“You mean,” Parker said, “we get our own pieces, and part of Nick.”
“You get more than you were going to get,” she said, “and now you’re partners with somebody who can help you get it.”
“Don’t sell me any more,” Parker said. “I get the idea.”
“Sorry,” she said.
He said, “I know, you were used to Keenan.”
“I’m getting over it.”
Till now there’d been no other traffic along this road, but a wavering oncoming light turned out to be a pickup truck, moving slowly and unsteadily, tacking rather than driving, with a driver fighting sleep. Sandra pulled far to the right to let him by, then looked in the rearview mirror and said, “The funny thing is, most fools get away with being fools.”
“Until they count on it,” Parker said. “There’s a left turn coming up. Do you have a blanket or something in the trunk?”
“I keep a mover’s pad back there,” she said. “It’s quilted, so I guess it’s warm, but it’s kind of stiff.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re coming up on the church now. I don’t want you to stop. Church on the right, house on the left, both white. See?”
“Very remote,” she said, as they drove on by.
“One of Nick’s better ideas,” Parker said. “Will you be able to find it tomorrow?”
“Oh, sure.” She laughed. “I can usually find money.”
“Up ahead here,” he said, “there’s a little bridge over a stream. The road curves down to the right to the bridge, and just before it there’s a parking area on the right.”
“For fishermen,” she suggested.
“Probably. Stop there, and I’ll get out and take the blanket and walk back. And do you have a bottle of water?”
“Right under your elbow there.”
The road curved down and to the right, and ahead the old iron latticework of the bridge drew pale lines against the black. Sandra stopped the Honda. “See you sometime tomorrow.”
“Right.” Carrying the bottled water, he got out of the car and opened the trunk to pull the stiff pad out. He shut the trunk, rapped his knuckles on it once, and she drove away, over the bridge, taking all the light with her.
It would take a minute to adjust his eyes to the night. While waiting, he did his best to fold the blanket-size quilted pad into something he could carry. Finally, the simplest way was over his shoulders, like a cloak, which made him look more like a Plains Indian than anything else. But it was warm and not awkward, and easy to walk with.
Twice on the way back he saw headlights at a distance and stepped off the road till they went by, once into some woods and the other time along a one-lane dirt road meandering uphill.
And then, there ahead of him, were the two small pale buildings in the dark. Both were empty, but the house might be warmer and just a bit more comfortable, without the church’s high ceilings. He went there and let himself in and decided on the smaller of the bedrooms upstairs.
It had been a long day; he spread the moving pad on the floor, rolled himself in it, and was soon asleep, and when he woke muddy daylight seeped through the room’s one window. He was stiff, and not really rested, but he got up and drank some of the water, then went outside to relieve himself. While he was out there, he went over to look at the church again, and nothing had changed.
It was a long empty day. For part of it he walked, indoors or out, and other parts he sat against a wall in the empty house or curled into the moving pad again and slept. He woke from one of those with the long diagonals of late afternoon light coming in the window and Nick Dalesia seated cross-legged on the floor against the opposite wall. The revolver in his right hand, not exactly pointing anywhere, would belong to the dead marshal.
Parker sat up. “So there you are,” he said.
16
“Where’s your car?” Nick sounded strained, jumpy, a man without time for conversation.
That’s the reason I’m alive, Parker thought. He came across me here, he would have killed me, but he needs wheels and he couldn’t find the ones that brought me here. “Don’t have one,” he said.
Nick was all exposed nerve endings. Any answer might make him start shooting, just to do something. Twisting his lips, he said, “What did you do, walk? How’d you get here?”
“Somebody dropped me off.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know her.”
“Her? Don’t know her?”
“It was just somebody gave me a ride,” Parker said. “What difference does it make?”
“I need a car,” Nick said, low and fervent, as though giving away a secret. Leaning forward, his whole body tense, he said, “I’ve got to get away from here. North, I can get into Canada, I can stop running for a while, figure out what to do next.”
There was only one way Nick would stop running, but Parker didn’t say so. Nodding at the gun, he said, “You’ve got that. That should help.”
Nick looked at the gun with dislike. “I paid a lot for this, Parker,” he said.
“I know that.”
Nick made an angry shrug. “Some people,” he said, “would rather be a hero than alive.”
“That’s not us.”
“No.” Nick stared at Parker, as though something about him were both mysterious and infuriating. Then, abruptly, he punched the gun butt onto the floor next to his leg, with a hollow thud that made him blink. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, as though it mattered.
“I wanted to look at the money.”
“You wanted to take the money.”
“Too soon for that,” Parker said. If he kept showing Nick this bland face, reasonable, no arguments, maybe Nick would calm down a little, just enough to listen to sense. But probably not.
So, how to get to him from across the room? Five feet of wooden floor between them, with a gun at the far end.
Still calm, still with the same even voice, Parker said, “The law put it out that you got away from them before they could ask you anything. I didn’t know if that was true or not. I figured, if the money’s still here, it’s true.”
“It might have helped me with those people before,” Nick said. “But not now.”
“No, not now.”
Nick shook his head, moving from anger to disgust. “You know how they got me.”
“It was almost me,” Parker told him. “If I hadn’t heard about you, I would have been passing that stuff myself.”
“I’d rather it was you,” Nick told him, too caught up in his problems to pretend. “And I was the one that said, uh-oh, better throw that cash away.”
“Just what I did.”
“And came back here.” Nick’s confusion and exasperation and need were so intense he was forgetting the revolver, letting it point this way and that way as he gestured, trying to explain the situation to himself. “That’s what I don’t get,” he said, staring hard at Parker. “That was over a week ago. You were out, you were free and clear, and you came back.” Suddenly suspicious, he threw a quick wary look toward the door and said, “Is Nelson here?”
“No, Nick.”
“Did he drive you? He’s off getting some food, is that it?”
“I don’t travel with McWhitney,” Parker said. “You know that.”
“I know you got a ride here,” Nick said. “You got a ride here, and you’re gonna stay a while, you’re gonna sleep— Somebody’s got to bring you food. Somebody with a car. Why don’t you have a car?”
“I’m not gonna drive around this part of the world, Nick. I’m not gonna draw attention. I don’t have good ID.”