Neither of them was much of a talker, so they were quiet after that. Parker liked that about Webb, his close- mouthedness. They’d worked together a couple of times several years ago, and all Parker knew about Webb was that he was a good hard driver, that he had a passion for playing with cars, and that he was solid in a pinch. It was all he needed to know.
After they made the turn now they stopped and, in the red glow of the taillights, smeared away the tracks their tires had made. They didn’t want anybody coming up here for any reason in the next few days. For the same reason, they stopped again partway up, spent a while brushing away more tracks, and dragged a heavy branch back across the road where it had been before Parker and Fusco had removed it the other day. Then they drove the rest of the way up.
The darkness at the top was complete, broken only by their headlights. All the garage doors were shut.
Webb and Parker got out and opened a set of garage doors and there wasn’t anybody there. Kengle and Stockton and Fusco, all gone. And the money gone too.
Part Four
1
Parker found them both in the bedroom. Up until one second ago they’d been having sex, and when Parker hit the light switch Devers came up off the bed, looking as foolish as a naked man can look. Ellen blinked in terror at the light.
Parker looked at Ellen and said, “She still here.”
Devers said, “Parker?” He was still too shocked to be able to think. “What’s going on?”
Parker ignored him. He went over to the foot of the bed and said to Ellen, “Didn’t you think I’d tip?”
“What—what—”
“Parker,” Devers said. “For Christ’s sake—”
“It’s gone,” Parker told him. “Webb and I ditched the bus, went back to the lodge, and the cash was gone.”
Webb, still in the doorway, said quietly, “Three dead, pal.”
Devers just blinked. “Dead?”
“Fusco,” Parker said. “And Stockton. And Kengle.”
Webb said, “We found them over by the work-shed. They’d been lined up and shot down.”
Devers and Ellen were both beginning to unscramble their brains now. Ellen reached for a blanket to cover herself, and Devers said, “We were hijacked? It’s gone?”
“Somebody hit us for the bundle,” Parker said. “They had to be waiting up there for us.”
“Wherever it was,” Parker said, not caring. “They waited for us to show up, they waited for you to go and me and Webb to go. They waited till the one time when there’d be only three men on the stash.”
Webb said, “You know what that means, buddy?”
“They had to know,” Devers said. His face was bloodless there was no strength in his voice. “They had to know the whole caper,”
Webb said. “In advance,” Parker said.
“Right,” Webb said. “They had to know not only we were scoring tonight, they had to know where the hideout was and when we were due to get there and how we were going to split up then, with Parker and me off to get rid of the bus and you coming back here.”
Devers said, “It had to be somebody on the inside.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, dropping there as though his legs wouldn’t hold him any more. “You think it’s me,” he said. He looked hopeless, as though it didn’t seem to him there was any way to keep them from thinking it was him and acting on that assumption.
Parker said, “I don’t think you’re that stupid, Devers. You don’t want to be hunted, not by the cops and not by us. If you work a cross on us, you can’t hang around, you’ve got to clear out. If you clear out, you’re a deserter from the Air Force. If you desert the day after the heist, they know you were in on it. That isn’t what you want.”
Webb said, “I’ll tell you the truth, Devers, I’m not as sold as Parker. I think you’re young and cocky, I think you just might try it, figure you could stick around and look innocent and bewildered when we show up.”
“Sixty-five thousand is enough,” Devers said to him. “That’s the only point, sixty-five thousand is plenty. If I’ve got sixty-five thousand dollars I’m not hungry enough to go up against you five guys.”
“That’s a point in your favor,” Webb said. “And I don’t think you could have taken those three out at the lodge by yourself. But why bump them unless it was somebody they knew and could remember? You see the kind of question I ask myself. Maybe you had a couple buddies from the air base stashed up there, helping you out.”
“So I split with them? What difference does it make who split with if all I get is a piece anyway?”
Webb moved the hand that didn’t have a gun in it. “You’re probably clean,” he said. “All I’m saying, I’m not as one hundred per cent sold as Parker.”
“Sure,” Devers said. He was getting his wits about him more and more now. “If it isn’t me,” he said, “you’re stuck. There’s nobody left.”
Parker gestured his revolver at Ellen. “Was she here when you came back?”
