There was plenty of activity. At the intersection between here and the St Cloud house there was a patrolman in uniform, standing in the middle of the street, prepared to divert all traffic from continuing on down Haines Avenue. Beyond him three police cars—one black municipal police car and two black and white State Trooper cars—were stopped at angles across the street, their doors hanging open. Beyond that there was a large searchlight mounted on a truck bed, the light on and beamed directly at the house that had to be 123. Uniformed policemen moved in vague spurts on the opposite side of the street, and every once in a while there was the isolated sound of a shot.
It was nearly four o’clock in the morning now, but a crowd had already formed on the sidewalks on this side of the intersection, jostling each other to get a better look. From a few cars parked along the curb, and the number of people in robes, they were probably still mostly neighborhood residents, most likely including people evacuated from the houses right around the St Cloud place. If there were local all-night radio a lot more people would be crowding around the perimeter of the action by now, turning Roger St Cloud’s death throes into live television.
What Dr Godden had said was, “He’ll kill his father.” And when Parker asked him why, Godden said, “That’s the only reason he needs power, to free himself from his father. He’s used clothing, the motorcycle, sarcasm, all limited forms of power, all aimed at his father. Now he’s got real power. He’s tested it, and proved it works. He has three hundred and eighty thousand dollars, which is another kind of power, his father’s kind of power, and he’s going to want to go away and try using that power, too, but first he’s going to want to use the power on his father.
Parker said, “The rifle.”
“Yes. The first thing he’ll do is go home and shoot his father. May I use the phone?”
“No.”
“But there may still be a chance to warn him.”
“You mean tip him.”
“The father I’m talking about.”
“The son I’m talking about,” Parker told him, and then they tied Dr Godden and left his house and drove here, and a block away a searchlight borrowed from the air base was flooding white light onto the St Cloud house, policemen crouched behind automobile fenders were shooting at an upstairs window, and a hundred people were standing on the sidelines and watching.
Webb said, “That’s it.”
“Wait a while,” Parker said.
Devers said, “Let’s get out, move a little closer.”
“We can see from here,” Parker told him.
Webb added, “Without anybody seeing us.”
Someone was using a loudhailer. They could hear it plainly, but just as noise, not broken into words. But they didn’t have to hear the words to know what Roger St Cloud was being told.
Several windows had been lit on this block when they’d arrived, and now that the loudhailer had started up more windows were springing into yellow light. The law couldn’t have gotten here more than five minutes before Parker and the other two. That was better than the other way around.
They watched for three or four minutes. The loudhailer spoke, was silent a while, spoke again, was silent again. Policemen dodged from car fender to car fender, with no apparent destination. It seemed as though everybody was just milling around.
“They’ll think of tear gas in a little while,” Webb said.
Parker nodded. “It’ll be on its way already.”
In the meantime there was sporadic gunfire, with long seconds of silence. The law was using different kinds of gun, revolvers and rifles and at least one riot gun that twice made its monkey jabber, hemstitching a line of bullets across the front of the house.
St Cloud was firing back, too. A policeman went running, crouching, zigzagging across a bit of open space, and then crumpled and somersaulted and lay spread out on the ground. There was a hail of answering fire, and under its cover two cops ran out, grabbed the fallen one by the arms and dragged him back out of the line of fire.
After that there was another period of silence, with here and there a shot as though just to keep up appearances.
Webb said, “Why don’t he hit the light?”
“He doesn’t want to get away,” Devers said. “He wants to kill people.”
Webb frowned. “Why?”
The loudhailer spoke again. When it was still they could hear another sound, high-pitched, twanging, shrill. Devers whispered, “That’s him. Listen to him.”
“It don’t sound human,” said Webb. He looked past Devers at Parker. “Let’s get out of here. He’s got our cash, he’s surrounded by cops, it’s all up.”
Parker said, “Look.”
They looked. Snow was fluttering out of an upstairs window in the house, paper snow, cascading out, glide-glide-gliding to the ground like leaves, green leaves, pouring and billowing out of the window.
Webb said, “Our money.”
“It’s what Godden said,” Devers said, as though to himself. “He’s using power.”
“What the hell is he trying for?” Webb wanted to know. He was getting mad.
“He’s buying them off,” Devers told him. “He’s crazy as a loon in there, he’s using up all his power at once, killing people, buying them off.”
A suitcase had come flying out of the window, spilling the rest of its cash, bills flapping down, tossed by breezes. The people held back at the intersection by the police line didn’t know yet what it was, they just kept watching.
More money came out of the window, and then a second suitcase, open like the first, shooting out of the window as though catapulted, turning over and over in the air, spewing money out in gobs and flurries.
Then nothing happened. Nothing at all.
The second suitcase hit the ground not far from the first, the money fluttered slowly downward through the air, that was all.
The shrill voice started again, its words as indistinguishable as the loudhailer’s, but the voice that drowned it out was as clear as glass. It was a voice from the spectators, and what it shouted was: “That’s money!”
Everthing seemed to stop. The shrill voice kept on, saying whatever it had to say, but nobody was listening any more. Everybody was tensed, everybody knew what was going to happen, everybody was waiting for whatever the signal was going to be.
The policemen across from the house were all looking down this way now, toward the crowd, and in the harsh light their faces looked pale and tense and worried.
Webb said, “They ‘re going to—”
The crowd broke.
One second they’d all been back, standing there, straining forward but staying outside the perimeter the police had set up for them. The next second they were all in motion, rushing forward across the intersection and into the bath of light, down on their hands and knees, clutching handfuls of money, swarming on the lawn, the sidewalk, the driveway.
“That’s our money,” Webb said. He glared through the windshield at the mass of people.
Devers pointed higher. “Look at him!”
He was a black comma, leaning out a second-storey window, and the vertical line was a rifle. He was firing into the crowd under him, plinking away, quickly but methodically.
There were screams from down below now, and some people ran back out of the light, but most of them stayed there, scrabbling for the bills, ignoring everything else.
Parker looked across the street, saw a uniformed cop there with a rifle to his shoulder. He was damn finicky, under the circumstances, taking his time, being extra sure of his aim. With all the noise, Parker couldn’t hear the sound of the shot, but he saw the rifle kick in the cop’s hands. He looked back and saw St Cloud drop into the people. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Right.” Webb put the Buick into gear, made a tight U-turn, and they headed away from there.