“Don’t be afraid, kid,” Lozini said. “That was a very smart idea, very nice. It could of been right. You sure you don’t have any more?”
The cop shook his head.
“Too bad,” Lozini said. He looked at the other one. “What about you? Any ideas?”
“Just leave men on guard at all the doors here,” the older cop said, “and start looking around the rest of the park again. That way, if he’s still in he can’t get out, but if he’s out maybe you’ll find him again.”
“That kind of thing I can figure out for myself,” Lozini told him. “It’s this other stuff I wanted you guys for, like what your partner come up with.” He turned away from the cop, back to the front of the stage again. “All right,” he said. “We’ll go back to what we were doin before. We’re gonna turn on every light in the park, and then we’re gonna start at one end and sweep right down to the other end, and somewhere in this pile of shit we’re gonna find that son of a bitch, and before we put him out of his misery we’ll ask him how he worked this stunt, gettin out of here.” He turned back to the cops. “You two get back as soon as you can.”
The older cop said, “We will. Within the hour.”
Two
PARKER MOVED. The stiffness had set in again, his joints creaked at every motion of his arms or his legs.
The inside of the theater was empty now, had been empty for about five minutes. But it was still brightly lighted down there, and he knew the exits were all being watched from the outside.
He made himself move. The first thing to do was get himself down out of here, and in order to get anywhere at all he was going to have to crawl along the pipes on hands and knees, a little bit at a time, making the creaky muscles work, with the ceiling inches above his back.
He was heading for where he’d seen the sunlight angle through when the trap door had been opened, and after a little searching around he found it. He pushed up, and it wasn’t locked, and he lifted the trap door a little and raised his head until he could see out onto the roof, see the snow there, the new footprints in it, the blue sky beyond. The air smelled cold and clean.
At first everything looked safe, but then Parker looked to the left, and hanging in the air was the lookout in the Island in the Sky pot, the one who’d first hollered to everybody that Parker was going into the theater. He was maybe five feet higher than the theater roof and about ten feet away from the edge. He could look right over here and see everything, it would be as easy as looking into a living room from a dining room.
He was being conscientious about his job, too, moving around in an endless circle inside the waist-high pot, a metal basket-like thing similar to the baskets people ride in when they travel by balloon. His concentration was on the ground, looking all around at the paths and building entrances down there, but he’d be able to see somebody walking around on the theater roof. He’d hardly be able to miss it.
Parker kept the trap door just barely open, just enough to be able to watch the lookout. There was a knee-high wall around the edge of the roof, and it was maybe seven or eight feet from the trap door. Parker waited, moving his shoulders and his legs, trying to get more limber while he watched the lookout’s movements, and when he felt he was ready, and the lookout was facing the other way on his circuit, Parker came quickly up out of the opening and ran awkwardly the three steps to the edge of the roof and dropped flat again behind the wall. Now he was out of the lookout’s sight, and he could study the roof and find the other entrance to it that the first guy had used.
It was easy enough to see. It was a small construction on the roof, about the size of two phone booths back to back, with a black metal door on this side. It was near the front of the building, but well out in the visible middle area. The lookout moved around in his circuit too fast for Parker to be able to get to that door, open it, and get down out of sight before the guy had come around and seen him.
Parker looked up over the top of the low wall, and the guy was just going around and around on his circuit. He’d seen Parker once, and now, like a tourist hitting a jackpot on the Las Vegas nickel slots, he was going to stay there until he either found Parker again or ran out of nickels.
What an easy shot he’d be. If Parker were to move about halfway along this wall, to the closest point to the lookout, they’d be maybe twelve feet apart. Four yards. The simplest easiest shot in the world, for a man with a gun.
Except that a gunshot now would make this rooftop damn crowded. But what the hell, if he was going to wish for a gun he might as well wish for a silencer, too. Even a potato, that makes a good silencer.
There was maybe a way. It was chancy, but everything was going to be chancy until he got himself out of here. And if it didn’t work he’d just have to move very fast and hope for the best. Because one way or another he had to get down, and that staircase over there was his only way. He’d flown up to the grid, but he wasn’t likely to fly back down again. The rear wall of the theater was brick, and if he was in better physical shape he could probably climb down it, but right now he wouldn’t trust his fingers and toes.
But he was going to have to trust his arm. His arm and his eye. Not for strength, though, for accuracy.
It was the only possibility, so it had to be tried, and that was the end of it. Parker began to move, crawling along next to the wall, getting to the point where he’d be closest to that guy in midair over there. Snow was melting beneath him, the wetness seeping through the two pairs of summer pants he was wearing, seeping through his gloves. He moved faster, wanting to get this part done and over with before the cold and the wet made him even less reliable to himself than he already was.
He got to the right point, and looked over the top of the wall to be sure, and there he was, right over there, out and up from here. It was like lying on the floor in a fairly small room and looking at somebody on a upper bunk on the opposite wall. He seemed almost close enough to touch. Just about twelve feet.
Parker took off his right glove. He flexed his arm, but the movement he’d done since first starting into motion again had worked most of the new stiffness out of his shoulders and the arm now felt pretty good. His fingertips were cold, and he breathed on them, flexed his fingers, breathed on them some more. Finally he reached down and behind him and took out one of his two knives from his hip pocket. He held the point between thumb and forefinger, and looked over the wall again.
This time he was counting, doing a slow count, and from the time the guy over there had reached the point on the circuit where he was angled too much away to readily notice anything over here till he’d had his back turned completely and was back around again to where this spot was once more within his range of vision was about a count often. Maybe ten seconds, probably a little longer because his count had been very slow. So he had ten seconds to stand up, set himself, aim, and let fly.
