“Not at all?”
“Not a word.”
Lindahl studied the parrot an instant longer, while the bird cocked his head to study Lindahl right back, then gave that up to start rooting under its feathers with its beak, eyes wide and blank as the buttons on a first Communion coat.
Turning back to Parker, Lindahl said, “That’s how little I’m interested in talk, the last few years. I better not take him, but that’s no hardship. I’ll do fine on my own. I won’t start any conversations. Is that one of yours?”
Lindahl had nodded at the television set. Parker leaned forward to look to his right at the screen, and filling it was some old mug shot of Nick Dalesia, who had been one of his partners until just now. Nicholas Leonard Dalesia it said across the bottom of the screen.
So they had Nick. That changed everything.
“You want the sound on?”
“We know what they’re saying,” Parker said.
Lindahl nodded. “I guess we do.”
A perp walk showed. Dalesia, wrists cuffed, head bowed, looking roughed up, moved in jerky quick steps from a state trooper car across a broad concrete sidewalk to the side entrance of a brick building in some county seat where this was the courthouse up front and the jail around on the side. New York State Police, so Nick, too, hadn’t gotten very far. As many uniformed state troopers as could do it squeezed into the picture to hustle Nick along from the car to the building.
Parker leaned back, not looking at the set. Three of them had pulled the job and stowed the cash away rather than try to get it through the roadblocks. It was a given that if one of them got nabbed, that one would turn up the cash as a way to make his legal troubles a little easier. You might give up your partners, too, if you knew enough about them. Give the law anything you could if you were the first grabbed. Otherwise, don’t get grabbed at all, because there was nothing left to trade.
So the money was gone. It had been a rich haul, but now it was gone, except for the four thousand in Parker’s pocket, and he still had to work his way out of this minefield. He said, “You say the meet’s going on now, at this track of yours?”
“Two more weeks,” Lindahl said, “then shut down until late April.”
“So there’s three Saturdays left, today and two more.”
“We couldn’t do it tonight,” Lindahl said, looking startled.
“We can go there tonight,” Parker told him. “A dry run, see if it’s possible.”
Lindahl looked both eager and alarmed. “You mean, you’d work with me on this?”
“We’ll look at it,” Parker said.
4
Parker stood and crossed to the door, then raised the blind covering the window next to it. The boarded-up house standing between here and the road was a two-and-a-half-story wood-framed structure, probably one hundred years old, its original color long since time-bleached down to gray. Every door and window, except one small round window in the attic, was covered by large sheets of plywood, themselves also gray with age. Parker said, “Tell me about that place.”
Lindahl got up to come over and stand beside him, saying, “A woman named Grothe lived there, forever. She was retired from somewhere in state government, lived there by herself, she was in her nineties when she finally died.”
“Why’s it boarded up?”
“Some cousins inherited the place, had nothing to do with this part of the world, gave it to a real estate agent to sell, years ago. But nobody’s buying anything around here, so after a while the town took it over for taxes, boarded it up to keep the bums out.”
“Ever been inside it?”
“Can’t. It’s sealed up. And who’d want to? Nothing in there but dust and dry rot.”
“Who do you rent this place from?”
“The town. It’s goddam cheap, and it oughta be. Who’s this?”
A black Taurus had turned in from the road, was driving past the boarded-up house, headed this way. Lindahl gave Parker a quick look: “Are you here?”
When there’s no place to hide, stand where you are. Parker said, “I’m Ed Smith, I used to work with you years ago at the track, I moved to Chicago, I’m back for a visit.”
“Smith?”
“There are people named Smith,” Parker said as a heavyset man in a maroon windbreaker got out of the car. “Who’s he?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lindahl said as the man shut the car door, glanced at Lindahl’s Ford parked beside him, and started forward. “What the hell is his name? Fred, Fred something.”
Fred saw them both in the window and waved. Under a red billed cap, his face was broad and thick, dominated by a ridge of bone horizontally above his eyes.
“Rod and Gun Club,” Lindahl said, and opened the door. “Fred! Jesus, it’s been years.”
“You’re still on the rolls,” Fred said, and gave a quick nod and grin at Parker.
“Come in, come in,” Lindahl said, stepping back from the doorway. “This is Ed Smith, he’s visiting. You aren’t after me for dues, are you?”
Fred gave that a dutiful laugh and stuck his hand out to Parker, saying, “Fred Thiemann. You a hunter, Ed?”
“Sometimes.”
“I can offer you a beer,” Lindahl said, sounding doubtful.
“No, no, no drinking,” Fred said, “not at a time like this. You know about those bank robbers come over from Massachusetts.”
Parker could sense the strain in Lindahl’s neck muscles as he didn’t turn to look at Parker, but instead said, “They caught one of them, didn’t they?”
“Not that far from here. The state police figure the other two are holed up in this area someplace, so they sent out a request, American Legion and VFW posts, outfits like ours, just take a walk around any woods or empty spaces we’ve got, see do we turn up anything. It’s the weekend, so we’re getting a big turnout.” He shrugged, grinning with both delight and embarrassment. “Like a bunch of kids, playing cops and robbers.”
“Like a posse,” Lindahl said.
“Exactly,” Fred said. “Except, no horses. Anyway, a bunch of us are meeting at St. Stanislas, we’ll look around the Hickory Hill area. Nobody expects to find anything, but we might help keep those guys on the run.”
Parker said, “How’d they catch the first one?”
“He tried spending the bank’s money,” Fred said. “Turns out most of that was new cash, they had the serial numbers.”
The four thousand dollars in Parker’s pocket was new money. He said, “That guy was careless.”
“Let’s hope the other two are just as careless,” Fred said. “We didn’t have a phone number for you, Tom, so I said I’d come over on the way, see do you want to come along. You, too, Ed.”
Lindahl looked at Parker. “Would you want to do that?”
“Sure,” Parker said. “The safest place around is gonna be with the posse.”
5
Tom,” Parker said, “you’ll have to loan me a rifle. I didn’t bring one.”
Lindahl gave him a startled look, but then said, “Sure. Come on in and pick one.”
Fred Thiemann said, “Want me to wait for you boys?”
“No, you go on ahead,” Lindahl told him. “It’ll take me a couple minutes to get ready. I’ll see you at St. Stanislas.”
“Fine. Good to meet you, Ed.”
“You, too.”
Thiemann left, pulling the door shut behind himself, as Lindahl turned toward the bedroom. Parker followed, and when he stepped through the doorway, Lindahl was glaring at him, face suddenly blotched purple.
“You get out of here!” It was a hoarse whisper, almost a choked scream. “As soon as Fred drives off, you clear out!”