He leaned against the wall beside the window and watched the gates. Very soon now, the hunted was going to become the hunter.
Six
THE COPS walked in, and Parker moved.
They didn’t drive in, they left their car outside. He would have preferred it the other way, but it didn’t matter, things could still work out.
He hurried, out of the office and across the theater and down the long ramp to the outside. The cops had still been waiting at the gates for somebody to come unlock and let them in, so Parker had time, but he wanted to be sure. He left the Trip to the Moon building, went across the little bridge, went around to the rear of the Voyage Through the Galaxy black-light-ride building, and went inside.
This was where he’d strung the wires and he moved now with caution across the brightly lighted floor, the rails of the ride curving and winding above him like a mammoth modern sculpture, the suns and moons hanging from the ceiling and looking shabby and dirty and old in the bright light. Parker made his way to the front entrance, and looked out, and the cops were coming this way, walking up the main path from the gates toward the fountain.
He was counting on the cops not knowing all of Lozini’s men, and he was counting on their not ever having had a close look at him. He waited till they were almost opposite him now, and then he stepped outside, being careful to stay close to the front of the building, out of sight of the watcher up by the fountain. “Hey,” he called.
The cops glanced over at him.
Parker said, “Mr. Lozini wants to see you. In here.” And he stepped back again, pushing the door open and standing to one side of it for the cops to go in first.
They didn’t hesitate. There was no reason for them to be suspicious, Lozini had to be somewhere, probably inside a building, and why not this one. They came across, the heavier cop first, saying, “He’s still loose, huh? I hoped you’d have him by now.”
“They’ve got him trapped up in Alcatraz,” Parker said.
The other cop, Dunstan, said, “That’s what they told us at the gate.”
The two cops went on into the building and Parker went in after them, shutting the door and taking out the automatic. “I’m him,” he said.
They didn’t get it at first, they were looking around the room — the galaxy inside a barn — and the older cop said, “Where’s Lozini?” He turned to look at Parker, and then he saw the gun.
Parker saw his face change. “Don’t reach for anything,” he said.
The younger cop now saw what was happening, and his face went white. He froze, staring at the gun in Parker’s hand.
The other cop wasn’t going to be that easy. His hand was poised near the gun on his right hip, and he said, “You can’t shoot. You’d bring them all down here on your neck.”
“You reach,” Parker told him, “and I don’t have anything to lose.”
Nothing is more effective than the truth. The cop’s arm gradually lost its tension, the bunched muscles around his mouth began to ease, and his eyes shifted around as his mind went from attack to figuring. He said, “What does this gain you? You’re going to take everybody prisoner?”
“Just you two,” Parker told him. “Get out of your uniform.”
The cop frowned. “What?”
“I don’t want to have to get blood on it,” Parker told him. “Just get out of the uniform, don’t delay things, don’t argue with me, and you’ll be all right.”
“You son of a bitch, I’m not taking anything off, What the hell do you think this is?”
“Take off the hat,” Parker said, and to the other one he said “When he falls, turn him over quick on his back. Remember, I don’t want any blood on the uniform.” He held the automatic up at arm’s length, aimed at the older cop’s forehead.
The cop blinked. He said, “What are you doing?” and he sounded less sure of himself all of a sudden.
“If I shoot you in the head,” Parker told him, “there probably won’t be that much blood. You,” he said to the other one, “after you get him on his back, go over to the doorway. Anybody that comes, tell him your partner was shooting at a rat, it didn’t mean anything.”
The young cop said, “Joe, he means it, he really means it.”
The other one said, “What the hell good does it do you? What are you trying for?”
“I’m getting out of here,” Parker told him. “Start undressing now, or I do it for you when you’re down.”
The cop licked his lips, and threw a glance at his partner. That was where the problem was, he didn’t want to be humiliated in front of the younger man. But there was no soft quick way to handle it, and to run things with the cops’ roles reversed wouldn’t be any good.
The cop was going to do it, he wouldn’t get himself shot, so Parker didn’t do any more talking. He just stood there with the gun aimed, and after a few more seconds of looking around and trying to think of something to say, the cop finally gave an angry shrug and said, “All right. For right now, you’re running the show.” He unzipped his jacket. “I’ll see you again,” he said. “And then I’ll be running the show.”
Parker knew it was easier for the cop to strip in front of his partner if he could talk tough at the same time, so he didn’t answer him, he just stood there and waited. The cop kept making tough promises all the time, but he got the uniform off and draped over a wooden railing to the left, and when he was down to underwear and socks and shoes, Parker said, “Down on the floor. Facedown.”
The cop did it, grunting, and looked like somebody about to do his morning calisthenics.
Parker said to the other one, Dunstan, “There’s some wires tied across over there. Go get one and untie it and
