“You’ve never known anybody like me before,” he said. “I only walk where the ice is thick.”
“You walk on ice,” she said. “That’s what I mean.”
“That’s a surprise? You knew that all along.”
“I know.”
“Then why this?”
She turned her head, looked at him through the green lenses of her glasses. After a minute she shook her head and looked back at the book. “I don’t know. No reason.”
“All right.” He faced front again and said, “The room’ll be paid for a month. If I’m not back by then, there’s a package in the hotel safe, enough to carry you for a while.”
“If you’re not back in a month, I shouldn’t wait any more, is that it?”
“Right.”
“You won’t be contacting me at all.”
“Probably not. I might, if there’s a reason, but I won’t just to say hello the weather’s fine.”
“I know,” she said.
Parker got to his feet. “Don’t get too much sun.”
“I’ll be going in in a while,” she said.
Parker took his towel and walked across the sand to the hotel. He looked back when he reached the door, but Claire wasn’t looking at him. Her head was down on the book now, and her hands were covering her face. Parker went on into the hotel.
3
”Stan,” said Fusco, “this is the fella I told you about. Parker, Stan Devers.”
It was raining in New York, drizzling down on the airport in the darkness, cold and wet and a million miles from the heat of Puerto Rico. People with intent faces were hurrying by, bumping into each other, carrying luggage, in a hurry, not happy. In the middle of the brightly lighted floor Parker and Fusco and Devers made an island that the bustle eddied around, the hurriers managing to miss them without quite seeing them.
Devers stuck out his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr Parker.” He was a pretty beach boy, muscular and smiling and self-confident, with a clean strong jawline and curly blond hair. His handshake was self-consciously firm, and he was in civilian clothing, in threads a little too good for somebody who’s supposed to be living on Army pay. He made Parker think of the kind of insurance salesman who peddles his policies on the golf course, except this specimen wasn’t quite old enough for that yet.
“I’ve got a car outside,” Devers said.
Fusco had explained to him on the way up that the fastest way to get to Monequois from New York was to drive. There was local airline service, but it was slow and unreliable. That’s why Devers had been contacted to drive down and meet them at Kennedy Airport.
They started now toward the exit, Devers leading the way through the crowd, saying over his shoulder, “It’s about a five-hour drive, so if you want to make any kind of stop now, go right ahead.”
“We’ll stop on the way,” Parker said.
“Fine.”
The doors opened for them and they went out to moist cold air. There was a roof over this area, but everything was wet just the same, glistening with a clammy sheen of moisture. A Carey bus was picking up passengers to the left, and a stream of taxis was inching along the ramp, letting out arriving passengers and picking up new ones.
Devers had illegally parked his car, a two-year-old maroon Pontiac, in a loading zone just to the right. He unlocked the trunk and stowed the luggage while the others got into the car. Fusco started to get in front but Parker stopped him, saying, “Sit in back. I want to talk to your boy.”
“Sure thing.”
Devers showed surprise for just a second when he got into the car and saw Parker in the front seat with him, but all he said was, “The longest stretch’ll be getting out of this damn city.” He started the engine, cut off a taxi, and they rolled down the ramp into the rain.
Devers was a good driver, if a little fast and cocksure. He out-distanced most of the cabs he met while circling around Kennedy Airport and out on to Van Wyck Expressway, and from there on he maintained a steady seven or eight miles above the posted speed limit. It was just a little after midnight now, and traffic was pretty light once they moved away from the airport. Devers stayed on good roads all the way, Grand Central Parkway and the Triborough Bridge and then over to the Major Deegan Expressway, and despite the rain they were only about half an hour getting to the beginning of the Thruway at the New York City line.
Parker waited until then, until Devers was on the Thruway and settled in for the straight run north, the tires whining on the wet concrete, the wipers ticking back and forth, and then he said, “What are your payments on a car like this?”
Devers was surprised at the question. He looked at Parker, seemed about to ask him why he wanted to know, but then shrugged and looked back at the highway and said, “I don’t know exactly. I paid cash.”
Parker nodded, and looked out the window, and when a minute later Devers asked him if he minded a little music he said no. Devers found a rock-and-roll station, but he kept the volume down and the tone control toward bass, so it wasn’t bad. Most of the time, the beat of the music worked against the pace of the windshield wipers.
They stopped at the Ramapo service area near Sloatsburg. Sitting in a booth over a late dinner, Parker said, “That’s a good-looking suit you’ve got.”
Devers smiled in pleasure, glancing down at himself. “You like it?”
“Where’d you get it? Not in Monequois.”
“Hell, no. Lord & Taylor, in New York.” Devers spoke like a man justifiably proud of his store.
Parker nodded and said, “You go there much?”
“I got a charge account there,” Devers told him. “Lord & Taylor and Macy’s, between the two I can get anything I want.”
“I guess so,” said Parker, and went back to his meal.
When they went out to the car, the rain had stopped. The Pontiac glittered in the lights from the restaurant, looking almost black. This time Parker had Fusco get in front while he sat in back. Devers glided them back out to the almost-deserted Thruway, took it up a little above seventy, and turned on the radio again. It was a different station now, but it was playing the same music.
Nobody talked. The dashboard lights were green, the night outside the windows was rarely punctured by headlights. From time to time Parker saw Devers looking at him in the rearview mirror; the boy kept studying him, with curiosity and respect and some puzzlement.
Parker shut his eyes and listened to the night whine by under the tires.
4
Cold bright sunlight flooded in when Parker opened the door. He gestured and Fusco came in, saying, “You had breakfast?”
“Yes.” Parker shut the light out again and said, “Sit down.”
It was a room in a motel in a town called Malone, about fifteen or twenty miles from Monequois. It was a standard small-town motel, with the concrete block walls painted green, the imitation Danish modern furniture, the tough beige carpeting, not enough towels. Parker had learned years ago that you don’t take up residence in the place where you’re going to make your hit, so this would be home for him either until the job was over or until he decided he wanted to bow out of it. Fusco was already staying in Monequois, had been for the last few months since he’d gotten out, so there was nothing to be done about that, but he and Devers had let Parker off here last night on the way in, arranging for Fusco to borrow the Pontiac and come back for him this morning.
Now, sitting down in the room’s only chair, Fusco said, “You want to talk about Stan.”
“He’s either very good or very bad,” Parker said. “I want to know which one it is.”
‘He’s good Parker. What makes you think he’s anything else?”
“How long’s he been tapping the till?”
Fusco looked blank. “Tapping the till?”