the road. Mike Carlow, without his chauffeur’s cap and coat, stood beside the van listening to Lou Sternberg explain the situation, while Noelle sat in the van doorway, feet flat on the ground as she leaned against the side wall to her right. She was still in her invalid filmy white, and she looked like a ghost.
“Here they are now,” Sternberg said.
Wycza said, “Noelle? You okay?”
“Not yet,” she told him, “but I will be.”
“She got dried out,” Carlow explained. “What’s the situation back there?”
“Three dead bikers,” Parker said. “The one that got them’s holed up in another cabin, waiting for the money. He’s wounded, we don’t know how bad.”
Sternberg said, “They fought each other even before they got the goods?”
“No, it’s somebody else. No idea who.”
Carlow said, “He gunned down three bikers by himself, and now he’s in there waiting to take usdown?”
Wycza said, “He’s ambitious, we know that much.”
Sternberg said, “We’re here, the money’s here. Let him stay and rot, we’ll go somewhere else.”
Parker said, “I need to know who he is.”
“Idon’t,” Sternberg said.
Parker said, “But who is this guy? Where’d he come from? Is he going to be behind me some day?”
“He won’t be behind me,”Sternberg said. “I’ll be home in London.”
“What I’m thinking about,” Parker said, “is Cathman. I’ve been waiting for something from him, and I’m wondering is this it.”
Wycza said, “Cathman? Parker, from the way you describe that guy Cathman, that isn’t him back there.”
“No, but he could be fromhim.”
“Parker,” Sternberg said, “you understand the situation. You’ve got a link with this Cathman, the rest of us don’t. He may know your name and your phone number, but he doesn’t know a damn thing about me. You got a guy laying in ambush down in there? Fine, let him lay, I’m going home. We did good work tonight, and I’m ready to see the money, put it in my pocket, call British Air in the morning.”
“I’ve got to go along with Lou,” Noelle said. “I’m tired, and I feel like shit, and all I want to do is sleep and eat and drink. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“Okay, you’re right,” Parker said. “Whoever this guy is, he’s my problem, not any of yours. Mike, can you get the van around this car or do I need to move it out of the way?”
Carlow said, “You need to move it, if I’m going in. Why am I going in?”
‘Just to get away from the road, so no county cop comes along while we’re splitting the take.”
Carlow laughed and said, “Thatwould be a moment. Yeah, move it over. Noelle, honey, you wanna get in or you wanna get out?”
For answer, she hunkered back and drew her legs up under her. Seated in the van doorway, cross-legged, slumped forward, she looked like an untrustworthy oracle.
Parker jigged the Hyundai forward and back to the side of the road, waited while Carlow drove around him, then got out and walked with the others after the van. They were all stained red when the brake lights came on, and then it was dark again, except for the van’s interior light, gleaming on the ghostly Noelle.
Carlow climbed from the driver’s seat into the back of the van and slid the box out from the wheelchair. It was crammed full of the white plastic bags, four of them.
“Excuse me, Noelle,” Sternberg said, and climbed up past her into the van. The rear seats had been removed in there, to make room for the wheelchair, which was now pushed as far back as possible, leaving a gray-carpeted open area. Carlow and Sternberg and Noelle sat on the carpet in this area, facing in, and began to count the money, while Parker and Wycza stood outside, sometimes watching, sometimes looking and listening up and down the road.
Three hundred nineteen thousand, seven hundred twenty dollars. Parker had had three thousand in expenses, that he took out first. Sternberg did the math on the rest, and said, “That’s sixty-three thousand, three hundred forty-four apiece.”
“You each take sixty-three,” Parker said. “I’ll take the change for dealing with the guy back there.”
“A bargain,” Carlow said.
Noelle had a handbag that would carry her share, and the others used the white plastic bags. In Parker’s bag, there was sixty-seven thousand, seven hundred twenty dollars.
The four of them would take the van, leaving the Hyundai, which nobody wanted. Wycza said, “Coming out, use the Lexus. The key’s in the ashtray.”
“I will,” Parker agreed. “Lou, I’ll take back that other gun now.”
“Right.” Sternberg handed it to him, and said, “Call me again sometime.”
“I will.”
Carlow drove, Wycza in the seat beside him, Sternberg and Noelle seated on the floor in back. Only the back-up lights were on as Carlow backed past the Hyundai and out to the main road. Parker stood watching, and saw the van’s headlights come on as it swung out and away, to the right.
Darkness again. It would take a few minutes to get his night vision back. He had the Python in his left hip
