The car started again, with Parker coming out from the curb. As it moved forward, he dropped to one knee, braced his elbow, and fired through the driver’s side window twice more. As the car kept moving, he took his fifth shot at the front left tire, but that one also went wide, and then the gun was empty.
Parker straightened and watched the car travel away, steadily accelerating. The rear license plate was brightly lighted, but there was no point memorizing it; the car would be either rented or stolen. Parker stood there, his arms at his sides, the empty gun hanging from his right hand, and the car tore away in a straight line down the street. The last hope was that it was a poor driver, or one in too much of a panic to handle the speed he was trying for, so that he’d rack it up before getting too far away. But five or six blocks along, his brake lights went on, and the car slewed around a corner and out of sight, the corner having been taken at just about the maximum usable speed.
Parker turned and walked back into the house, closing the front door behind him. Kirwan was coming down the hall, looking frightened and angry, and they met by the living-room entranceway, where light spill from the lamps in there made it possible for them to read one another’s faces.
Kirwan was very upset. “What the hell is going on? Parker? What’s going on?”
“You tell me,” Parker said. “This is your party.”
“You go around shooting up every— That’s my gun, for Christ’s sake! What if you killed somebody?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Parker said. “I was shot at first.’’
“But for Christ’s sake! Right out there in the middle of the street!”
Ducasse, the one who’d let the guy in and then struggled with him and then been hit on the head by him, came shakily down the hallway, saying, “Did you get the son of a bitch?”
“No, he took off. Who was he?”
Kirwan said, “You don’t even know? He tried to kill you, and you don’t even know who it is?”
“I didn’t see his face.”
“Uhl,” Ducasse said. “His name is Uhl.”
Parker frowned. “George Uhl?”
“That’s right,” Kirwan said. “You do know him, huh?” “Yeah, I know him.”
Ducasse said, “What the hell’s he got against you?”
“I left him alive once,” Parker said.
Ducasse said, “Never leave a guy alive who’d like to see you dead.”
“I know,” Parker said. It had been a mistake, and he’d known it at the time, but had done it anyway. Now he’d have to correct it. He said, “Who brought Uhl into this?”
Kirwan said, “Ashby.”
“Let’s go talk to him,” Parker said, and the three of them walked back down the hallway toward the room where they’d been discussing the robbery.
The idea of the robbery was a particular department store just before Mother’s Day. The lady of the house is the one with the charge account, so Mother’s Day gifts tend to be mostly cash sales, which meant that the Saturday before Mother’s Day would be almost the best day in the year to find the store full of cash.
Kirwan, their host, had organized the robbery and decided how many men it would take to do the job. The number he’d come up with was six. Unfortunately, two of the six were Parker and Uhl, Parker having been recruited by Kirwan himself, Uhl by a man named Ashby, after Ashby had been brought in by Kirwan.
Kirwan was the one who had arranged for the rental house, and had put together this organizational meeting to describe the setup to the others and find out if all five wanted to be in on it. Parker had been the next to last to arrive, which was why he’d been seated with his back to the door; the only two empty chairs when he’d gotten here had both been on the side of the table nearest the hall.
In a way, though, the seating had worked out to his advantage. Having his back to the door, he’d automatically been more alert, he’d paid more attention to small sounds from behind him—like the click before the firing of a double-action revolver.
Had Uhl come here planning this? It seemed unlikely. As the three of them walked down the hall, Parker said to Ducasse, “Did Uhl ask who was here?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“You told him my name?”
“Sure. Naturally.” Ducasse was a little defensive.
Parker nodded. “All right,” he said.
They walked back into the room, and Stokes, the fifth man. was back in his chair at the table, lighting a cigar. Between puffs, and through little clouds of smoke, he said, “Ashby’s hit.”
Ashby had been sitting directly opposite Parker. The bullet had skimmed a groove through the papers on the table and the tabletop, and had punched into Ashby’s torso about two inches above the belt. Ashby was now lying face up on the floor beyond the table, his eyes closed, his breath labored and heavy as though he were snoring.
“God damn it!” Kirwan said.
Parker went around the table and dropped to one knee beside Ashby. He said the unconscious man’s name twice and slapped his face lightly on both sides. Then he pinched his cheeks, hard, twisting the loose flesh back and forth, saying, “Ashby. Ashby, wake up.”
Kirwan was still being upset. Coming around the table, he said, “For Christ’s sake, what are you doing?”
