“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.”
“Can you get it?”
“Oh, sure. I’m just not as fast as I used to be.”
She bent to the lock again, Parker keeping the narrow band of light on her tools, and at last, with a slight click, the door popped a quarter inch toward her. That was the other part of the fire code: exit doors had to open outward.
While she put her tools away, Parker pulled the door a little farther open, pocketed the flashlight, put the Bobcat in his hand, and eased through. Sandra rose, put the felt bag in her pocket, brushed the knees of her slacks, and followed. Now her own pistol was in her hand.
Voices sounded, and then a strained and painful grunt. The bedroom door, opposite them, was partly open, showing one side of the kitchen, the room illuminated only by the lights and clocks on the appliances. The sounds came from beyond that, the living room.
Parker went first, silently crossing the room toward the kitchen doorway. Sandra followed, just behind him and to his right, so that she and her pistol had a clear view in front.
They stepped through into the kitchen. The sounds came from the living room, lit up beyond the next doorway, but only one vacant corner of it visible from here. Parker skirted the table in the middle of the room, and made for that doorway.
“You cocksucker, you make us mad, we won’t split with you.” It was the bulky guy’s voice.
“Yeah.” A second man, probably the other one in the Buick.
More sounds of beating, and then the bulky guy, exasperated, said, “We’re trying to be decent, you son of a bitch. You’re gonna tell us, and what if we’re mad at you then?”
There was no talk for a few seconds, only the other sounds, and then the bulky guy said, “Now what?”
“He passed out.”
“Get some water from the kitchen, throw it on him.”
Parker gestured for Sandra to stay back, and stood beside the doorway. The Bobcat was too small to hold by the barrel and use the butt as a club, so he simply raised it above his head with the butt extending just a little way below his fingers. When the other one came through the doorway, Parker clubbed straight down at his head, meaning to next step into the doorway and shoot the bulky guy.
But it didn’t work. The Bobcat was an inefficient club, and his own fingers cushioned the blow. Instead of dropping down and away, leaving the doorway cleared for Parker, he lurched and fell leftward, toward Parker, who had to push him away with his left hand and club again with his right, this time backhanded, scraping the butt across the bridge of his nose.
The guy crashed to the floor, at last out of the way, but when Parker took a quick look into the living room the moment was gone. McWhitney was slumped in a chair from the kitchen, tied to the chair with what looked like extension cords. The bulky guy was out of sight. Was he in some part of the living room Parker couldn’t see, or farther away, in the bar?