Closer, Parker stopped, his left hand resting lightly on the smooth white trunk of a birch tree. The automatic was in his right. The little Colt revolver was still in his trouser pocket, hadn’t been used at all yet.
‘And that other one! He killed Kifka, did you know that? Not just your girl, that slut of yours, you animal, not just her. He killed Kifka, too, just now, just today.’
Kifka? Then who was left?
Shelly dead, Feccio dead, Negli dying. Kifka dead. If the law was on watch inside those apartments, then they now must have Clinger and Rudd.
Nobody was left.
Only Parker was left. Parker, and a corpse that was shouting because it didn’t know yet it was a corpse.
‘Kifka’s your fault, too, Parker, you hear that? You killed Arnie just as much as if you pulled the trigger yourself. You killed Arnie, and you killed Kifka, and I’m going to kill you!’
They stopped. Negli was no more than ten feel away now, ahead and to the right. Crouching, waiting, Parker peered through the underbrush for some sign, some glimpse of Negli. He’d been wearing a luminous tan camel’s hair coat over his natty suit; that tan should show nicely against the black and green of the woods. But not yet, not quite close enough yet.
The wait this time was a longer one, and when at last Negli spoke out again there was a difference in the tone of his voice. He seemed suddenly less full of rage, less sure of himself:
‘Parker? Parker? Where the hell are you, Parker?’
A foot closer. Two feet closer.
‘Did you run away, you bastard? You coward? You moron?’
Closer.
‘Why don’t you fight like a man?’
There was a sudden scattering of leaves, and Negli was standing up in full sight, staring and staring the wrong way, his natty back to Parker and only five feet away.
‘Why don’t you fight like a man!’
Parker shot him in the back of the head.
Three
There was law all over the car.
Parker stood there, just within the cover of the pine trees, looking out at the gray Ford. He saw Dougherty there, and another plain clothesman, and three or four cops in uniform.
After he’d finished with Negli he’d worked his way back here along the path he and the other two had beaten out. He’d gathered up his topcoat from where he’d thrown it and put it back on, and when he worked his way up out of the thick underbrush and the birch and maple trees and in under the cool, dim spaciousness of the pine trees he took time out to brush himself off, rub away the dirt marks and the grass stains, get himself looking a little more sensible and civilized. He buried the two pistols under some loose dirt and pine needles because he wouldn’t be needing them any more and went on through the pines and almost stepped out into the open before he saw the law all over the car.
He’d taken too long. If it had just been the amateur everything would have been all right, but with the extra time it had taken to deal with Negli he’d stretched beyond the limit.
Five minutes sooner and he’d have been free and clear, with wheels and the whole boodle.
But there was no chance for it now. As he stood in among the trees and watched, Dougherty and the other plainclothesman reached into the Ford and took out one of the suitcases and set it down on the ground next to the car. They looked at one another, and then both crouched down in front of the suitcase and loosened the snaps. The other plainclothesman lifted the lid.
The money was stacked in there like heads of lettuce.
Both cops stood up again and put their hands on their hips and looked down at the open suitcase. Then Dougherty turned his head and looked at the woods in the general direction of Parker. He said something to the other cop, but Parker was too far away to hear the words. The other cop looked at the woods too and shook his head. Dougherty shrugged.
Parker waited a minute longer even though there wasn’t any point to it. He watched the cops take out a second suitcase, not one of the right ones, and open it up to find it full of laundry. Then they reached in again and this time brought out the right suitcase, and then they had both suitcases and all the money, and it was all over.
Never had such a sweet operation turned so completely sour.
Of the seven in on the job, all but one were dead or in the hands of the law. The take was in the hands of the law. There was nothing left.
Parker turned away and started back through the forest again.
The only thing to do now was get clear. The job was so completely sour, it was a kind of victory just to get himself out and clear.
The best way was the way the amateur had tried. Through the forest and out past that building under construction and along whatever street or road there was on the other side of it. Not back into town at all after that, but the other way, farther out of the city.
He had a little money on him, not much. Enough to carry him away from here.
He paused for a second where he’d buried the guns. But he’d be better off without them. From here on, what he had to do was keep out of sight. Gun battles with the law were for idiots.
He moved on, following the same trail as last time. But this time there was no one ahead of him and no one coming along behind him.
Back in the other direction, the sun crept down behind the pine trees. Darkness was slowly edging in from all sides, but there was still enough light to see the trail.
Four
The amateur was gone.
Parker stopped at the edge of the woods, peering, at first refusing to believe it, telling himself he was being tricked by perspective, by the long forest shadows that stretched now like witch fingers out across the dead plain toward the building, by the bad light of late afternoon.
But it was no trick. Where the amateur had fallen, where the dust had billowed up and then settled on him again, there was now no one. No one and nothing.
The second bullet hadn’t done the job, then. It had seemed like a good hit, but it had only wounded him. And he’d lain out there, either lying doggo or unconscious, and after a while he’d crawled or walked away.
Which way? Back into the relative safety of the woods? Or forward, on toward that building bulking out there?
Forward. There was no subtlety in the amateur, nothing in him but direct action. He would keep going forward no matter what.
But there were still questions. It all depended how badly he was hit. From the way he’d flopped out there, from how long he’d stayed lying there, the hit had to be fairly good, anyway. It was no flesh wound, no grazing of his shoulder or leg. But just how bad was it? Bad enough to have him dead now, up closer to the building? Or not quite that bad, but bad enough to force him to hole up in the building itself and not try to go any farther? Or was it so slight after all that he’d just walked away and was now lost forever?
Standing there at the edge of the woods, Parker regretted not having dug the guns up again. But there’d been no way to guess back there that he’d be needing a gun again so soon.
He faded back into the woods, hunted around, and found the body of Negli lying sprawled all over a thick and thorny bush. The little Beretta was on the ground near his hand.
Parker picked it up and broke the clip out of the butt. It was a six-shot .25-caliber automatic, and Negli had already used up five of the cartridges in this clip.
Parker slid the clip back in place, put the Beretta in his pocket, and dragged Negli clear of the thornbush. He went through Negli’s clothing, but the little man hadn’t been carrying an extra clip.
The damn fool!
Parker got to his feet and looked out again across the plain at the building over there. It was over twenty storeys high already, and from the confusion of cranes and pulleys atop the building — looking like unruly hair on the head of a Mongoloid idiot — it was apparently going to be even taller before they were done. The last rays of sunlight glinted like icicles from the windows on the first seven or eight floors; above that the windowpanes hadn’t been put in place yet.