Parker16 Butcher's Moon (41 page)

Parker looked around. Darkness everywhere except for the flashlights and headlights right here. "Not enough," he said.

Handy said, "What did they owe you?"

"Seventy-three." Parker looked at the house. The explosion in the living room had blown out the windows. He shrugged and said, "I'll settle."

Handy laughed. "You'll settle? I think you can say you collected."

Philly Webb said, "Listen, you want a ride? I'm anxious to get out of here."

"Right," Handy said. "I'm with you."

Devers was coming around the back of the ambulance, meaning to remove the wording on the rear door. Webb said to him, "You coming?"

Devers looked at Parker. "Why don't I ride with you?"

Parker didn't see the point. "What for?"

"You like my white coat? If there's any trouble, you're the dumb driver and I'm the bright young intern." Devers grinned. "I feel like going for a ride," he said. "I never went anywhere in an ambulance."

"Then come along," Parker said.

Fifty-five

Vibration.

Grofield opened his eyes, and what he saw made no sense to him. A low curved ceiling, chrome bars. Vibration under his back. He tried to lift his head, but it was too heavy; every part of him was heavy, he could barely move at all. Slowly he turned his head to the left, and there was a window there, no more than four inches away. Daytime. Countryside rushing by.
I'm in a train,
he thought, and tried to remember where he was going. Then the vehicle he was in passed a slow-moving car, and he realized he was on a highway, in a camper or a trailer or some damn thing with a bed.

He let his head roll back the way it had been before. Low padded ceiling. Chrome bars. A faint recurrent clinking sound.

A goddam ambulance!

Now what?
he thought, and faded out of consciousness again.

When he came back, the quality of the light had changed; it must be afternoon. The vibration was the same. This time, he remembered the previous waking, and then began to remember things from the other direction: who he was, and that he owned a summer theater. He was broke, as usual, the theater in its normal desperation. He had gone with Parker to a place named . . .

Why couldn't he think of the name?

He almost drifted away again, trying to remember the name of the city, when all at once he remembered being shot.

Buenadella, the French doors, the man out there on the lawn. "The son of a bitch didn't kill me," he whispered. He was in awe of that.

"Hello?"

A voice. Grofield looked around, turning his head in small increments, and a cheerful blond fellow in a white jacket loomed over him. "Be damned if you aren't awake," he said.

"A distinct surprise to both of us," Grofield whispered. He tried to make sounds with his throat, but the equipment there seemed too weak for the job. He whispered, "You a doctor?"

The guy laughed. He was really in high spirits; but on the other hand, he hadn't been shot. He said, "You like the coat? Gives me that official look."

"I was shot once before," Grofield whispered. "When I woke up, a beautiful girl was climbing in the window."

"Aw," the guy said. "You're disappointed."

"Just so I wake up. The girl's name was Elly."

"Right. I'm Stan Devers. Your friend Parker is driving this thing."

Grofield tried to turn his head; it wouldn't go. Parker was driving the ambulance? He whispered, "What the hell happened?"

"Well," Stan Devers said, "that's a long story."

About the Author

With the publication of
Butcher's Moon,
Richard Stark's
list of novels now reaches a round twenty, sixteen of them concerning the professional thief known only as Parker. Beginning with
The Hunter
in 1962, the Parker series has established its own niche in the thriller genre, and has been translated into nine languages around the world, including Norwegian and Japanese. Five Parker novels have been turned into movies, with more on the way. Richard Stark, who like his anti-hero also operates under other names, lives in New York City.