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 southwestward 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.
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.
This was much more than a gas station. There was a cafe attached, and a convenience store. For the long-haul truckers, or anyone else who wanted, showers and cots were available.
There were two parking areas, s
eparating trucks from cars, and the truck area was more full. Parker drove in among the cars and parked as much in the center of the pack as possible. Before he left the Plymouth, he searched its glove compartment and trunk, finding a shotgun, a Colt automatic, flares, a first-aid kit, handcuffs, a box of Ace bandages, an extra radio. He left it all, with the key in the ignition, and walked away toward the convenience store.
Money could start to be a problem. He had a few hundred dollars on him, but no credit cards, no way to get quick cash except a minor-league holdup that would bring more trouble than profit. Claire’s two thousand through Brenda hadn’t gotten to him, and wouldn’t. He had no choice but to just keep moving, as fast as possible.
In the convenience store, he bought half a dozen small cans of tomato juice and a box of crackers. Leaving the store, stowing the food inside his jacket, he turned toward the truck parking area but then veered away again. They had a guard on it.
A lot of these places had trouble with minor thefts out of the trucks while the truckers ate or slept or showered. Or screwed. So the gas station would hire a guard, just a big dumb guy with a billy club to walk around among the trucks, keep them safe. He was always a guy guaranteed to be bored enough to welcome the rare opportunity to use the club; though he might ask one or two questions while reaching for it.
Parker had meant to get inside a truck that looked to be headed eastbound, but not if it meant leaving a dead guard outside. So he turned away and walked over to one of the concrete picnic tables nobody ever uses, and waited.
He knew what he was waiting for. A couple, in their forties or fifties. More and more, the owner-driven big rigs are operated by couples, people whose kids are grown or who never happened to have any. Wife and husband share the driving and take turns sleeping in the cot behind the main bench seat. They own the truck together, so nobody’s an employee. It keeps her out of the house and him out of trouble, and it works out better than two guys going into a partnership.
He wanted a couple because he needed to be invited aboard. A singleton trucker might not like the look of Parker as a passenger, might be more curious about him than helpful toward him. A male pair wouldn’t want another male in their midst. But for a husband-wife, with nothing but each other and the radio for all those miles and all those days, it would be like inviting somebody onto their porch. A little conversation, a little change of pace.
He waited twenty minutes, watching people go by, getting a few inquisitive stares. He drank one of the cans of tomato juice and went over to toss the can in the trash basket, then went back to sit and wait some more.
Then here they came. He knew they were right the instant they walked out of the cafe. Midfifties, both overweight from sitting in the truck all the time, dressed alike in boots and jeans and windbreakers and black cowboy hats, they were obviously comfortable together, happy, telling each other stories. Parker rose and walked toward them, and they stopped, grinning at him, as though they’d expected him.
They had. “I knew it,” the man said, and said to his wife, “Didn’t I tell you?”
“Well, it was pretty obvious,” she said.
Parker said, “You know I want a lift.”
The man gestured at the building behind him. “We saw you sitting out here, speculated about you.”
The woman said, “We don’t have that much to distract us.”
“You were here too long to be waiting for a partner,” the man said. “Or a wife. So you want a lift. But you let half a dozen fellas go by. I said to Gail here, ’He’s looking for a couple, cause he knows we won’t turn him down.’”
“After I saw you throw the tomato can away,” she said, “and not litter, I said, ‘All right. If he asks, we’ll say yes.’”
“If you’re headed east,” the man said.
“I am,” Parker said, and put his hand out. “My name’s John.”
“I’m Marty,” the man said, “and this is Gail.”
They started walking, Parker beside them, and Marty said, “Where you headed?”
“New Jersey.”
“Well, we’ll get you to Baltimore, and you can work it out from there.”
“I could walk it from Baltimore,” Parker said.
16
Their truck was a blue Sterling Aero Bullet Plus, one of the biggest long-haul tractors on the road, with room enough to stand upright in the sleeper box behind the seat, and a separate door to that area on the right side, behind the regular passenger door. No one would be using the bunk right now; Gail would drive, with Marty in the middle on the wide bench seat, and Parker on the right.
“We’re still on California time,” Marty said, as Gail started them up, “which is why the late lunch. We probably won’t want dinner until late, either.”
“That’s fine,” Parker said.
The truck nosed out of its place, Gail turning the big wheel, and as they followed the truck lane around behind the station building, headed for the interstate on-ramp, Parker saw a state police car moving slowly along an aisle over in the other parking area, the one for cars. He didn’t turn his head to watch it, and neither Marty nor Gail seemed to notice it.
It was a different experience, being up here in this high cab, streaming straight eastward toward the night, the remnants of red sun low to the horizon behind streaks of cloud and pollution. You looked down on the tops of cars, across at other truckers, and it felt as though the load in the trailer was pushing the cab rather than the cab providing the power. Gail set the cruise control button on the steering wheel to 77, and they ran smoothly in the river of moderate traffic.
Once they were up to speed, part of the flow, Gail said, “There we are. Anybody want the radio?”
“Not now, Gail,” Marty said. “You get tired of local news.” To Parker he said, “Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Parker said.
Marty said, “You don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem like a man spends much time in parking lots, looking for a ride home.”
“I’m not,” Parker said. He’d known he’d have to explain himself, and was ready. Everybody on the highway believes the country-and-western songs, so he’d sing them one. “I’m embarrassed to tell you,” he began. “Usually—excuse this, Gail—“Usually I got good instincts when it comes to women.”
“Ho ho,” Marty said.
“Well, there I was in Vegas—”
“Ha ha!” Marty said.
Gail, looking at him past her husband, said, “I thought they cleaned Vegas up.”
“Maybe so,” Parker said. “But Vegas cleaned me out I hope you don’t mind, I don’t want to go through the details—”
“Not at all,” Gail said.
“I learned my lesson, this time,” Parker assured them. “Back in Jersey, I got a car, and a house, and a bank account, so I’ll be okay”
“Good,” Gail said.
“Just don’t introduce me to anybody between here and there,” Parker said. “You know what I mean.”
“Hah,” Marty said.
Jouncing woke Parker out of therapeutic sleep, and when he lifted his head, oriented himself in the dashboard lights, they were leaving the highway, bouncing down a badly maintained off-ramp toward a small country road. Parker had been sleeping against the right door, and Marty was now at the wheel, Gail nowhere in sight, the curtain closed over the sleeper box. Parker swallowed. “What’s up?”
“Oh, could be delays, up ahead,” Marty said. “Seemed like a good idea, go around it.”
“Go around what?”
“A few fellas coming the other way,” Marty explained, “mentioned on the radio, there’s a roadblock a few miles up ahead.”
“Roadblock?” Parker shifted in the seat, trying to get more comfortable after sleeping in his clothes. “After drunk drivers?”
“Probably,” Marty said. “They always take the opportunity, long as they’ve got you stopped, check every goddam thing they can think of. Looking for drugs, illegals, overweight. Check your license,
your manifest, your log. You can kill an hour, one of those places, just on line, waiting your turn. Better to get off, take one of these slow roads, come back up on the highway a little later.”
“Well,” Parker said, “drunk drivers can be trouble.”
“Sure they can,” Marty agreed. “Get em off the road. But it could be anything, up there. Maybe they’re looking for somebody escaped from prison, that happens sometimes, I even heard it on the local news, somewhere along here, the trip out.”
“They don’t stay out long,” Parker said.
“You’re right.” Marty hesitated, wanting to say something, not sure he would, then said, “Let me tell you a little story, long as Gail’s asleep back there. And even if she isn’t asleep, she can’t hear us.”
“All right.”
“Not that she doesn’t know the story,” Marty went on. “God knows, she does. Anyway, I was dumb like you about a woman once.” He nodded his head at the curtain behind them. “Before I met Gail.”
The road they were on now was two-lane asphalt with potholes, and the big truck had to slow-dance along it, Marty steering all the time. He said, “But I was even dumber than you, for even longer. Well, I was younger, too. But the fact is, I wound up doing four years—well, almost four years—in a state pen. Attempted robbery. Seven to ten, got out in the minimum.”
“Four years is a long minimum,” Parker said.
“Oh, you know it.” Marty concentrated on the road awhile, then said, “I know there’s fellas belong in there, I know there’s fellas I’d prefer was in there, but after being in there myself I could never put a man in a cage, personally. Never.”
“I know the feeling,” Parker said.
“If a man wants to learn from his mistakes, fine,” Marty said. “You look at me. You see the job I gave myself. Coast-to-coast hauling. You can’t get much farther from a four-man cage inside a six-hundred-man cage inside a four-thousand-man cage.”
“Not much farther,” Parker agreed. He looked out at the road, picked out by the white lights of the truck, with the ghosts passing just outside the light of the occasional farmhouse, gas station, diner, bar, all of them shut and dark. The dashboard clock read 4:27 a.m. He said, “What time zone is this?”
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