And was thirty-three thousand better than eight thousand? Was the extra twenty-five grand worth the risk? Uhl grinned to himself as he drove east.
But as he thought it over, he began to realize that the loose end of Parker could make a lot of trouble. If Parker wasn’t picked up by the law, if he managed to get out from under, he would come looking for Uhl, and that was sure. Could he find him? Uhl didn’t know. He wanted to think it couldn’t be done, but he just wasn’t sure.
All right. So the thing to do was lay low for a while. Wait and see if Parker popped up anywhere; wait and see if there were any other repercussions. If everything was quiet, in a week or two he could come out of hiding and everything would be the same. If there was trouble, he could stay hidden out and decide what to do about it.
The question was, Where to hide? He thought of Howie Progressi first because he knew Howie would get a kick out of the story of his taking the thirty-three grand from three sure old professionals, but almost as soon as he thought of Howie he rejected him again. For two reasons. First, everybody knew he and Howie were tight. If Parker came looking, one of the early people he’d see would be Howie. And second, if Howie learned about the thirty-three thousand, the bastard might try to take it away from him himself.
The next one he thought of was Joyce Langer. There was the advantage there that they’d split up over a year ago, so nobody was likely to look for him around her now. Also, he could pretty well control her, keep her under his thumb. But on the other hand she was such a goddam kvetch, and if somebody came around to make him trouble she might just blow the whistle on him to get back at him if she was feeling put-upon. And she was always feeling put-upon.
Barri? No, too many people knew he was shacked up with Barri Dane these days. If he tried staying at her place, and if Parker did come prowling around, Barri was one of the people he’d get to first.
He was into Pennsylvania when he remembered Ed Saugherty. He hadn’t seen Ed since that time four or five years ago when the shmuck had called him: “Hi, George, it’s Ed Saugherty. Remember me? I’m just in New York for a couple of days with a convention. I thought I’d look up my old high-school buddy.”
Old high-school buddy. In those days George Uhl had been a big shot, a big wheel. High school had been great, the greatest part of his life so far, and in those days he’d had a half dozen little punks that hung around him, tagged after him, bought him beers, laughed at his jokes, listened to his stories about making out. And Ed Saugherty had been one of them, around-faced stocky kid with red cheeks and thick glasses, an eager kid who liked to laugh and who loved to hear George’s tough-sounding stories.
They’d met twice after that phone call, before Ed went back home to Philadelphia. He was working for a computer company now. He wore a white shirt and a tie even when he didn’t have to, and the company had transferred him a few years before to Philadelphia. He’d made George very uncomfortable during both those meetings, and in fact after the first one — a couple hours’ drinking together in a bar, with Ed picking up the tab, paying for it with a credit card — George had been sure Ed felt contempt for him now, thought of him as a loser. Ed had done a lot of talking about the company, his job, his future, his wife and children, his home in Philadelphia, his whole happy, successful life, and when he’d asked what George was doing now the only answer had been, “This and that. I get along.”
But then Ed called him again the next day, and it turned out the old hero-worship was still very much alive. When George realized that Ed saw himself as a dull wage-slave and George as a guy with an exciting life, there was nothing for it but to agree with Ed completely and start playing the role to the hilt. That second meeting had been full of wild stories, a few of them true, a few of them invented, a lot of them adapted from paperback novels, and there was no question but that Ed would pick up the tab again. And though George had really been in tough money shape just then, the main reason he tapped Ed for a loan was because he understood that Ed’s myth- comprehension of him demanded it. Ed pressed the forty bucks on him with a smile of absolute joy, saying, “No hurry about paying this back, George, no hurry about paying this back.”
Was Ed Saugherty the man to go to now? Somebody he’d had no contact with at all in four or five years, and no real extended contact with for closer to twelve years. But somebody who’d do whatever George asked. Like giving him a perfect place to hide out.
So Philadelphia was where he went, and he found Ed living in a brick ranch-style house on a winding blacktop street in a well to do green suburb west of the city. It looked like a standard family in a standard setting, and George had no inclination to scratch the surface and see what was underneath. From the time he walked up the back to the driveway past the overturned tricycle to the open garage door where Ed was pouring gasoline into a power mower, George had no more interest in the people and the place than if they were the background for a television commercial.
“Ed, I’m in trouble. I need some help. I can’t talk about it, but I need someplace to hide out for a few days.”
Ed had fallen into his role in the melodrama as though he’d been rehearsing for it all his life. And why not? Didn’t he see it two or three times a week on television? Didn’t the situation keep cropping up, and wasn’t his role always the same? The true friend, the ally, the last desperate hope of the hero. If he couldn’t be the hero himself — and in going with the computer company, the wife, the brick house on the winding street, Ed had consciously turned his back on ever being the hero — this was the best possible supporting role.
Ed had a wife named Pam, a good-looking, slender woman in stretch pants, and she knew her role, too. She was against him, opposed to his staying there, opposed to Ed “getting involved,” insistent on Ed finding out what George’s true situation really was. George kept out of her way and left it up to Ed to handle her, never doubting for a minute that Ed would.
They had a guest room, and George kept to it most of the time. He made a halfhearted attempt to become pals with Ed’s oldest son, a ten-year-old named Bob, but Bob wasn’t interested, and George had been strictly making the gesture because he felt the situation expected it of him. After that he stayed close to the guest room except for the strained, silent mealtimes with Ed giving him sheepish smiles and Pam pointedly ignoring him and the two younger kids staring at him with their faces smeared with mashed potato.
The important thing was to find out if there was going to be any trouble from Parker or from anybody else, so what he needed was a link to his normal life, somebody he could trust, and that was Barri. He called her Tuesday afternoon, gave her an abridged version of the situation, told her the phone number here but nothing else about the place, and she agreed to relay any messages that might come in but not to give anybody any information about him. Then he sat back to wait.
He didn’t hear from Barri till Thursday, and then it was to say Matt Rosenstein wanted to get in touch with him and had left a D.C. number. George had worked with Rosenstein on two jobs, and they’d both been involved in the abort where he’d met Benny Weiss. Would his calling now be a coincidence? It had to be, but George was wary. Rosenstein was based in New York, so why a number in Washington? Why was he so close to George’s stamping grounds and to Barri?
He called Rosenstein, and Rosenstein gave him a long story about a caper he was organizing, something absolutely safe and with a fat return. Rosenstein wanted to meet with him and talk it over.
