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”Robbery on consignment,” Mackey said. He sounded disgusted.

Parker said, “Let’s get that straightened out.”

“We can go back right now.”

“No. He’s in a heavy mood now, he might decide to drop the hole thing. Call him tonight. Don’t sound suspicious or greedy, just say you want to talk over the details of trading the paintings for our money.”

Mackey nodded. “Okay. I’ll work it out with him.”

Brenda said, “Does this mean it might not happen?”

“Bite your tongue,” Mackey said.

Brenda turned to Parker. “What do you think?”

Parker thought three in a row would be too many. He said, “We should be able to work something out. First we’ll find out what he’s got in mind.”

“I want to get this thing off the ground,” Mackey said. “It’s been a long while between drinks.”

They drove the rest of the way back to the motel in silence. Parker left them and went off to his own room and called Handy McKay again. If something else had come along, he’d leave this right now. If nothing was happening, he’d stay here and hope for the best.

Handy came on the line and said, “Got a call for you.”

“Good.”

“Guy in San Francisco. Named Beaghler.”

Parker shook his head. “Forget it,” he said.

“Well, what Beaghler said was, he had information for you on a friend of yours. Somebody you wanted to look up.”

“Ah.”

“He said to call him at home.”

Parker did, but it was Sharon’s voice that answered, full of strangled sexuality. Parker said, “Bob there?”

“No, he’s out now.” The sentence was so loaded with veiled invitation that it sounded as though it had to be a parody; except it wasn’t.

“When will he be back?”

”Around five.” The voice had throttled back, become more matter-of-fact. “You want me to have him call you?”

Five. There was a two-hour time difference from here to California, so that would be seven this evening here. “No,” Parker said, “I’ll call him.”

“Who should I say?”

“I’ll tell him when I call back,” Parker said, and hung up, and phoned again at quarter after seven.

This time Beaghler himself answered, all of his belligerence and insecurity compressing themselves into the one suspicious word, “Hello?”

“The last time I saw you,” Parker said, “was at that motel in Fremont. I got mad at you for shouting my name so loud.”

“What? Oh, Pa—! Oh, yeah, yeah. That’s right. You got my message, huh?”

“I got it.”

“You were looking for that fellow George, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, he’s here.”

“Where?”

“Not thirty miles from where I’m standing. Where are you?”

“More than thirty miles from where you’re standing. How can I get in touch with George?”

“I’ll take you to him.”

Parker frowned at the telephone. “There’s no need for that,” he said.

“But I want to. Listen, be a sport. There’s money in it.”

“What money?”

“Not from you. But this could help me, it really could.”

Parker considered, trying to work it out. Uhl was someplace with money, apparently. Beaghler wanted the money, but didn’t want to go up against Uhl himself. So he wanted Parker to take care of Uhl while Beaghler took care of the money. And the hook would be that Beaghler wanted to make a deaclass="underline" Uhl’s whereabouts for Uhl’s money.

Beaghler said, “Hello?”

Parker said, “How long’s he going to be there?”

”Just a few days.”

The details would have to be worked out at the scene. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” Parker said.

“I’ll stay home from work.”

Parker hung up, and went to see Mackey. Mackey and Brenda were getting ready to go out to dinner, and they both had the slightly flushed look of people who’d paused in the middle of changing clothes. Parker said, “I’m taking off for a couple days. Work out what you can with Griffith. I’ll give you a call before I come back, to see if things are still on. If you aren’t here, I’ll know they’re off.”

Mackey said, “You want help?”

“No, you have things to do here. I’ll call you in a couple days.”

“So long,” Mackey said.

Brenda said, “Good luck.”

Five

Sharon opened the door. When she saw Parker standing out there on the porch, her face tightened up and she said, coldly, “Just a minute.” She shut the door again.

Parker sat on the porch railing. Behind him, heavy equipment was grinding and clanking in the excavation on the other side of the street. The sky was half blue and half puffy clouds, so that sunshine and cloudiness alternated like very slow Morse code; there was almost a ten-degree drop in the temperature of the air every time a cloud covered the sun. It was ten-thirty in the morning, and the Dodge at the curb had been picked up from a different rental company, using a different credit card.

The door opened again and Beaghler came out, shrugging into a blue denim jacket with metal snaps to close it down the front. He left it hanging open. Under it he was wearing a T-shirt, plus black trousers, the legs stuffed into black boots. He looked tense but cheerful; maybe too cheerful, as though he were nerving himself up to something that frightened him.

Parker stood up. Past Beaghler he got another glimpse of Sharon in the doorway, her face closed and sullen, before she shut the door.

Beaghler ignored the slap of the door behind him. “Hi, there,” he said. “You made good time.”

”Where’s Uhl?”

“We’ll go out there now. You got heat on you?”

“Just tell me where he is.”

Beaghler’s hands were up behind his neck, twisting the collar of his denim jacket. He stopped that way, looking like a prisoner of war about to be frisked, and gave Parker a stupid and cunning grin. “Come on,” he said. “You figured it out by now.”

“Tell it to me anyway.”

“In the car. Come on.”

They went down off the porch and through the bedraggled lawn and over to the Chevy Nova with the oversized tires. Beaghler got behind the wheel and Parker slid in on the passenger side. Beaghler put his hands on the steering wheel and shift lever, and confidence could be seen to flow into him like electric current from the car. He sat that way for a second, changing like a comic-book hero who’s said the magic word, and then he gave Parker a quick meaningless grin and took the car keys from the breast pocket of his denim jacket.

Much had been done to the engine. The sound that came from under the hood was well muffled but still full of the promise of strength—a controlled growl, ready to move. A faint vibration spread throughout the car, like the eagerness in tensed muscles.

But Beaghler didn’t drive like a cowboy. He moved the car smoothly away from the curb and stuck to normal speeds throughout the drive; it was like being in a plane taxiing toward the runway, being slow and sedate but on its way to where it could really let out and be itself.

Parker let Beaghler have a couple blocks of communion with his car, and then he said, “Tell me the story.”

Beaghler gave him a look almost of surprise, as though he’d forgotten he had a passenger in the car with him. Then he could be seen to organize his thoughts again, to remember what they were here for; he faced front, watched the traffic, and said, “First of all, I want you to know I’m not sore.”

Parker waited.

Beaghler gave him a quick glance, and faced front again. “About you socking me, I mean,” he said.

“All right.” Parker noticed that Beaghler hadn’t referred to Sharon, either her role in it or what Parker had said about her. But her existence shimmered in the car, and Parker understood that Beaghler meant he wasn’t angry about all that either. Which might be true, or might not.