“Maybe. Maybe.” Parker wasn’t as set on this job as Lempke and the others thought; it was still merely just a way to occupy his mind for a while, an exercise, a playing around with professional theory.
Claire said to Lempke, “There’s a way. And he’ll find it.”
Lempke looked from Parker to Claire and back again, then shrugged elaborately and got to his feet and went into the house for more beer.
Parker went over to Billy and said, “That means you’re in it all the way, you know. Not just the fence, but inside. There for the heist. We need you to point out which ones we take.”
Billy was plainly feeling both excitement and terror, trying unsuccessfully to hide both. “I’m willing,” he said. “It’s worth a lot to me, too, after all.” He cast a quick glance toward Claire, then tried to look as though he hadn’t.
“Two things,” Parker told him. “One, you do what you’re told. Two, you leave your bazooka home.”
“But won’t I—”
“No, you won’t. Leave it home.”
“If you say so,” Billy said, looking troubled.
Lempke came back out onto the stoop, carrying a fresh can of beer, and called across the lawn, “Parker, how you going to do this thing?”
“I don’t know yet,” Parker said, and started toward the driveway, saying, “Claire, come on.”
In surprise, Billy said, “Where are you going?”
“Find a way to make it happen,” Parker said.
“Now? But what about the hamburgers?”
Parker didn’t bother to answer him, but Claire said, as they walked around the corner of the house, “Eat them yourself.”
Eight
“I MUST BE a masochist,” Claire said. She was sitting up in bed, knees up, arms wrapped around her legs.
Parker, lying beside her, said, “I hadn’t noticed.”
She gave him a quick smile, then looked away again saying, “I’m always attracted to men who are about to get killed.”
“Not always,” said Parker. “Light me a cigarette.”
“What, not you? You’re the worst of them all.” She took the cigarettes and matches from the night table, lit two cigarettes and gave him one. “The first boy I ever—ever went around with, drove in stock car races every weekend. His left leg was all scars from an accident.”
Parker said, “Ashtray.”
She put it on the sheet between them. “But all the others just tempted fate,” she said. “You tempt fate and fight society at the same time.”
“Wrong. I don’t tempt anybody. I don’t fight anybody. I walk where it looks safe. If it doesn’t look safe, I don’t walk.”
“This time?”
He reached a hand up and stroked the long line of her back. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“You’ll do it,” she said. “I know your type. You talk safety, but when you smell the right kind of danger you’re off like a bloodhound.”
She was describing a tendency in him that he’d been fighting all his life, and that he thought of as being under control. Also, it irritated him to be read that easily. With an abrupt movement, he got up from the bed, saying, “I’ve still got to look around, while it’s light.”
“Don’t get mad at me,” she said. “You were this way long before I came along.”
Parker looked at her and said, “You talk yourself out of a lot of things, don’t you?”
For just a second she looked stricken, but immediately got control again. “All right,” she said, and shrugged. “We’ll go look around.”
They dressed and went down to the mezzanine for another look at the ballroom. Workmen in white overalls were in here now, standing on tall spindly ladders, putting up pink and white bunting across the ceiling.
Parker nodded at the wall opposite, the one covered in maroon plush. “What’s on the other side of that?”
“I don’t know. A wall.”
“Past the wall.”
“I really don’t know.”
“Wait here.”
He walked through trailing streamers of pink and white to the maroon drapes, found a break in them, pushed them aside, and found a set of French doors with mirrored squares of glass. He looked at his silvered reflection, grim and intent, and beyond him Claire, standing across the room like a woman at an airport who knows it is impossible she will not be met.
He tried the wall at two other points, and it was all the same. The entire wall behind the drapes was lined in mirrored French doors. None of the doors had knobs or keyholes, and all seemed to be securely fastened to the wall.
Parker went back over to Claire and said, “Go stand by that window over there. I’m going out to the street. When I wave at you, come down and join me.”
“All right. But what about—?” she motioned at the workmen.
“We’re none of their business. Look at them, they don’t pay any attention to us.”
She made a quick and rueful smile, saying, “You’re calmer about this than I am.”
“I’ve been through it before.”
He left, and went out to the street, turned right under the marquee, looked up, and saw Claire standing at the window. Just beyond that window was the end of the hotel, abutting another building, this one obviously much newer than the hotel. Between them, the hotel and the other building took up this entire block.
Parker waved, and Claire left the window.
The nearest window in the other building was about seven feet straight across from the one where Claire had been standing. This one had a cream-colored shade half drawn, was very wide, and had a small pot of African violets on the sill.
Claire came out of the hotel. When she joined him, Parker put his arm through hers and they walked down to the entrance to the next building, over which, in engraved letters, was written: MID-REGION INSURANCE BUILDING. A cornerstone down to the right said MCMXLVII.
Parker pointed at the date, saying, “What’s the number? I’m no good at that stuff.”
“Nineteen forty-seven.”
They went in and up to the second floor. The door that seemed to lead in the direction they wanted was marked, DIABLO TOURS, The Caribbean Our Specialty. Parker said, “We’re honeymooners, we don’t know if we want Bermuda or Jamaica.”
“All right.”
They went into a smallish square room cluttered with travel posters and bisected by a chest-high counter. A fluttery woman in white peasant blouse, wide flowered skirt, hoop earrings, curly dull-brown hair and several charm bracelets was sitting at a messy desk on the other side of the counter. There was no pot of African violets on the windowsill, and a door on the farther wall apparently led to an inner office.
Under his breath, Parker said, “Get mad at her.”
Claire nodded.
The fluttery woman got up from her desk, smiling as brightly as a bird, and came over to the counter, wondering if she could be of help. Parker gave her the honeymoon story, said they couldn’t decide between Bermuda and Jamaica, and the woman assured them both islands were really very nice. She began pulling pamphlets and brochures out from under the counter, slapping them down in front of Parker and Claire, and then said, “And have you considered Puerto Rico? San Juan is really lovely, particularly if it’s your first time in the Caribbean.”
“That’s the way you people always are,” Claire said, suddenly harsh and bitchy. “Push us off to someplace where you get a payoff, never mind what we want.”
The woman blushed scarlet. “Oh, my dear,” she said, so flustered her hands were fidgeting in the brochures on the counter like pigeons after crumbs. “Oh, I hope you don’t really think that of us, not really.”
“Really,” Claire said. “What are you people anyway but parasites? What good are you to anybody?”
“Really!” said the woman, suddenly stung. “No one asked you to come in here, after all.”
“Now, just a minute,” said Parker.
“If you don’t want our services,” the woman told him, obviously keeping herself under control with an effort, “that’s entirely up to you. I wish you a pleasant voyage in any case.”