Parker stepped aside and let Grofield out, then followed him and shut the door. He led the way out toward the edge, walking forward through the dim starlight, the sheds bulking around him. He stopped near the edge and said, “You can bury her down there some place.”
“Forget it, Parker. You don’t kill that girl.”
“That’s right, I don’t. She’s your responsibility.”
“You don’t have to worry about her, Parker.” Grofield’s voice had the shaky belligerence of a man who’s pretty sure he’s in the wrong but will be damned if he’ll admit it.
“I’m not worrying about her, Grofield. Youworry about her. In a day or two, she’ll want to go home.”
“No, she won’t.”
“When she tells you she’s changed her mind, she wants to go home, but she’ll never tell anybody where we are or what we look like or what our names are, that’s when you take care of her.”
“It won’t happen. She won’t say that.”
“And you take her down there and bury her. Deep, Grofield. I don’t want her found.”
“What if it doesn’t happen? What if she doesn’t change her mind?”
“We’ll be here three or four days. Then what?”
“New York. We’ll get a place in the Village for the summer. In the fall we’ll go south and do winter stock together. She’s always wanted to be an actress.”
“I always thought you were a pro.”
“I am. I know what I’m doing.”
Parker shook his head. “I didn’t know I’d have to spell it all out for you. All right, listen.”
“None of this is necessary, Parker, honest to Christ.”
“Shut up and listen. You know how to keep the law off your tail. She doesn’t. They’ll pick her up for jay-walking in New York City, and before the cop gets the ticket wrote out she’ll be so rattled she’ll spill the whole works.”
“No, she won’t. She can learn.”
“Shut up. That’s just one thing. She’ll louse up somehow, and get the law down on you. Number two, she’ll change her mind. Maybe tomorrow, maybe six months from now. She thought it’d be exciting to run off with an honest-to-god bank robber, and how long you think she’ll think it’s exciting?”
“I can keep her interested, Parker. That girl’s never been anywhere or done anything. I’ll show her New York this summer, Miami this winter, a season of winter stock, maybe New England next summer, maybe after a while go out and try Hollywood. She won’t get bored, believe me.”
“No, she’ll get homesick.”
“Parker, listen. She told me about herself. Her folks are dead; she was living with her uncle. Just the two of them.”
“That’s another thing. She’ll not only get homesick for the uncle, the uncle’ll keep the law looking for her.”
“No, he won’t. She doesn’t know it yet, but the uncle’s dead. He was that fireman, that George.”
Parker looked at him in the small light; too small to see his face. “You think that’s good?”
“She’s got no home to get sick for, no place to go back to.”
“She’ll want to be at the funeral, number one. Number two, you were part of the gang that killed him.”
“That was Edgars, that wasn’t us. I can tell her about that so she’ll believe me. And so what about the funeral? I can keep her from even thinking about it.”
“The other two women at the phone company know she went with you. The law know she’s with us.”
“She’ll dye her hair. She wanted to anyway, but her uncle wouldn’t let her. For Christ’s sake, Parker, she’s twenty-two years old, she’s nobody’s ward.”
“I don’t want her going back. I don’t want her saying it was a guy named Parker and a guy named Grofield and a guy named this and that, and that’s Grofield’s picture there, and that’s Phillips’ picture there, and all that crap.”
“She won’t go back, Parker.”
“I know that. I want to be sure youknow it.”
“Parker, I wouldn’t have brought her along if I wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah. Go get her. Send her out here.”
“Parker, I don’t want you to lay a hand on her.”
“That’s not my job. That’s your job. I want to talk to her.”
Grofield shuffled his feet, and the silence lengthened between them until he finally said, “You going to tell her about her uncle?”
“Maybe.”
“Then tell her about Edgars.”
“Go get her, Grofield.”
“Don’t try to pushher away, Parker.”
“I won’t. Go get her.”
“All right.”
Grofield took a few steps away, and then Parker called his name and said, “I want to see her alone first.”
“I know. I figured that out already.”
Parker looked up at the sky. Four-thirty in the morning, it was still fully night, but the stars seemed to be getting a bit fainter, the sky a bit less totally black. Except for the stars, there was no light anywhere; black cloth covered the windows of the shed they were living in.
There was a crunching sound from the left, opposite the shed. Parker listened to it, frowning, and then realized who it was. “Wycza,” he said.
Wycza loomed up out of the darkness. “That’s a long walk,” he said.
“What do you think about Grofield’s girl?”
“I think he’s stupid.”
“That’s him. What about her?”
“I dunno. She doesn’t yack a lot. He didn’t have to twist her arm to bring her. I dunno about her.”
“This could have been a sweet job.”
“Tell me about that Edgars sometime.”
“I wish I knew myself.”
The girl was suddenly there, saying softly, “You wanted to talk to me?”
Parker turned and said, “Yeah. Wait there a second.” He turned back to Wycza. “What happens if it rains out here?”
“You mean with the sheds?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess they leak. But I don’t think it rains here this time of year.”
“Is that right?” Parker turned to the girl. “Does it rain here this time of year?”
“Not very often.” Her voice was very low and soft, but not shy in particular, just self-contained. The frightenedness that had been in her face before was completely missing from her voice.
Parker didn’t give a damn about rain or leaking sheds; he wanted to rattle her by talking at her instead of to her for a while, to see how she’d react. He said to Wycza, “What’ll we do if it does rain? You got any ideas?”
“Not me.”
He turned to the girl. “What about you? You got any ideas?”
“You robbed the banks, didn’t you?”
He was alert now. “That’s right,” he said, and waited.
But what she said was, “They keep their money in those canvas sacks, don’t they? You could cut them open and spread the sacks out on the roof on the parts where it leaks.”
Wycza laughed, and said, “I’ll be seeing you, Parker.” He trudged away toward the shed.
Parker said, “They’ll have helicopters out. We can’t have banks sacks on the roof.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that.”
“Did you ever hear of a guy named Edgars?”
“The man who used to be police chief?”
“That’s the one.”
“He was with you tonight, wasn’t he?”
“What did he have against your town?”
“There was a big scandal. A grand jury asked him questions and tried to get evidence against him about something; I don’t know exactly what. I don’t think they ever tried him for anything, but he was dismissed anyway.”
“That figures. He tried to blow up your whole damn city tonight.”
“I saw the fires.”
“Blew up part of the plant, and a gas station by the railroad depot, and the firehouse.”
“The firehouse?”
“Killed the man I had in there guarding your uncle.”
“Oh.” She was silent, but he didn’t have anything to say to her, he could outwait her. After a minute she said, “My uncle?”
“He got it, too. Everybody in the firehouse. The man I had in there was named Chambers. Hillbilly from Kentucky or somewhere like that. Has a brother named Ernie, in jail now. He’s the one was supposed to drive the truck.”