6
At eight thirty-five on this Monday night McW was the only establishment showing lights along this secondary commercial street in Bay Shore. Parker walked down the block toward the place, seeing a half dozen cars parked along both sidewalks, including, across the way and a little beyond McW, a black Chevy Tahoe parked some distance from the two nearest streetlights. There were some people sitting in the Tahoe, impossible to say how many.
The simplest thing for the problem at hand— and for the anger— would be to go over there and put the Bobcat to work, starting with the driver. But it was better to wait, to take it slow.
To begin with, the people in the Tahoe wouldn’t be likely to let somebody just come walking across the street toward them with his hand in his pocket. And he didn’t know what the situation was right now inside the bar. So he barely looked over at the Tahoe, but instead walked steadily on, both hands in his pockets, then turned in at McW.
Other than McWhitney, there were four men in the bar. On two stools toward the rear were a pair of fortyish guys in baseball caps, unzippered vinyl jackets, baggy jeans with streaks of plaster dust, and paint-streaked work boots; construction men extending the after-work beer a little too long, by the slow-motion way they talked and lifted their glasses and nodded their heads.
Closer along the bar was an older man in a snap-brim hat and light gray topcoat over a dark suit, with a small pepper-and-salt dog curled up asleep under the stool beneath him as he nursed a bronze-colored mixed drink in a short squat glass and slowly read the
And on the other side, at a booth near the front, facing the door, sat a bulky guy in a black raincoat over a tweed sports jacket and blue turtleneck sweater, a tall glass of clear liquid and ice cubes on the table in front of him. This last one looked at Parker when he walked in, and then didn’t look at him, or at anything else.
“I’ll take a beer, Nels,” Parker called, and angled over to sit at the club-soda-drinker’s table, facing him. “Whadaya say?”
“What?” The guy was offended. “Who the hell are you?”
“Another friend of Oscar.”
The guy stiffened, but then shook his head. “I don’t know Oscar, and I don’t know you.”
Parker took the Bobcat from his pocket and put it on the table, then left it there with his hands resting on the tabletop to both sides, not too close, “That’s who I am,” he said. “You Oscar’s brother?”
The guy stared at the gun, not afraid of it, but as though waiting to see it move. “No,” he said, not looking up. “I got no brothers named Oscar.”
“Well, how important is Oscar to you, then? Important enough to die for?”
Now the guy did meet Parker’s eyes, and his own were scornful. “The only thing you’re gonna shoot off in here is your mouth,” he said. “You don’t want a lotta noise to wake the dog.”
Parker picked up the Bobcat and pushed its barrel into the guy’s sternum, just below the rib cage. “In my experience,” he said, “with a little gun like this, a body like yours makes a pretty good silencer.”
The guy had tried to shrink back when the Bobcat lunged at him, but was held by the wooden back of the booth. His hands shot up and to the sides, afraid to come closer to the gun. He stared at Parker, disbelieving and believing both at once.
McWhitney arrived, with a draft beer he put on the table out of the way of them both as he said, calmly, “How we doing, gents?”
“Barman,” Parker said, keeping his eyes on the guy’s face and the Bobcat in his sternum, “reach inside my pal there and take out his piece.”
“You cocksucker,” the guy said, “you got no idea what’s gonna hit you.” He glowered at Parker as McWhitney reached inside his coat and drew out a Glock 31 automatic in .357 caliber, a more serious machine than the Bobcat.
“Put it on the table,” Parker said. “And your towel,” meaning the thin white towel McWhitney carried looped into his apron string.
McWhitney draped the towel on top of the Glock. “What now?”
“Our friend,” Parker said, “is gonna move to the last booth, and sit facing the other way. He does anything else, I kill him. And you bring him a real drink.”
“I will.”
Parker brought the Bobcat back and put it in his pocket, his other hand on the towel on the Glock. To the guy he said, “Up,” and when the guy, enraged but silent, got to his feet, Parker said, “You got anything on your ankles?”
“No.” The guy lifted his pants legs, showing no ankle holsters. Bitterly, he said, “I wish I did.”
“No, you don’t. Go.”
The guy walked heavily away down the bar, working his shoulder muscles as though in preparation for a fistfight.
Parker said to McWhitney, “Time to close the place.”
“Right.”
McWhitney went away behind the bar again and Parker put the Glock and the towel in another of his pockets. He closed a hand around his beer glass but didn’t drink, and McWhitney called, “Listen, guys, time to drink up. I gotta close the joint now.”
The customers were good about it. The two construction guys expressed great surprise at how late it was, and comic worry about how their wives would take it. Livelier and more awake once they were on their feet, each assured the other they would certainly tell the wife it was the other guy’s fault.
The newspaper reader simply folded his paper and stuffed it into a pocket, got to his feet, picked up his dog’s leash, and said, “Night, Nels. Thank you.”
“Any time, Bill. Night, guys.”
Down at the rear, the bulky guy’s back was to the room, as he’d been instructed. Quietly the newspaper reader and more loudly the construction men left the place, Parker trailing after. All called good night again through the open door.
The other three all went off to the left, the dog walker more briskly, his dog trotting along beside him, the construction men joking as they went, weaving a little. Parker angled rightward across the street, then down that sidewalk past the Tahoe, hands in his pockets.
When he was a few paces beyond the Tahoe, he heard its doors begin to open. He turned, taking the Glock and the towel from his pocket, and three men were coming out of the Tahoe, both sides in front and the sidewalk right side in back. All were concentrating on what was in front of them, not what was behind them.
The guy from the front passenger seat was tall and skinny, to match the description of Oscar Sidd. He shut his door and took one pace forward toward the front of the car when Parker shot him, holding the Glock straight-armed inside the towel.
Sidd dropped and the other two spun around, astonished. Parker held the Glock in the towel at waist height, pointed away to the right, and called, “Anybody else?”
The two stared at him, then across the Tahoe roof at each other. The guy on the street side couldn’t see Oscar. The other one looked down at the body, looked at his partner, and shook his head.
The driver jumped behind the wheel and the other one into the backseat. The engine roared and the lights flashed on, showing the Tahoe had dealer plates. The driver at first accelerated too hard, so that the wheels spun and
