behind a velvet rope and all of them involving murderers of one kind or another. There were scenes of execution by electric chair, gas chamber, beheading with both ax and guillotine, hanging and firing squad. There were murders in the act of commission, murderers in the moment of being captured, and a couple of trial scenes. Everything was realistic except the glassy expression of all the eyes and the color of the blood, which was too shiny and red, looking more like fingernail polish than anything out of human veins.
Parker knew what he wanted. In order to have an even shot at getting out of this park, he had to have a gun. Otherwise, he’d just run around in here like a rat in a maze, and though he might win all the battles, sooner or later he’d lose the war. But with a gun, there was a chance.
And now he had a chance at a gun. Two men were coming in here, and they both would have guns. What he wanted was to get behind them, was to hide in such a way that they’d go on by him and expose their backs. And he thought he knew how to do it.
But first he had a weapon to pick up. He hurried by the place where he planned to wait for them, and went on to a display that showed three knife-wielding men cutting down a fourth man over a table on which a deck of cards and a lot of chips were scattered. Two of the knives were wax, but the third was one Parker had left here yesterday afternoon, one of the knives from the box he’d found in the gift shop. He took it out of the wax hand now and slipped it into his hip pocket, where the one he’d used had been, and as he was turning away from the display the lights came on.
He had to hurry. He switched off his flashlight and put it away in his jacket pocket as he trotted back along the winding route to a courtroom scene, one of the more elaborate displays, complete with jury. He picked up one of the jurors, the body surprisingly light, and carried it over to where the defendant and his attorneys were sitting at a table, staring with horror at a sheet-covered body a policeman had just wheeled out in front of the judge’s bench. There were a couple of extra chairs at the table, and he put the juror in one of them, adjusting one arm to rest the elbow and forearm on the table and keep him from falling over.
He could hear them coming, moving slowly through the building, checking out the possible hiding places. He went back to the jurors’ box, climbed over the side, took the missing juror’s place, third from the left in the back row. He folded his arms and made himself as comfortable as he could, because he wouldn’t be able to move while they were in sight.
He could hear them talking to one another as they came on. One of them was saying, “You see who that’s supposed to be? That don’t look like him at all. He didn’t have a skinny face like that.”
“How would you know? I tell you the truth, I don’t like this place.”
“My father knew him, they were buddies from the old days. They went to school together or something, I think my mother’s still got pictures of the two of them. I’ll show you sometime. He didn’t look like that at all.”
“Come on, Ed. For Christ’s sake, let’s get this over with. I told you, I don’t like it in here.”
“What’s to don’t like? They’re all just statues. Look.”
Something crashed.
“I don’t think you oughta start busting things up, Ed. I understand Mr. Lozini owns a piece of this place.”
“Yeah, and screw him, too. I thought that was maybe the guy we’re looking for, okay? He’s in here making believe he’s a statue, like in a Bob Hope movie.”
“I hope to Christ he isn’t. Will you come on?”
“Do you suppose they put tits on these dummies?”
“Ed, what if he is in here?”
“By now? There’s a back door, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“So if I was him, and I heard us come in the front way, I’d be long gone out the back way. Right?”
“I don’t know, Ed. There’s weird things about that guy. Like what he pulled at the theater.”
“He went down a rope from the roof.”
“How’d he get up there? Where was he when we looked for him?”
“How do I know? Hold it, let me see where this door leads.” A brief silence, and then,” Whadaya know, it’s a fake. Look, the handle was wax. The door’s wood, the handle’s wax.”
“You gonna tell Mr. Lozini you thought that handle was the guy, too?”
“Look, Tommy, never mind this Mr. Lozini crap. We’re in here bustin our nuts because this boy Caliato got bumped. And what’s in it for us?”
“A hundred each.”
“Big deal. You got a guy already killed four guys in here and sent two more to the hospital, and we’re goin up against him for a hundred bucks each. We got a lot of brains, buddy, that’s what we got.”
They came into sight, walking along very slowly, not looking at one another as they talked but looking around at the displays on both sides instead. Ed was tall, lanky, with a bony long-nosed face and bushy brown hair. Tommy was shorter, stockier, with a black mustache, wearing a cloth cap. Tommy was saying, “You want to tell Mr. Lozini no? You want to tell him thanks, you’d rather not come to work?”
“I’m not crazy that way, either. Hey, whadaya think they got under the sheet?”
“Just don’t bust anything, will ya?”
Ed stepped over the velvet rope, walked up onto the display. He glanced casually at the jury, then walked up and lifted the sheet covering the body in front of the bench. “It’s a fake,” he said. “Look, it’s just wires to make the shape.” He flung the sheet down again, and looked back at the jury. “Whadaya think, Tommy, is our guy one of them? Sittin right there, big as life?”
Parker didn’t move. Like the rest of the jury, he was looking at the sheet. He wanted to blink, but he didn’t dare. His eyes started to burn, and then Ed glanced at Tommy, and Parker squeezed his eyes shut for a second,
