Webb rooted through the pile of money on the table found a single, crumpled it and threw it on the floor. “Now it’s even,” he said.
Devers began to laugh. When it seemed as though the laughter was getting hysterical Parker said, “Stop it.” Devers stopped, looked at Parker, and got up from the table and went into the living-room.
Webb said, “What about him?”
“We’ll wait and see.”
They kept the radio on. The one o’clock news led off with the discovery of the bodies at the lodge, though with no identification of any of them, and followed with an
Webb said, “They must of found the lodge this morning. They were keeping it quiet until they were sure Devers wasn’t coming home.”
After a while Devers came in from the living-room. He’d found Godden’s liquor cabinet, and had a glass of warm Scotch in his hand. “You ought to come in and watch television,” he said. “They got my picture on television.”
Webb looked up at him. “Is that right? You’re a celebrity.”
“I’m a celebrity.” Devers was a little drunk already, just enough to dull all his responses.
Webb said, “A celebrity oughta have ice. Lemme bring you in some ice.”
Devers stood in the middle of the kitchen floor while Webb found an ice bucket and emptied two trays of cubes into it. Devers had the frown of the morose drunk on his face, the look of a man who suspects someone is pulling a huge complicated unfathomable practical joke on him.
Webb grabbed up the ice bucket and said, “Come on, Stan, I’ll drink you under the table.” He led Devers back to the living-room.
Later on Parker let Ellen out to make dinner. She too was dulled in her reactions now, docile but sullen. Pam, her little girl, knowing something was wrong, stuck close to her mother’s knee all the time, looking round-eyed out at the world.
They all had dinner together, with the exception of Godden, who afterwards got a tray in his room. Parker felt there were too many people at the table who hated Godden, there was no point looking for trouble.
Devers wasn’t sobered much by dinner. Afterwards, while Ellen went back to her room and Parker went into the living-room to watch television, Devers and Webb took over the kitchen. Devers told sex stories, Webb told crime stories. They both laughed a lot. Parker stayed sober, watched television, watched on the eleven o’clock news films of the lodge and of the ambulance bringing the bodies down the dirt road. Ellen Fusco’s mother appeared on the screen, asking her daughter to come back, to at least let Pamela come to live with her grandma. There were photos of Devers and Ellen.
Devers passed out around two in the morning, and Webb went to Parker, weaving a little, and said, “He’ll be all right. He’ll be okay, Parker. He’s just got to get used to it.”
“I thought he’d work out,” Parker said.
Friday was slow and dull. People came to the door a few times, but always gave up after a while. Devers had a hangover and spent most of the day in the kitchen trying different cures. Webb found a deck of cards and played game after game of solitaire. Ellen was calmer now, and more sensible, and realized she had no place else to go, so she and her daughter had the run of the house. Godden was still being tied up and kept in his room. Parker prowled around watching and waiting.
Friday night, Devers and Webb got drunk again, played gin rummy, told the same stories they’d told the night before. Ellen put her daughter to bed and came to Parker and said, “Stan isn’t going to want me to go with him now. I don’t blame him. But I don’t have any money, any place to go.”
Parker looked at her. “What do you want?”
“A little money. Not a lot.”
“Maybe Devers will give you a piece of his cut. Ask him.”
“I don’t have any place to go,” she said, and panic began to play again behind her eyes.
Parker didn’t want her going back to being frantic and erratic. To keep her calm, he said, “I’ll talk it over with Webb. We’ll work something out for you by tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” she said tonelessly, and walked away.
Devers passed out about one o’clock that night, and Webb came into the living-room to finish his drinking with Parker. “Great kid,” he said. “He’ll stay in this line, won’t he?”
“Probably,” Parker said.
Webb finished his drink, put the glass on the floor beside his chair. “When do you figure we can get out of here?”
“Maybe tomorrow night. They’re not really looking around here any more.”
“They figure we’re in Alaska by now.”
Parker didn’t say anything, and when he looked over toward Webb a minute later he was asleep.
The only light in the house now came from the television set. Parker sat in front of it, looking at it, not really paying attention to it, and when the sermon ended and the national anthem ended and the screen went to snow he didn’t bother turning it off. A while later, still facing the empty screen he went to sleep.
8
