Free The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark Page B

Nobody’ll bother about me.”
    “We’ll need it from eleven-thirty tonight till about four tomorrow morning,” Parker said.
    “Tonight?” Stan’s grin turned pained. “I forgot,” he said, “about never volunteering.”
    Fusco said, “I’ll come long if you want, Stan, help keep you company.”
    Stan pointed a finger at him. “You just volunteered, pal,” he said.
    Parker said, “One of you can drive me back to the motel first, and come pick me up in the morning.”
    Ellen said, “You could stay here tonight.” There was nothing suggestive in her voice, or in her face when Fusco looked at her, nothing but a flat statement and an expressionless face, but Fusco felt the shock go through the room, felt Stan tensing, felt himself going taut, and he was amazed at how relieved he was when Parker answered, just as flatly, “I’d rather stick to the routine.”
    Fusco got to his feet, suddenly in a hurry to break up this meeting. “I’ll take you, Parker,” he said.
    “Good,” Parker said, “See you in the morning, Stan.”
    “See you,” said Stan. The moment was over.

5
    Do you know what strikes me as significant?” Dr Godden said.
    Ellen had been silent the last three or four minutes, just sitting there with her arms around herself, her eyes fixed on the patterns in the carpet, her mind churning as she tried to find something to talk about and there continued to be nothing, nothing at all. Dr Godden always told her not to worry about the silences, to be silent when she felt like being silent and talk only when she felt like talking, but she hated to have the time go by and her not saying anything to him, not accomplishing anything with him. They’d done so much good together already she was impatient to get on with the job, to accomplish everything, to make everything as good as it could possibly be.
    This was one of the few times he’d ever broken into one of her silences, and it surprised her almost enough to make her look at him. She checked the head movement in time, turned it into a negative shake, and said, “No, I don’t.”
    “You can’t think of anything to talk about,” he said. “And I would guess that’s because you’re trying very hard not to think about a particular subject. Do you think that’s possible?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, though the suggestion did make her tense. “I can’t think of any subject.”
    “You can’t? Well, here it is Monday the twenty-first, and do you know the last time you mentioned the robbery to me? Exactly one week ago. Last Monday. Not a word since then. Wednesday you talked about your mother, Friday you talked about your baby, and today you haven’t been able to talk about anything. But the robbery is a scant ten days away, and up until last Monday it was a very strong and important subject to you.”
    He stopped talking and that meant she had to say something, had to respond in some way. She searched frantically for words, finally muttered, “I don’t know, I guess I just don’t have anything to say about it any more.”
    “Have you been attending their meetings, as I suggested?”
    “Yes.”
    “Listening to their plans?”
    “Yes.”
    “Isn’t that something to talk about? Their plans?”
    “I guess so.” She shrugged awkwardly, her face twisted by concentration. “I guess I just don’t want to think about it anymore,” she said.
    “You mean you don’t listen to their plans?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Then you still are interested, you do still think about it. But you don’t want to talk about it. Why do you suppose that is?”
    “I don’t know,” she said.
    He began to throw out hypotheses, the way he always did. “Could it be because you don’t trust me? Or because you now think the plan will work and you were foolish to have worried so much? Or because you now feel attraction again for your husband? Or perhaps for the other man, Parker?”
    “No!” she said, so loudly and abruptly she surprised herself. Then