Backflash by Richard Stark

Author:Richard Stark [Stark, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: New York (State), Criminals, Action & Adventure, General Interest, Mystery & Detective, Casinos, Hijacking of Ships, Fiction, Thieves, Robbery, General, Parker (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780892966622
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Published: 1998-10-01T04:58:13+00:00

out at the blackness that contained the river,

and he listened very hard to the space behind

him.

A second voice: "Maybe so they could find

the place from the river." Younger, more nasal,

than the first voice.

"We'll leave it the way they left it," said a

third voice, older and heavier and beerier, like

the first one. And how the fuck many of them

were there? "We want those boys walkin in

here all fat and sassy."

Now he knew why he'd come awake. He must

have heard them arrive somehow, a car door

slamming or the front door opening or whatever

it was.

Get off the porch; that's the first thing.

Slowly and silently, without attracting attention,

get off this goddam porch.

Becker eased forward off the Adirondack

chair onto his hands and knees. Behind him they

were talking, making themselves at home,

opening and closing the refrigerator door. A

beer can popped.

The screen door off this screened-in porch

was ahead and to the right, and it opened

inward. Becker crawled over there, found the

door by feel, pulled it a little way open, and for

a wonder it didn't squeak. Holding the door with

his left hand, he shifted around to a seated

position, then slid himself forward on his rump

into the doorway, until his feet found the log

step out there between porch level and the

ground.

Easing himself out, and down onto that step,

without letting the door slam, was damn tricky,

but he did it, holding his hand between door and

frame at the last, until he could get his feet

under him, and reach up to the knob. He pushed

the door open just a bit to free his hand, then

eased it shut.

Darkness outside, with canyons of light

vaulted from the windows. Becker eased along

next to the building, peeked in the kitchen

window, and saw three of them, all now with

beers in their hands.

Bikers. Two big old rogue elephants, bearded

and ponytailed and big-gutted, and one young

ferret, all three of them in the black leather

those boys like so much. One of them was the

leader, and was telling the other two where to

position themselves for the ambush to come;

this one in this room, that one in that room.

Becker went back to the side of the porch,

away from the light, then hurried around the

next-door cottage to his pickup truck. From

there he could see, gleaming in the living room

light over there, three big motorcycles. So

that's what had waked him, those hogs driving

in. Damn good thing.

When he'd first rented the pickup, he'd

removed the interior light, so it stayed dark

when he gently opened the passenger door.

There was a narrow storage space behind the

bench-type seat, that you got to by tilting the

seatback forward. Not much room back there,

but enough for the shotgun he'd taken from the

trunk of his patrol car when he'd ditched it, and

also for the two handguns he'd always carried;

his official sidearm, a Smith and Wesson Model

39, a 9mm automatic with an eight-shot clip, and

his extra, a little Smith and Wesson.38 Chiefs

Special, a very concealable revolver with a two-

inch barrel.

For present purposes, he left the automatic,

pocketed the revolver in case he needed to do

in-close work, and headed back for the lit-up

cottage, carrying the shotgun at port arms.

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