He was rattled for a while after that, and who wouldn’t have been? The tension of the robbery, driving back, waiting for the right moment to throw down on the other three — he’d been wound up like a watch, and of course as soon as something went wrong in the plans he got hopelessly strung up for a couple of minutes.
Until he saw Parker’s gun lying outside the window in the dust, and that was such a good break it almost made up for the stupidity. Anyway, it got him back on the track, and even though Parker got away into the woods Uhl was all right again, ready to go on with his plans. He was too smart to go crashing around in the woods after Parker. He’d have to let the bastard go.
But it wasn’t all that bad. Parker and Uhl didn’t know each other, so how could Parker make trouble for him later on even if he wanted to? And besides, since Uhl was going to leave him unarmed and on foot out here, he was more than likely to be picked up by the cops. Let Parker do twenty years in a federal pen somewhere and then come looking for Uhl.
So he went on with his original plan, ignoring Parker’s unscheduled existence. He went back and arranged for the fire, piling all the flammable stuff in the middle of the house, and then stacked the bodies on top so they’d burn thoroughly, first kicking their teeth loose. These bodies weren’t going to be identified by fingerprints or dental records. These bodies weren’t going to be identified.
In the barn he splashed gasoline around, led a trail of gasoline-soaked rags to Andrews’ Mercury. Then he set the two fires and got out of there. Good-bye, Parker. Good-bye, Weiss and Andrews.
Number six. This was job number six, and from the first one he’d wanted to do this. Every time the job would be done, he’d drive the car to the hideout, the money would be split up, and he’d look at the piles of cash, he’d look at the fraction he was given, and he’d want it all. But every time there’d been something wrong. Too many men, or men he knew too well who had friends who knew him and would come after him. It took till job number six before the situation was right. Only three others in the heist, and he really didn’t know any of them. Only Benny Weiss, and that not very much, just through organizing a job that didn’t come off one time.
And was thirty-three thousand better than eight thousand? Was the extra twenty-five grand worth the risk? Uhl grinned to himself as he drove east.
But as he thought it over, he began to realize that the loose end of Parker could make a lot of trouble. If Parker wasn’t picked up by the law, if he managed to get out from under, he would come looking for Uhl, and that was sure. Could he find him? Uhl didn’t know. He wanted to think it couldn’t be done, but he just wasn’t sure.
All right. So the thing to do was lay low for a while. Wait and see if Parker popped up anywhere; wait and see if there were any other repercussions. If everything was quiet, in a week or two he could come out of hiding and everything would be the same. If there was trouble, he could stay hidden out and decide what to do about it.
The question was, Where to hide? He thought of Howie Progressi first because he knew Howie would get a kick out of the story of his taking the thirty-three grand from three sure old professionals, but almost as soon as he thought of Howie he rejected him again. For two reasons. First, everybody knew he and Howie were tight. If Parker came looking, one of the early people he’d see would be Howie. And second, if Howie learned about the thirty-three thousand, the bastard might try to take it away from him himself.
The next one he thought of was Joyce Langer. There was the advantage there that they’d split up over a year ago, so nobody was likely to look for him around her now. Also, he could pretty well control her, keep her under his thumb. But on the other hand she was such a goddam kvetch, and if somebody came around to make him trouble she might just blow the whistle on him to get back at him if she was feeling put-upon. And she was always feeling put-upon.
Barri? No, too many people knew he was shacked up with Barri Dane these days. If he tried staying at her place, and if Parker did come prowling around, Barri was one of the people he’d get to first.
He was into Pennsylvania when he remembered Ed Saugherty. He hadn’t seen Ed since that time four or five years ago when the shmuck had called him: “Hi, George, it’s Ed Saugherty. Remember me? I’m just in New York for a couple of days with a convention. I thought I’d look up my old high-school buddy.”
Old high-school buddy. In those days George Uhl had been a big shot, a big wheel. High school had been great, the greatest part of his life so far, and in those days he’d had a half dozen little punks that hung around him, tagged after him, bought him beers, laughed at his jokes, listened to his stories about making out. And Ed Saugherty had been one of them, around-faced stocky kid with red cheeks and thick glasses, an eager kid who liked to laugh and who loved to hear George’s tough-sounding stories.
They’d met twice after that phone call, before Ed went back home to Philadelphia. He was working for a computer company now. He wore a white shirt and a tie even when he didn’t have to, and the company had transferred him a few years before to Philadelphia. He’d made George very uncomfortable during both those meetings, and in fact after the first one — a couple hours’ drinking together in a bar, with Ed picking up the tab, paying for it with a credit card — George had been sure Ed felt contempt for him now, thought of him as a loser. Ed had done a lot of talking about the company, his job, his future, his wife and children, his home in Philadelphia, his whole happy, successful life, and when he’d asked what George was doing now the only answer had been, “This and that. I get along.”
But then Ed called him again the next day, and it turned out the old hero-worship was still very much alive. When George realized that Ed saw himself as a dull wage-slave and George as a guy with an exciting life, there was nothing for it but to agree with Ed completely and start playing the role to the hilt. That second meeting had been full of wild stories, a few of them true, a few of them invented, a lot of them adapted from paperback novels, and there was no question but that Ed would pick up the tab again. And though George had really been in tough money shape just then, the main reason he tapped Ed for a loan was because he understood that Ed’s myth-comprehension of him demanded it. Ed pressed the forty bucks on him with a smile of absolute joy, saying, “No hurry about paying this back, George, no hurry about paying this back.”
Was Ed Saugherty the man to go to now? Somebody he’d had no contact with at all in four or five years, and no real extended contact with for closer to twelve years. But somebody who’d do whatever George asked. Like giving him a perfect place to hide out.
So Philadelphia was where he went, and he found Ed living in a brick ranch-style house on a winding blacktop street in a well to do green suburb west of the city. It looked like a standard family in a standard setting, and George had no inclination to scratch the surface and see what was underneath. From the time he walked up the back to the driveway past the overturned tricycle to the open garage door where Ed was pouring gasoline into a power mower, George had no more interest in the people and the place than if they were the background for a television commercial.
“Ed, I’m in trouble. I need some help. I can’t talk about it, but I need someplace to hide out for a few days.”
Ed had fallen into his role in the melodrama as though he’d been rehearsing for it all his life. And why not? Didn’t he see it two or three times a week on television? Didn’t the situation keep cropping up, and wasn’t his role always the same? The true friend, the ally, the last desperate hope of the hero. If he couldn’t be the hero himself — and in going with the computer company, the wife, the brick house on the winding street, Ed had consciously turned his back on ever being the hero — this was the best possible supporting role.