for him and couldn’t find him home, and everybody else on the list washed out, then at least they’d know the name of the guy they were looking for, and with amateurs you never needed much more than name and general description. Because amateurs work to a pattern, they repeat themselves, they’re too comfortable doing the things they’ve already done before. Amateurs don’t like to break new ground, try new patterns.
Given their boy’s name and general description, given a few chats with people who knew him, and it wouldn’t take long to find out where he’d most likely go with two suitcases full of one hundred thirty-four thousand dollars, or what he’d most likely do once he got there.
He might have to be followed a ways, but he’d eventually be found and the money gotten back.
The only problem was, it was all taking so damn much time. Ellie, for all her laziness and sloppiness, had known a hell of a lot of guys. It took time to get all their names and addresses, time to go looking them up and ask them questions, time to clear them one by one.
That was the kind of time that crept by hamstrung. Like now; waiting in silence for Little Rob Negli to make a mistake, a little guy who’s a professional and not in the habit of making mistakes.
And waiting for the amateur to make his mistake, a wait that shouldn’t take as long.
There was another shot, from up closet to the road, and then two more in rapid succession.
That wouldn’t be Negli. That would be the amateur.
The hell with Negli for now. The amateur was the important thing, he couldn’t be permitted to get away again. Three times and out; this was the end of the amateur’s string.
Parker moved as quickly and as silently as he could around the edge of the cabin and along the grass that flanked the gravel driveway. He kept watching for Negli, looking down every vista between cabins, past the bushes growing against some of the cabins, down toward the pine woods that flanked Vimorama on three sides. He didn’t see Negli, not a sign of him, but all at once, ahead of him, he saw the amateur go pelting by, running out of Vimorama entirely, heading for the trees, trying to get away again.
Parker took off after him, jumping across the gravel driveway in two steps, angling through between the cabins to try to head the other one off. Behind him, Negli shouted something he didn’t try to understand. A cabin window to his right shattered in time with the sound of a shot from back there. Parker half turned, still running, and snapped a shot in Negli’s direction, not to hit him but just to slow him down, distract him. The important thing now was not Negli, it was the goddam amateur.
The amateur went through the woods without looking back, and across the front of a gas station. Parker went after him, running flat out, determined this time not to lose him. And knowing Negli would never be able to keep up to this pace, so he wouldn’t have to worry about his back for a while.
Parker was fast, but the amateur was faster, and the gray Ford parked down the road there had to be his. He reached it and flung open the near door, and Parker stopped long enough to put a bullet into the door. He’d been trying for the amateur’s leg, but his aim was off because of the running and the lack of time.
But the miss was almost as good as a hit. It deflected the amateur from the car anyway, and sent him off into the woods instead.
Parker got to the car a minute later and looked in and saw the suitcases on the back seat. The same ones. So he’d found the cash at last.
But he couldn’t do anything about it yet. There was still the amateur in front of him and Little Bob Negli behind him. Looking down to his left, Parker saw Negli running along on his bantam legs like some sort of silly lunatic from a silent movie comedy, his fancy clothing all rumpled up and torn, the tiny Beretta glinting in his hand, his face dark with thunderclouds.
Which first? If he took the time for Negli, the amateur might be able to circle back and get the car and the loot and take off again. But if he went on after the amateur, why wouldn’t Negli do the same thing, just hop into the car and take off after the whole bundle?
No, not Negli. One look at him, running along there like somebody’s idea of a joke about vengeance, was enough to tell Parker he didn’t have to worry about Negli taking off with the cash. It wasn’t cash Negli wanted anymore, it was Parker’s scalp. Why he wanted it Parker didn’t know, but he could take time to find out later on.
The amateur first.
The whole thing, looking into the back seat of the Ford and looking back at Negli and making up his mind which idiot to go after first, the whole thing had taken only a couple of seconds. The amateur could still be heard crashing and blundering through the woods, headed straight away from the road and the car, so scared he wasn’t even remembering the cash.
Parker went in after him.
The woods, at first, were like that around Vimorama: well-spaced pine trees with a thick mat of needles covering the ground, darkness and muffled silence, shadows flitting past the black trunks. But the farther they moved from the road, the thicker the going became. Some birch and maple trees began to show up between the pines, clogging the paths more. Dead leaves were mounded around the tree trunks, and the entwined branches of the birches and maples were bare and jagged looking.
As the pines thinned and the birches and maples increased, more and more bushes began to grow between the trunks. Vines and creepers, rose like bushes covered with thorns, thick rubbery bushes with intertwined branches, clumped hedge like bushes autumn-stripped of their leaves; they all slowed Parker down, slowed him down.
But they slowed the amateur more. He had to hack and claw his way through the stuff up ahead there, and where he had passed the going was easier for whoever would come through next.
Parker was next, close behind the amateur, moving after him with grim and steady speed. This wasn’t going to be like the first time, outside Kifka’s place, when night and surprise and a good head start had made it possible for the bastard to get away. Nor like the second time, when the presence of the law there had forced Parker to help him get away.
This time it was clear and simple. This time it was straightforward, the way Parker liked it.
The amateur was running, leaving a broad trail. Parker was following him, and gaining on him. When he caught up with him, he’d kill him.
