Webb added, “Without anybody seeing us.”
Someone was using a loudhailer. They could hear it plainly, but just as noise, not broken into words. But they didn’t have to hear the words to know what Roger St Cloud was being told.
Several windows had been lit on this block when they’d arrived, and now that the loudhailer had started up more windows were springing into yellow light. The law couldn’t have gotten here more than five minutes before Parker and the other two. That was better than the other way around.
They watched for three or four minutes. The loudhailer spoke, was silent a while, spoke again, was silent again. Policemen dodged from car fender to car fender, with no apparent destination. It seemed as though everybody was just milling around.
“They’ll think of tear gas in a little while,” Webb said.
Parker nodded. “It’ll be on its way already.”
In the meantime there was sporadic gunfire, with long seconds of silence. The law was using different kinds of gun, revolvers and rifles and at least one riot gun that twice made its monkey jabber, hemstitching a line of bullets across the front of the house.
St Cloud was firing back, too. A policeman went running, crouching, zigzagging across a bit of open space, and then crumpled and somersaulted and lay spread out on the ground. There was a hail of answering fire, and under its cover two cops ran out, grabbed the fallen one by the arms and dragged him back out of the line of fire.
After that there was another period of silence, with here and there a shot as though just to keep up appearances.
Webb said, “Why don’t he hit the light?”
“He doesn’t want to get away,” Devers said. “He wants to kill people.”
Webb frowned. “Why?”
The loudhailer spoke again. When it was still they could hear another sound, high-pitched, twanging, shrill. Devers whispered, “That’s him. Listen to him.”
“It don’t sound human,” said Webb. He looked past Devers at Parker. “Let’s get out of here. He’s got our cash, he’s surrounded by cops, it’s all up.”
Parker said, “Look.”
They looked. Snow was fluttering out of an upstairs window in the house, paper snow, cascading out, glide- glide-gliding to the ground like leaves, green leaves, pouring and billowing out of the window.
Webb said, “Our money.”
“It’s what Godden said,” Devers said, as though to himself. “He’s using power.”
“What the hell is he trying for?” Webb wanted to know. He was getting mad.
“He’s buying them off,” Devers told him. “He’s crazy as a loon in there, he’s using up all his power at once, killing people, buying them off.”
A suitcase had come flying out of the window, spilling the rest of its cash, bills flapping down, tossed by breezes. The people held back at the intersection by the police line didn’t know yet what it was, they just kept watching.
More money came out of the window, and then a second suitcase, open like the first, shooting out of the window as though catapulted, turning over and over in the air, spewing money out in gobs and flurries.
Then nothing happened. Nothing at all.
The second suitcase hit the ground not far from the first, the money fluttered slowly downward through the air, that was all.
The shrill voice started again, its words as indistinguishable as the loudhailer’s, but the voice that drowned it out was as clear as glass. It was a voice from the spectators, and what it shouted was: “That’s
Everthing seemed to stop. The shrill voice kept on, saying whatever it had to say, but nobody was listening any more. Everybody was tensed, everybody knew what was going to happen, everybody was waiting for whatever the signal was going to be.
The policemen across from the house were all looking down this way now, toward the crowd, and in the harsh light their faces looked pale and tense and worried.
Webb said, “They ‘re going to—”
The crowd broke.
One second they’d all been back, standing there, straining forward but staying outside the perimeter the police had set up for them. The next second they were all in motion, rushing forward across the intersection and into the bath of light, down on their hands and knees, clutching handfuls of money, swarming on the lawn, the sidewalk, the driveway.
“That’s our money,” Webb said. He glared through the windshield at the mass of people.
Devers pointed higher. “Look at him!”
He was a black comma, leaning out a second-storey window, and the vertical line was a rifle. He was firing into the crowd under him, plinking away, quickly but methodically.
There were screams from down below now, and some people ran back out of the light, but most of them stayed there, scrabbling for the bills, ignoring everything else.
Parker looked across the street, saw a uniformed cop there with a rifle to his shoulder. He was damn finicky, under the circumstances, taking his time, being extra sure of his aim. With all the noise, Parker couldn’t hear the
