She thought about it, looking at the dashboard, and then looked back at Parker, saying, “Will you take me with you?”
“For how long?”
She managed a wan smile. “Until one of us gets bored, I suppose.”
“Will you break down anymore, like you did tonight?”
“No. That was just a surprise, that’s all. The same thing won’t surprise me twice.”
“Maybe something else’ll surprise you.”
“I don’t think so.”
Parker looked at her, and he didn’t think so either. He wanted to believe her, because if he believed her he could take her along, but if he couldn’t trust her to stay reliable he’d have to shut her now, and he didn’t want to have to do that. He said, “All right. We travel together.”
“There’s one thing,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“What I told you, about needing seventy thousand dollars. It was a lie.”
Parker ‘said, “You mean, you didn’t need it for a debt?”
“I didn’t need it at all. I didn’t need it.”
“You wanted to build a stake.”
“Yes.”
Parker grinned. “You work hard,” he said.
She smiled uncertainly. “It doesn’t change anything?”
“Why should it? I wasn’t in this for you, I was in it for me.”
“Of course.” She smiled more naturally, saying, “I guess I just felt I had to confess something to somebody.”
“That’s a bad feeling. Don’t get it anymore.”
“I won’t.”
“All right,” he said. “French is going to be with us for a while. We can use him. Until he feels safe, we can trust him. But you’ve got to help me watch my back.”
“I will.”
“Good. Come on, let’s switch the goods.”
Three
HE HEARD sirens again, coming this way. “Keep working,” he told her, and went up front again to take a look. They’d been at the job of transferring the cases about five minutes now, and were not quite half done.
Parker looked over the edge. The street was filling up with cops, both in cars and on foot, for several blocks in both directions. Somebody must have seen the truck make a left into this street. Cops were checking alleys, side streets, driveways. As Parker watched, a police car turned slowly and nosed into this building, disappearing from his view.
He trotted back to Claire and said, “Keep it quiet a minute. We’ve got company. Listen at the head of the ramp. If you hear them coming up, give me the high-sign.”
“All right.”
He went to the front and looked over the edge again, waiting for them to come back out. If they did come up here he’d have to run for it. Down the stairs if they drove up, or drive down if they came up on foot. There was a blue Porsche parked up there, he’d take that.
If he was taking the car, he’d be able to bring Claire along, but if he had to clear out on foot she’d slow him too much. She’d have to be put out of the way. He didn’t think about that, didn’t want to think about it, but if the time came he’d do it.
Cops were moving around down there like black models in an electric game. The temptation came to start plinking, to hit every moving shape, to make the street silent and empty again, but he knew the temptation for what it was, an emotional, irrational reaction to being in a tight spot. He kept watching It lasted nearly five minutes, and then the dark nose of the police car came turning out into sight again, moving slowly. Parker watched the dark bump of the flasher on the car roof, watched the car turn to the right and drive slowly away.
He waited a minute more, but that was apparently the end of it. The main body of the search had moved farther down the street by now, and the last few cops going by on foot did nothing more than glance into the garage entrance on the way by.
Parker went back over to Claire and said, “All right, it’s clear. Let’s finish up.”
She was better now, almost all the way back to her usual self. She came along with him, and they hurried through the rest of the job of transferring the coin cases.
After a minute, she said, “I had an idea, about French.”
“Like what?”
“We drive the truck down,” she said, “and we both get out of it and leave the motor running. We make it look as though we don’t realize it, but French can get to the truck. So he’ll jump into it and drive away, thinking he’s got all the loot. Then the police can chase him, and we can get away.”
