The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark Page A

what was needed was not the parents but the son. Dr Godden said, out of the sense of duty that had been troubling him of late, “While we wait for Ralph, is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
    Roger shrugged carelessly, which always meant yes, always meant there was something he felt about so strongly that the feeling embarrassed him and therefore had to be denied. “Had another dream,” he said.
    “The Dragon?” That was the dream about his mother.
    “No, none of the usual. A new one.”
    “Ah? What was it?”
    “I was walking down a rifle barrel. It was like a tunnel, you know? But it was a rifle barrel, and I was walking toward the bullets. I could look back the other way and see daylight at the hole. It was very realistic, with the shiny metal color and everything. It was cold in there. Then I looked back and there was an eye down at the far end looking at me. It was my father, and he said, ‘You’ll never get away.’ But he was big, he was normal size for the rifle, so he couldn’t get at me. But he kept looking in, his eye there, and I shouted, ‘Get out of the way! You’ll be killed when the gun goes off!’ But he wouldn’t believe me. Then there was a boom, like an explosion. Not like a rifle shot at all. A real explosion. And I looked and there was a bullet coming toward me. It looked like a train in a tunnel, except it filled it all the way around, there wasn’t any place to squeeze in and let it go by. And the front was all fat and squashed. I started running away, but I was slow, it turned slow-motion, you know, the way they do. But the bullet was slow, too, it was just behind me but it couldn’t catch up. And my father’s eye was still up at the other end, he wouldn’t get out of the way. I kept hollering at him, but he wouldn’t get out of the way.”
    In the course of telling all this, Roger’s voice had lost its usual whine, his expression had calmed, and he had shown briefly who it was he might have been if things had been different. But now his face twisted back into its usual expression, the whine came into his voice again, and he shrugged negligently, saying, “That’s when I woke up.”
    ”Not hard to interpret, that dream,” Dr Godden suggested.
    “Easy. I’m afraid of getting caught and I’m afraid of getting killed.”
    “And you’re also afraid that if you do get caught your disgrace will also ruin your father.” Roger shrugged.
    The door burst open and Ralph lumbered in. A tall, heavyset, very strong man of thirty-two, he gave an appearance of flabbiness and weakness that was totally misleading. His strength was hampered by clumsiness, his appearance altered by the way he stooped and shambled, but within the self-negating mannerisms was a strong and capable body waiting to be unleashed.
    “I ran,” Ralph said, panting, and thudded over to drop heavily onto the sofa beside Roger.
    “You always run,” Roger commented.
    Ralph never took offense at Roger’s comments. Why should he, when he believed he deserved them? Ralph believed that he was stupid, and that stupidity was a crime. Any asset he might have, such as a strong body or a handsome face, had to be denied because it would be improper for him to enjoy anything while still committing the crime of stupidity. What had driven Ralph to Dr Godden was a girl friend who had made it a condition of their continued relationship. but what had driven him to the set of mind that he lived by Dr Godden hadn’t as yet been able to learn. It was somewhere in the early years, and Ralph’s blankness on that period was itself a strong indication that Dr Godden was on the right track.
    Now, Ralph’s reply to Roger was only a sheepish grinning, “I’m always late.” Then he sat there and panted.
    Dr Godden looked at them, his assistants, and he found himself envying the man Ellen knew as Parker. When Parker made a plan he knew the parts of it would be carried out by professionals, solid reliable men who did this sort