"Westlake, Donald E as Stark, Richard - Parker 12 - The Sour Lemon Score 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

Parker dove through the windows elbows first, the rotted wood and shards of glass spraying out in front of him. He ducked his head, landed hard on his right shoulder, rolled over twice, and was running before he was on his feet. He heard shots Behind him but didn't know if they were coming for him or not. He ran for the barn, and as he went around it a bullet chuncked into the wood beside his head, spilling splinters at his cheek.'

A bank robbery that Parker's involved in is bound to be a perfectly worked-out operation. And this one goes like a dream. But when they get to the isolated farmhouse the four-way split from the heist produces a crummy eight grand each. Parker shrugs it off as the luck of the draw, but the others are mad. And none of them as mad as George Uhl who thinks he'll quadruple his share by shooting the other three. The only trouble is he doesn't shoot Parker first. Now Parker's out for revenge.



Richard Stark

The sour lemon score (1969)



ONE


One

Parker put the revolver away and looked out the windshield. The bank was half a block away along the sunny street. Andrews hadn't come out yet.

Next to Parker the driver, a man named George Uhl, rubbed his palms on the steering wheel and said, "What's taking him so long? Where is he?" It was a cool day, the temperature around seventy, but there was sweat on his forehead.

From the back seat Benny Weiss leaned forward and put a hand on Uhl's shoulder, saying, "Take it easy, George. Phil knows what he's doing; he's a good man. He's got to be sure nobody sees him do it, that's all."

Uhl nodded rapidly. "I'm just worried about the armored car," he said. "It'll be here and gone-- "

"No, it won't, George. We've got a good five minutes. Relax, boy. Phil's a good man."

Parker listened to them, gauging them from the conversation. If Uhl was going to fall apart the whole operation was out the window. When Andrews came out of the bank they'd just turn around and drive away.

George Uhl was the only one Parker had never worked with before. A fairly young man of about thirty, tall and very thin and with receding black hair, he was Weiss's man, brought in and guaranteed by Benny, and that was why he worked so hard now to soothe Uhl and keep him calm.

Benny Weiss himself was always calm. A short man, stocky, his clothing generally as rumpled as if he'd just taken a crosscountry bus trip, he'd been in this line of work thirty years now and was as excitable as a tailor facing a ripped seam. Parker had worked with him a few times over the years, and Weiss had always been solid, dependable and sure.

Still, Uhl was going to have to support his own weight. He was the driver and he had to be reliable. It had happened more than once in the world that a driver had gotten spooked and taken off in the middle of a job, leaving the rest of the string to dangle on a sidewalk someplace, loot in their hands and nowhere to go. So Parker listened to the other two talk, and considered scratching this entry right now.

Benny Weiss said, "Here he comes, George." He patted Uhl's shoulder. "See? Everything's okay."

"I see him," Uhl said. He sounded sullen, as though mad at himself for having gotten edgy. "I'm okay, Benny," he said.

"Sure you are," Weiss said.

Parker looked out through the windshield at Phil Andrews walking down the sidewalk toward the car. With the red wig and the sunglasses on, he was hard to recognize even when you knew it was him. Parker had watched him make himself up at the farm before they left, and it had been a good job, a subtle changing of the planes and textures of his face, using theatrical makeup in addition to the wig. When he'd finished he'd turned to Parker, grinning slightly, and said, "Meet my friend the bank robber." Because it was the face he put on before every job.

Phil Andrews was younger than Benny Weiss but had been a pro fifteen years at least, and the strange thing about him was that he'd never taken a fall. He'd never even been picked up on suspicion. The pro who never fell at all was the rarest of rare birds, and the reactions of other pros to Phil's streak took two extremes. There were those who wanted him in on every job they did, considering him good luck and a guarantee of safety for everybody else involved, which he wasn't; and there were those who refused to work with him on the grounds that he was overdue for a fall, the law of averages was going to have to catch up with him someday. As for himself, Parker didn't believe in luck, good or bad. He believed in nothing but men who knew their job and did it, and Phil Andrews was one of those.

He got into the car now, sliding into the back seat beside Benny Weiss, saying, "All set." He was the only one in any kind of disguise. The others all had prints and pictures on file and warrants out against them under one name or another. Being connected to one job more or less wouldn't make that much difference if they ever did get picked up.