew you wouldn’t work inside the system, so you didn’t surprise me. It’s Marcantoni I underestimated.’

  Just as Parker had known what Turley was doing underneath his words back in Stoneveldt, he understood now what this cosy chat was all about. Turley was a good cop, but he was also mortal. His second job, if he could do it, was to bring Parker in, but his first job was to keep himself alive. Talk with a man, exchange confidences with him, he’s less likely to pull the trigger if and when the time comes. Like Mackey deciding to do it the more difficult way because Henry had made him lunch.

  That was all right. Part of Parker’s job right now was to keep Turley calm, and so long as Turley devoted his mind to his little strategies he would remain calm. So Parker said, ‘Underestimated Marcantoni? How?’

  ‘I didn’t think he’d team with a black,’ Turley said. ‘I could see the three of you working something or other, but I thought it’d go a different way.’

  ‘That was the way we had,’ Parker said.

  Turley thought about that. ‘You mean, your original bunch was broken up. You needed to work with the population around you, and most of that, as you know, is pretty sorry stuff.’

  ‘That’s what you get in there,’ Parker said.

  Turley nodded, agreeing with him. ‘So you did a little talent search,’ he said, ‘came up with the best team, didn’t care about any other qualifications.’

  ‘Nothing else to care about,’ Parker said.

  ‘Is that right? Walheim didn’t make it, you know.’

  The abrupt change of subject left Parker blank for a second, and then he remembered. Walheim had had a heart attack. He said, ‘So he escaped, too.’

  ‘You could look at it that way.’

  They drove in silence a minute, and then Turley said, ‘You didn’t ask me about Bruhl.’

  ‘Ask you what about Bruhl?’

  Turley looked at him, then faced the road again. ‘I guess you don’t care, but I’ll tell you anyway. Bruhl will live and do time. More than Armiston, and in a harder place.’

  Parker said, ‘Armiston was dealing with you before you ever talked with me.’

  ‘Well, around that time,’ Turley agreed.

  Far away, miles away, a few low buildings were clustered around the road. At the moment, there was no nearby traffic. Parker said, ‘Pull off the road and stop.’

  Turley did, and said, ‘Engine on or off?’

  ‘On. In Park.’

  Turley did that, and faced Parker. ‘What now?’

  ‘You know the easy way to take a piece out of its holster,’ Parker said. ‘Thumb and forefinger, just holding the butt.’

  Affecting surprise, Turley said, ‘I thought you weren’t going to take my weapon. I’m keeping my dignity that way.’

  ‘You’ll get it right back,’ Parker assured him. ‘I just don’t want you shooting out my tires.’

  ‘Oh, I see, we’re saying so long now.’ Turley shrugged. ‘Okay, fine, here it comes, gentle and easy.’

  Holding the windbreaker open with his left hand, he grasped his revolver, a .38 Colt Trooper, by the bottom of the butt between thumb and forefinger and slowly lifted it out of the holster strapped around his underarm. Once it was clear, Parker took it away and said, ‘You got one in an ankle holster?’

  ‘I’m not that kind of cop.’

  ‘Show anyway.’

  Turley lifted both legs of his tan chinos. Black socks above black oxfords, nothing else.

  Parker said, ‘Fine. Now you step out.’

  ‘See you again,’ Turley said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Turley opened his door and climbed out. On the gravel, he leaned to look back in and say, ‘Kasper, do us all a favor. When they come get you, don’t do anything crazy.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Parker said.
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  Turley nodded and shut the door, as Parker slid over to get behind the wheel. He drove away from there, and a football field’s length down the road pulled over again. Triggering the passenger window open, he hurled the Trooper into the field, seeing in that outside mirror Turley, way back there, trudge this way. Parker drove on, mashing the accelerator, holding the Plymouth on this straight flat road above eighty.

  The cluster of buildings still looked a long way away.

  15

  It wasn’t a railroad town, one of the freight depots that feed the midwest and help the midwest feed the world. It was a river town, from an earlier era, when barges kept the commerce moving. It was partly kept alive now by the east-west interstate highway that had been built just to its south. Even coming into the town from the north, Parker could see the fifty-foot-high signs of the two competing gas stations at the interstate exit.

  Trucks were as good as trains, if you needed to travel fast and not be noticed. The problem now was time; there was no way to go around the town, so Parker had to go through it, all seven of the traffic lights on its main street, past the county courthouse, past the police station and the firehouse, past all the places where his own picture would have been posted now for a week, in a car that half the state was looking for.

  He was prepared to cut and run at any second, and would rely on the weight of the Plymouth, a fully equipped police car under its mufti, to get him through or out of any problem. But nothing happened. Three-fifteen on a midday afternoon, very little traffic in the town, not a local cop in sight. The last traffic light turned green, the city street became a road again, and there was the interstate overpass just ahead, earringed with on-ramps.

  Driving under the interstate, he looked at the long sloping shelves of rock to both sides, angled up to meet the bottom of the highway angling down. He could put the Plymouth off the road here, as far up the slope as he could go before the highway would be low enough to hit its roof, and not be seen at all from the air.

  But for anybody driving by particularly any cop it would be an anomaly. Even if the cop didn’t recognize the vehicle or the license plate, he’d wonder why it was there. Parker drove on, out the other side to clear November afternoon sky, and entered the gas station on his right, where a second big sign, aimed at the traffic on the highway, blared EASY ON EASY OFF.