The Score (Parker Novels)

by Richard Stark

  Somebody had found Eddie Wheeler, and he'd been brought to one of the troopers, so now the law knew about the robberies, or at least some of them. The two women at the telephone company had been found and released, so now the law also knew that the robbers had taken a hostage with them. Eddie Wheeler had described the truck he'd seen, and state police cars were combing the highway and route 22A and other secondary routes in this part of the state, but they hadn't as yet found any brown truck. Two police helicopters were being readied at Bismarck, the state capital, and would be in the air shortly. Reporters and wire service stringers were driving pell-mell toward Copper Canyon from all over the state.

  It would be late afternoon before the fire would be completely extinguished, and tomorrow morning before the rubble would have cooled enough to permit inspection. Bodies would be found in the ruins, and tentatively identified, but the body of Edgars would never be discovered; it had been too close to the hottest core of the fire. All the next day, merchants and accountants would be toting up figures, learning just exactly how much had been stolen in all. Police technicians would be dusting virtually the whole town for fingerprints, and would find none left by the robbers, but would be surprised that there were still on various surfaces in police headquarters fingerprints left by former Chief of Police Edgars, who'd left town nearly a year ago and was not likely to show his face here ever again.

  The roadblocks would be left up for another day, to be on the safe side. The two helicopters would continue their search. The police expected to apprehend the responsible parties very soon.

  Eddie Wheeler spent the rest of the week in his own bed, with a head cold. By the time he was well enough to get up and move around, Betty's parents were back in town.

  Three days after the holocaust, two architects and a lawyer and a minister formed the Citizens for Copper Canyon, CCC. Their goal was to convince their fellow citizens to rebuild the gutted section of town according to this plan they'd whipped up. Copper Canyon Plaza. Official buildings here at this end, new railroad station at the other end, the fountain here, the gardens here, and so on. The architects would be happy to prepare plans for the new integrated area, and the lawyer would be happy to handle the legal work involved. The minister was selfless.

  FOUR

  1

  Parker watched Wycza drive the truck over to the edge and start it down the road to the bottom of the ravine. The loot was still in it; it would be light in an hour, so the best thing was to get the truck out of sight right away. Tomorrow night would be soon enough to make the split.

  After the taillights had dropped down out of sight, he turned and went back toward the shed, thinking about the job. It had been beautiful. It could have been the cleanest and sweetest job he'd ever been in on. The closest thing to a foul-up was that night-owl kid that stumbled over Paulus working the bank. And that had turned out to be no problem; they'd handled it smooth and quiet and sweet. The whole thing was smooth and quiet and sweet, no killings, no messiness, no problems.

  Except Edgars.

  He'd known, God damn it, he'd known all along there was something wrong with Edgars. Edgars and his personal reasons. Those personal reasons had to blow the whole job sky high, they had to.

  It had still worked out. They'd had to leave a little of the take behind, dribs and drabs from a couple of store safes, nothing important. They'd had to do the job a hell of a lot faster than they'd planned. But still and all it had worked out. Chambers was dead, and Edgars was dead, and there was no telling how many locals were dead, but at least they'd managed to get themselves out from under with the loot.

  The dead locals were what bothered him. He didn't give a damn one way or the other, not personally, couldn't care less if they'd lived or died, but it was never good to cut down a citizen in a robbery. There's trouble enough from the law if they're just after you for a payroll, but if they're after you for Murder One you're in big trouble.

  He pushed open the door of the shed and looked in. They were all there, Paulus and Wiss and Elkins and Kerwin and Littlefield and Salsa and Grofield and Phillips.

  And Grofield's girl, sitting with Grofield on one of the army cots.

  Parker looked at her, and then looked at Grofield. Grofield had the look on his face that a man gets when he's done something too stupid to be possible and he knows it but still wants to justify it.

  Parker motioned to him to come outside. Grofield murmured something at the girl and got to his feet. She made as though to come along, but he shook his head and murmured some more, and this time she nodded and sat down again on the army cot. Her hands were in her lap, her knees were together, and her face looked pinched and frightened. She looked like the heroine of a silent movie.

  Parker stepped aside and let Grofield out, then followed him and shut the door. He led the way out toward the edge, walking forward through the dim starlight, the sheds bulking around him. He stopped near the edge and said, “You can bury her down there someplace.”

  “Forget it, Parker. You don't kill that girl.”

  “That's right, I don't. She's your responsibility.”

  “You don't have to worry about her, Parker.” Grofield's voice had the shaky belligerence of a man who's pretty sure he's in the wrong but will be damned if he'll admit it.

  “I'm not worrying about her, Grofield. You worry about her. In a day or two, she'll want to go home.”

  “No, she won't.”

  “When she tells you she's changed her mind, she wants to go home, but she'll never tell anybody where we are or what we look like or what our names are, that's when you take care of her.”

  “It won't happen. She won't say that.”

  “And you take her down there and bury her. Deep, Grofield. I don't want her found.”

  “What if it doesn't happen? What if she doesn't change her mind?”

  “We'll be here three or four days. Then what?”

  “New York. We'll get a place in the Village for the summer. In the fall well go south and do winter stock together. She's always wanted to be an actress.”

  “I always thought you were a pro.”

  “I am. I know what I'm doing.”

  Parker shook his head. “I didn't know I'd have to spell it all out for you. All right, listen.”

  “None of this is necessary, Parker, honest to Christ.”

  “Shut up and listen. You know how to keep the law off your tail. She doesn't. They'll pick her up for jaywalking in New York City, and before the cop gets the ticket wrote out she'll be so rattled she'll spill the whole works.”

  “No, she won't. She can learn.”

  “Shut up. There's just one thing. She'll louse up somehow, and get the law down on you. Number two, she'll change her mind. Maybe tomorrow, maybe six months from now. She thought it'd be exciting to run off with an honest-to-god bank robber, and how long you think she'll think it's exciting?”

  “I can keep her interested, Parker. That girl's never been anywhere or done anything. I'll show her New York this summer, Miami this winter, a season of winter stock, maybe New England next summer, maybe after a while go out and try Hollywood. She won't get bored, believe me.”

  “No, she'll get homesick.”

  “Parker, listen. She told me about herself. Her folks are dead; she was living with her uncle. Just the two of them.”

  “That's another thing. She'll not only get homesick for the uncle, the uncle'll keep the law looking for her.”

  “No, he won't. She doesn't know it yet, but the uncle's dead. He was that fireman, that George.”

  Parker looked at him in the small light; too small to see his face. “You think that's good?”

  “She's got no home to get sick for, no place to go back to.” “She'll want to be at the funeral, number one. Number two, you were part of the gang that killed him.”

  “That was Edgars, that wasn't us. I can tell her about that so she'll believe me. And so what about the funeral? I can keep her from even thinking about it.”


  “The other two women at the phone company know she went with you. The law know she's with us.”

  “She'll dye her hair. She wanted to anyway, but her uncle wouldn't let her. For Christ's sake, Parker, she's twenty-two years old, she's nobody's ward.”

  “I don't want her going back. I don't want her saying it was a guy named Parker and a guy named Grofield and a guy named this and that, and that's Grofield's picture there, and that's Phillips' picture there, and all that crap.”

  “She won't go back, Parker.” “I know that. I want to be sure you know it.” “Parker, I wouldn't have brought her along if I wasn't sure.”

  “Yeah. Go get her. Send her out here.”

  “Parker, I don't want you to lay a hand on her.”

  “That's not my job. That's your job. I want to talk to her.”

  Grofield shuffled his feet, and the silence lengthened between them until he finally said, “You going to tell her about her uncle?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then tell her about Edgars.”

  “Go get her, Grofield.”

  “Don't try to push her away, Parker.”

  “I won't. Go get her.”

  “All right.”

  Grofield took a few steps away, and then Parker called his name and said, “I want to see her alone first.”

  “I know. I figured that out already.”

  Parker looked up at the sky. Four-thirty in the morning, it was still fully night, but the stars seemed to be getting a bit fainter, the sky a bit less totally black. Except for the stars, there was no light anywhere; black cloth covered the windows of the shed they were living in.

  There was a crunching sound from the left, opposite the shed. Parker listened to it, frowning, and then realized who it was. “Wycza,” he said.

  Wycza loomed up out of the darkness. “That's a long walk,” he said.

  “What do you think about Grofield's girl?”

  “I think he's stupid.”

  “That's him. What about her?

  “I dunno. She doesn't yack a lot. He didn't have to twist her arm to bring her. I dunno about her.”

  “This could have been a sweet job.”

  “Tell me about that Edgars sometime.”

  “I wish I knew myself.”

  The girl was suddenly there, saying softly, “You wanted to talk to me?”

  Parker turned and said, “Yeah. Wait there a second.” He turned back to Wycza. “What happens if it rains out here?”

  “You mean with the sheds?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess they leak. But I don't think it rains here this time of year.”

  “Is that right?” Parker turned to the girl. “Does it rain here this time of year?”

  “Not very often.” Her voice was very low and soft, but not shy in particular, just self-contained. The frightenedness that had been in her face before was completely missing from her voice.

  Parker didn't give a damn about rain or leaking sheds; he wanted to rattle her by talking at her instead of to her for a while, to see how she'd react. He said to Wycza, “What'll we do if it does rain? You got any ideas?”

  “Not me.”

  He turned to the girl. “What about you? You got any ideas?”

  “You robbed the banks, didn't you?”

  He was alert now. “That's right,” he said, and waited.

  But what she said was, “They keep their money in those canvas sacks, don't they? You could cut them open and spread the sacks out on the roof on the parts where it leaks.”

  Wycza laughed, and said, “I'll be seeing you, Parker.” He trudged away toward the shed.

  Parker said, “They'll have helicopters out. We can't have bank sacks on the roof.”

  “Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think of that.”

  “Did you ever hear of a guy named Edgars?”

  “The man who used to be police chief?”

  “That's the one.”

  “He was with you tonight, wasn't he?”

  “What did he have against your town?”

  “There was a big scandal. A grand jury asked him questions and tried to get evidence against him about something; I don't know exactly what. I don't think they ever tried him for anything, but he was dismissed anyway.”

  “That figures. He tried to blow up your whole damn city tonight.”

  “I saw the fires.”

  “Blew up part of the plant, and a gas station by the railroad depot, and the firehouse.”

  “The firehouse?”

  “Killed the man I had in there guarding your uncle.”

  “Oh.” She was silent, but he didn't have anything to say to her, he could outwait her. After a minute she said, “My uncle?”

  “He got it, too. Everybody in the firehouse. The man I had in there was named Chambers. Hillbilly from Kentucky or somewhere like that. Has a brother named Ernie, in jail now. He's the one was supposed to drive the truck.”

  “What are you trying to do to me?”

  He took a last drag on his cigarette, and flicked the butt out over the edge. “See if you'll crack.”

  “Why?”

  “You know my name. You know my face. I don't want you going back and talking to the law.”

  “I see.”

  They waited again. Parker got out his cigarettes, lit one, then said, “You want one?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He lit it for her. She looked up and studied his face in the matchlight, and when it was dark again she said, “The simplest thing would just be to throw me off the cliff here, wouldn't it?”

  “It would.”

  “Why don't you? You're not afraid of Grofield.”

  “I don't kill as the easy way out of something. If I kill, it's because I don't have any choice.”

  “You mean self-defense.”

  “Wrong. I mean it's the only way to get what I want.”

  “Do you want me to promise I'll stay with Grofield forever? Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I know I won't go back to Copper Canyon, and there's no reason for me to go to the police.”

  “Why'd you come along with Grofield?”

  “He's my chance. He's smart and exciting and fun, and he knows a lot of things. He can show me the whole world, and make it all fun. I had to scream and holler before he'd take me along, so don't blame him too much.”

  “Grofield'll be in jail within five years.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he's impulsive. He's smart, but he doesn't always act smart. Also, he doesn't pay his income tax. Also, he spends too loose and works too often.”

  “So maybe I can help him, then.”

  Parker debated. He walked up and down along the cliff edge, thinking it out. The girl was a lot better than he'd expected. The only false note was that she'd run off in the first place, that she'd decided to come along with Grofield. She was too cool and sure of herself to be the run-off type. But maybe the running off was cool and methodical, too, maybe she was just running a calculated risk. Looked at that way, it made better sense.

  And made her a better risk for him, too.

  He said, “Go tell Grofield to show you where his car is. That's where you two will stay nights; we can't have you in the shed with the rest of us.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  She went away, and Parker stayed outside awhile longer. Far to the east, a narrow band of faint lightness was beginning to mark the horizon. Parker walked back and forth, back and forth, unwinding, getting the tension out of his body and mind.

  He'd never been involved with such a contradictory job in his life. A job where he deliberately put himself in a box with only one exit, but in this particular case it didn't matter. A job where everything went smooth and sweet and precise, right up to the end, and then all hell broke loose, with one madman going around trying to blow up the city and another madman bringing a girl along for the ride. But the first madman's explosions and fires helped to cover the getaway in spite of themselves, and the se
cond madman's girl turned out to be a safe risk.

  Thinking of the girl, he felt a quickening in his loins, the sudden return of desire that always followed a job. He walked back and forth, back and forth, smoking his cigarette, thinking of women, thinking about the next opportunity he'd have to get next to a woman.