lubricating the eyes, and opened them again before Ed looked back.
Ed was saying, “You think he’s all set to throw another knife? We turn our backs and pow! You think so, Tommy?” He was grinning, enjoying himself.
Tommy wasn’t enjoying any of it. “Will you quit being so goddam childish? I told you I don’t like this place, I wanna get out of here.”
Ed looked at him in amused surprise. “Does it really get to you?”
“Do you mind? I had a very superstitious upbringing, do you mind? I wanna get the hell out of here.”
“Sure, Tommy,” Ed said, with elaborate concern. “We’ll move right along. Those thirteen jurors there are all just a bunch of wax dummies anyway.” He walked back down and stepped over the rope again.
Tommy was about to move on, when he suddenly said, “Thirteen? Thirteen jurors?”
Wide-eyed and innocent, Ed said, “Sure. That’s what I counted, thirteen, Don’t all juries have thirteen?”
“He is there, Ed!” Tommy shouted, suddenly crouching and aiming his gun in Parker’s general direction. “Juries only have twelve! Shoot their heads off, Ed, he’s got to be one of them!”
Parker was about to make a dive over the back of the jury box, but Ed started to laugh. “Oh, you’re a beauty,” he cried, laughing and shaking his head. “Tommy, you’re a goddam wonder!”
Tommy glared at him in belated suspicion, then frowned angrily at the jurors. “Twelve,” he said. “There’s only twelve there.”
“Come on, buddy,” Ed said. “Let’s get out of here before the boogie man gets us.”
“You rotten bastard, I oughta shoot your head off!”
“Aw, can’t you take a joke? Come on, buddy, don’t lose your sense of humor.”
“You’re a goddam pain in the ass, Ed, you’ve always been a goddam pain in the ass and you always will be a goddam pain in the ass.”
Ed lost his own sense of humor. “Just watch it what you say there, pal,” he said. “Don’t lose your cool.”
“Then don’t play around any more.”
“That’s all right by me. I won’t play around, and you won’t shoot off at the mouth.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said, sullen but not wanting to push it. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
They moved on, finally getting out of sight, and after a little silence Ed started his chipper conversation going again. Tommy was sulking, and answered in monosyllables, but Ed carried the conversation for both of them.
Parker waited till the voices told him they were two or three turnings away, and then he climbed down out of the jury box and moved after them. The route was carpeted, he could move without sound.
Up ahead, Ed was still talking away, and Tommy was beginning to get over his mad. Parker hurried, and as he strode along he took his two knives from his hip pockets, holding them in his hands down by his sides.
When he saw them, Ed had stopped to investigate a medieval poisoning scene full of women with low-cut gowns. Tommy was standing on the carpet, looking nervously around, but no longer asking Ed to hurry.
Ed was the one to take care of first. Parker stood just around the bend, just out of sight, and listened till the conversation told him Ed was finished studying the female wax figures. He looked around the bend and saw Ed climbing over the velvet rope again, his back to Parker. Parker stepped out in view. They both had their backs turned. He set himself, his right hand holding one of the knives up behind his ear, and then threw.
This was a closer target than the other one, and more stationary. Parker finished the throwing movement and stepped quickly back out of sight again, switching the other knife to his right hand.
He heard it hit, and heard Ed grunt, and heard Ed fall. If he had Tommy figured right, he would just stand there now, unable to think for a few seconds, too paralyzed by fear to do anything sensible. A few seconds was all Parker would need.
He stepped out again, and Ed was facedown on the carpet, his left leg stuck up in the air behind him, left ankle hooked over the velvet rope he’d been stepping over when the knife hit him. And Tommy was staring down at him in disbelief, just the way Parker had thought.
But before he could get set again, Tommy moved. He didn’t look around, he didn’t fire any shots, he didn’t yell. All he did was run. He turned and ran like hell in the opposite direction.
Parker threw anyway, even though it was no good. The knife missed, and went on, and hit a masked executioner holding an ax, in the middle of his chest. He tottered, and fell over backward.
Then Tommy yelled. He veered away from the display where the executioner had fallen over, almost running into the rope on the other side, but veered again and rounded a turn and was out of sight.
Parker ran forward to Ed, and plucked from his hand a Colt Commander automatic in .38 caliber, a gun with a nine-cartridge clip., He ejected the clip from the handle and it was full. He shoved it back in, put the gun on the floor, and turned the body over. He searched it, but Ed had carried no extra clips on him. Going up against one man, he apparently hadn’t thought he’d need it.
Tommy was out of the building by now, and spreading the alarm. But that hardly mattered. It was a new ball game. Parker had a gun.
Five
THE TRICK now was to lead them one way and go another. Parker had an idea for a way to end it, to get himself out of this park and away from these people, and now that he had a gun it was possible, but before he could work it he’d have to hole up for half an hour or so. Something else that he was waiting for had to happen first, and then he could move.
He didn’t follow Tommy, but went back the other way. By climbing over the velvet rope and going through the displays, through the black curtain between displays, he could go directly to the front entrance, getting there just as
