white, and Parker could feel the heat of their frustration, but they both had sense enough not to make him kill them.
Parker reached the stairs, and backed down slowly until both guards were just barely still in sight. Then he grabbed Claire by the wrist and went down the rest of the way at a dead run, she teetering and flailing along behind him.
In the lobby there was no one but the night clerk, standing behind his desk with his hands high in the air. But now both guards were at the railing up above, and as Parker angled away from the stairs and headed toward the doors they both opened up. But Claire was too close to him, they were both firing out in front or over his head, trying to rattle him and make him break free of Claire so they could have a good shot at him. He kept her close in, moved fast, went through the doors, and hit the street. To his right Jack French was in the cab of the fake power- and-light company truck grinding the starter.
Parker kept running, straight at the truck. French was too hurried and too harried to see him until he was right there, at the cab. The engine was just kicking over when Parker yanked open the passenger door and shoved Claire ahead of him up into the seat.
French turned his head and went reaching inside his coat, but Parker showed him his own gun and said, “Later. Get us out of here.”
French put his hands back on wheel and stick shift, and the truck moved cumbersomely forward. French said, “Where?”
“Left at the corner.”
That was no direction at all, except away from downtown, but Parker needed a second or two to think, and French might as well keep them moving along in the meantime.
The trouble was they had nothing set up for a situation like this. They were supposed to have leisure to take the truck to Lebatard’s house, more leisure to unload it, more leisure to drive it away someplace else and abandon it and go back to Lebatard’s house to arrange the divvy.
This way they were in every kind of trouble. The cops would have been called already, would be getting to the hotel in two or three minutes. Somebody would have to have seen them taking off in this orange truck. They couldn’t make any time in it, they couldn’t stay on the street with it, they didn’t have any place to stash it.
French had made the left. Parker looked ahead, and down the empty bright avenue he saw a neon sign saying PARK. “Head for that,” he said. “The parking garage.”
“Billy went for his hardware,” French said, as though apologizing.
“I figured.”
“It was supposed to be quiet.”
“I know.”
French looked at him past Claire. “I didn’t know till today you were back in,” he said. “Then it was too late. I promised 1 ‘ I’d,T delivery on this stuff.”
French had to be really rattled to do so much talking. Parker said, “Later. When we’re clear.”
French nodded. “Right,” he said, and faced front again.
Claire was still being a zombie, sitting there between them, unblinking, gazing out the windshield.
The parking garage was three stories high. French drove the truck inside and stopped and Parker said, “I’ll cool the attendant. Put it out of sight upstairs, leave Claire in it, come down empty-handed.”
French said, “We can work something out.”
Parker got out of the cab and walked around the back of the truck. The attendant was coming out of his office, looking puzzled, and when he saw the gun in Parker’s hand he stopped where he was, snapped to attention like an Army private, looked straight ahead, and said, “Take it all. I only work here, I ain’t involved.” He was about twenty, thin and sandy-haired, with a huge Adam’s apple that kept bobbing as he stood there staring forward.
The truck pulled away up the ramp and Parker said, “Back into the office.”
The attendant started walking backwards, still with his arms at his sides and his eyes faced front.
Parker said, “Unbrace, kid. Turn around and walk in there and sit down.”
The attendant did what he was told, and Parker stood in front of his desk and said, “My friends and I are going to stay here a while. I’ll have an eye on you. If cops come around, nobody’s here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If cops come around and you spill, you’ll get the first bullet.”
The attendant looked very earnest and very scared. “I won’t spill, sir,” he said.
“You can spill,” Parker told him, “by looking scared.”
“I am scared, sir.”
Parker nodded. “That’s what you’re supposed to be,” he said. “But you’re not supposed to show it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If the cops figure out I’m here, you get the first bullet. Whether you let them know on purpose or not.”
The attendant nodded. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
“Good.”
Parker went back out of the office and shut the door. Through the glass he could see the attendant sitting there, practicing how not to look scared. He needed more practice.
