He opened the bottle and turned off the flashlight. He sat in the dark like an Indian brave, wrapped in bright print draperies, and drank the whiskey, and that helped too. When the bottle was empty he put it down and lay back on the floor and closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Four
“ARE YOU LISTENING?”
It was one of those dreams where he knew he was dreaming.
In the dream he stood at the foot of a sheer rock cliff, and up at the top somebody was standing and bellowing. He was too far away to make out what he looked like, but his words were loud and clear.
“I HOPE YOU’RE LISTENING. I HOPE YOU CAN HEAR WHAT I’M SAYING, BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU AND WHY IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN AND WHO’S GOING TO DO IT TO YOU.”
His back hurt, in the dream, and in the dream he wasn’t exactly standing, he was lying down, lying on his back on something hard. An uncomfortable dream, full of aching backs and loud noises, and he thought, I’m having this kind of dream because I’m in a bad situation.
“MY NAME IS LOZINI. DOES THAT NAME MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU?”
He opened his eyes, and in vague diffuse light he looked at the ceiling. The light was very dim, like being at the bottom of a tank of water in an aquarium, and when he turned his head he saw the draperies covering the windows, saw the light filtering through the different colors, very little getting through into the room. But outside it would be full daylight.
“LOZINI. THE NAME SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING, BECAUSE I OWN THIS TOWN. THIS IS MY TOWN AND YOU PULLED A JOB HERE IN MY TOWN WITHOUT CLEARING IT WITH ME.”
Parker sat up. He was wrapped in draperies, his clothing was hanging around on chairs and doorknobs. He pushed the draperies to one side and got to his feet. His back and neck were stiff, his bones ached, his muscles didn’t want to work.
“BUT THAT’S NOT WHY I’M HERE. THAT’S NOT WHY I’M GOING TO GET YOU. THAT’S NOT WHY MY MEN HAVE ORDERS NOT TO KILL YOU BEFORE I CAN GET MY HANDS ON YOU.”
He limped over to the window facing the center of the park, knelt down there painfully, and pushed the draperies out of the way. He lifted a corner of the shade and looked out.
The fountain area was full of men, fifteen or twenty of them. The sun was shining today, a bright cold morning sun casting long shadows on the snowy ground. The men looked like a shape-up waiting for work, standing around in leather or cloth jackets, some of them wearing hunting caps, a few with sunglasses on against the brightness of the sun on the snow. They had their hands in their jacket pockets, or their arms were folded, and they were just standing around waiting, impassive, neither in a hurry to get on with it nor wishing themselves somewhere else. Just a bunch of guys waiting to go to work.
They were all watching their leader, a stocky white-haired man in a black overcoat, standing out in front of them, his back to them, the loud-hailer to his mouth. The two cops were with him, all suited up in their tight uniforms and knee-high boots and snappy hats and opaque sunglasses, like the military guard for a pocket Mussolini. They were watching the old man, too, but they were less impassive, they were both moving around, shuffling their feet, looking this way and that, moving their hands and heads into different positions. One of them seemed impatient, in a hurry to get to the manhunt. Would that be the one Parker had wrestled with last night? The other one, younger-looking and thinner, gave off an aura of apprehension, as though he didn’t like being out there in all that sunlight, maybe didn’t like being involved in this setup at all. Parker looked at that one, and he was interested. That cop might come in handy later on.
The old man with the loud-hailer was still bellowing. “I’LL TELL YOU WHY I’M GOING TO GET YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH, AND WHY YOU’RE GOING TO BE SORRY YOU EVER SET FOOT IN THIS TOWN. BECAUSE LAST NIGHT YOU GUNNED DOWN A MAN I LOVED LIKE MY OWN SON. LAST NIGHT YOU GUNNED DOWN A MAN A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN YOU’LL EVER BE. AND I’M GOING TO AVENGE THAT MAN, I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU PAY. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY BULLETS LEFT IN THAT GUN OF YOURS, THE SMART THING FOR YOU TO DO IS PUT A BULLET IN YOUR HEAD, BECAUSE IT’LL BE A HELL OF A FASTER DEATH THAN I’LL GIVE YOU, AND THAT’S A PROMISE.”
The preamble was done. The old man lowered the loud-hailer from his mouth, then tossed it to one of the cops, the thin nervous one. The cop stood there holding it in both hands, like an inexperienced father with a new baby. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he just stood there looking at it in his hands while the old man got into the middle of his fifteen helpers, like a football coach in the middle of his team just before the start of a game, and began to give them orders. Parker could see him gesturing down there, looking up and pointing one way or another, then bending back down into the group again. His men stood impassively, listening to him, nodding from time to time.
Parker let go the window shade and draperies and pushed himself to his feet again. So today it was worse. Last night he’d had seven to contend with, today he had fifteen or twenty. There was no point taking an exact count, it was obvious he’d set the old man off on a vendetta, and that meant that even if he had an incredible streak of luck and put this whole bunch out of action, the old man would just get to a telephone and call up another army. Last night it had seemed as though the thing to do was out-survive them, maneuver them until he could finish off all seven, but today that strategy was no longer any good. The name of the game now was Get Out. There was no other way to live through this.
And he was in rotten shape to survive, stiff and creaking like an old man from the combination of being soaked in icy water and then sleeping on the floor in an unheated room. His joints cracked when he moved, every part of him ached, he moved like a cripple.
He checked out his clothes, and they were still damp, it hadn’t been warm enough in here last night to really dry them. The shoes were still wet, the jacket was still wet, its pockets were even soggy.
But he couldn’t stay here much longer. They were obviously going to start working their way through the park, checking out every building, and it wouldn’t do to be caught on the second floor of a building, with only one staircase. And he couldn’t travel outside without shoes or a winter jacket.
All right. He still had a few minutes. He left shoes and jacket where they were and went into the bathroom. The hot water wouldn’t run hot, but at least there was water. He was surprised they hadn’t shut it off for the winter, but maybe the pipes were insulated enough to keep them from freezing and this office might occasionally be used in the winter. He washed up, and felt a little better. He drank some water and felt it hit his empty stomach. It wasn’t a good feeling.
