They’d left Edgars in there with the cops, and the other six went outside to stand on the lawn. Parker came over and said, “You got that out of your system now?”
“I guess I do. I feel a lot better.”
“Don’t do it any more.”
“Not if I don’t have to.”
“You don’t have to club anybody. Watch them if they behave, kill them if they cause trouble. Nothing in between.”
“All right by me.”
“Good. Everybody set?”
Everybody said they were set. Chambers felt a small irritation, at being chewed out by Parker right there where everybody could hear, but he shrugged it off. Minor irritations couldn’t bother him now. He felt good.
Parker had propped the Tommy against the outer wall of the police station, and had unlimbered the walkie-talkie. Chambers looked across the street at the fire department building, waiting, and behind him Parker said, “Salsa. You set up?” His voice had an echo, tinny and small, coming out of the walkie-talkie on Grofield’s back.
Then it was Salsa’s voice, coming over both of them: “Set. I’m in a car on Raymond Avenue, facing out, right side as you are going out of town, one block in from that welcome sign.”
“Anybody come in since us?”
“Not in or out.”
“All right. Wycza?”
“Here.”
“We got police headquarters. Going after the firehouse now. If you see the prowl car, don’t worry. I’ll be driving it.”
Wycza laughed, and said, “Want us to start now?”
“Wait till we’ve got the firehouse and the telephone company. I’ll let you know.”
“Right.”
Chambers had been fidgeting back and forth, standing in the darkness on the police station lawn. Now he said, “Come on, Parker, let’s roll it. We don’t got all night.”
“Don’t be so nervous.”
“Then let’s just roll, what do you say?”
“All right.”
The six of them walked over the lawn and the sidewalk and crossed the street, Chambers in the lead, the rifle held at a loose approximation of port arms. His face was sweating, making the hood stick to his flesh, but he didn’t really mind that. Just so they were moving.
Too bad Ernie wasn’t here.
Four big garage doors, painted red, across the front of the building in a row. To the right of them was the regular entrance, flanked by red lights. Like a cat house; Chambers grinned under the hood, feeling his skin stretch.
Chambers and Parker were in the lead when they went in. A hall went ahead and then turned right. After the turn, it ran straight and long, but only the nearest fluorescent light was lit, leaving the rest of the hall in darkness. The first door at the right was open, spilling more light into the hall.
Two men in dark blue uniforms had been sitting on opposite sides of a desk, playing cards. They stared, dropped their cards, and jumped clumsily to their feet. One of them kicked his chair over, getting up.
It was a room very similar to the Command Room in police headquarters, but a little smaller, with fewer desks, fewer pieces of electronic equipment, and less open floor space. Lined around the walls were framed photographs of groups of men standing in front of fire engines, some horse-drawn.
Chambers moved to the left of the door and sensed Parker moving to the right. This was the part he liked, moving fast and moving sure, moving like the pieces of a clock. Let somebody else make the plans; all Chambers wanted was to know his own part in it.
Parker was saying, “You don’t have to raise your hands, you aren’t armed. You, what’s your name?”
“Dee Deegan.”
“First name.”
“George.”
“And you?”
“Johanson, William Johanson.”
“They call you Bill or Will?”
“Uh, Bill.”
“All right, Bill, George, just pay attention.”
While Parker gave them the spiel, using their first names a lot, telling them how nothing would happen to them if they didn’t try nothing stupid, Chambers moved around and pulled a chair out from a desk with his foot and sat down. He kept the rifle level, hoping one of these bastards would make a run for it or something; he’d do just like Parker said, he’d gun him down in a second. But he knew neither of them would try anything; both paunchy geeks in their fifties, scared so bad they had to change their drawers.
Chambers wasn’t so sure about Parker. He was supposed to be sharp and cool and efficient and all that, but Chambers wasn’t so sure. What was all this crap about the first names? Who cared what kind of first names these stupes had? It was a waste of time.
When Parker was done, Grofield and Phillips came up and hogtied the one named Johanson William Johanson, tieing wrists and ankles and gagging him. Then Parker said to the other one, “How many men on tonight?”
“Fuh four.”
“Including you two?”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. S-s-six.”
“All right, George, just relax. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Where are the other four?”
“Down the hall. They’re asleep, mister.”
“We’ll wake them easy. Which room?”
“Last two on the left.”
“Thanks, George.” Parker turned his head and spoke to Chambers. “We’ll let you know when it’s clear.”
“Sure thing.”
Parker and the others went out to tie and gag the other four sleeping beauties, and Chambers said, sarcastically, “Okay, now, George, just sit right down there. Right there where you were.”
George sat down.
“What kind of card game was that, George?”
“Gin.”
“Gin. Is that right? You got any of that other kind of gin here, George? You know the kind I mean?”
“No, we don’t. I’m sorry, we don’t have anything like that.”
“That’s a real pity, George.” Chambers grabbed the bottom of his hood, just under his chin, and flapped it, to get some air inside. “This is a real nice firehouse you got here, George,” he said.
“What are you people going to do?”
“Oh, now, don’t go asking questions. Remember what happened to that curious cat.”
Chambers stretched, and then set the rifle down on the desktop beside him, where it was handy. He said, “You know what you’re supposed to do, you get any kind of call, right?”
“Yes. I know.”
“Good boy, George. I sure do wish you had some of that other kind of gin.”
“I’m sorry. How how long is this going to be? I mean, before you let us go.”
“Curiosity, George.”
“But what if there’s a fire?”
“Why, we’ll just toast marshmallows, George.” Chambers laughed, and stuck a hand up under his hood to wipe the sweat from his face.
Parker stuck his head in and said, “Clear. We’re moving on now.”
“Have a good time, y’all.”
“We’ll keep you posted. By phone.”
Parker went out again.
This was the dull part. From now on, just sitting and waiting, this was going to be the dull part. If Ernie was here, they could Indian wrestle or something. He should of asked to be put on the truck detail, instead of Wycza. Let Wycza sit here all night.
He looked at George, speculatively, trying to find a sign in George’s face to indicate he might maybe try something pretty soon, make life interesting somehow. But there was no sense even hoping; George just wasn’t the heroic type, that’s all there was to it.
He stretched again. He wished he could take the hood off, but he couldn’t. He’d taken one fall, and his picture was on file. A dumb fall. Him and Ernie, seventeen years of age for him and nineteen for Ernie, they were just razzing this clown with the tape recorder, down having old rumpots sing folk songs into it, and someway or other it all got out of hand, and when they were done they hadn’t just beat the tape recorder in with lumber chunks like they’d intended, they’d beat the clown in, too. Then they had no more sense but to go right straight on home, and get picked up by the sheriff the next morning. Nobody much believed their story about stopping the clown from trying to rape some little girl that run away and likely too mortified to come forward and testify, but they stuck to the story anyway and got smaller sentences than they might of otherwise. Eight years apiece, for manslaughter. Out in less than three years.