A spastic nod.
“You’re holding a gun, Jock. Open your hand and let it drop.”
Jock abruptly looked twice as terrified as before. He opened his hand, making a little pushing movement, and the automatic fell in an arc. Parker caught it in his free hand and put it in his hip pocket.
These were the other two who’d been with Marten back at the beginning when they’d tried to muscle him out of working for Gonor. Jock here had been the phlegmatic one by the door. The other one, now lying on the floor, had been the one who had shown the hardware that first time.
Parker said, “Jock, I want some fast answers. Is she still alive?”
“Yes!” the word was shouted as much in surprise as anything else. Jock stared at Parker with astonishment now mixed with the fear. “What do you think we are?”
“Where is she?”
The one on the floor said, “Keep your trap shut, Jock. Don’t tell him a goddam thing.”
Jock looked from Parker to the one on the floor and back to Parker. His mouth was open but he wasn’t saying anything.
Parker said, “Formutesca, take that one to the cellar.”
Formutesca said, “Kill him?”
“Up to you. Jock, if you want to live through this you’ll tell me where she is.”
Formutesca was dragging the other one across the floor, neither of them making a sound. Jock, staring at them, said, “You can’t do that. You can’t just drag him away and murder him; you can’t do it.”
Parker said to Formutesca, “Hold it.” To Jock he said, “We’ll leave him there. You take me to where she’s being kept; then you can come back here and take care of him.”
The one on the floor cried, “Don’t tell him, Jock! Aaron can still make another try for the diamonds.”
Everybody looked at him. Jock, in bewilderment, said, “Why can’t he go for the diamonds anyway? What difference if we tell where the woman is?”
Parker said, “Is that where he’s going? Not the apartment on Riverside Drive?”
Jock blinked, staring now at Parker. “You know about the apartment?”
Parker put his hand on Jock’s shoulder. “Where is she, Jock?”
7
“You turn left,” Jock said. “You see where that big tree is up there? Just past it.”
They were in Connecticut. They’d crossed the state line from New York a little north of Brewster, and the last sign they’d seen had pointed toward East Lake off to the right. It was six thirty in the morning now, with vague daylight edging up over the mountains straight ahead.
Parker was at the wheel of Hoskins’ rented car with Jock beside him. Formutesca was in the back seat, a pistol at Jock’s head. Beside Formutesca were the machine guns and the shotgun. The closet where they’d been stored back at the museum now held Jock’s wounded friend.
The tree was an elm, old and thick-trunked and broad, its bare branches looking in the headlights as though they were knotted together. Parker slowed the car, saw the dirt road just past the tree, and made the turn. Accelerating again, the car jouncing on the packed earth, he said, “How much farther to the house?”
“About two miles,” Jock said. “We have to go up over a hill. There’s a woods.”
“In the daytime I wouldn’t be able to see the house from here?” What Parker meant was, Can Marten see my headlights if he’s here?
Jock said, “Oh, no. The hill’s in the way; it’s the other side of the hill. There’s a lake there, past the house. The road goes down to the house and then makes a left and follows the lake for a ways and then stops.”
There had been cleared land on both sides when they’d first entered this road, but now they were moving into woods. The road began to twist back and forth as though originally it had been made by somebody who hadn’t wanted to chop down many trees.
Parker hunched over the wheel, pushing the car as hard as he could, not knowing whether Marten was out in front of him or not. Jock seemed to think that Marten would lie low in the city, but the other one seemed to be sure that Marten would come up here. Why? To kill Claire, or ambush Parker, or both? The other one had refused to say any more, and there hadn’t been time to force answers out of him. Marten had started with about a ten-minute lead, and though Parker had pushed hard all the way up doing ninety and ninety-five on the Saw Mill River Parkway on the assumption that even state troopers don’t like to be out at five or six o’clock of a cold, damp March morning he had to take it for granted that Marten had done the same, if he was coming this way.
Jock had said Marten was driving a two-year-old Ford Mustang, and Hoskins had rented himself a current model Ford Falcon, so in simple terms of automobile Marten had himself a slight edge. It all depended on which was the better driver. Parker had overtaken no Mustangs along the way, so Marten was either back in the city or still out in front of him.
Parker wasn’t sure what Marten might do. He was an arrogant man who would be enraged at Parker having conned him, but he was also a cautious man. It was unlikely he’d come up all this way just to kill Claire, but he might think it worth the effort to rid himself of Parker.
The road was beginning to climb. This must be the hill Jock had mentioned. Parker’s foot jabbed back and forth at accelerator and brake as he slued around the curves, lunged up the brief straightaways, and skidded past the trees. Clenching the wheel, staring straight ahead through the windshield, he said, “Let me know when we’re almost to the top.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jock, and the windshield starred in the middle, just under the rearview mirror, and Jock said, “Oh!” He fell sideways, his head hitting Parker’s right arm and then landing in his lap.
