meant he’d expended all this effort, first on the armored-car job and then in here, for no profit. In the second place, they would have to know, Lozini and his people, that although their quarry had gotten away he hadn’t managed to take the cash with him, and they would now take this park apart looking for the seventy-three thousand. It didn’t seem to him the money was hidden very well for that kind of search.
But there wasn’t any choice. This whole operation was iffy enough as it was, trying to pass himself off as somebody else in front of people who knew the guy he was supposed to be. To try carrying a satchel out as well, when one of the things everybody in here was looking for was a satchel full of money, just wasn’t going to be possible.
Some other time. A few months from now, maybe, or maybe next summer, he could come back and see if his money was still there. And if it wasn’t, he knew who to collect from.
Lozini.
“Hey!”
It was a voice behind them, and it had to be for them. Parker felt Dunstan hesitate, but he said under his breath, “Keep moving,” and Dunstan moved forward again.
“O’Hara! Hey, O’Hara, where the hell are you going?”
Parker could hear the putt-putt now, the sound of the little cart Lozini had been riding around in all morning. The gates were maybe a dozen paces away, too far to walk before Lozini could catch up.
Parker said to Dunstan, “Remember the story.”
“I remember.” Dunstan’s whisper was shaky and scared.
“Make it work,” Parker told him.
Then Lozini’s cart came wheeling around from behind them, the tires squeaking on the snow as the driver brought it to a stop, and Lozini was leaning out of the cart and saying, “What the hell happened? O’Hara?”
Dunstan said, quickly and nervously and way too loud, “He fell down. Joe fell down, back in that building back there. He tripped over a wire.”
“That son of a bitch has this whole place booby-trapped. We found two more rides he set up to electrocute people, would you believe that? O’Hara, how’s your head?”
Dunstan seemed to be waiting for Parker to answer, but Parker was keeping his head down. He pressed Dunstan’s shoulder and Dunstan suddenly blurted, “Joe feels awful, Mr. Lozini. I wanna get him out of here, I wanna get him home and look at the wound and clean it up and all, and then we’ll come back.”
“That’s a goddam shame,” Lozini said. “Put him on the back here, I’ll take you over to the car.”
“No. thanks, Mr. Lozini,” Dunstan said, but Parker pulled him toward the cart, and he said, “Uh, maybe it’d be good for Joe.”
“You don’t want him to walk.”
There was a padded seat on the back of the car, facing rearward. Parker and Dunstan sat on it, Parker slumping heavily, and the driver started the cart up again.
Lozini said, “What were you two doing in there anyway?”
“We thought we saw somebody in there. But I guess we didn’t.”
“We’re supposed to have him bottled up back in Alcatraz,; but I don’t know. We’ve gone through that part pretty good and we haven’t turned him up yet.”
“He’s pretty shifty, I guess,” Dunstan said, laughing nervously.
“He’s a rotten bastard,” Lozini said, “and when I get my hands on him I’ll kill him myself.”
They stopped at the gates, and Lozini yelled for his people to hurry up and open them. Parker stayed slumped, listening, his hand near the gun on his hip, and after a minute the cart moved forward again and they drove out of the park.
Lozini was half-turned in the front seat, facing backward, and now he said, “How bad a cut you got, O’Hara?” and reached out to touch Parker’s head. His hand brushed the hat, it slipped backward, and Lozini shouted, “Hey!”
Parker came up with the revolver, pointed at Lozini’s throat. Low and quick he said, “Holler, and it’s your last noise.”
But Lozini wouldn’t sit still. He shouted, and jumped backward off the cart, landing rolling on the street. A second later the driver jumped off the other way, and the cart veered to the right, slowing to a stop.
Dunstan was yelling, “I didn’t do it!” but Parker paid him no attention. Dunstan wasn’t going to be a problem.
Parker jumped off the still-moving cart and fired at Lozini, but the old man was still rolling away across the snowy blacktop, his overcoat streaked now with white. The bullet missed, and there wasn’t time to try again.
Parker turned in a fast half-circle, and the cart driver was running like hell in the opposite direction. But a couple of guys, still puzzled, not sure yet what was happening, had started hesitantly out from the main gates of Fun Island.
Parker turned again and raced across the street toward the police car, reaching into his pocket for O’Hara’s keys. Behind him Lozini was shouting.
There were three other cars parked beside the toll building. Parker fired three times, and they all had flat tires.
Someone fired from across the street, and a windshield to Parker’s right developed a starred hole. He turned and emptied O’Hara’s gun, hitting no one but making them all take cover. Lozini had wound up behind the stalled cart, still shouting for Parker’s blood.
