room, where he could be physically restrained. Out here in the hall, it meant giving him his respect back, easing his sense of humiliation. By letting him wise off, and by acknowledging that it really had been other people’s lives he’d been thinking of when he’d moved his hand back from that doorknob. Parker was treating his foolhardiness as though it were worthy of respect; if he had judged his man right, Dockery would respond by being good and doing what he was told.
As he did. He led them now to the right room, and all four trooped inside, around the green metal wall divider just inside the door and into the main open green-tiled square of the room itself, where Parker said, “Take off the uniform.”
There was no way around this. The humiliation was harsh and blatant, but it was necessary.
Dockery turned around, and there were pale circles of strain around his eyes. “You go to hell,” he said.
“You aren’t going to stop us,” Parker told him. “Don’t make things tougher for yourself.”
Dockery glared a second longer, and then suddenly ran backward away from them, his head back and mouth open, shoving the first two fingers of his right hand down his throat.
“Damn it!” Briley jumped forward like a steeplechaser, swinging hard and fast with the automatic, the way he’d swung the ax earlier up on the roof. The barrel clipped Dockery on the forearm, near the wrist, and Dockery instinctively moved the arm, his hand no longer near his mouth. His hat had fallen off, and Briley kicked it to the side, then lunged forward, punching his shoulder into Dockery’s chest and running him backward the rest of the way into the wall, where he hit the side edge of a urinal, half-turned, and hit his left shoulder and the side of his head against the tile wall. Briley held him pinned there at arm’s length, his hand flat with splayed fingers on Dockery’s chest, as with the toe of his right shoe he started angrily kicking Dockery’s shins. “Son of a bitch,” he said, kicking at Dockery’s legs. “Stupid-ass son of a bitch.”
Parker came up beside them and said, “Stop that.” The music was down to a usable level again in here; he could talk in a normal tone of voice.
Briley stopped the kicking, but kept holding Dockery jammed against the wall. Turning his head, he complained, “He was gonna throw up on his uniform! I got to wear that uniform!”
“That was his idea,” Parker said.
“He thinks he’s smart.” Briley was panting and enraged. Glaring at Dockery through the eyeholes of his mask, he said, “Gonna screw up our plan, not let me wear the uniform. You know what kind of smart that is? That’s stupid smart!”
Parker leaned close to look at Dockery, who seemed dazed and winded and in pain. Parker said, “If you cause us any more trouble, I don’t answer for what he’ll do to you.”
Dockery blinked at him, still mutinous. “I’ll remember you people.”
“That you will,” Briley said. He abruptly pulled his hand away from Dockery’s chest and stepped back a pace, and Dockery almost fell, but grabbed the urinal and held himself up till he got his balance back.
“Take off your tie,” Parker said, and when Dockery didn’t move at once, Briley yelled, “Damn it, I’ll kick you into hamburger, I swear to God I will!”
Parker, still looking at Dockery, said to Briley, “That’s enough. He’ll do it. He wants to be in shape to identify us at the line-up.”
It was the right approach, at last. Dockery almost smiled, and there was less mutiny and more strength in his voice when he said, “And you’ll be there, don’t you worry. And I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” With a sudden angry gesture, as though it were an act of defiance, he reached up and yanked down on the knot of his tie, pulling the tie loose and flinging it with a contemptuous underhand flip toward Briley, who caught it in midair and said, “Do me a favor. Hang by your thumbs till we show up.”
Keegan, who had stayed over by the door in case anyone else should come in, the toolkit at the floor by his feet, now called, “What’s taking so long? We don’t have all night.”
“We’re ahead of schedule,” Parker called to him. They didn’t have that specific a schedule, but he didn’t want Dockery to get the idea he could fight them some more by moving very slowly.
As it was, Dockery was slow enough. Briley took each piece of clothing as it was tossed at him, and stood there with the parts of uniform over one arm. He wasn’t naturally a cruel man, and by the time Dockery got to his trousers Briley had cooled off and was no longer angry. Dockery had fresh jagged cuts on both shins, the skin around the cuts ragged like wrinkled onion-skin paper, droplets of blood oozing to the surface of the cuts. The trousers were the last, and when Briley had them he stood there a couple of seconds looking at Dockery’s legs, and then said, in a muted voice, “I’m sorry I did that.”
“You will be,” Dockery said. His face was tight and unforgiving.
“I got mad, is all,” Briley explained, apologizing again.
Dockery didn’t bother to answer that. He turned his head to look at Parker, accepting him as the leader and waiting to be told what to do next.
Parker said, “Go over to the first stall.”
Dockery was in his underwear, socks, and shoes. Somehow he had more dignity now, not less. Out of the uniform, more of his own individuality was apparent; he looked less potbellied, and less ineffective. He seemed to sense the change in his appearance himself, and to behave accordingly; he strode over to the stall without fuss, without either defiance or defeat.
Briley had gone into another stall to change. Keegan came over to watch Dockery while Parker put his automatic away, took the handcuffs from his left hip pocket, got Dockery seated in the stall, and handcuffed his hands behind him, the cuff chain running under the pipe that came out of the wall about thirty inches from the ground. Dockery would be fairly comfortable there, but wouldn’t be able to get away.
Parker stepped back out of the stall and was about 25 to pull the metal door shut when Dockery called, “Hey.” Parker looked at him, and Dockery said, “I don’t want any of you killed. I want you captured alive. I want to be able to testify against you, and I want to be able to see your faces. I want you to get sent up. I want to know that you’ll be getting years of what you gave me tonight.”
“It may happen,” Parker said, and shut the stall door.
