“The only thing I can figure, Marty, he came down the ladder real quick and went right through us in the confusion.”
“Nobody went through us!”
“He had to, Marty, there’s no other way. Between the time he dropped all that crap on our heads and when we got the lights turned on, he came down the ladder and got through us. It wouldn’t have been that tough, we were running around like a bunch of jerks for a minute there.”
“All right,” Marty called, grudging and reluctant but giving in. “Come on down, then. He’s still got to be in the theater someplace.”
Parker began to move. He had very little space between the grid and the ceiling, so he moved sitting down, sliding slowly along the bars, heading for the rear wall of the theater. He moved slowly, not wanting to make any noise, not wanting to call attention to himself, and also because of his tiredness. His arms and legs didn’t want to work, they didn’t want to do anything but hang there.
The last crossbar was close enough to the rear wall so he could sit on it and rest his back against the wall and relax at last. His feet were propped against the next bar, his forearms were resting against his knees, and he lowered his head until it leaned against his arms. Sitting like that, cramped up but at least not having to hold himself in place, he rested and looked down between his legs at the stage below.
The old man was there now, he was marching back and forth on the stage like a ham actor, his white hair gleaming in all the light. He kept his hands in his overcoat pockets most of the time, every once in a while pulling one hand out in an impatient gesture and holding it up against his forehead like an Indian to shield his eyes as he glared out toward the body of the theater.
Parker sat up there for twenty minutes, slowly getting some strength back, while down below they searched the same corners of the theater over and over again. They kept shouting to each other that he had to still be inside the building, he couldn’t have gotten out, every door was being watched. But as time went on, the shouts got more defensive, louder and harsher, as though they were trying to convince themselves of something they no longer believed.
Only once did anyone come even near Parker, and that was when yellow-white sunlight suddenly sliced down from a hole in the roof about fifteen feet away from where he was sitting. It was a trap door being opened over there by somebody standing on the roof.
The sunlight was lost by the time it reached the garishly lit stage, and almost none of it extended over to where Parker was sitting. He didn’t react, he just stayed there and watched the opening. If legs started to come down, he would then have to move, he’d have to rouse himself and do something about the guy coming in. Otherwise, the only thing to do was sit without moving, and wait, and watch.
Nobody came through. Nothing at all happened for half a minute, and then a voice called from up there, “Mr. Lozini!”
The old man looked up, squinting, shielding his eyes with both hands. “Hah?”
“I’m up on the roof!”
“I see ya!”
“There’s nobody up here! No tracks in the snow or nothin.”
“Then whadaya stickin around up there for? Get the hell down here!”
There was a very short pause, but a pause, before the guy on the roof answered flatly, “Yes, sir, Mr. Lozini.”
So tempers were getting short, impatience and frustration were building. That had to be good, it had to make them sloppier. If they were mad at each other, they couldn’t be at their most attentive.
The trap door closed again after that, and Lozini went back to shouting at people closer to hand.
A couple of times, while moving around down there on the stage, Lozini came directly under Parker, and he considered the possibility of finding something to drop on the old man. Something metal, something fairly heavy, it would be as good as a bullet dropped from this height, and sometimes when you got rid of a group’s leader the group lost heart and went away.
But not this time, this time it would be a bad idea. He could kill Lozini, but in doing so he’d let the others know where he was. They’d look up and see him, and they’d see he had no way out, he was trapped there, and they’d have no desire at all to go away. Not until they’d finished the job.
So he did nothing. He watched Lozini moving around beneath him, he felt the aches in his shoulders and hands and back and legs gradually fading, and he did nothing.
Lozini finally began to yell that somebody must have let him out, that somebody must have been careless at one of the exits and let the bastard get away. People were sent to take other people’s places on guard duty, the first guards were called in, Lozini screamed at them, they defended themselves, they insisted nobody had left the theater, the guy they were looking for had not slipped through their door.
Lozini began to yell for the cops, and somebody shouted that they were down by the gates getting into their patrol car. Lozini screamed to send the bastards up here, where the hell did they think they were going? Then everybody stood around and waited, Lozini marched back and forth on the stage, his people stood in the aisles watching him, his other people stood guard at all the exits. Nobody did any looking any more. Without anybody saying it out loud, they’d all accepted the fact that they weren’t going to find their man in this building, whether he was here or not.
The cops came in at last. Parker heard them before he saw them. The heavier one came shouting and complaining down the aisle. Didn’t Lozini know he and his partner were on duty? Didn’t he know they had to get out on the streets and move around every once in a while?
“You two belong here!” Lozini yelled at them, pointing at them from the stage. “You screwed up and that’s why Cal’s dead and that means you two stay here until we find that guy!”
The heavier cop came stomping up onto the stage, followed a few paces back by the younger cop, the diffident hesitant one. The first one yelled, “What do you mean we screwed up! We didn’t do a goddam — “
“You gave the son of a bitch seven hours to set up in here, that’s what you did. Seven hours! If you’d gone in right away, you would of got him, none of this would of happened. You gave the son of a bitch seven hours!”
