Parker 09 The Split by Richard Stark Read Free Book Online Page A

worked inside the truck for a minute, moving the empty barrels into position across the opening at the rear of the truck, lashing them into place with ropes. Their unused pistols were tossed into the back of the Renault with the machine guns and the suitcases.
    'We didn't need all this extra,' Clinger said as they were putting the barrels in place. 'They still don't know what happened back there.'
    'You couldn't count on it ahead of time,' Kifka told him. 'If the alarm went out right away, they'd know nothing but an ambulance had left the stadium recently, and they'd be all over the place looking for that ambulance. We had to be able to make a fast switch to another car, and then we had to be able to hide that car and the loot. That's where baby came in.' He motioned at the Renault. 'It's like a traveling briefcase. Out of the ambulance, into the truck.'
    'All the same,' Clinger said, 'I'm just as happy we didn't need all this.'
    They got down out of the truck, and Parker put the last barrel in position. Then he crawled through the glassless window at the front of the box into the cab. Kifka and Rudd and Clinger got into the Buick and took off.
    Now, for the next five days, the money was Parker's responsibility. He knew where Kifka was staying because Kifka was staying at home. He didn't know where any of the others were staying because there was no need for him to know; it wouldn't be bright to contact them anyway, and at the time it didn't seem there'd be any reason to contact them. In five days they would all get together again, this time at Ellie's place, and divvy up the money. By splitting up this way and by not trying to clear out of the city and the area, they would make it more difficult for the law to get any kind of lead to them.
    Parker just sat in the truck and smoked and waited. A little after three, police cars started rushing by, hurrying this way and that, and Parker heard sirens sounding in the distance, but nobody stopped to question him or search the truck. One prowl car did slow down, but a truck full of metal barrels could hardly be involved in the robbery.
    At four o'clock, Parker started the engine and drove slowly away from there. He drove all the way through the city to the freight yards and parked the truck on Railroad Street, down from the main freight office. Parked and laden trucks lined both sides of the street along here, most of them here for the weekend. Parker climbed out, left the truck doors unlocked, and walked away. He walked three blocks, caught a cab, and went on back to the apartment. Ellie wasn't home; he found out later she'd gone to the game. She was a Monequois fan.
    At nine that night he went back downtown and picked up the truck and drove it over to the block containing Ellie's apartment building. Going through the window between body and cab each time, he transferred everything from the Renault to the closet of Ellie's apartment. The suitcases he carried up in one trip, and then the machine guns wrapped in blankets. The pistols he carried up in his pockets. When everything was stashed, he drove the truck downtown again, abandoned it for the last time, took another cab back, and went in to see Ellie. The job was done; he could feel himself unwinding.
    Seeing how lackadaisical Ellie was about everything else in life, Parker hadn't expected her to be more in bed than a receptacle, but she surprised him. He had found the one thing that made her pay attention. For three days and nights they hardly left the bed at all, and the whole time she was nothing but stifled mumblings and hard-muscled legs and hot breath and demanding arms and a sweat-slick pulsing belly. All the passion that had been dammed up inside Parker while his one-track mind had been concentrating on the robbery now burst forth in one long sustained silent explosion, and Ellie absorbed it all the way a soundproof room absorbs a shout.
    By the third night the pace had begun to slacken, and waking up from one of his