Thomas Perry - The Butcher's Boy

He stood in front of the bank looking for the car. Maureen would keep circling the block until she saw him. The traffic downtown was heavy, he thought. It might take a few more seconds before she came around again, so he watched the people on the street. It wasn’t a bad way to do things, he thought. There were other people standing in front of buildings across the street waiting for buses or the arrival of friends. He knew he didn’t look appreciably different from the others, if you took them as a group. He was wearing a sport coat and carrying a briefcase. The only difference was that his was full of money.

He even counted two who looked a hell of a lot more suspicious than he did. One of them was a short, dark man with curly hair who was just standing on the corner across from him. He was wearing a gray three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. He wasn’t waiting for a bus, because he was right at the corner. Whenever the light changed, a herd of people would scurry across the street, but he’d still be there. Whatever he was waiting for, he didn’t look impatient about it: he never looked at his watch and he never looked up and down the street to see if it was on the way. Maybe he was early. The other man was about a hundred feet from the corner, in front of the display window of a travel agency. He was waiting for someone too, but he was getting impatient. You could tell because he had been staring into the window for a long time, the way people did when they had been standing in one place long enough to wonder if they were attracting attention. It made them feel as though they had to be absorbed in doing something, or people would notice them. People would think, look at that schmuck standing there. He’s been there for twenty minutes. She stood him up, and he’s too stupid to know it, the poor bastard.

Where the hell was Maureen? His sense of time must be off, because it seemed he’d been here long enough for her to go around the block at least twice. There couldn’t be trouble, not real trouble. He hadn’t been in Peoria in a year, at least. There was no way anybody could anticipate that he’d be coming to pick up an old contingency fund. The one thing they would believe was that he wasn’t worried about money. They’d given him two hundred thousand less than a week ago. But what was keeping Maureen? Unless she’d decided to sell him after all, now that they were separated and he could be had alone. No, that didn’t fit. She would wait for the forty thousand he’d promised her, because she could never suspect that he was worth more than that to them, not on what he’d told her. So where was she?

He began to feel a prickling sensation at the back of his scalp. He was vulnerable. He had to stand here in the open as long as it took. There was no plan to cover the possibility that one of them would get into trouble. He’d only been in the bank for ten minutes—what trouble would there be? But there must be a problem. And here he was. He didn’t even have a gun. You didn’t walk into a bank with a gun on you because it wasn’t worth the risk.

Suddenly he saw the car swing around the corner. He felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders relax. He could see Maureen behind the wheel now, coming toward him. It was all right. Then he thought, if she stopped somewhere and went into a store to buy a new pair of panties or something I’ll make her wish she hadn’t. As the car approached he took a step forward toward the curb to meet it.

The car didn’t stop. Maureen didn’t even look in his direction, just drove on past him and kept going. His practiced reflexes took over and he completed his stride and made another step forward. He looked down the street into the distance as though he hadn’t recognized Maureen. His mind worked at the problem. She had seen something and come here to warn him.

She was being followed. It had to be that, because nothing else would make leaving him here less dangerous than picking him up. Somebody was following her, and she thought they wouldn’t make their move until the two of them were together in the car. So it had to be the car. Crawley hadn’t been alone after all, and someone had spotted the car a second time. And now she would have to keep driving, leading them somewhere else until either she shook them off or they realized she’d seen them. That meant they’d backtrack until they found him, or they’d take her and ask her questions. He didn’t bother to think about that. She’d tell. His forty thousand wasn’t worth what they’d do to her. Nothing was.

So he had—what? Five minutes? Fifteen if she bought it for him. He looked at his watch, and then started walking down the sidewalk. The important thing would be to get off these streets as quickly as possible. He wished Peoria had subways. A taxi might do it, he thought, but he didn’t see any. A bus? No, a city bus was too dangerous. If anybody saw you get on, he’d see the route number and he had your schedule for the next hour. He walked briskly, varying his pace to the hurried strides of the people around him. He was getting cold. He hoped it didn’t show. A businessman wouldn’t hang around on the street long enough to get as cold as he felt.

Across the street and ahead of him was a Sears store. That looked like the most promising place. He stopped at the corner to wait for the light to change. Then he saw the man. It was the short man in the gray suit. He had moved down the block across the street, and now he was standing at the corner. He looked to see if there were a second man. Maybe the one who’d been staring in the travel agent’s window? He couldn’t see anyone who looked familiar. But the man in the gray suit was looking at him.

He started walking again. The man in the gray suit walked too, moving parallel with him across the street. So that was the way it would be. The man in the gray suit had intended to let himself be seen. He was herding him somewhere; it must be to a place where a second man waited in ambush.

He considered the situation. Something up ahead was a trap. The man in gray was herding him forward. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but he knew that there would be somebody following at a distance to keep him from turning around if he recognized the tactic. If he went into a store, so much the better for them. They’d have time to prepare for him while he waited for an advantage that would never come. He knew the strategy, but it had a flaw. It depended upon the victim’s natural inclination to wait while his chances slipped away. The ones who were following him, guiding him toward the pocket, would converge on him until it was too late for him to move, because any one of them was close enough to kill him. So he had to move now.

He watched the cars gliding past in the street. A taxi would be perfect, but his luck didn’t seem to be running today. Still, it had to be that way, a jump that would put him outside the triangle that was closing on him. Then he’d have a chance. He stopped at the next light and waited. The light changed and all the other people crossed the street, but still he waited. The man in the gray suit was stopped across the street from him, and he knew whoever was behind him would be coming up fast.

The light changed again and the first car across was a Volkswagen. He waited for the station wagon behind it, then made his move. He ran forward and flopped onto the long, flat roof just as the car began to move. The driver seemed to know that something had happened, because he started to brake, but then horns sounded behind him, so he speeded up again. The horns were louder now, because the other drivers were alarmed. Then it must have occurred to the driver of the station wagon that he’d hit something. He pulled over to the curb, opened his door, and got out, but what he saw made no sense. A man was running away, carrying something—a briefcase, maybe. But he wasn’t concerned about that so much as he was about whatever he’d hit. He started the long walk back up the street to the light. Jesus Christ, he thought when he saw the two men running down the street toward him. It must have been bad. He just hoped to God it wasn’t a kid or a doctor. If you ran over a kid or a doctor they made you pay for the rest of your life. When the two men sprinted past him at full speed he felt a giddy relief. Then he thought, Oh, God, don’t let it be a pregnant woman. Even a doctor would be better than that.