The Green Eagle Score (16 page)

Parker woke up when Webb touched his arm. Cartoons were jumping on the television screen. Gray light touched the drapes covering the picture window. Parker looked at his watch and the time was seven-forty.

Webb looked serious. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Better come take a look.”

Parker went with him, up to Godden’s room. Godden, his arms and legs still tied, was lying on his side on the bed, his throat cut. The sheet was soaked with his blood.

Parker said, “The woman.”

“Gone. Left this.”

The note was scrawled hastily with pencil on brown wrapping-paper, the letters large and ragged. It said:

Webb said, “What now?”

Parker shook his head. “I wish I knew when she left.”

“I heard the door close, that’s what woke me. Less than five minutes.”

“Then we get out of here,” Parker said.

They went down to the kitchen and woke Devers and showed him the note and told him about Godden. Parker said, “Be sober, boy. We’ve got to get out of here now.”

“Why? You think she’ll talk?”

“She won’t have to talk. A crazy woman staggering around a little town like this, seven-thirty in the morning, how far do you think she’ll get? Six blocks? Ten blocks? Then they pick her up, they say maybe the others are in the same neighborhood. Somebody says, that head doctor’s in that neighborhood. Somebody says, take a look over there, Joe.”

Devers was sober. He said, “How much time have we got?”

“Until they get organized. Until somebody notices it’s Godden’s neighborhood. Maybe an hour, maybe less.”

“Christ.” Devers went over to the kitchen sink, ran cold water, splashed it on his face, dried with a dish towel. “Where do we go?” he said.

“You ride with me for a while,” Parker told him.

They got their gear and went out to the cars. Parker and Devers took Godden’s dark green Cadillac. Parker’s suitcase, with his gear and his part of the money, and a small case of Godden’s that Devers had taken to carry his cut, went into the trunk. Parker drove.

They were in West Monequois, and the best direction to go was away, so they headed out to Route 11 and traveled west toward Potsdam. Webb’s Buick stayed behind them a while, but he turned south at Moria. Parker went on to Lawrenceville, switched to an unnumbered back road down through Buckton and Southville, and picked up 56 at Colton. He headed south.

They kept the car radio on. The robbery news was already becoming stale, being now into its third day with nothing sensational happening for the last two. No mention of Ellen Fusco yet.

Devers said, “This car’s going to get hot soon. Once they get to Godden’s house.”

“I know it.”

“What’s our chances?”

“We need a city,” Parker said. “You can disappear in a city. There’s nothing up here but mountains.”

There was a New York State roadmap in the glove compartment. Devers studied it and finally said, “Our best bet’s Albany.”

“How far?”

It made the eleven o’clock news, just as they were passing Glen Falls on the Northway, about fifty miles from Albany. “Mrs Ellen Fusco, sought in connection with Wednesday night’s payroll robbery at Monequois Air Force Base in upstate New York, walked into the home of her parents, Mr and Mrs Herbert Atkinson of Monequois, early this morning, her three-year-old daughter Pamela in her arms. Dazed, distraught, unable to tell police her whereabouts the last three days—”

“Good,” Devers said. He looked over at Parker. “She’s making up for it,” he said.

“If they let the news out,” Parker said, “it’s because they’ve already traced her back to the Godden house. Time to ditch this car. What’s the next exit off this thing?”

Devers looked at the map. “Saratoga.”

“We’ll unload it there.”

Parker kept it at the legal maximum the ten miles to the Saratoga exit, one eye always on the rear-view mirror. Saturday traffic was building up, and a green Cadillac wasn’t that out of place, but they could only push their luck so far.

Parker left the car in downtown Saratoga, at a meter. He and Devers walked the three blocks to the bus depot and boarded the eleven-thirty express to Albany. They got to Albany at twelve-oh-five, and Parker said, “This is where we split. You need somebody to show you how things work, and I don’t have the time for that now. There’s a friend of mine named Handy McKay, he’s retired now, runs a diner in a place called Presque Isle, in Maine. You go up there, tell him you’re from me. You can give him the story. He’ll take care of you.”

Devers said, “Thanks. This isn’t the way I had it planned but what the hell.”

“That’s right,” Parker said.

She was on her chaise longue, face up to the sun. She was wearing the suit with the black trunks and the black and white top. Her sunglasses had white rims. Towel and book and cigarettes and suntan lotion were on the sand beside her. She seemed to be asleep.

Parker had gone up to the room first and put on his trunks. He padded across the sand and sat down on the chaise beside her. “You’re more tanned now than you were,” he said.

Claire started. She looked at him, lifted her sunglasses and squinted at him under them. “You did come back,” she said.

“I always will.”

“Good. Where shall we eat tonight?”

“Mallorquina.”

“Good, I like that. Shall we go to the casino afterwards?”

“Yes,” he said.