At nine that night he went back downtown and picked up the truck and drove it over to the block containing Ellie’s apartment building. Going through the window between body and cab each time, he transferred everything from the Renault to the closet of Ellie’s apartment. The suitcases he carried up in one trip, and then the machine guns wrapped in blankets. The pistols he carried up in his pockets. When everything was stashed, he drove the truck downtown again, abandoned it for the last time, took another cab back, and went in to see Ellie. The job was done; he could feel himself unwinding.
Seeing how lackadaisical Ellie was about everything else in life, Parker hadn’t expected her to be more in bed than a receptacle, but she surprised him. He had found the one thing that made her pay attention. For three days and nights they hardly left the bed at all, and the whole time she was nothing but stifled mumblings and hard-muscled legs and hot breath and demanding arms and a sweat-slick pulsing belly. All the passion that had been dammed up inside Parker while his one-track mind had been concentrating on the robbery now burst forth in one long sustained silent explosion, and Ellie absorbed it all the way a soundproof room absorbs a shout.
By the third night the pace had begun to slacken, and waking up from one of his intermittent naps Parker felt the need for fresh air and a quiet walk. They were out of cigarettes and they would need beer soon after breakfast or whatever meal this was Ellie promised to make him, so he got dressed and went out, and he was gone ten minutes.
It was a last ten minutes, and the time since then had been fast too. Ellie was dead, the suitcases were gone. Parker had had a brawl with a couple of cops and he’d been trailed by a thirty-seven-dollar moocher and he’d been shot at by person or persons unknown who hadn’t killed him but who had killed the moocher as a consolation prize.
It was time to start pushing back.
PART TWO
One
Parker looked at the pistols scattered all over the kitchen table. He’d taken them out of all his pockets to decide which ones he wanted to carry.
There were four of them: a Colt Cobra .38 Special revolver with the two-inch barrel and a hammer shroud to keep it from snagging in a pocket, a Smith & Wesson Terrier .32, also with a two-inch barrel, a Colt Super Auto .38 automatic, and an Astra Firecat .25 automatic. It was the Terrier he’d fired last night; all the others still carried full loads.
Four guns was twice as many as he needed. He chose the two Colts, checked them to be sure they were full, and carried them over to where his topcoat was draped over a chair. He put the guns in the pockets, then carried the other two into the bedroom.
Dan was no different this morning, no better and no worse. From the night he’d obviously had with Janey, just holding his own was already a medical miracle. He looked up from the tea Janey made him drink between bouts, and said, ‘You ready to talk now?’ He had practically no voice at all this morning.
Parker said, ‘You heeled?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice.’
‘You better be. You want these two? This one’s been fired once.’
Kifka shrugged. ‘Why not? Stick ‘em under the pillow.’
Janey said, ‘Keep them out of the bed. Put them on the night table if you have to.’
Parker looked from her to Kifka. Kifka shrugged again, and Parker put the guns on the night table. Then he said, ‘How much does she know?’
‘Enough.’
‘About the operation?’
Kifka nodded. ‘My part in it, and what it was. And about Ellie being killed.’
Parker dragged a chair over closer to the bed and sat down. He told Kifka about the ambush last night, and about the dead clown. Two police cars and an ambulance had been around the block with screaming sirens last night, about half an hour after Parker had gone back upstairs, so the clown was long gone. Parker said, ‘You can figure cops knocking on the door today, routine questions, did you hear anything, see anything.’
Kifka said, ‘Janey can take care of it.’
‘I better get dressed,’ she said. She was still in the sweatshirt, or in it again.
Kifka told her, ‘Slick around.’ To Parker he said, ‘I think I know the clown. Morey, his name was. A real loser.’
‘Any connection with Ellie?’
‘New, not Morey. He was mucho married.’
‘Did he know her?’
Kifka shook his head. ‘Different circles, man. Morey I knew from work, Ellie I knew from play.’ He grinned and winked at Janey, who said, ‘Big man.’
Parker told him, ‘If Negli or Feccio or any of the others had done it, he would of handled the whole thing different. He wouldn’t of killed Ellie unless he absolutely had to, and then he wouldn’t of used that stupid sword. He might of tried to tie me up with the law, but just to give himself extra time to clear out. He wouldn’t of hung around to take potshots. If one of the boys had the cash now, he’d either be playing it cool and quiet right where he’s supposed to be hiding out anyway, ready to get all surprised when he hears how the dough’s gone, or he’d be in Arizona or someplace by now.’
Kifka nodded. ‘I know. It rings like an amateur.’
‘There’s two possibilities,’ Parker told him. ‘First, one of us in the job talked too much, and somebody he talked to decided to go after the dough. Second, it was somebody who went there to kill Ellie for the main bit and he just stumbled across the money and figured why not.’
Kifka said, ‘I think it’s got to be number two. We’ve all been around long enough to keep our mouths shut.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Like Janey,’ Kifka said. ‘You don’t have to wonder about her. She didn’t know your girl, and she didn’t know where the dough was stashed. All she knew about was my part, and you probably told Ellie just as much.’
Parker hadn’t, but he let it ride. He shrugged.
Kifka put his teacup flown and said, ‘What we want to do now, we want to get everybody together, we want to get some manpower’ on this thing. We got to get our dough back.’
‘Can we use this place?’
Janey said, ‘Dan, you’re sick.’
Parker told her, ‘Here’s his chance to get healthy,’ and she looked insulted.
Kifka said, ‘Sure we use this place. What other place do we have?’
‘All right.’ Parker got to his feet. I’ll go get Negli and Feccio. They’ll know where some of the others are. You got a car I can use?’
‘The Buick’s still clean. The keys ought to be over on the dresser there.’
Parker went over and found the keys. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘You want to get the hardware out of sight, in case the cops show.’
Kifka nodded. He said, ‘All I can see is those two suitcases in the trunk of some car on its way to the Panama Canal.’
‘The guy’s hanging around,’ Parker said. ‘He’s an amateur, he lives in this town, he’s hanging around.’
Kifka said, ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t smarten up.’
Two
The Vimorama was about as pretty as a wax orange and about as lively. Parker let the Buick roll on by and then pulled to the shoulder of the road a hundred feet farther on and switched off the engine. Then he sat there a minute.
Behind him, Vimorama hulked beside the road like a pastel flying saucer. It seemed to be made mostly of orange I-beams and shiny chrome and gleaming glass, with VIMORAMA in huge varicolored letters on the roof .md equally huge letters on the sign out by the road. There was no sign of activity either from the main building itself or from the little cabins scattered around behind it like a bunch of colored top hats dropped out of a box.
He was sure he hadn’t been followed, but he wailed a couple of minutes in the car anyway. When he was positive no one was taking any interest in him he climbed out on the passenger side and walked back down the road to the gravel Vimorama parking lot. He skirted it on the quieter grass and moved swiftly in among the tiny cabins.