“And that’s why he’s alive.”
Across the way, the driver and the salesman had shaken hands, and now the driver was explaining something. The salesman looked toward the Suburban’s backseat, then bowed his head and seriously listened. The driver, finished, patted his arm and walked away toward the customer parking area. The salesman stood waiting, hands clasped in front of himself, like an usher at a wedding.
Parker, watching the Suburban, said, “Go get your car, bring it here.”
“I’m better as a spectator,” she said, “than a participant.”
“Not this time. Do it.”
She went away and the salesman conferred with a guy in work clothes, who’d come out a side door and who now bent down to start removing the front license plate.
Now a white Buick Terrazza came out of customer parking and angled over to stop beside the Suburban. Parker moved in closer as the two in back, one of them the bulky guy from last night, hustled McWhitney out of the backseat of the Suburban, wanting to move him quickly and smoothly across to the backseat of the Terrazza.
It didn’t happen. Because there were so many other people around, and so much bright light was shining down, they couldn’t grasp him as they might have liked. In that instant when all three men were between cars, the two on the outside crowding McWhitney but not quite touching him, he suddenly swept his bent left arm up and back, the elbow smashing into the cheek of the guy on that side, who staggered back into the side of the Suburban and slid sideways to the ground, unmoving.
While the bulky guy on the right was still figuring out a reaction, McWhitney used the same cocked left arm to drive a straight hook into his face, while his right hand lunged inside the guy’s jacket.
Parker trotted forward, the Bobcat in his hand inside his pocket. The driver, with his Terrazza between him and the action, drew a pistol and yelled at McWhitney, “Hold it! Hold it!” He fired the pistol, not to hit anybody but to attract attention, which he did, from everywhere on the lot.
“Not the model!” yelled the salesman. “Not the model!” Behind him the workman stood, bewildered, the front license plate and a screwdriver in his hands. People everywhere on the lot were craning their necks, trying to see what was going on.
McWhitney was having trouble with the bulky guy. The two of them were struggling over the gun, still half in the guy’s jacket pocket.
Parker knew he was too far away with this little gun, but he aimed and fired the Bobcat, then hurried forward again. He almost missed completely, but he saw it sting the bulky guy’s left ear, making him first lose his concentration on McWhitney and then lose the gun.
It was the same one Parker had taken from him last night, which McWhitney had put in the glove compartment of the van. Now McWhitney clubbed the guy with it and, as he fell, stooped and fired one shot through both backseat windows of the Terrazza and into the driver, who dropped backward, his own gun skittering away.
“NOT THE MODEL!”
McWhitney shoved the salesman back into the workman, and both fell down, as he jumped behind the wheel of the Suburban. He had to back around the Terrazza to get away from the building, as Sandra in the Honda stopped beside Parker, who slid aboard. The two men McWhitney had clubbed were both moving; the one he’d shot was not.
With people all around yelling and waving their arms and jumping out of the way, McWhitney slashed through the lot and bumped out to the roadway, forcing a place for himself in among the traffic already there. Demurely, Sandra and the Honda trailed after.
14
Traffic on this commercial road, headed straight south across the Island, was fairly heavy, which meant no one could get much of an edge. Parker could see the black Suburban most of a long block ahead of them, seven or eight cars between, with no way to close the gap. Then the Suburban went through a yellow light, the traffic behind it stopped, and Parker watched the Suburban roll on out of sight.
Was there any pursuit? He twisted around to look out the Honda’s rear window just in time to see the Terrazza make the left at the intersection behind them, the lack of glass in its back side window obvious even at this distance. “They’re up,” he said.
Sandra looked in her mirror, but too late. “Who’s up?”
“Somebody in the Buick. One or both of those guys are still in play.”
“But they turned off?”
“They know this part of the Island, and they know where McWhitney’s headed. They’ll get there first.”
“And we’re too far back to let him know.”
“We’ll just go to his place and see what happens,”
* * *
McW and its entire block were dark, though there were lights on in some of the apartments above the stores. There was no traffic and no pedestrians in this part of Bay Shore at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night. But a black Suburban with a missing front license plate was parked in front of the bar. The white Buick Terrazza was nowhere in sight, but if they’d gotten here before McWhitney they would have tucked it away somewhere.
Parker and Sandra left the Honda and went over to McW. The green shade was pulled down over the glass of the entrance door and the CLOSED sign was in place. Deeper in the bar, the faint nightlights were lit, but that was all.
Parker listened at the door, but heard nothing. They had to be inside there, but somewhere toward the back.
He turned to her. “You got lockpicking tools?”
“It would take a while,” Sandra said, looking at the door. “And what if somebody comes along?”
“Not for here, for the back,” Parker nodded at the alley beside the building. “And we’ll need a flashlight.”
“Can do.”
They went back to her car, and from the toolbox next to the accelerator she removed a black felt bag of locksmith’s tools, plus a narrow black flashlight.
Parker said, “You know how to use those?”
“I took a course,” she said. “It’s standard training in my business. Show me the door.”
Parker led the way down the alley and around to the back, where the pickup truck could barely be made out in the thick darkness. Faint illumination from the sky merely made masses of lighter or darker black.
“I’ll hold the light,” he said. “The door’s over here.”
He held the flashlight with fingers folded over its glass, switched on the light, then separated his fingers just enough to let them see what they needed to see. Sandra went down to one knee and studied the lock, then grunted in satisfaction, and opened the felt bag on the stone at her feet. Then she looked up. “What’s the other side of this?”
“His bedroom. They’re most likely farther to the front, the living room. More comfortable.”
“Not for Nelson,” she said, and went to work with the picks from the felt bag.
It took her nearly four minutes, and at one point she stopped, sat back on her heels, and said, “I am rusty, I must admit. I took that course a while ago.”
