The Score: A Parker Novel (7 page)

“
T
here's the turnoff,” Edgars said. He pointed.

Parker turned the Mercury off the highway and onto the secondary road. The highway had been concrete, three lanes wide, straight as a bowling alley. The secondary road was blacktop, two lanes wide, and curved a lot. But the road surface was good, they could still make good time.

In the trunk of the car, along with the three road-racer sets from Scofe, were three rifles and eight pistols from Amos Klee. The rifles were a Higgins Model 45, chambered for .30-30, a Ruger .44 carbine, and a Winchester Standard 70, chambered for .30-06. The pistols were mostly S&W, .32 or .38 revolvers. Two boxes on the floor behind the front seat contained ammunition.

Yesterday they'd left the blonde, Jean, in a motel outside Thief River Falls, Minnesota. The name of the city struck Edgars as funny, which is why they picked it. Edgars wrote
down the motel phone number, so he could call her from time to time and let her know everything was all right.

One way or another, she'd apparently made up her mind about Parker the first night, back in Jersey City. On the trip out she kept to herself, saying little, sitting on the backseat with her feet on the ammunition boxes, working her way through bottle after bottle. Every time they stopped, Edgars had to go buy her another bottle. “Gold-star mother,” she said to Parker once, and started to cry. But she cried silently and didn't bother him. She was only about thirty, so the gold-star mother stuff was crap. Probably meant a boyfriend killed in the army. Every tramp has an excuse.

But yesterday they'd unloaded her at Thief River Falls. Edgars gave her a bottle and some money, and promised to call every other day. Then he and Parker drove the last stretch to North Dakota. At Madison they picked up the highway that connected with 22A, the road into Copper Canyon. Three miles this side of it they came to the secondary road that headed toward the abandoned strip mine.

Parker glanced at the speedometer. “You said six miles to the dirt road?”

“About that.”

They rode in silence, till Edgars said, “There it is.”

Parker looked again at the speedometer. Six point two. He nodded, and made the turn.

The dirt road was in worse condition than the blacktop road; it hadn't been kept up since the mining company had moved on. Parker kept it at thirty, and the car jounced badly,
but never badly enough to force him to slow down. He checked the rear-view mirror from time to time, but the land here was clay or something and there was practically no dust raised in their wake. That was good.

They ran through a small wood that was choked with underbrush and then they emerged suddenly on a brown flat plain. Just ahead were squat small buildings, some of corrugated metal, some of wood siding. There was a station wagon parked up close to one of the wooden buildings. As Parker drove the Mercury closer a man came into view, walking leisurely toward them. It was Littlefield.

Parker braked to a halt, and Littlefield came around to his side and said, “You made good time. How you like it here?”

“Where do I put the car?”

Littlefield pointed. “That one over there. We ripped some of the wall down on the other side, so we could get cars in.”

Parker nodded, and drove forward again. Seen up close, the buildings were just sheds, each with a single door and one or two windows in each wall. Parker made a circle past the shed Littlefield had pointed out, and swung around to face it. It was one of the corrugated ones, and a couple of pieces of the wall were lying on the ground to one side. Parker drove through the open space and stopped.

There was just a dirt floor inside, and darkness, and dry heat. Parker felt sweat breaking out on his face before he was out of the car. There was a Plymouth already in there; with Parker's Mercury added the shed was full.

“Christ,” said Edgars. “Hot.”

They went back out to the sunlight and walked around the shed and over to Littlefield, who was standing next to the station wagon, watching them. Littlefield was wearing gray work pants and a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat. He didn't look like a member of the board of directors anymore; out here he looked like a hanging judge.

Littlefield said, “We set this one up for living quarters. You go on in, I'll stay out here and watch for them.”

“Better get the wagon out of sight.”

“One car don't make any difference.”

“Get it out of sight anyway.”

Littlefield pursed his lips and went away to get the car out of sight.

Parker and Edgars went into the wooden shed. Inside, it was one large room, and it seemed a little cooler than outside. Folded army cots were stacked in a corner near some cardboard cartons. A folding table and some folding chairs were set up in the middle of the room.

Five men were in the room. Kerwin and Wycza and Salsa and Pop Phillips were sitting around the table, playing poker. Paulus was in the corner, inventorying the contents of the cartons.

Phillips waved a greeting. “Welcome to our happy home,” he said.

Edgars said, “It looks okay, doesn't it?”

“It's okay,” Parker told him. But he felt exposed, these little sheds on the flat brown plain.

Phillips said, “It was a deal of work for two old men, I'll
tell you that. Me and Littlefield, we took down some walls to make garages, we transported food, we buried jugs of water under one of the sheds, we swept up, hung some curtains, planted azaleas outside the windows, and hired a butler.”

“It looks good,” Parker said. He looked at Kerwin. “Hows the town?”

“Easy.”

“Can we do it this week?”

“Sure.”

“No problems?”

“None.”

“Of course,” Pop Phillips said, “Wycza and Salsa, here, they did help a bit. But for two old codgers, Littlefield and me, we did our share.”

“Sure you did,” Wycza told him. Wycza always seemed proud of Phillips, as though he'd invented him.

Paulus, from the corner, said, “I'm not sure we've got enough food.”

“We've got enough,” Phillips told him. “We've got plenty, don't you worry.”

Littlefield stuck his head in the doorway. “Somebody coming.” He went away again.

Parker went over to a window and watched a green Ford coming closer. It stopped. Littlefield went over to talk to the driver and then pointed. The car moved again. When it went by, Parker saw it was Wiss and Elkins.

Salsa came over. “I got the walkie-talkies. Shall I explain them to you?”

“Sure.”

They went over to where the walkie-talkies were, nesting in four boxes like outsize shoe boxes. Salsa explained they were a matched set, he'd had them fixed for him. Talk into any one and the voice came out of all the other three. You couldn't talk to just one of the other walkie-talkies, but you couldn't talk to any walkie-talkies except these three, either. “I told the man we were a group of hunters,” he said. He smiled, and his teeth were white and even. The Latin lover, with a tan. “I told the truth,” he said. “We are a group of hunters.”

“They look good,” Parker told him. “Good work.”

Wiss and Elkins came in then, and Wiss said to Phillips, “I need a cool place to keep the juice. Littlefield says to talk to you.”

“One second.” Phillips looked at his cards, said, “Fold,” and got to his
feet.
“I'll show you. Sit in for me, Elkins.”

Elkins sat down at the table, and Wiss and Phillips left. Salsa, still standing beside Parker, said, “This Thursday?”

“Right.”

“Three days. Good. Three days before, four days after. One week is about all I will be able to take of this place.”

Parker nodded. Their original plan had been to stay in towns around the general area until the night of the raid, but they'd decided instead to gather here today, and stay until after the job was finished. This way there wouldn't be any strangers in nearby towns for the locals to remember later.

Edgars came over and said, “We're set, huh? This is like I told you, isn't it?”

“It's fine. When Phillips comes back, have him show you some place to stow the ammunition. That shed's too hot.”

“Will do.”

Littlefield stuck his head in again. “Chambers coming.”

Parker followed him outside and watched. Chambers was wrestling the truck across the uneven ground, and the trailer, empty, was jogging back and forth. The cab was a Mack, painted red, and the trailer a metal-color Fruehauf, just about the biggest standard size made. Neither cab nor trailer had any sort of company name or markings visible on them.

Parker stuck his head back in the door and called, “Edgars! Where's the road down into the ravine?”

Edgars came outside and pointed. “Down past those sheds. You see the dropoff?”

“All right.”

Chambers had pulled the truck to a stop near the shed. Parker went over and climbed up into the cab and shut the door. Chambers was grinning, his face dirty, streaked with sweat. “This is a big old bastard,” he said.

“How was the road, coming in?”

“Not too bad. Couldn't top thirty-five, but I got no load. When we come back with the ass full of men and gold, she'll sit just fine on that road. You got a cigarette?”

Parker gave him a cigarette and lit one for himself. Chambers said, “I got it offen Chemy. He says to tell you hello, and his brother run that woman off. That make sense to you?”

“Yeah. Edgars says the road down to the bottom's over that way. Let's see if this truck'll do it.”

“If it don't, we can sing hymns while we fall.”

Chambers started the truck forward again, slowly, and after a minute Parker could see the edge. The brown earth just stopped, and there was midair. Across the way, a good distance off, the earth started again; over there he could see the sheer brown wall going downward.

“Son of a bitch,” said Chambers. “I bet that's it there.” He pointed out the cab window.

Chambers stopped the truck, and they both got down and walked over to look at the road. Down below, eighty feet down, there was a flat brown expanse with nothing growing on it. Two streams of red water angled and wandered through it. It looked like a sunny part of Hell.

“Look at that,” said Chambers. “Red water. What do you think, maybe it's wine.”

“There's the road.”

They both looked at it. It ran down the side of the wall, one lane wide, a dirt road with two broad ruts running down it. It went down at a steep slope, but it was straight all the way, reaching bottom at the far end of the ravine, where the ravine sloped up somewhat. The ruts circled there and came back along the ravine floor.

“I don't know,” said Chambers. “I don't like the looks of it.”

“Ore trucks did it.”

“They're built low to the ground. Low center of gravity. I got me an empty trailer on there.”

“It's straight. Just take it slow, that's all.”

“Come on along, Parker. It's your idea.”

They went back and got into the cab again. Chambers released the brake and eased the truck forward to the edge and slowly down the incline. They could hear the trailer couplings banging.

“She wants to run,” said Chambers. “She wants to fly down this goddam road.”

“You'll make it,” Parker told him. “No problem.”

“Sure.”

The truck inched down the wall to the bottom, and Chambers swung the wheel to bring it around facing the other way. He stopped it, shifted into neutral, and said, “Give me another cigarette.”

They smoked a minute in silence, Chambers wiping sweat off his face onto his sleeve, and then Parker said, “Looks like they cut into the wall over there. Let's go over and look.”

“I shoulda got me a biddy panel truck.”

Chambers wrestled the truck forward, and they came to a part where the side of the ravine angled inward sharply from top to bottom, leaving a narrow strip of the bottom in shadow. Chambers backed and filled till he got the truck in close to the side, in the shadow, and then they both got out and looked at it. Parker said, “We want to get some black paint. That metal shines too much.”

“Brown paint. Make it blend right in. Camio-flage.”

“All right, brown.”

“Now we walk up, right?”

“Right.”

“Christ. I'd be better off working.”

“Come on.”

Chambers took a step, stopped, and said, “Rotten eggs. Smell it?”

“That's your wine rivers. Sulphur.”

“Real homey place.”

They walked back up the road to the top and went into the shed where the others were. Grofield was there now, making everybody present. Parker looked at him and waited for him to say, “All fools in a circle.”

But what he said was, “ ‘Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!!’”

“This isn't summer stock.”

“Good old Parker. This Thursday, huh?”

“This Thursday.” He turned to Littlefield. “All the cars stashed?”

“Right. Six of them. Two each in three sheds.”

“We better put the sides back on, in case anybody comes out here. What about the wagon?”

“I put it down in the woods, off the road.”

“Good.”

Parker and Wycza and Salsa and Grofield went out and put the torn-down sections of wall back into place, hiding the cars inside. Two men would be leaving in each car, after the job, each car going off to a different destination. Wiss and Elkins
would leave together, and Wycza and Phillips, Paulus and Littlefield, Chambers and Salsa, Grofield and Kerwin. Parker would take Edgars with him, pick up the blonde at Thief River Falls, and drive them as far as Chicago. After that, they were on their own; Chicago was where Parker would dump the Mercury.

After they got the walls back up, and returned to the living-in shed, Parker found Littlefield and said, “One last trip to town for you. We need brown paint, to cover the truck.”

“Right. What if I go in after dark?”

“If you can find a store open.”

“There's a hardware store I seen open nights in Madison.”

“Good.”

Parker dragged a couple of food cartons over to the table and sat down on them. “Deal me in,” he said. Behind him, Grofield was reciting, playing Falstaff and Hal both,
Henry IV
,
Part I
, Act 1, Scene 2.

C
hambers brought the truck up at eleven-thirty, using the parking lights only. The rest were waiting for him in the darkness at the top. In the last three days, they hadn't seen a single stranger, afoot or in a car or even in a plane. They might as well have been the last people on earth.

Parker and Salsa and Edgars carried machine guns—Parker had discovered, to his surprise, that Edgars already knew how to operate a tommy—and Grofield, Chambers, and Littlefield carried rifles. Salsa and Parker both also wore pistols, as did Kerwin and Phillips and Paulus and Wycza and Wiss and Elkins. Parker and Salsa and Wycza and Grofield had walkie-talkies strapped to their backs.

Chambers was to drive the truck, Littlefield the station wagon. Phillips and Edgars and Grofield were to ride in the wagon, the rest in the truck.

Chambers cut the parking lights as soon as he stopped the
truck. There was no moon, but the sky was clear and full of stars. There was enough vague light to see by, sufficient for everyone to board.

Six men climbed into the back of the truck and sat along the sides, bracing themselves for the bumpy ride to come. Paulus and Wycza and Kerwin on one side, Wiss and Elkins and Salsa on the other. The safe men's equipment was to ride in the station wagon, where it would get a less bumpy trip.

Parker went over to the station wagon and said to Littlefield, “Remember, give us five minutes. Well run slower than you, you can catch up when we get to town.”

“Right.”

“Don't catch up before we pass the trooper barracks.”

“I remember, Parker.”

“See you later.”

Parker went back to the truck, took off his walkie-talkie, and climbed up into the cab with Chambers. He put the walkie-talkie on the floor between his legs and said, “All set.”

Chambers put on his parking lights again, and the truck jolted forward.

It was seven miles to the secondary road, and they did it at a crawl, not because of the bumps but because of the bad visibility. Chambers leaned far over the wheel, peering out through the windshield at the dimly seen dirt road. Beside him, Parker lit a cigarette and sat quiet. The last few minutes before a job, he was always quiet, almost in suspended animation. He had no imagination for the few hours ahead, nor worry, nor anticipation, nor anything else. His consciousness
worked at the level of recording the jouncing of the truck cab and the feel of the cigarette smoke and the darkness beyond the windshield.

They got to the secondary road and made their turn, and Chambers sighed. He sat back more comfortably, switched on his headlights, and the truck picked up speed. After a minute, Chambers said, “You ever get scared, times like this, Parker?”

Parker roused himself, and said, “No.”

“You're lucky. I could use me a jolt of store-bought blended right about now.” He laughed, a little shakily. “If them streams would of been wine,” he said, “they'd be dry right now. You know, I can smell sulphur in this cab? This here's a good road, they'll be no problem coming back. Be light then, too.”

Chambers talked on, working off nervous energy, and Parker sat silent beside him. They made the six miles to the highway and turned left. Up to now they hadn't seen any other traffic, but a mile along the highway they saw headlights in front of them. They came on, moving fast, and a foreign sports car raced by, looking to them in the cab of the truck so low and small it could have gone under the truck instead of next to it.

“Maybe I'll buy me one of them,” said Chambers.

Parker leaned forward a little bit and looked at the rearview mirror outside the right window. A way back, he could see headlights. “If that's Littlefield,” he said, “I'll crack his skull.”

“Don't worry 'bout Littlefield. He knows what he's doing.”

By the time they made the turnoff on to 2 2 A, the headlights had dropped farther back. They rolled along, right on the speed limit, and after they passed the trooper barracks—a squat brick building with yellow lights behind the windows, off to their left, surrounded by flat emptiness—Parker said, “Slow down a little now. Give Littlefield a chance to catch up.” The headlights of the station wagon were much farther back now, almost invisible.

Ahead of them, on the right, was a sign. They came closer and the truck lights illuminated it:

WELCOME
to
COPPER CANYON

“Son of a gun,” said Chambers. “Son of a gun.”