The Green Eagle Score (13 page)

“See you, Stan,” Fusco said.

Devers got into his Pontiac while Parker slid behind the wheel of Webb’s station wagon. Webb had already started back down the slope.

Parker went second down the dirt road in the Buick, with Devers behind him. At the bottom, Devers blinked his lights in farewell and headed south while Parker turned north after the disappearing taillights of the bus.

They took it up to within two miles of the border, where Webb ran it deep off the road into a stand of trees where it couldn’t be seen from the road. But the tracks would be seen. The law would find the bus early tomorrow, probably within an hour of the alert going out. They would believe the bandits had gone over the border into Canada.

Parker turned the wagon round and slid over to the passenger side. Webb opened the door, got in behind the wheel, and headed them south again. “Worked out nice,” he said.

“It did,” Parker said.

Neither of them was much of a talker, so they were quiet after that. Parker liked that about Webb, his close-mouthedness. They’d worked together a couple of times several years ago, and all Parker knew about Webb was that he was a good hard driver, that he had a passion for playing with cars, and that he was solid in a pinch. It was all he needed to know.

After they made the turn now they stopped and, in the red glow of the taillights, smeared away the tracks their tires had made. They didn’t want anybody coming up here for any reason in the next few days. For the same reason, they stopped again partway up, spent a while brushing away more tracks, and dragged a heavy branch back across the road where it had been before Parker and Fusco had removed it the other day. Then they drove the rest of the way up.

The darkness at the top was complete, broken only by their headlights. All the garage doors were shut.

Webb and Parker got out and opened a set of garage doors and there wasn’t anybody there. Kengle and Stockton and Fusco, all gone. And the money gone too.

Parker found them both in the bedroom. Up until one second ago they’d been having sex, and when Parker hit the light switch Devers came up off the bed, looking as foolish as a naked man can look. Ellen blinked in terror at the light.

Parker looked at Ellen and said, “She still here.”

Devers said, “Parker?” He was still too shocked to be able to think. “What’s going on?”

Parker ignored him. He went over to the foot of the bed and said to Ellen, “Didn’t you think I’d tip?”

“What—what—”

“Parker,” Devers said. “For Christ’s sake—”

“It’s gone,” Parker told him. “Webb and I ditched the bus, went back to the lodge, and the cash was gone.”

Webb, still in the doorway, said quietly, “Three dead, pal.”

Devers just blinked. “Dead?”

“Fusco,” Parker said. “And Stockton. And Kengle.”

Webb said, “We found them over by the work-shed. They’d been lined up and shot down.”

Devers and Ellen were both beginning to unscramble their brains now. Ellen reached for a blanket to cover herself, and Devers said, “We were hijacked? It’s gone?”

“Somebody hit us for the bundle,” Parker said. “They had to be waiting up there for us.”

“In
the work-shed,” Webb said.

“Wherever it was,” Parker said, not caring. “They waited for us to show up, they waited for you to go and me and Webb to go. They waited till the one time when there’d be only three men on the stash.”

Webb said, “You know what that means, buddy?”

“They had to know,” Devers said. His face was bloodless there was no strength in his voice. “They had to know the whole caper,”

Webb said. “In advance,” Parker said.

“Right,” Webb said. “They had to know not only we were scoring tonight, they had to know where the hideout was and when we were due to get there and how we were going to split up then, with Parker and me off to get rid of the bus and you coming back here.”

Devers said, “It had to be somebody on the inside.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, dropping there as though his legs wouldn’t hold him any more. “You think it’s me,” he said. He looked hopeless, as though it didn’t seem to him there was any way to keep them from thinking it was him and acting on that assumption.

Parker said, “I don’t think you’re that stupid, Devers. You don’t want to be hunted, not by the cops and not by us. If you work a cross on us, you can’t hang around, you’ve got to clear out. If you clear out, you’re a deserter from the Air Force. If you desert the day after the heist, they know you were in on it. That isn’t what you want.”

Webb said, “I’ll tell you the truth, Devers, I’m not as sold as Parker. I think you’re young and cocky, I think you just might try it, figure you could stick around and look innocent and bewildered when we show up.”

“Sixty-five thousand is enough,” Devers said to him. “That’s the only point, sixty-five thousand is plenty. If I’ve got sixty-five thousand dollars I’m not hungry enough to go up against you five guys.”

“That’s a point in your favor,” Webb said. “And I don’t think you could have taken those three out at the lodge by yourself. But why bump them unless it was somebody they knew and could remember? You see the kind of question I ask myself. Maybe you had a couple buddies from the air base stashed up there, helping you out.”

“So I split with them? What difference does it make who split with if all I get is a piece anyway?”

Webb moved the hand that didn’t have a gun in it. “You’re probably clean,” he said. “All I’m saying, I’m not as one hundred per cent sold as Parker.”

“Sure,” Devers said. He was getting his wits about him more and more now. “If it isn’t me,” he said, “you’re stuck. There’s nobody left.”

Parker gestured his revolver at Ellen. “Was she here when you came back?”

Ellen had been staring at Parker wide-eyed all the time, clutching the blanket around herself. She was huddled up against the headboard of the bed, her mouth was slack with terror, and there was no way to tell whether she’d heard or understood a word that had been said, except that she flinched now when Parker moved the gun and referred to her.

Devers looked at Parker in astonishment, then at Ellen, then back at Parker. “Sure she was. Ellen? You don’t think she—”

“She’s the one,” Parker said.

“She was here. And she wouldn’t set up something like that, for God’s sake. Kill Marty? Why?”

Ellen said something, muffled and jumbled. They all looked at her and she said it again: “Marty isn’t dead.”

Parker said to Devers, “She set it up. I don’t know why, maybe not for the money, maybe just to keep you from getting into another of these things, maybe she’s not taking a piece at all. But she turned somebody loose on us, gave them the whole thing. She almost told me about it this afternoon, she was nervous, acting weird, afraid to go through with it.”

Devers was steadily shaking his head, and now he said, “Parker, Ellen wouldn’t do a thing like that. She isn’t that kind of woman, she’d never fink on anybody like that.”

Webb said, “That’s why I’m not a hundred per cent solid on you, pal. Because I don’t think she’s right to play finger either.”

Parker said to her. “Where are they? Tell us where they are, I won’t touch you. I’ll leave Devers to figure out what to do with you. That won’t be much trouble, he loves you. Where are they?”

“Marty isn’t dead,” she said.

Parker said, “Devers, slap her face. I want her awake.”

But then Ellen shrieked, “Why would he
do
a thing like that?” Face contorted with rage, she leaped off the bed and tried to run out of the room. Parker grabbed her and she twisted and squirmed, trying to get away, shouting, “I’ve got to talk to him, I’ve got to find out! I’ve got to know why he did it, why he’d
do
something like that!”

Parker slapped her with his free hand, open palm across the face, and she sagged against him, her body abruptly boneless. Holding her up, Parker said, “Who? Who did it?”

“I was supposed to be able to trust him,” she said, her eyes closed, her body slack with defeat.

Parker shook her. “Who?”

Devers said, “For Christ’s sake, Parker, don’t you get it. She’s talking about her analyst!”

At the sound of the word Ellen tensed again, but she kept her eyes closed and continued to sag against Parker’s chest. Over her shoulder Parker said to Devers, “Why?”

“She told him the whole dodge,” Devers said. “Don’t you see? Not to set up anything against us, but because it was shaking her up. She figured she could trust him, it was like going to confession, she spilled the whole thing to the son of a bitch.”

“You know where he lives?”

“I know where his office is.”

“Where’s a phone book?”

“Unlisted,” Ellen said. It was a near-whisper, almost a sigh.

Parker held her out where he could look at her lolling face and closed eyes. He said, “What’s the home address?”

“I don’t know, he won’t tell, he doesn’t want patients bothering him late at night.”

Parker shoved Ellen over to Webb, saying, “Tie her.” To Devers he said, “Get dressed.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We’ve got till first light, if we’re lucky, to get it back and get ourselves out of sight.”

Devers reached for his clothing.

The plate beside the door read:
Monequois Professional Building.
On the other side was a white painted board with a list of the tenants in black lettering: doctors, lawyers and a firm of accountants. Dr Fred Godden’s name was fourth from the top.

The building was of fairly recent construction, red brick with white trim, built in a neighborhood gradually changing over from expensive homes to expensive offices. Air conditioners stuck their squared-off crenelated black rumps out of most of the windows, and there were bushes planted across the front of the building, plus a small well-kept lawn extending out to the street. And more than enough illumination; in addition to the streetlight just across the way, a pair of carriage lamps bracketing the front entrance were kept burning all night.

There was a blacktop driveway beside the building. Webb had switched his headlights off three blocks ago, and when he reached the building now he kept them off as he turned the Buick into the driveway and aimed for the blackness beside the building. Brick wall went by on their left, a high hedge on their right, both unseen. When the tires left blacktop and crunched on gravel Webb hit the brakes and cut the ignition.

They were all three in the front seat, Devers in the middle. Parker opened the door and got out and Devers slid out after him. Webb left the car on the other side. No interior light went on when the car doors were open. Leaving them open, they moved away through almost perfect darkness to the brick rear wall of the building and felt their way to the rear door

If they’d had to go through without leaving any marks it might have taken half an hour or more, but now they didn’t care about marks, only about time. They went through the door in three minutes and moved quickly up the stairs to the second floor.

The office doors had frosted glass in their upper panels names on the glass in gold letters. Behind the one that read DR FRED GODDEN, small yellowish red light glowed.

Standing against the wall out of direct line of the doorway, Parker tried the knob. When he pushed, the door gave. It was unlocked.

All three had revolvers in their hands. Devers had left his at the lodge to be disposed of, but Parker had brought it back to him.

Parker pushed the door slowly. There was no pressure wanting to close it, but it didn’t swing loosely, probably because it needed oiling or adjusting. It opened willingly as far as Parker would push it, but no more.

When it was halfway open, Parker eased his head over until he could look one-eyed through the opening. He saw a pie wedge of outer office, a corner of Naugahyde sofa, a part of a desk, a partially open door across the way. The light was coming from that inner room.

There was no sound. Parker pushed the door open the rest of the way, hesitated, stepped inside. Nobody here, not in this outer room.

Devers and Webb followed him in. They came cautiously at the next door and again Parker leaned into it from the side, the revolver ready in his hand, his other hand flat against the wall behind him to lever him back out of the way if it was needed.

Another pie slice. A desk again, this one larger. Patterned carpet. Glass-fronted bookcases. The light came from a table lamp with an orange shade, sitting on one corner of the desk.

Again no sound, nothing moving. Parker entered as carefully as before, and still nothing happened.

Now he could see the rest of the room. A sofa along the left wall, an armchair at its far end. A couple more lamps, a library table, a filing cabinet, a coffee table in front of the sofa.

A sound. From behind the desk.

Parker dropped. He lay on the rug, listening, and when he turned his head and looked across the carpet into the darkness under the desk and beyond the desk, near where the wheeled legs of the office chair came down, he saw a pair of eyes, blinking whitely.

Sideways. Someone lying on his back, head turned this way, eyes slowly opening and closing.

Parker got to his feet. Behind him to the left was a wall switch. He hit it, and indirect lighting filled the room from troughs along the top of the walls. He went around behind the desk as Webb and Devers came in.

The man on the floor was tall, muscular with an overlay of flab. He was wearing scuffed brown oxfords, baggy brown trousers, a bulky dark-green sweater frayed here and there. The sweater was caked and smeared dark brown in two places over his chest and stomach. A dark slender ribbon glinted along his cheek from his mouth, disappeared into his hair beneath his ear. He must have been lying with his head tilted a little the other way for a while. Maybe he’d heard Parker and the others coming in, had managed to turn his head. He wasn’t moving now.

Devers had come around the desk from the other side, stood with his shoes near the guy’s head. He said. “Dead?”

“Not yet. You know him?”

“I don’t think so. I can’t see his face.” Parker went on one knee beside the wounded man, put his hand on the guy’s chin, turned his head so Devers could see it. Blood had started to trickle out the other side of the mouth now. His eyes were open again. They blinked, very slowly, shut and then open. They did it again. When they were open the eyes didn’t focus on anything, just looked straight ahead at the ceiling. They kept blinking at the same slow steady rhythm.

Devers looked sick. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t know who he is.”

”You never saw him at all?”

“Never. I’d remember.”

Parker let the chin go, and the head stayed where he’d left it. Some blood was on the first finger of Parker’s left hand He cleaned it on the guy’s sweater, then pushed the body partway over to get at the hip pocket, where the wallet should be.

It was there. Parker opened it, found a driver’s license read the name aloud. “Ralph Hochberg. Mean anything?”

“Nothing,” Devers said.

Hochberg’s head was facing front again, his eyes staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly without let-up. He began to gurgle in his throat, a small damp choking sound.

Devers said, “He’s strangling on his blood.”

Parker pushed Hochberg’s face to the side, so the blood could flow out, and got to his feet. “They were here,” he said, more to himself than Devers. “Godden and this one. Just the two of them? They’ve started to doublecross each other.”

“Godden wouldn’t try it with just one other man,” Devers said. “Not going up against three pros, even with surprise on his side. He’d want to make it three against three at least. More, if he could find the people. You suppose this guy’s a patient of his?”

Webb came over, an envelope in his hand. He’d been searching the room and going through the filing-cabinet while Parker and Devers concentrated on the wounded man. Webb said, “Nobody else. The cases are over there, past the sofa. Empty.”

“This is where they divvied,” Parker said.

“I found this,” Webb said, handing out the envelope.

Parker took it. It was addressed to Dr Fred Godden, 16 Rosemont Road, West Monequois, New York. That wasn’t the office address.

Parker handed the envelope to Devers, saying, “You know this town. Would that be a residence?”

“Sure,” Devers said. “West Monequois, that’s high class.”

Webb said, “Let’s go there.”