Выбрать главу

“Parker, I don’t know — “

“You better know. Get on your feet.”

She’d shifted position, the robe falling open below the sash at the waist, and her legs were tanned while her belly was white, and it reminded him of Lynn, that last night when he’d gone to her apartment. He turned away, irritated, saying, “Fix your robe. Get to your feet.”

She got up shakily, eyeing him apprehensively, terrified of him in this mood, not knowing what else he would demand of her. “I’ll try,” she said, wanting to placate him. “I’ll try, Parker, I’ll do my best.”

“That’s good,” he said.

He followed her into the bedroom where the phone was. There was a king-sized bed with a satiny blue spread, and a cream-painted night table. The phone was on the nightstand, a blue Princess phone.

“I don’t know why I let them talk me into this thing,” she said, picking up the phone, trying to laugh and make a joke out of something — anything to break the harshness in the air. “You can’t dial it, and you can’t hang it up.” She sat on the edge of the bed, the phone in her lap, and held it with one hand while dialing with the other. She made a mistake on the third number and broke the connection, laughing uneasily, saying, “See what I mean?”

The second time she managed to dial the right number. Parker stood with his back against the wall, by the door, watching her.

She was answered on the third ring, and she asked for someone named Irma. Then there was a little pause, and she carefully didn’t look at Parker. When Irma finally came on, she gave her the story about the twenty-dollar loan.

Irma had some questions, and she answered them. Why had she waited so late to call? Because she’d been thinking about it all evening and getting madder and madder, and finally she’d decided to call. And where did she ever meet Mal Resnick, anyway? At that party thrown for that guy Bernie from Las Vegas that time — didn’t Irma remember? — when twelve of the girls were sent to the party and Mal had been there. And why had she loaned a perfect stranger twenty dollars? Because he was in the Outfit, and it seemed all right. In fact it seemed like good politics. And was her vacation over? No, not till tomorrow.

She did it well, with no hint by word or tone that anything was wrong, and at last Irma agreed to give her Mal’s new address if she promised not to go around there till morning because Linda was there tonight. She promised, and then she took the pad and pencil from the nightstand and wrote down the address.

When she’d finished thanking Irma and had hung up, having trouble making the receiver stay in the cradle, she put the phone back on the night table and got to her feet, holding out the pad. “Here,” she said. “The St. David Hotel on East 57th. Room 516.”

He took the pad from her. “You did fine,” he said.

“Go on if you’re going,” she said, suddenly weary. “I’ve got to pack.”

“Pack?”

“You’re going to kill him tonight,” she said, her voice drained. “Tomorrow, Irma is going to remember me calling, wanting to know where he was. They’ll come around, and they’ll ask questions, and then they’ll kill me. I’ve got to leave here tonight.”

“Thanks,” he said.

She looked at him sullenly. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “I didn’t do it out of any love for you. If I’d refused, you’d have killed me. This way, I’ve got a few hours’ head start.”

Chapter 6

Parker came in through the window, seeing Mal rise up, head twisting over his shoulder, face slack with panic. He saw Mal make his lunge toward the dressing gown on the chair, and knew there must be a gun in the pocket of it. But he didn’t hurry. He had plenty of time now, all the time in the world.

He came across the room. Mal fell into the chair, he and the chair clattering together to the floor, and now the woman sat up, bewildered, not yet frightened, blinking at him. She raised one arm to cover her breasts.

Mal was comical, a slapstick comedian, the way he got himself all tangled up in the chair and the dressing gown. His arms flailed around, searching for the pocket where the gun was. Parker came over to him and kicked the chair out of the way, and Mal came up at last with the gun in his hand, his face still slack but his movements jerkily fast, as though he were operated by strings.

Mal came up and around with the gun in his sweaty hand, but Parker reached out and took hold of the barrel and slipped the gun right out of his hand. And the metal of the butt showed darker and gleaming from his sweat.

Parker tossed the gun away into the corner with the chair, and reached down and took Mal’s neck in his hands. Mal thrashed on the floor like a fish, arms and legs pinwheeling, and Parker held his neck steady as a rock and looked over his bobbing head at the woman sitting up on the bed. “You’re a pro. Keep your mouth shut, you’ll walk out of here.”

Her mouth had been just opening, a scream welling up in her throat, but now she forced the scream back down. She willed her mouth closed again, and sat silent, watching wide-eyed as Parker held tight to Mal’s throbbing neck and Mal’s arms and legs moved with increasing heaviness. And then, all at once, Parker let him go. Mal fell backward, only half-conscious, his hands coming to his throat, the breath scraping into his lungs with a sound like two pieces of dry wood scraped together.

Parker stood over him, and it was too easy. And it wasn’t enough. He didn’t want to torture Mal, he wouldn’t have got anything from that but wasted time. Ending his life, quick and hard and with his own hands, that was the way.

But it was too easy, and it wasn’t enough. For the first time he thought about the money. Half the take was his. The others were dead. He and Mal were alive; that meant half the take was his.

He wanted the money, too. Killing Mal wasn’t enough, it left a hole in the world afterward. Once he’d killed that bastard, what then? He had less than two thousand dollars to his name. He had to go on living, he had to get back into his old groove. The resort hotels and the occasional job, the easy comfortable life he’d had till this bastard had come along in his taxicab and told him about the job on the island. And to get back to that life, he needed money. Half. Forty-five thousand dollars.

He said it aloud. “Forty-five thousand dollars, Mal, that’s what you owe me.”

Mal tried to speak, but it came out a croak. His voice wasn’t working yet; the bad color hadn’t completely faded from his face.

Parker looked at the woman. “Get out of here,” he said. “Get dressed and get out of here.”

She jumped up from the bed, clumsy with terror, and if she was normally a beautiful and graceful woman it was impossible to tell it now.

“Mal,” said Parker. “Do you want her to call the police?”

“No,” croaked Mal.

“Do you want her to call the Outfit?”

“No.”

Parker nodded, and turned to the woman, who was bent awkwardly, stepping into her panties, cumbersome in her haste. “Listen, you,” he said. “Listen to what Mal has to say.”

She stopped, staring at them, and Mal croaked, “Don’t talk to nobody, don’t tell nobody about this. The envelope’s in the living room. Take it — go home — don’t say nothing to nobody.”

“That’s good,” Parker said. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and they waited until the woman had left. Then Parker got to his feet again. “You owe me forty-five thousand dollars, Mal.”

Mal thought now that maybe he wouldn’t be killed after all. Maybe Parker didn’t want to kill him, just to get half of the money. He struggled up from the floor, still shaky, and said, “I don’t have it right now, Parker, I — “

“What did you do with it?”

“I had to pay the Outfit eighty thousand dollars. I gave it all to them.”