“Not at all, not at all.” The desk clerk went away, and came back with an outsize card. “Is that Charles Willis?”
“That’s right.”
“No trouble at all, Mr Willis.”
A couple of months from now, when it got colder up north, it would be a lot of trouble, but not now.
“Is Edelman around?” Parker asked.
“Yes, sir, I believe he is. His office is–-“
“I know where it is.”
“Yes, sir.”
The desk clerk got him signed in and told him his room number, and bellboy number two appeared. Parker gave him a half dollar and the suitcase with the clothes in it. “Take this up to my room, will you? I’ll hold on to the other one.”
“Yes, sir.”
The bellboy went away, carrying the suitcase, and Parker went around the corner and down the hall to the door marked “Samuel Edelman, Manager” on the frosted glass. He went inside and the, secretary stopped typing and looked at him.
“Charles Willis to see Mr Edelman.”
“One moment, please,” The girl went inside to the inner office, and Parker waited, holding his suitcase. After a minute she came out. “Mr Edelman will see you.”
“Thank you.” Parker went inside, and she closed the door after him.
Edelman was standing up behind his desk, a stocky thin-haired man who gave the impression of being tightly girdled. He looked the same as ever, but Parker didn’t, because of the new face, and that’s why Edelman looked anxious and indignant. “I thought you were a different Charles Willis. One I used to know.”
“I am.” Parker put the suitcase down and smiled, waving a hand in front of his face. “Plastic surgery. I know, my wife told you I was dead.”
“She was quite certain of it,” Edelman said. He sounded oddly prim, as though he suspected some sort of blasphemy.
“Lynn, you mean. She had to act that way.” Parker sat down in the brown leather chair in front of the desk. “I ran into a little trouble and had to change things around a little. ‘Charles Willis’ is a common name, and I still have a lot of friends I don’t want to lose track of, like you, so I kept it. But I had to be out of sight, so I had to get a new face.”
Edelman remained standing, but doubt furrowed his brow. “She took the two packages, you know.”
Parker nodded. He knew she’d cleaned out all the caches. “Of course she did,” he said. “But now everything’s all right again. I’ve got the new face, and everything is straightened out.”
Edelman’s eyes narrowed, showing he was thinking. “Is Mrs Willis with you?”
“Unfortunately, no. We had a tense time there for a while, and she didn’t like having to play-act, tell everybody I was dead and so forth. It got on her nerves, and we quarrelled a lot, and — ” he shrugged ” — we parted.”
“There’s some similarity,” Edelman said, studying Parker’s face, “but I don’t like it. First Mrs Willis tells me her husband is dead, and then you come in and say you’re Mr Willis and your wife has left you. I don’t like it.”
“You must have my signature around on something.” Parker reached out and took the gold pen out of the ornate pen holder. There was a memo pad on the desk, and he wrote the name “Charles Willis” on it five times. “Go ahead and check it.”
“You could have practised the signature.”
Parker shrugged. “Ask me something. Let me make like that Princess Anastasia for a while. Ask me something only Willis would know.”
Edelman closed his eyes. “The voice sounds right.” He opened his eyes again. “You understand, it’s a surprise. I’m not sure what to believe.”
“People get into trouble.” Parker shrugged. “I was in trouble for a while, that’s all. If someone had come around looking for me, you could have told them you’d heard from my wife that I was dead. If someone comes around now and wants to know am I the same Charles Willis who used to come here, you say no — that Charles Willis is dead, this is another one.”
Edelman at last sat down behind the desk. “All right. What problem did you help me solve seven years ago?”
“Cantore, the bookie that wanted to open an office in the hotel. He had somebody working in the kitchen, lousing up the food with Tabasco sauce, and you asked me to talk to Cantore. I did, and the problem went away.”
Edelman nodded. “You could have heard that from Willis.”
It was time to show impatience. Parker said, “Damn it, man, I am Willis. I know you can’t stand your middle name, which is Moisha. I know you like to be called Sam and hate to be called Ed or Eddy. I know you drink nothing but wine, but you’ll drink any kind of wine that can be poured. I know you’ve got a boat called the Paradise and I was on it when you caught a marlin one time, and I was on it when you let marlins get away half a dozen times. All right now?”
Edelman slowly smiled. “Like Mark Twain, the reports of your death are greatly exaggerated. But at least Twain came back with his own face.”
Parker shrugged. It was time for a light remark, but he had trouble thinking of light remarks. “You satisfied now?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
“Fine.”
Now that the matter was settled, Edelman could be the hotel manager again. “You’ll be staying with us for a while?”
“A couple of months at least. But I’m going to have to be away for a few days. I’m just settling in for now.” He kicked the suitcase. “I want to leave this in your safe.”
“Of course. Wait, I’ll give you the receipt for it.”
They talked a while longer, so Edelman could get used to the fact that Parker was still alive, and then Parker went up to his room. He had a view of the beach, with the bright umbrellas and the bright beach mattresses and the people in their bright bathing suits. He unpacked the suitcase and loafed around the room a while, unbending, and then went downstairs to the hotel men’s shop.
He bought a bathing suit, and some clothing, and had them sent up to his room. Then he went around to the garage and got the Ford. He drove out south on route 1 to Homestead, and then took 27 in towards the Everglades. At a deserted spot he turned right on to a dirt road and followed that deep into the swampy area, and then stopped the car.
He searched it carefully, under the seats, on the floor, for anything that might lead to him, then did the same in the trunk. When he was satisfied it was clean, he took the licence plates off. Jersey plates could lead to trouble. He carried them away into the swamp and buried them.
He left the key in the ignition. Now someone else could have the Ford, and if the law ever got interested in it Parker would be too far back in the chain of events to be traced.
And Charles Willis didn’t own a car.
He walked back to 27 and hitched a ride to Homestead. From there he took a cab back to the hotel.
Chapter 3
THE CAR rental agency was as good as its advertising. Parker got off the plane in Lincoln at three-thirty on Saturday morning and the Chevrolet was there waiting for him. He signed the papers, showed the driver’s licence he’d bought in New Jersey, and drove off.
He was in a hurry, but it was too late at night. He was in a hurry because it was now nearly a week since Stubbs had escaped from the farmhouse, but it was too late at night because he was tired and he wasn’t sure what sort of reception he’d get at the sanitarium. Stubbs had said something about the cook having her common-law husband with her. So Parker drove the rented Chevvy into town where he got a hotel room and slept till ten o’clock. He had a hurried breakfast and then drove out to the sanitarium.
It had only been three weeks since the death of Dr Alder, but already the place looked as though it had been abandoned for years. Parker drove up past the neglected lawns to the front door and stopped the Chevvy where the sign marked “Visitors’ Parking”.