Devers and Webb followed him in. They came cautiously at the next door and again Parker leaned into it from the side, the revolver ready in his hand, his other hand flat against the wall behind him to lever him back out of the way if it was needed.
Another pie slice. A desk again, this one larger. Patterned carpet. Glass-fronted bookcases. The light came from a table lamp with an orange shade, sitting on one corner of the desk.
Again no sound, nothing moving. Parker entered as carefully as before, and still nothing happened.
Now he could see the rest of the room. A sofa along the left wall, an armchair at its far end. A couple more lamps, a library table, a filing cabinet, a coffee table in front of the sofa.
A sound. From behind the desk.
Parker dropped. He lay on the rug, listening, and when he turned his head and looked across the carpet into the darkness under the desk and beyond the desk, near where the wheeled legs of the office chair came down, he saw a pair of eyes, blinking whitely.
Sideways. Someone lying on his back, head turned this way, eyes slowly opening and closing.
Parker got to his feet. Behind him to the left was a wall switch. He hit it, and indirect lighting filled the room from troughs along the top of the walls. He went around behind the desk as Webb and Devers came in.
The man on the floor was tall, muscular with an overlay of flab. He was wearing scuffed brown oxfords, baggy brown trousers, a bulky dark-green sweater frayed here and there. The sweater was caked and smeared dark brown in two places over his chest and stomach. A dark slender ribbon glinted along his cheek from his mouth, disappeared into his hair beneath his ear. He must have been lying with his head tilted a little the other way for a while. Maybe he’d heard Parker and the others coming in, had managed to turn his head. He wasn’t moving now.
Devers had come around the desk from the other side, stood with his shoes near the guy’s head. He said. “Dead?”
“Not yet. You know him?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t see his face.” Parker went on one knee beside the wounded man, put his hand on the guy’s chin, turned his head so Devers could see it. Blood had started to trickle out the other side of the mouth now. His eyes were open again. They blinked, very slowly, shut and then open. They did it again. When they were open the eyes didn’t focus on anything, just looked straight ahead at the ceiling. They kept blinking at the same slow steady rhythm.
Devers looked sick. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t know who he is.”
”You never saw him at all?”
“Never. I’d remember.”
Parker let the chin go, and the head stayed where he’d left it. Some blood was on the first finger of Parker’s left hand He cleaned it on the guy’s sweater, then pushed the body partway over to get at the hip pocket, where the wallet should be.
It was there. Parker opened it, found a driver’s license read the name aloud. “Ralph Hochberg. Mean anything?”
“Nothing,” Devers said.
Hochberg’s head was facing front again, his eyes staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly without let-up. He began to gurgle in his throat, a small damp choking sound.
Devers said, “He’s strangling on his blood.”
Parker pushed Hochberg’s face to the side, so the blood could flow out, and got to his feet. “They were here,” he said, more to himself than Devers. “Godden and this one. Just the two of them? They’ve started to doublecross each other.”
“Godden wouldn’t try it with just one other man,” Devers said. “Not going up against three pros, even with surprise on his side. He’d want to make it three against three at least. More, if he could find the people. You suppose this guy’s a patient of his?”
Webb came over, an envelope in his hand. He’d been searching the room and going through the filing-cabinet while Parker and Devers concentrated on the wounded man. Webb said, “Nobody else. The cases are over there, past the sofa. Empty.”
“This is where they divvied,” Parker said.
“I found this,” Webb said, handing out the envelope.
Parker took it. It was addressed to Dr Fred Godden, 16 Rosemont Road, West Monequois, New York. That wasn’t the office address.
Parker handed the envelope to Devers, saying, “You know this town. Would that be a residence?”
“Sure,” Devers said. “West Monequois, that’s high class.”
Webb said, “Let’s go there.”
3
Rosemont Road curved gracefully back and forth among brick ranches and frame split levels, each on its own grassy lot, with its wide driveway, attached garage, TV antenna and sloped roof. It was almost three-thirty in the morning now, and every house they passed was completely dark, except that every now and then a night light showed faintly through a window.
Number sixteen was on the right, a split level with the garage in the lower part of the two-storey section. It was as dark as the rest of the neighborhood, a white frame house built up on a rise of land above the road, with a steep rock garden at the front of the lawn, a broad driveway that angled upward sharply, and a look of innocence and sleep.
Webb drove on until the curve of the road hid them from the Godden house, and then he parked. All three got out and walked back along the sidewalk, cutting across the lawn of the house next door in order to come at the Godden house from the back, on the garage side.
There was a door at the back of the house, leading into the garage. They approached it slowly, the darkness as deep as velvet all around them, the house a vaguely seen pale shape looming up in front of them. They were silent, moving on grass. They reached the rear wall and slid along it to the door.
Parker tried the knob. It clicked faintly, but the door was locked.
A voice said, “Roger?”
Parker flattened against the house.
The voice was above him, somebody in a second-storey window. It said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Roger.” It Was a male voice, but womanish and trembling with fear. Parker waited.
The voice said, “I have a gun. You’d better get away from here.”
Moving slowly, Parker turned his head. He could see that Webb was no longer there behind him, which was good. Devers, a few feet away, was pressed close to the wall just as Parker was.
The voice said, “You’ve got all the money, what more do you want?”
Whispers don’t have much individuality. Making his shrill, Parker whispered, “Ralph is still alive!”
“What do you want me to do about it?” The voice was getting shrill itself, the tension in it twanged like a plucked zither string.
“Help him,” Parker whispered.
“Help him! Why shoot him? What’s the matter with you?”
“I need your help,” Parker whispered. “Let me in.”
“So you can kill me, too?”
“Why would I kill you?”
“Why did you shoot Ralph? Roger, I’m sorry, I can’t trust you. Maybe tomorrow. What are we going to do about Ralph? I thought he was dead. I though I’d have to go back later and take him out and leave his body somewhere. But if he’s alive, I—” With sudden suspicion, the voice said, “Is he alive? How do you know?”
“I went back.”
“How did you know where to find me? Roger? Is that Roger down there?”
“Yes.” If Devers was right, that Godden’s partners were probably patients of his, a little hysteria might be in order now. Parker suddenly rattled the doorknob loudly, whispering, “Let me in! I threw the gun away, I don’t want to kill anybody any more! Let me in! I need your help!”
“That isn’t Roger!”
Where the hell was Webb? “Help me!” Parker whispered, flapping his arms against the door, moving around like someone too agitated to stand still. Or like someone trying to be a bad target.
There was a sudden light from above, and Parker was in the middle of it. A flashlight. Parker dove for the darkness and above him a rifle sounded, loud and flat.