Panic!

“What if they don’t? What if they’re out of gas or something, and they come nosing around back here?”

Vollyer looked at him sharply. Come on, he thought, don’t go rattled on me now. He said, “Just keep your head.”

“But what if they come around here?” Di Parma insisted.

“Then we kill them,” Vollyer said, and shrugged.

The Ford pulled onto the parking area and drew up near the pumps. Vollyer could no longer see it. He heard one of the doors slam in the hot quiet morning, and then only heavy silence. Standing next to him, Di Parma was sweating profusely; but Vollyer’s own face was dry, and his eyes were flat and hard. He listened intently, watching, waiting, his right hand on the .38 revolver in his jacket pocket.

A long minute passed, and then the car-door sound was repeated. The Ford’s engine made a loud, growling roar, a sign of the driver’s displeasure, and there was the harsh grating of tires spinning on gravel; the car came into view again, moving onto the access road, a moment later making the turn south on the highway.

Di Parma said, “Christ!”

Vollyer gave him an indulgent smile. “Come on, it’s time to move out.”

At the Buick, Di Parma looked into the rear seat at the items Vollyer had taken from the cabin and the café. “What’s all this, Harry?”

“Insurance,” Vollyer told him.

“I don’t follow.”

“You will, Livio, you will.”

Di Parma drove out from behind the café and along the access road to the now-deserted highway. Vollyer told him to turn north, and then leaned back and closed his eyes. There were faint liquid sun patterns behind the lids, pulsating, and the balls themselves felt too large for their sockets. Damned bright glare.

He hoped his aim wouldn’t be affected if he had the opportunity to use the Remington a little later on.

Nine

Brackeen was half-dozing in his partitioned office when Forester radioed in shortly before noon.

He was in good spirits. The hangover of the day before had all but disappeared by five o’clock, when he’d gone off duty, and four beers before supper had chased the last remnants of it. Later, he’d made up with Marge—damn, but she was still fine in bed, she was a hell of a lot better and hotter at forty than any of those young whores he’d had in Kehoe City—and he’d gotten a good night’s sleep for a change. This morning had been quiet; he’d done half an hour’s paperwork, looked into a minor vandalism complaint, and spent most of the rest of the time leafing through circulars from the FBI and State Police. When Bradshaw, the clerk and radio man, came in to tell him Forester was calling, he had been working up a mild thirst sleepily thinking of Sullivan’s and the upcoming lunch hour.

He got ponderously out of his chair, his soft belly swaying, and followed Bradshaw out to the PBX unit in the main room of the substation. He scratched himself sourly. Forester was due in pretty soon, and him calling now meant he’d gotten onto something—Christ only knew what piddly-ass thing it was—and that in turn meant that Brackeen was probably going to get a late lunch.

He sighed and took the hand mike Bradshaw proffered. He said, “Brackeen.”

Forester’s voice said excitedly, amid gentle static, “Listen, we’ve got a murder.”

A half-formed yawn died on Brackeen’s mouth. “A what?”

“A murder, a murder!”

“The hell you say. Where?”

“Del’s Oasis, out on the Intrastate.”

“Who’s dead?”

“Al Perrins, the guy bought Del out about six months back.”

“How do you know it’s murder?”

“Well, Jesus Christ, he’s got six bullet holes in his chest,” Forester snapped. “What else would you call it?”

Oh, these goddamn snotty bright-faces. “Any sign of who did it?”

“No. But I haven’t had the chance to go over the place yet.”

“You find Perrins yourself?”

“Yeah. I was cruising the area, and I thought I’d stop in for a quick Coke to take the edge off the heat, like I sometimes do.”

A Coke, Brackeen thought. You silly bastard, you.

Forester went on, “But the place was dark, all shut up, and the Closed sign was in the window. It didn’t figure for Perrins to be closed up on a weekday like this, and I thought maybe he was sick or something. I went around back, to that cabin he lives in, and the door glass had been broken in. The place was empty, but the phone wires had been cut and it had been gone through a little; hard to tell if anything was taken. I found the rear window to the café storeroom open, and crawled in to have a look around. Perrins was lying in a pool of blood behind the lunch counter.”

They’re always lying in a pool of blood, Brackeen thought. If you looked at ten thousand violent-homicide reports made by bright-faces like Forester, you’d find that in nine thousand of them the victims were found quote lying in a pool of blood unquote. He said, “All right, hang loose. I’ll be out there in about twenty minutes.”

Forester didn’t respond immediately, and Brackeen took satisfaction in the knowledge that the idea didn’t appeal to him. Finally Forester said, “Maybe you’d better get the county people and State Police out here.”