The Sour Lemon Score p-12

by Richard Stark

  THREE

  One

  A second too late, George Uhl realized he’d shot the wrong man first. Weiss was falling, Andrews was lunging for a gun he was never going to be able to reach, but Parker was going out the window. It was Parker he should have taken out first, and then Andrews, with the old man last. Old men are slower.

  Later on, thinking about it, he finally came to the conclusion that he’d shot Weiss first because he knew Weiss. Stupid subconscious thinking — deal with friends before you deal with strangers. But that was the only explanation, and it screwed things up all around.

  If it hadn’t been for Andrews, Uhl would have gotten Parker anyway, even though he’d gone for the wrong man first. But if he’d spent those extra few seconds getting Parker, Andrews would have had that gun in his hand and it might have gone the wrong way. So he had to take care of Andrews and let Parker go on out the window.

  He was rattled for a while after that, and who wouldn’t have been? The tension of the robbery, driving back, waiting for the right moment to throw down on the other three — he’d been wound up like a watch, and of course as soon as something went wrong in the plans he got hopelessly strung up for a couple of minutes.

  Until he saw Parker’s gun lying outside the window in the dust, and that was such a good break it almost made up for the stupidity. Anyway, it got him back on the track, and even though Parker got away into the woods Uhl was all right again, ready to go on with his plans. He was too smart to go crashing around in the woods after Parker. He’d have to let the bastard go.

  But it wasn’t all that bad. Parker and Uhl didn’t know each other, so how could Parker make trouble for him later on even if he wanted to? And besides, since Uhl was going to leave him unarmed and on foot out here, he was more than likely to be picked up by the cops. Let Parker do twenty years in a federal pen somewhere and then come looking for Uhl.

  So he went on with his original plan, ignoring Parker’s unscheduled existence. He went back and arranged for the fire, piling all the flammable stuff in the middle of the house, and then stacked the bodies on top so they’d burn thoroughly, first kicking their teeth loose. These bodies weren’t going to be identified by fingerprints or dental records. These bodies weren’t going to be identified.

  In the barn he splashed gasoline around, led a trail of gasoline-soaked rags to Andrews’ Mercury. Then he set the two fires and got out of there. Good-bye, Parker. Good-bye, Weiss and Andrews.

  Number six. This was job number six, and from the first one he’d wanted to do this. Every time the job would be done, he’d drive the car to the hideout, the money would be split up, and he’d look at the piles of cash, he’d look at the fraction he was given, and he’d want it all. But every time there’d been something wrong. Too many men, or men he knew too well who had friends who knew him and would come after him. It took till job number six before the situation was right. Only three others in the heist, and he really didn’t know any of them. Only Benny Weiss, and that not very much, just through organizing a job that didn’t come off one time.

  And was thirty-three thousand better than eight thousand? Was the extra twenty-five grand worth the risk? Uhl grinned to himself as he drove east.

  But as he thought it over, he began to realize that the loose end of Parker could make a lot of trouble. If Parker wasn’t picked up by the law, if he managed to get out from under, he would come looking for Uhl, and that was sure. Could he find him? Uhl didn’t know. He wanted to think it couldn’t be done, but he just wasn’t sure.

  All right. So the thing to do was lay low for a while. Wait and see if Parker popped up anywhere; wait and see if there were any other repercussions. If everything was quiet, in a week or two he could come out of hiding and everything would be the same. If there was trouble, he could stay hidden out and decide what to do about it.

  The question was, Where to hide? He thought of Howie Progressi first because he knew Howie would get a kick out of the story of his taking the thirty-three grand from three sure old professionals, but almost as soon as he thought of Howie he rejected him again. For two reasons. First, everybody knew he and Howie were tight. If Parker came looking, one of the early people he’d see would be Howie. And second, if Howie learned about the thirty-three thousand, the bastard might try to take it away from him himself.

  The next one he thought of was Joyce Langer. There was the advantage there that they’d split up over a year ago, so nobody was likely to look for him around her now. Also, he could pretty well control her, keep her under his thumb. But on the other hand she was such a goddam kvetch, and if somebody came around to make him trouble she might just blow the whistle on him to get back at him if she was feeling put-upon. And she was always feeling put-upon.

  Barri? No, too many people knew he was shacked up with Barri Dane these days. If he tried staying at her place, and if Parker did come prowling around, Barri was one of the people he’d get to first.

  He was into Pennsylvania when he remembered Ed Saugherty. He hadn’t seen Ed since that time four or five years ago when the shmuck had called him: “Hi, George, it’s Ed Saugherty. Remember me? I’m just in New York for a couple of days with a convention. I thought I’d look up my old high-school buddy.”

  Old high-school buddy. In those days George Uhl had been a big shot, a big wheel. High school had been great, the greatest part of his life so far, and in those days he’d had a half dozen little punks that hung around him, tagged after him, bought him beers, laughed at his jokes, listened to his stories about making out. And Ed Saugherty had been one of them, around-faced stocky kid with red cheeks and thick glasses, an eager kid who liked to laugh and who loved to hear George’s tough-sounding stories.

  They’d met twice after that phone call, before Ed went back home to Philadelphia. He was working for a computer company now. He wore a white shirt and a tie even when he didn’t have to, and the company had transferred him a few years before to Philadelphia. He’d made George very uncomfortable during both those meetings, and in fact after the first one — a couple hours’ drinking together in a bar, with Ed picking up the tab, paying for it with a credit card — George had been sure Ed felt contempt for him now, thought of him as a loser. Ed had done a lot of talking about the company, his job, his future, his wife and children, his home in Philadelphia, his whole happy, successful life, and when he’d asked what George was doing now the only answer had been, “This and that. I get along.”

  But then Ed called him again the next day, and it turned out the old hero-worship was still very much alive. When George realized that Ed saw himself as a dull wage-slave and George as a guy with an exciting life, there was nothing for it but to agree with Ed completely and start playing the role to the hilt. That second meeting had been full of wild stories, a few of them true, a few of them invented, a lot of them adapted from paperback novels, and there was no question but that Ed would pick up the tab again. And though George had really been in tough money shape just then, the main reason he tapped Ed for a loan was because he understood that Ed’s myth-comprehension of him demanded it. Ed pressed the forty bucks on him with a smile of absolute joy, saying, “No hurry about paying this back, George, no hurry about paying this back.”

  Was Ed Saugherty the man to go to now? Somebody he’d had no contact with at all in four or five years, and no real extended contact with for closer to twelve years. But somebody who’d do whatever George asked. Like giving him a perfect place to hide out.

  So Philadelphia was where he went, and he found Ed living in a brick ranch-style house on a winding blacktop street in a well to do green suburb west of the city. It looked like a standard family in a standard setting, and George had no inclination to scratch the surface and see what was underneath. From the time he walked up the back to the driveway past the overturned tricycle to the open garage door where Ed was pouring gasoline into a power mower, George had no more interest in the people and the place than if they were the background for a television commercia
l.

  “Ed, I’m in trouble. I need some help. I can’t talk about it, but I need someplace to hide out for a few days.”

  Ed had fallen into his role in the melodrama as though he’d been rehearsing for it all his life. And why not? Didn’t he see it two or three times a week on television? Didn’t the situation keep cropping up, and wasn’t his role always the same? The true friend, the ally, the last desperate hope of the hero. If he couldn’t be the hero himself — and in going with the computer company, the wife, the brick house on the winding street, Ed had consciously turned his back on ever being the hero — this was the best possible supporting role.

  Ed had a wife named Pam, a good-looking, slender woman in stretch pants, and she knew her role, too. She was against him, opposed to his staying there, opposed to Ed “getting involved,” insistent on Ed finding out what George’s true situation really was. George kept out of her way and left it up to Ed to handle her, never doubting for a minute that Ed would.

  They had a guest room, and George kept to it most of the time. He made a halfhearted attempt to become pals with Ed’s oldest son, a ten-year-old named Bob, but Bob wasn’t interested, and George had been strictly making the gesture because he felt the situation expected it of him. After that he stayed close to the guest room except for the strained, silent mealtimes with Ed giving him sheepish smiles and Pam pointedly ignoring him and the two younger kids staring at him with their faces smeared with mashed potato.

  The important thing was to find out if there was going to be any trouble from Parker or from anybody else, so what he needed was a link to his normal life, somebody he could trust, and that was Barri. He called her Tuesday afternoon, gave her an abridged version of the situation, told her the phone number here but nothing else about the place, and she agreed to relay any messages that might come in but not to give anybody any information about him. Then he sat back to wait.

  He didn’t hear from Barri till Thursday, and then it was to say Matt Rosenstein wanted to get in touch with him and had left a D.C. number. George had worked with Rosenstein on two jobs, and they’d both been involved in the abort where he’d met Benny Weiss. Would his calling now be a coincidence? It had to be, but George was wary. Rosenstein was based in New York, so why a number in Washington? Why was he so close to George’s stamping grounds and to Barri?

  He called Rosenstein, and Rosenstein gave him a long story about a caper he was organizing, something absolutely safe and with a fat return. Rosenstein wanted to meet with him and talk it over.

  George didn’t specifically doubt Rosenstein, but he didn’t trust him either. His wariness, and the thirty-three thousand dollars rucked away in a suitcase in the guest room closet, kept him uninterested in Rosenstein’s offer. He said so, but Rosenstein kept pressing, kept wanting to have a meeting with him, until George began to get actively suspicious, at which point Rosenstein abruptly gave up, told him he was missing a sure winner, and hung up.

  That was yesterday, and ever since that call George had been uneasy. He sensed people moving around out there, somewhere beyond the range of his sight and hearing, prowling around, up to something. He was getting nervous.

  And then late this morning Barri had called again, and the message this time almost made him drop the receiver. “Benny Weiss wants to get in touch with you.”

  “Wait! Wait, wait, wait!”

  “What’s the matter, George?”

  All he could do was keep saying wait. He was standing in Ed’s living room; he was alone in the house; there was silence and springtime outside, sunlight and grass. He had to get his mind back inside his head, and until then all he could do was say wait.

  Finally he found a question he could ask: “Who called you? He called you himself?”

  “No. A guy named Lew Pearson called. He said he was passing the message on.”

  Lew Pearson. That bastard. Wouldn’t he like to do George a favour, though. “I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up and prowled the house a while, trying to make up his mind.

  What did it mean? Benny Weiss was dead. Parker? How would Parker get to Lew Pearson? Through Benny’s wife maybe. So were Pearson and Parker combining against him? Was Pearson spilling his guts to Parker about everything he knew? Or was Pearson taking over from Parker, or running something on his own?

  Maybe they were all in it together, Pearson and Rosenstein and Parker. Closing in on him.

  He couldn’t just stand around here. He’d been jittery since the call yesterday; he’d wanted to move, act, do something, but there hadn’t been anything to do.

  Now there was something to do. Nip Pearson in the bud.

  He left a note for Ed on the kitchen table. He considered taking the money, but it would be safer here and finally he left it. And then he headed south.

  A little over three hours later he was at Pearson’s house. He rang the bell, got no answer, found the door unlocked, and worked his way silently through the house, pistol in his hand. Then he looked out a back window and saw Lew sitting out there with a bathing suit on, Madge drifting around in the pool.

  Ask questions? Did he want to know what was going on? No, he knew what was going on. There was only one meaning for Pearson’s message: He’d been trying to rattle George, make George expose himself by doing something stupid. And there was a quick way to defend himself.

  He opened the window a couple of inches and knelt on the floor. He braced his gun hand on the sill, and he never saw the guy in the other chaise longue until after he’d shot Pearson. That chaise was facing the other way. There was nothing showing but the top of a head, and that was easy not to see at this distance. And Pearson had acted like a man alone, sitting there sipping his drink.

  But then George fired his first shot, and the other man erupted out of the other chaise, and damned if it wasn’t Parker again. George emptied his pistol at the son of a bitch, but Parker rolled like a cat across the lawn and got clean away.

  Would nothing stop him? This was George’s second try at him, and he’d failed again.

  “The next time,” George muttered, “I take my first shot at you.” Then he got to his feet and hustled out of there.

  Two

  Barri Dane stood by the door, smiling at her students as they trickled out bravely to face the day. She shut the door behind the last of them and the smile fell from her face like a picture off a wall. When she walked across the bare floor of the rehearsal room her reflection kept pace with her in the wall-length mirror on her right, but she didn’t bother to look at it. She knew what she looked like in black leotards, she knew the twenty-eight-year-old body was as firm and slender and well-curved as the eighteen-year-old body had been, she knew that the twenty-eight-year-old face looked tougher and more knowing and more provocative than the eighteen-year-old face had looked, and she knew the fatigue she was feeling would show only in a slight slump of the shoulders, a slight flat-footedness in the walk. So she walked the length of a twenty-two-foot mirror without glancing in it once, went through a curtained doorway into the living quarters of the building, turned on the shower water in the bathroom, and then stripped out of the leotard in the bedroom while waiting for the water to run hot.

  Washington, D.C., is a tough town for the young single woman, and that’s because there are so many of them there. Government never has enough bureaucracy, and bureaucracy never has enough secretaries, stenographers, typists, and file clerks. So Washington is full of young women, and because there are so many of them a lot of them are lonely.

  Barri Dane’s current livelihood was a direct result of this loneliness. Although in the past she’d been a stripper, a con artist’s shill, and a few other things, today she was an educator, a teacher with her own studio and with two well-attended classes every day.

  It was part of her self-promotion when she said that the main thing she taught was confidence. “If you finish this course with new self-confidence,” she always told new classes, “we will both have succeeded.”

  In more
mundane terms, Barri Dane’s course was a general study in physical education. There were classes in calisthenics and in hygiene, as well as classes in belly dancing, in modeling, and in judo. A student could sign up for a complete four-month course, two one-hour sessions a week, for one hundred fifty dollars, or she could select a shorter program devoting itself to any one of the subjects Barri taught, for smaller amounts of money. There was a good living in it and it was by far the cleanest and most legitimate means of earning a dollar she’d ever found for herself, but after nearly two years she was bored to death with the damn thing. Still, there was nothing much else to do, so she kept on with it.

  The water was hot. She stepped in and started to soap and got to thinking about George Uhl. She knew he wasn’t much; she’d always known that, just as she’d always known that she was invariably attracted to the George Uhl type, to the tough guys with a weakness, the big talkers who somehow would never come through. But George had just a little bit more going for him than those other bums; he had just enough strength so that he really did act every once in a while. And he’d acted now, all right. He’d done something and he was in it up to his neck. He wouldn’t tell her about it when they talked on the phone, but she knew once she saw him again in the flesh she’d get the story out of him. She always did. And all she hoped was he hadn’t dug himself into too deep a hole this time. Better a live bum than a dead hero.

  She came out of the shower at last and toweled herself vigorously till her skin flushed red. Then she hung the towel over its bar to dry and went naked into the bedroom, where a man with a gun in his hand was sitting very casually on the edge of the bed.

  He smiled at her. “That’s a nice way to say hello, honey,” he said.

  She recognized him. He was the guy who’d come around yesterday wanting to get in touch with George. He’d given her a phone number to pass on to George, he’d said his name was Matt Rosenstein, and he’d left. When she’d told George about it he hadn’t seemed upset. In fact he said something about calling Matt to see what he wanted.