Arthur had stayed where he was, but was curious. "It's cigars?"
"On top," Lloyd said, and pointed to the end of the last cigar on the right. "See that wire?"
Parker had to lean close to see it; another hair-thin wire, like the one to trigger the camera at Claire's house, except this one was coiled around the end of the cigar.
Arthur had come over. "What is it?"
"A little wire," Lloyd said, and pointed at it.
Arthur took off his glasses with both hands, folded the wings, and bent close to look where Lloyd was pointing. "Son of a bitch," he said, and straightened, and put his glasses back on.
Lloyd said, 'This is as deep into this box as I want to
go."
"We don't have to go any more," Parker said. "We all know what the story is now. Don't we, Arthur?"
Arthur sighed. "I would have called that number," he said.
They all looked at the row of cigars in the open box. Then Lloyd lifted his head. "I haven't heard snoring for a while," he said.
Arthur said, "Well, she doesn't snore all the time."
"Look," Parker said.
Lloyd nodded and got to his feet and left the room.
"She's a heavy sleeper," Arthur insisted.
They waited, and Lloyd came back. "She's gone."
"Damn!" Arthur cried. "She must of woke herself up, she wakes herself up sometimes with the snoring, rolls over, goes back to sleep."
"Heard voices," Lloyd suggested.
"Probably looked in here from the hall," Arthur said. "Recognized you from the description."
'There's a bedroom window open," Lloyd said. "Wasn't open before."
"She's got to be in robe and slippers," Arthur said.
He looked anxious, bewildered. "Where's she gonna go}"
Parker turned to answer him, and saw the television on. 'There," he said, pointing.
They all looked. The set had switched on, to show them an interior too dark to clearly make out. There seemed to be movement there.
Arthur said, "She went to your place? What's she doing there?"
Parker said, "Looking for the phone."
5
Picking up Arthur's phone, punching out Claire's number, Parker said, "Does your wife know this number on the paper?"
"She should," he said. "The both of us have been looking at it for days, that's why I put it under the phone. You calling your place?"
In Parker's ear, the ringing began.
Lloyd said, 'You're showing her where the phone is."
"She'll find it anyway," Parker said. The ringing kept on. Turning, he extended the receiver to Arthur, saying, "When she picks up, talk to her."
"I will." Arthur listened to the earpiece.
Lloyd said, "What if she picks it up just for a second, then breaks the connection so she can make her own call?"
"Arthur talks fast," Parker said.
Parker and Lloyd watched Arthur, whose forehead now showed a whole new array of creases. They waited, and Lloyd said, "Maybe I should—" and Arthur yelled, "Joyce!"
He blinked. He looked at Parker. "She hung up."
Parker turned to push the cutoff, then redial, then turned back. Arthur listened, and listened, and sagged. Lowering the phone, he said, "Busy."
Parker took a step backward, away from the phone. Lloyd looked at Parker as though he thought some instructions would be coming now. Arthur put the receiver back in its cradle, then looked at it. "What did I hang it up for?" he asked.
They waited, listening to nothing. Arthur took his glasses off, folded the wings, put the glasses in his shirt pocket. He rubbed his eyes with thumb and first finger of his right hand. He looked tired.
"I saw this movie," Lloyd said. "I didn't like it much."
Nobody answered.
When the phone rang, all three jumped. Arthur grabbed for it, yelled into it, "Joyce!"
"I started to dial that other number," Joyce Hem-bridge explained, sitting on the sofa in her bathrobe and slippers. "I got about halfway through it, but then I realized it was Arthur's voice I'd just heard, so I should talk to him first. I could always make that other the second call."
After Arthur had talked to her on the phone, Lloyd had taken the Volvo to go bring her back, while Parker talked with Arthur, saying, 'Tell me about this Frank Meany."
"He came there a few years before I retired," Arthur said.
'To Cosmopolitan?"
"He was supposed to be a salesman." Arthur shrugged. "Cosmopolitan has a lot of under-the-counter stuff. Like me with the cigarettes and whiskey. Other fellas in the company didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't know what they were doing, and that was fine with everybody."
"But you got to know Meany."
'There was always somebody I was supposed to call," Arthur explained, "if there was any trouble on the routes. A bent cop coming unbent, a driver dipping in for himself, any of the little things that can happen. I'd call the guy and he'd take care of it. The last few years I was there, the guy was Meany. We took a couple trips together, Plattsburgh once, Bangor once, we got along. I knew he was muscle, but that was the job, and he was pleasant with me, liked to talk sports, and he never made me know anything I didn't want to know."
"Where does he live?"
'That I don't know," Arthur said. He glanced over at the phone. "At this point, I wish I did."
"You've got a way to get in touch with him, though," Parker suggested. "Other than that phone number."
"But I don't," Arthur said. 'The way it worked, he called me, we met at a diner on route forty-six, he told me about this place, the setup, the story he was telling. He gave me the real estate agent's card and the cigar box and some cash, and I went and signed the lease, and it was as easy as that." Arthur looked surprised, then smiled. 'They were setting me up, weren't they? From the get-go. No name on the lease but mine. And I never had a bit of trouble with anybody on the job."
'They didn't need you."
Arthur nodded. "I think I need them," he said. "You have it in mind to go talk with Frank?"
'Yes."
"I'd like to talk to him, too," Arthur said, and Lloyd returned then with Joyce, a rangy woman not many years younger than her husband, with a depleted paleness in the flesh of her face that she would normally hide with makeup. She'd thrown a bandana over her head before going out the window here, but steel-gray swatches of wiry hair stuck out from underneath.
When Arthur told her what was going on, she looked around at them, a faint flush on her face, and said, "They were going to kill us. Just like that."
"Explosions are very good," Lloyd told her, "for getting rid of evidence. And you two were going to be evidence, I'm afraid."
She said, "Arthur? What are you going to do about it?"
"Mr. Parker and I were talking about that," Arthur said, and turned to Parker. "I don't know how to find Meany myself, but I've been thinking about it and there's another guy I can reach who'll know where he is."
"Who?"
"Fella named Rafe Hargetty. He took my place when I left there, I broke him in. We talked on the phone sometimes, the first few years. I could still find him."
"Where?" Parker said.
Arthur shook his head. "He'll talk to me, he won't talk to you."
Parker thought it over. Arthur had his own dreams of revenge, which would have to be controlled, but it was true Hargetty was likelier to talk to Arthur than some hard stranger. "Come along, then," he said, and turned to Lloyd. "I can't have a bomb stashed in that other house," he said.
"Not a good time," Lloyd agreed, "for a wrong number."
"Arthur and I will see this Hargetty," Parker said, "and then I'll go on and clean up this business. You stay here, get rid of that cigar box, find the one at the other house and get rid of it."
Lloyd nodded. "Can do."