Parker 09 The Split (16 page)

The building wasn't finished, that was obvious, though there didn't seem to be any workmen on or near it. Parker assumed they were all out on strike.

Whether the building, when it was finished, would be an apartment house or an office building Parker couldn't tell and didn't care. Whatever it was going to be, it implied a road or highway or street of some kind over on its far side. If the amateur could make it over to there, over to paved street and a populated neighborhood, he just might get away after all.

But he wasn't going to make it.

He was halfway to the building, running splayfooted, arms making ragged pinwheels at his sides. He was obviously winded, running on terror now instead of strength or energy. Little puffs of dust rose up around his feet at every pounding step. He half staggered, nearly fell forward, but kept his balance and his momentum and ran on.

Parker half turned so his right side was to the building and the runner. He stretched his right arm out, shoulder high, large hand bunched around the Colt .38 automatic, arm and hand and automatic all pointing at the straining back of the runner.

He fired.

Dust puffed ahead of the runner and to his right.

The runner didn't dodge, didn't swerve. He kept running straight ahead, flat out, running along the straight taut string of terror.

Parker compensated, aiming now just a bit to the left, just a bit lower. His first finger squeezed and the automatic bucked just a trifle, and the runner thudded face forward into the ground. Dust billowed up around him and slowly settled down again. There was no wind; the dust settled on the body.

Now for Negli.

A bullet cut Parker's right earlobe.

Two

There was silence.

Parker crouched next to a thick maple, peering through the underbrush, waiting for Negli to make a move. Behind him, five or six feet away, was the edge of the forest; beyond, the tan earth lay dull and flat, and farther away the yellow building gleamed in the pale sunlight.

It was cold in here now. He'd left his topcoat, and he was no longer moving, and he could feel the chill air seeping through his clothes.

Five minutes had gone by since Negli's bullet had drawn blood on Parker's ear. Parker had taken cover, had moved slowly and carefully away from where Negli could expect to find him, and now he was sitting here and waiting for Negli to make' the first move.

It had to be Negli who would move first. He was a pro, the same as Parker, but right now he was running on emotion, and a man full of emotion can't sit and wait as well as a man in control of himself. So Negli would eventually have to move, and when the time came, Parker would take whatever advantage of it he could.

But he wasn't sure: yet whether he just wanted to kill Negli or not. If Arnie Feccio really was dead, then there were developments Parker didn't know anything about. For his own good, he had to find out about them, find out how the situation now stood, and Negli was the only one handy to tell him.

The whole operation had soured completely, he knew that much. The job itself, at the stadium, had been sweet, one of the sweetest pieces of work he'd ever been a part of. For three days after the job, everything was still sweet. And then, because of that simple minded amateur, lying out there now on the dead ground, everything went to hell.

Shelly was dead. If Negli had the story straight, then Feccio was dead, too. Negli was going to be dead himself pretty soon. Three out of the seven, dead or soon to be.

Leaves rattled.

Parker was instantly alert. It had come from the left, and deeper into the woods away from the open ground. Negli had been more to the right earlier, when he'd taken that near-miss shot at Parker. So they'd spent the last five minutes circling each other, both of them moving to the right, shifting position in relation to the forest but not in relation to one another.

If he were to move out to the edge, out by the moonscape, and head down to his left, he might still flank Negli, still wind up on Negli's back. With that advantage, he could pick and choose, he could maybe get close enough just to disarm the little man and hold him down while he asked some questions.

It was worth a try.

He moved to his left, as slow and careful and silent as a wolf.

'Parker!'

He slopped. The call had come from the same spot; Negli hadn't moved since then. Parker said nothing. He waited.

'Parker, you did everything wrong.'

He waited.

'You hear me? You stupid lummox, do you hear me?'

He waited.

Negli's voice was getting shrill, his words were bumping into one another. He shouted, 'Do you want to hear about it, you brainless bastard?'

This time, as Negli shouted Parker moved. Negli's own roaring voice covered any small sounds Parker might make. He followed the line he'd already worked out, moving out to the edge of the forest and then down the line to get behind Negli. He moved when Negli spoke, and stopped when Negli was silent.

Negli shouted, 'You lost the money, that was the first thing. You walk out of the apartment and leave the money in there with nobody to watch it and somebody comes and takes it away, you simple moron, takes it away!'

Parker stopped. He was at the edge now; he'd travelled about seven feet so far, during Negli's speeches.

It was almost comic. Negli shouting about stupidity and killing himself with every shout.

'And you went to the cop!' Negli shouted, and Parker moved forward again. 'You got that goddam list from that goddam cop, and what the hell did you think he'd do? You hear me, Parker? What did you think that cop would do?'

They both slopped.

'He put law on the inside, Parker! There weren't any cops watching for you on the outside, there were plain-clothesmen inside the goddam apartment!'

Parker frowned and crouched down to wait awhile. That was a cross-up. It didn't make sense that way. Detective Dougherty had to figure he was part of the mob that made the haul at the stadium. He had to figure Parker would lead him to the rest of the mob. It only made sense for Dougherty to put men on watch outside the homes of those nine men on his list with orders not to grab Parker when he showed up but to follow him when he left.

That was the whole basis of it right there, that was why it seemed safe to let the others go around and ask their questions.

Why? Where had he figured wrong? Had Dougherty been too smart for him or too dumb for him?

Negli shouted again: 'They put the grab on Arnie, you know that? I saw them bring him out. I tried to help him cop it, they gunned him down. You hear me, you rotten bastard ?'

Parker heard him. He'd gone down the line now, Negli's voice was coming from farther back. He'd managed to cross Negli's flank and get behind him. He turned, and on Negli's next speech he started in through the underbrush again.

'Parker! Arnie's dead! Don't you know what I'm talking about, you mindless piece of hate? Annie's dead?

Closer, Parker stopped, his left hand resting lightly on the smooth white trunk of a birch tree. The automatic was in his right. The little Colt revolver was still in his trouser pocket, hadn't been used at all yet.

'And that other one! He killed Kifka, did you know that? Not just your girl, that slut of yours, you animal, not just her. He killed Kifka, too, just now, just today.'

Kifka? Then who was left?

Shelly dead, Feccio dead, Negli dying. Kifka dead. If the law was on watch inside those apartments, then they now must have Clinger and Rudd.

Nobody was left.

Only Parker was left. Parker, and a corpse that was shouting because it didn't know yet it was a corpse.

'Kifka's your fault, too, Parker, you hear that? You killed Arnie just as much as if you pulled the trigger yourself. You killed Arnie, and you killed Kifka, and I'm going to kill you!'

They stopped. Negli was no more than ten feel away now, ahead and to the right. Crouching, waiting, Parker peered through the underbrush for some sign, some glimpse of Negli. He'd been wearing a luminous tan camel's hair coat over his natty suit; that tan should show nicely against the black and green of the woods. But not yet, not quite close enough yet.

The wait this time was a longer one, and when at last Negli spoke out again there was a difference in the tone of his voice. He seemed suddenly less full of rage, less sure of himself:

'Parker? Parker? Where the hell are you, Parker?'

A foot closer. Two feet closer.

'Did you run away, you bastard? You coward? You moron?'

Closer.

'Why don't you fight like a man?'

There was a sudden scattering of leaves, and Negli was standing up in full sight, staring and staring the wrong way, his natty back to Parker and only five feet away.

'Why don't you fight like a man!'

Parker shot him in the back of the head.

Three

There was law all over the car.

Parker stood there, just within the cover of the pine trees, looking out at the gray Ford. He saw Dougherty there, and another plain clothesman, and three or four cops in uniform.

After he'd finished with Negli he'd worked his way back here along the path he and the other two had beaten out. He'd gathered up his topcoat from where he'd thrown it and put it back on, and when he worked his way up out of the thick underbrush and the birch and maple trees and in under the cool, dim spaciousness of the pine trees he took time out to brush himself off, rub away the dirt marks and the grass stains, get himself looking a little more sensible and civilized. He buried the two pistols under some loose dirt and pine needles because he wouldn't be needing them any more and went on through the pines and almost stepped out into the open before he saw the law all over the car.

He'd taken too long. If it had just been the amateur everything would have been all right, but with the extra time it had taken to deal with Negli he'd stretched beyond the limit.

Five minutes sooner and he'd have been free and clear, with wheels and the whole boodle.

But there was no chance for it now. As he stood in among the trees and watched, Dougherty and the other plainclothesman reached into the Ford and took out one of the suitcases and set it down on the ground next to the car. They looked at one another, and then both crouched down in front of the suitcase and loosened the snaps. The other plainclothesman lifted the lid.

The money was stacked in there like heads of lettuce.

Both cops stood up again and put their hands on their hips and looked down at the open suitcase. Then Dougherty turned his head and looked at the woods in the general direction of Parker. He said something to the other cop, but Parker was too far away to hear the words. The other cop looked at the woods too and shook his head. Dougherty shrugged.

Parker waited a minute longer even though there wasn't any point to it. He watched the cops take out a second suitcase, not one of the right ones, and open it up to find it full of laundry. Then they reached in again and this time brought out the right suitcase, and then they had both suitcases and all the money, and it was all over.

Never had such a sweet operation turned so completely sour.

Of the seven in on the job, all but one were dead or in the hands of the law. The take was in the hands of the law. There was nothing left.

Parker turned away and started back through the forest again.

The only thing to do now was get clear. The job was so completely sour, it was a kind of victory just to get himself out and clear.

The best way was the way the amateur had tried. Through the forest and out past that building under construction and along whatever street or road there was on the other side of it. Not back into town at all after that, but the other way, farther out of the city.

He had a little money on him, not much. Enough to carry him away from here.

He paused for a second where he'd buried the guns. But he'd be better off without them. From here on, what he had to do was keep out of sight. Gun battles with the law were for idiots.

He moved on, following the same trail as last time. But this time there was no one ahead of him and no one coming along behind him.

Back in the other direction, the sun crept down behind the pine trees. Darkness was slowly edging in from all sides, but there was still enough light to see the trail.

Four

The amateur was gone.

Parker stopped at the edge of the woods, peering, at first refusing to believe it, telling himself he was being tricked by perspective, by the long forest shadows that stretched now like witch fingers out across the dead plain toward the building, by the bad light of late afternoon.

But it was no trick. Where the amateur had fallen, where the dust had billowed up and then settled on him again, there was now no one. No one and nothing.

The second bullet hadn't done the job, then. It had seemed like a good hit, but it had only wounded him. And he'd lain out there, either lying doggo or unconscious, and after a while he'd crawled or walked away.

Which way? Back into the relative safety of the woods? Or forward, on toward that building bulking out there?

Forward. There was no subtlety in the amateur, nothing in him but direct action. He would keep going forward no matter what.

But there were still questions. It all depended how badly he was hit. From the way he'd flopped out there, from how long he'd stayed lying there, the hit had to be fairly good, anyway. It was no flesh wound, no grazing of his shoulder or leg. But just how bad was it? Bad enough to have him dead now, up closer to the building? Or not quite that bad, but bad enough to force him to hole up in the building itself and not try to go any farther? Or was it so slight after all that he'd just walked away and was now lost forever?

Standing there at the edge of the woods, Parker regretted not having dug the guns up again. But there'd been no way to guess back there that he'd be needing a gun again so soon.

He faded back into the woods, hunted around, and found the body of Negli lying sprawled all over a thick and thorny bush. The little Beretta was on the ground near his hand.