5D. The first key worked. The living room was dark, dry, and hot. Parker switched the light on, looked around, and saw no pile of mail. Green drapes were drawn across the window at the far end of the room. The furnishings were ordinary: a sofa and two chairs all arranged so that they faced the television set, and with the appropriate tables and lamps. One bedroom, dominated by a king-size bed and apparently occupied by a couple. No luggage on the closet shelves, and visible spaces amid the clothing, particularly on the woman’s side. No razor or toothbrushes in the bathroom. An almost completely cleaned-out refrigerator.
This one looked good. Parker went back to the living room, where a secretary stood against the wall near the front door. Opening the desk part of the secretary, he found papers in pigeonholes, and went through them looking for an indication of this couple’s travel plans.
Brochures describing the Caribbean. A pencil-written list of woman’s clothing and accessories, each item checked off. And a telephone bill inside its opened envelope; the cancellation date on the envelope was three days ago, Thursday. Since the payment card and return envelope were both gone, the bill had been paid, no earlier than Friday.
All right. Parker had left his and Grofield’s luggage—one small bag each—in a locker down at the railroad station, and he’d go down there tonight to get them back. At the same time he would switch cars. Before then, though, he had other things to do.
The phone was in the living room, next to the sofa. Parker switched on the air-conditioner mounted in the wall under the windows, sat on the sofa, and called Handy McKay collect, using a name that Handy would know: Tom Lynch. Handy, sounding surprised and confused, accepted the charges, and when Parker came on, Handy said, “How come collect?”
“I don’t want your number to show up on this phone bill.”
“Ah.”
“You still looking for something to do?”
“I still eat.”
“I have something. It’s a little different from regular.”
“Will it pay?”
“Yes.”
“Where and when?”
“Tyler. The address is 220 Elm Way, apartment 5D. Get here between noon and sundown tomorrow. Arrive quiet.”
“On tiptoe,” Handy said, meaning that he understood he shouldn’t merely take a cab direct from the airport or railroad station to 220 Elm Way.
“See you,” Parker said, and broke the connection and made another collect call.
He phoned a total of twenty-five men. Some of them took two or three calls to locate. By the time he was finished, full night had descended on Tyler and eleven of the twenty-five had said they were in.
Thirty-six
Sunday was early closing; local ordinances prohibited liquor sales after midnight. Not that Faran or any of the other local saloonkeepers really minded, since Sunday was a dead night anyway. They were mostly glad of the excuse to close up, throw the few regulars out, and go home.
Angie came into Faran’s office a few minutes after midnight, bringing him a final drink. “Everybody’s set outside,” she said.
He was totaling the figures. “Fine.”
“I’m taking off now.”
He kept his eyes and his mind on his paperwork. “Okay.” She hesitated. “Will I see you later?”
He looked up. “I’m not sure, Angie. I’m feeling a little shaky.”
“Is it me, Frank? Did I do something?”
“Hey, no,” he said. Getting to his feet, surprising himself with the sudden rush of tenderness he felt toward the girl, he went around the desk and took her upper arms in his hands. “Nothing wrong with you at all, Angie. It’s just all this trouble we’ve been having. Give me a couple days, let things calm down, then everything will be just fine again.”
“Okay,” she said, and gave him a tentative smile. “You had me a little worried.”
“Don’t worry, Angie. Don’t worry about a thing.” He kissed her briefly and released her. “I’m just nervous these days, that’s all.”
”Okay, Frank. Good night.”
He watched her walk toward the door, skinny and tight, and felt the old ripples in his loins. “Maybe—” he said. She turned to look back at him.
He grinned and bobbed his head. “Maybe I’ll stop over later on.”
“Any time, Frank.”
“I’m not sure. Just maybe.”
“If I’m asleep,” she said, “just wake me.” She gave him a lazy grin and said, “You know how.”
“Yes, I do.”
He watched her leave, but the instant she was out of sight his mind veered away again. Al Lozini’s death, the replacement of Farrell for Wain, Dutch Buenadella taking over, Hal Calesian suddenly some kind of major power, that guy Parker still prowling around—it was enough to give a man nightmares. Even if he could get to sleep in the first place.
Faran had another ten minutes’ work. The numbers distracted him, soothed his mind, and the drink Angie had brought also helped. He was feeling a little better when he left the office, made his way through the empty club, turned the lights off at the main box by the front door, and went outside.
He was locking the door when he felt the gun in his back. His knees weakened, and he leaned against the door. “Jesus God,” he whispered.
It was Parker; Parker’s voice, saying, “Come on, Frank. Let’s take a walk.”
Thirty-seven
When the doctor left he switched off the light, leaving the room in total darkness. A window was open to let in the warm night air, but no illumination entered with it. The sky was black, dotted with high thin stars that showed nothing but themselves. The room remained black and silent, undefined except by the vaguely lighter rectangle of the window and the hair-thin line of yellow light under the door.
After two hours the sliver of moon appeared in the left edge of the window. Tomorrow night it would finish its monthly wink, closing down completely, but tonight it was still visible, though heavy-lidded. It gave very little more light than the stars, an almost unnoticeable pallor that wouldn’t be able to make its presence known if there was any other light source at all.
But in the bedroom there wasn’t. The gray light crept at an angle across the room, picking up a dresser against the wall and a corner of the foot of the bed. As the moon eased across the sky, more of the bed came into existence, until the light touched on a bandaged hand. Dr. Beiny, being as considerate as possible, had taken the last finger of the left hand.
The moon’s angle reached Grofield’s face, the skin as pale and bloodless as the light that defined it. His breathing was very slow and very shallow, and his eyes did no moving at all behind the closed lids. At times his brain fluttered weakly with incoherent dreams that he wouldn’t remember if he ever woke up, but mostly he was quiescent.
The bullet had gone through his body, entering between two ribs and taking a small chip from one of them, passing near the heart, tearing tissue and lung, and exiting through a much larger hole in the back. Dr. Beiny had filled this body with medicines meant to promote healing and guard against infection, had closed and bandaged both holes, had added blood to the depleted store, and was feeding Grofield intravenously with a liquid composed mostly of protein and sugar. The apparatus in the room, chrome and glass, glinting dimly in the moonlight, gave the place the air of a hospital or a medical station near a battlefield: inverted bottle suspended from a chrome armature, syringes, beakers, full and empty squat medicine bottles with cork stoppers through which the hypodermic needle would be thrust.
By midnight the moon was halfway across the window space. A small sound occurred in Grofield’s throat, his eyes twitched inside the lids, the remaining fingers of his left hand contracted slightly. His heart beat slowly but erratically, and then it stopped. The fingers opened out a bit again, losing their tension. The eyes became still. The heart thudded again, blundered forward like a blind man in a dense woods. A long, slow, almost silent sigh emerged through Grofield’s slightly parted lips; not quite the soul leaving the body.