The Score: A Parker Novel (13 page)

T
he helicopter passed over again with a great flapping sound, like a huge bird of prey, and everyone in the shed crouched instinctively lower and stared upward at the roof.

It was late afternoon, and stifling hot in the shed. They were all there, all eleven of them. Parker and Wycza and Phillips and Salsa and Elkins were sitting around the card table, a hand of seven-card stud half dealt in front of them, halted temporarily while they all listened to the helicopter. Grofield and his girl were sitting on an army cot in the corner, with Littlefield standing next to them; the three of them had been playing charades and Littlefield had stopped in the middle of the third word. Wiss and Paulus and Kerwin, the three safe men, had been shop-talking in a corner, but they too were now quiet.

Pop Phillips said, “It's enough to make a man think of reforming.”

“Tire tracks,” said Parker. He looked over at Littlefield. “What about them?”

“Brushed away,” Littlefield told him. “All brushed away.”

Wycza said, “What about on the road going down, where I took the truck?”

“That's all hard-packed,” Littlefield told him. “No tracks show.”

Paulus said, “I don't like this place. Edgars set this place up, what do we know about it? We ought to get the hell out of here.”

Parker shook his head. “And go where? None of us knows this territory. The roadblocks'll still be up.”

“I just don't like this place. I want out of here tonight.”

Parker shrugged and looked at his hole cards. Five and seven of spades. Six of spades and queen of hearts up, so far. Three cards to go.

Two days to go. This was always the worst part, afterward. The best jobs were the ones you could walk away from and keep on going. But the jobs where you had to hole up for a while, they were bad for the nerves. Particularly with a crowd this size. Eleven people stuck in a big empty shed with no interior walls, no proper furniture, no way to get away from each other. A lot of jobs that had run sweet all the way through suddenly went sour at this point, after the tough part was supposedly all over. One or two people decided not to wait it out anymore, took off, got themselves picked up and backtracked, and there was the law all of a sudden at the hideout door.

Paulus said, “We make the split tonight, and then I go. Littlefield? You're supposed to ride with me, you want to come along?”

Littlefield seemed to consider it, and then said, “I don't think so, Paulus. I think I'll stay here and keep out of jail, if I can get a ride with somebody else.”

Salsa said, “Chambers was supposed to ride with me. You can take his place.”

“Thank you.”

Paulus said, “Well,
I'm
going. Tonight, right after the split.”

Parker, looking at his cards, said, “We don't split tonight. We make the split day after tomorrow.”

Paulus said, “I'm taking
my
share tonight.”

Wycza said, “Shut your face, Paulus, you ain't going nowhere.”

“I don't
like
this place, I tell you!”

Grofield said, “Shut up a second. Listen. Is he coming back?”

The sound of the helicopter had faded to a murmur, but that murmur had remained unchanged as the copter circled the general area over the mining cut. Now the murmur was getting louder again.

Phillips said, “What does he think he
sees
out there?”

Nobody answered him. The murmur increased and then faded again, without having come close. It faded almost out of hearing, and then came back a little, and then faded again.

Salsa said, “He'd doing a grid-check, that's all. A methodical
search pattern. These sheds were a landmark for him, a hub, but now he's got some other hub.”

“I hope you're right,” said Phillips.

They listened some more. The helicopter was a distant hum, and then silence. Very briefly, a humming again, like a far-off bee, and then silence. Still silence. Silence.

Parker said, “Deal. He's gone.”

Elkins picked up the cards and dealt another round. Parker got the jack of spades. He called Phillips' bet without raising, and got the four of spades on the sixth card. He bumped small, fed Phillips' large return raise, bet more heavily after the last card, and took the pot.

Paulus said, “I'm going tonight, and I'm going with my piece of the score.”

Parker and Wycza looked at each other. It was Wycza who said it: “You're staying here, Paulus, and we're making the split the day after tomorrow. Now shut your trap about it.”

Paulus shut his trap, but he looked mutinous.

Grofield guessed Littlefield's charade: “‘All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’”

Phillips took the next pot. Raking it in, he said, “ ‘All things come to him who waits.’”

“That's the tough part,” Parker told him.

P
arker came awake all at once to find Wycza's hand on his shoulder. Wycza whispered, “Paulus.”

Parker nodded and got to his feet. The shed was full of the hushes of sleeping breath. Cots were placed every which way around the room, and men were sleeping on all of them.

Wycza whispered, “Salsa, too?”

Parker nodded.

They moved forward, and Wycza touched Salsa's shoulder. Salsa too came straight awake and sat up. Wycza whispered Paulus' name, and then the three of them went outside and shut the shed door behind them.

It was cool at night here, and tonight there was a dampness in the air that hadn't been present before. The stars were obscured, the sky heavy and black.

Parker whispered, “Where?”

“I heard him when he started the car. He took it down below.”

“Gone to get his share.”

“Yeah.”

Salsa said, “He may start up before we can get down. Hell be tough to get hold of, in his car.”

Parker said, “Is there any other way out of there?”

Wycza shook his head. “Just this one road. Chambers and I looked that over when we first came out.”

“We can block it at the top with one car.”

“Okay, good.”

They went to the shed where they'd stashed the wagon, and pulled the corrugated sections of wall away, moving as silently as they could. The darkness was almost complete. Parker backed the wagon out, turning the parking lights on and with that small illumination drove over to the dropoff and the beginning of the road down to the bottom. He left the wagon parked across the road at the very top, pointing out into space. He switched the lights off and climbed out, and rejoined Wycza and Salsa, a little way off, standing at the edge over the road. They stood there and waited.

“Here he comes,” said Salsa.

Wycza said, “The damn fool's using his parking lights.”

Salsa said, “I wouldn't try to come up that without light.”

They waited. The car crept slowly upward and was almost to the wagon before it stopped. The parking lights went out immediately. Paulus didn't make a sound.

Whispering, Wycza asked, “What do we do with him?”

“I don't want to have to bury him,” said Parker.

“We tie him and leave him on one of the cots,” said Salsa. “Grofield's girl can feed him.”

“I don't work with him again,” said Wycza. “That much I know.”

Paulus' voice came up to them suddenly, with startling loudness, “Get that car out of the way!”

“Forget it, Paulus.”

“I'll ram it!”

Salsa squatted down on his heels and called softly down to Paulus: “Don't make things so difficult for yourself. Come back to the shed and we'll tie you up a few days.”

“There'll be law here by tomorrow! Edgars set us up to be collared, don't you damn fools
see
that?”

Salsa said, “You're all excited, Paulus. Don't they know we have rifles, machine guns? Don't they know how many of us there are? If they thought we were in here, would that helicopter pilot come back two-three times all by himself and down so low?”

“Why'd he come back, then?”

“Paulus, you don't know anything about search patterns, do you?”

“This place is naked, we stick out like boils. I want to be away from here, a thousand miles away from here.”

Parker was tired, and a little chilly. He wanted to be back asleep. He said, “Quit screwing around, Paulus, you aren't going anywhere.”

“God damn you, Parker!”

The headlights of Paulus' car came on all at once, on high beam, flooding the station wagon with light, light reflecting away on all sides to show Parker and Wycza standing big and heavy by the edge, Salsa hunkered down like a bandit beside them, the three looking down over the edge at the car just below them. Paulus' car was so close, they could have stepped down onto the roof.

The car began to back, Paulus gunning the engine. Salsa called something to him, but the roaring of the engine drowned it out. The car backed downward, and then they could see Paulus at the steering wheel, facing backward, twisted around and straining to see. There was only darkness behind the car, tinged with red by the taillights.

Paulus was excited, so maybe he forgot to reverse the turning direction on the steering wheel when going backward. Or maybe he just couldn't see well enough back there. His left rear wheel went off the edge.

Salsa hollered, “Jump!”

Parker dropped down to the road surface, landing on his hands and feet, going down to his knees and getting up again.

But Paulus was on the wrong side of the car to jump. And the engine was still roaring, so his foot was still heavily on the accelerator. The car seemed to tremble a minute, while Parker ran down toward its headlights, and then it swung sharp left, the front of the car with its blinding headlights snapping out into space to stare out over the ravine, and then it dropped.

Parker was running back up the other way long before they heard the crashing sound down below. He ran up to the
wagon, and Wycza and Salsa were there. He said, “Wycza, get Phillips. Have him show you the shovels. Get Elkins and come down, bring a car. Salsa, let's go.”

They got into the wagon, and Parker backed it away from the edge, then turned the wheel hard and they started down. Parker had the parking lights on again and went as far as he could.

Salsa, sitting on the outside near the cliff, said, “It's burning.”

“We got to put it out.”

“That Paulus was a real chancy type.”

“He always tensed up, always.”

“I guess none of us works with him again, huh?” Salsa grinned. “You sure get the interesting jobs, Parker.”

“Crap.”

At the bottom they made the U-turn. Paulus' wreck was ahead of them, outlined by flames; it looked like a mound of black spare parts.

It wasn't much of a fire; by the time Parker and Salsa got there the only things left burning were the upholstery and the roof padding and the body hanging halfway out the front seat.

“He's taking it with him,” said Salsa. “His split, you know?”

Parker was down on one knee, feeling the ground, trying to find loose sand. “We got to get that fire
out.”

“Wait, Parker. Here they come with the shovels.”

The other car was coming. Wycza and Elkins climbed out and passed out shovels. The four of them started digging,
throwing dirt generally on the wreck and especially on the parts that were still burning. When the fire was put out, they brought the two cars closer in and switched on their parking lights to see by. Then they kept shoveling.

They moved around, not taking too much dirt from any one place, spreading it out so the ground wouldn't look more than usually uneven. When they were done, the mound of earth over the wreck was nearly waist high, but it would look all right from the air.

“One thing,” said Elkins, “now it's a nine-way split.” “He took his with him,” said Salsa. He seemed pleased by the remark.

T
he stink of sulphur was everywhere. In the dimness of twilight, the red waters of the stream looked a dark maroon, and velvety. Parker threw a machine gun into the stream and watched the bubbles rise, then turned back to the station wagon.

Grofield was coming over with the two rifles, wrinkling his nose. “‘I counted two-and-seventy stenches, all well defined, and several stinks.’”

Parker shrugged. He wasn't talking; when he opened is mouth he smelled the stink more.

The rear of the wagon was still full of revolvers. Parker picked up four of them by the trigger guards and carried them over to the stream and threw them in. Nobody'd stumble over them here, not too readily.

The guns could have been kept, but it would have been a false economy, and maybe dangerous. Until the next job, none
of them would be needing a gun, and certainly not a rifle or chopper. In the meantime, they were difficult to transport, difficult to hide, and a cheap little rap if the law happened to stumble across them. So guns were just part of the overhead, bought before each job and got rid of afterward. Sometimes, if the job was done somewhere close to someone like Scofe, the blind man, or Amos Klee, the guns were sold back again at half price, but only if that was the easiest way to get rid of them.

After they'd all been dumped into the sulphurous stream, Parker and Grofield drove the station wagon over to the truck. Wycza and Salsa and Elkins were there, dragging the bags and trays of the score down to the end of the truck by the open doors. Parker swung the wagon around and backed it up to the rear of the truck, and then he and Grofield got out and started transferring the stuff from truck to wagon. There was another car there, too; when they finished filling the wagon they loaded the rest into the trunk of the other car.

This was the third day. Tonight, if everything was clear, they'd leave this place. The sky was overcast and heavy, had been all day, building up from a lighter cloudiness yesterday. It hadn't rained yet; with luck, it wouldn't for a day or two.

Parker and Grofield and Wycza rode up in the station wagon, and the other two in the car. When they passed the mound of dirt covering Paulus' wreck, Grofield said, “If it rains, the dirt′11 get washed away.”

“You got any ideas?”

“No. I was just saying.”

Parker grunted. What was the sense of talking about a problem if you didn't have a way to solve it?

They drove up to the top and unloaded the two cars, carrying everything into the shed. Phillips and Littlefield and Wiss and Kerwin came out to help, making it like a bucket brigade, passing the sacks and bags and trays from hand to hand, piling it all up in a corner of the shed. Grofield's girl sat on an army cot and watched it mount up. In the last few days, sleeping in Grofield's car, with no fresh clothes to change to, she'd got a little bedraggled-looking, but it didn't really hurt her appearance. She'd got, if anything, sexier-looking now. Parker had seen Salsa and a couple of the others looking at her. If they couldn't all leave here tonight, there might be trouble yet.

When the cars were unloaded, Parker and Wycza put them back in their sheds and put the sides up, then went back to the living shed, where the others had started the count.

They'd taken nothing but money. They'd left the jewelry store stock alone because the only way to make a profit on jewelry was to sell it back to the insurance company covering the store's loss, and in an operation like this, with so much other stuff taken, it would be too risky to try to get in touch with the insurance companies. As for the money, they'd taken only bills, leaving all sacks of change. Change was too heavy to carry, too bulky for the value, and too awkward to spend.

It took a long time to make the count; and outside, evening became a night. The black curtains were put up in front of the
windows and the electric lanterns were lit, and they went on counting. Their final total was $294,660.

Next, Grofield made his accounting of the $4,000 front money. He had a list of who had got how much and for what, and he had $730 left. He added $7,270 to it from the score to make the $8,000 that was to be paid to the doctor in New York. The $8,000 was put in an unmarked canvas sack and given to Grofield to deliver.

That left $287,390. Phillips got out pencil and paper and did the long division, and it came out $31,932.22. “Plus a fraction,” Phillips told them. “Two two two, it keeps going on.”

They worked it out. If each man took $31,900 there'd be $290 left over. Salsa said, “Give it to Grofield for a wedding present.” He bowed and smiled at Grofield's girl.

That was the way they did it. Salsa presented the girl with the $290, making a little ceremony out of it. Parker watched Grofield watching Salsa, but Salsa didn't push it, and the tense minute passed.

When the split was finished, Phillips got ready to leave. His cut was still sitting on the card table, not yet claimed. He put on an old black-and-red-check hunting jacket and a gray cap, and then he looked exactly like a dairy farmer getting ready to go out and milk the cows. He stuck a pipe in his mouth to complete the picture and went out to get the station wagon, which was dirty enough by now to add to the general picture. He drove off in the wagon, and the rest settled down to wait. Phillips was the best man to try this because
he looked the least like a desperado. He was to drive around the general area—but not too close to Copper Canyon—and see if things had quieted down yet or not. When he came back, he'd tell them if it was safe to leave here. If he didn't come back, that would be an answer, too.

While he was gone, Parker and Wycza took shovels over to one of the sheds with a dirt floor and dug a deep hole and buried the money sacks and trays in it. The others were gathering up the gear in the living shed, getting ready to move it out if Phillips said everything was okay.

He was gone three hours. It was a little after eleven when he came back, his headlights gleaming ahead of him. He left the wagon in front, came into the shed, and said, “As clear as water. No roadblocks or anything. I heard on the radio where they think we escaped into Canada already.”

“That's the one direction none of us goes,” said Parker. “They'll still be watching the border.”

Phillips got his little cardboard suitcase and shoveled his share of the score into it. They all had suitcases or bags of one kind or another for their part of the loot.

They all worked together, moving all the equipment out of the shed and loading it into the station wagon. Army cots, the card table and folding chairs, cartons of rubbish, unused food, everything went into the station wagon, filling it from front to back with just enough room for Phillips to get behind the wheel. He drove it down to put it with the truck, and Wycza took his own car and followed, to drive Phillips back up.

They got their cars out of the sheds and, using as little
light as possible, arranged the sheds to look the same as when they'd come here. Sooner or later the truck and station wagon would be found, but they were at the bottom where, because of the fumes, people were less likely to go. Hunters or kids or whatnot might come around these sheds up at the top anytime. It might be months before the truck and wagon were found, and even then there was nothing in either to connect them directly with the score. Unless the law had one or the other identified, maybe when they'd driven out.

They left at fifteen-minute intervals, Wycza and Phillips first. Kerwin and Grofield and Grofield's girl left in the second car, and Wiss and Elkins in the third, and Salsa and Littlefield in the fourth.

Parker was last. He took one more look around, then loaded his luggage into the trunk of the Mercury. It was one o'clock Monday morning. Parker drove out to the highway and turned east.