“Offshore,” he said. “We can sell it for a percentage to people who’ll take it to Africa or Asia, it’ll never get into the banking system again.”
“There are so many ways to do things,” she said.
“There have to be.”
She said, “Before, you said you have to decide what to do about what’s-her-name? The bounty hunter’s partner.”
“Sandra Loscalzo.”
“Why don’t you have to decide what to do about the man? Keenan.”
“He’s dead, too.”
“Oh.”
He looked out at the traffic, which was thickening as they got closer to the city. They were both silent a while, and then he was surprised when she said, “I’ll come in with you.”
3
“We can’t go there yet, you know,” McWhitney said, by way of greeting.
Standing at the bar, Parker said, “Nelson McWhitney, this is my friend Claire.”
“Hello, friend,” McWhitney said, and dealt two coasters onto the bar, saying, “Grab a stool. What can the house buy you?”
“I would take a scotch and soda,” Claire said, as she and Parker took the two nearest stools.
“A ladies’ drink,” McWhitney commented. “Good. Parker?”
“Beer.”
McWhitney’s bar, in Bay Shore on Long Island’s south shore, was deep and narrow, its dark wood walls and floors illuminated mostly by beer-sign neon. At eight-thirty on a Monday night in October it was nearly empty, two solitary men finishing whiskey along the bar and a yellow-haired woman hunched inside a black coat at the last dark table along the other side.
McWhitney himself didn’t look much livelier, maybe because he too had had a rough weekend. Red-bearded and red-faced, he was a hard bulky man with a soft middle, a defensive lineman gone out of shape. He made their drinks, brought them over, and leaned close to say, “Those two will be outa here in a couple minutes, and then I’ll close up.”
Parker said, “What do you hear from Sandra?”
Raising an eyebrow toward Claire, McWhitney said, “Your friend’s up to speed on you and me?”
“Always.”
“That’s nice.” Nodding his head toward the rear of the bar, McWhitney said, “Sandra’s not quite that good a friend, but there she is, back there, waiting on a phone call.” He raised his voice: “Sandra! Look who dropped by.”
When Sandra Loscalzo rose to come join them, she was tall and slender, in heels and jeans and the black coat over a dark blue sweater. She walked in a purposeful way, taking charge of her territory. She wasn’t carrying a glass. At the bar, she said to Parker, “The last time I saw you, you were driving a phony police car.”
Parker said, “The police car was real. I was the phony. You were there?”
“Fifty-yard line.” She sounded admiring, but also amused. “You boys are cute, in a destructive kind of way.” Looking at Claire, she said, “Is he destructive at home?”
“Of course not,” Claire said, and smiled. “I’m Claire. You’re Sandra?”
“G’night, Nels,” called one of the customers, rising from his seat, waving a hand over his shoulder as he left.
“See you, Norm.”
Parker said to Sandra, “You’re waiting for a phone call.”
Sandra made a disgusted headshake and gestured at McWhitney. “This fellow and Harbin,” she said. “Where’s he stash him? In Ohio. I’m not going to Ohio, eyeball the fellow, that means, what I’ve got to do, I call my guy in DC, I pass along my tip, and I’m not even sure Nelson here isn’t pulling my chain. What if Harbin isn’t there? I don’t keep a reputation with dud tips.”
McWhitney said, “I don’t give you dud tips. What’s in it for me? He’s right exactly where I told you.”
“Have a good one, Nels.”
“You too, Jack.” McWhitney waved, then said to Parker, “About halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton, Interstate 75, they’re putting in a new restaurant, rest area. There’s a spot they’re gonna blacktop for the parking lot very soon now but not yet, not till the structure’s a little further along. A month ago, it was just messed-up fill in there, bulldozed a little, a lot of wide tire tracks. A few more weeks, they gotta lay that blacktop before winter freezes the ground, but not yet.”
“I hate it when somebody’s plausible,” Sandra said. “Everything fits together like Legos. Life doesn’t do that.”
“Every once in a while,” McWhitney told her, “the plausible guy has the goods.”
Parker said, “So McWhitney gave you the tip, and you gave it to somebody you know in DC—”
“In the US marshals’ office.”
“And they’re sending somebody to check it out. If the body’s there, you get your reward money. They’re calling you here?”
“Not on the bar’s phone,” she said. “On my cell.”
“All right.”
“Pretty soon, they’ll call,” Sandra said. She did all her talking with her right hand in her coat pocket. “If they say Harbin’s there, fine. If they say Mr. Harbin’s still among the missing, I’m gonna feel very embarrassed.”
“He’s there,” McWhitney said.
“But I’ll get over my embarrassment,” she told them, “because I’ll still have a little something to give them, make up for the inconvenience. Originally, I just had Nelson here.” She smiled around at them all. “But now,” she said, “I got a twofer.”
4
McWhitney said, “I’d better lock up.”
He had to walk down to the end of the bar and open the flap there to come out, then walk back past the others on this side. Sandra stepped back against the line of booths so he wouldn’t pass behind her, then said to Parker, “Funny you should happen by.”
“Is it?”
“You find yourself in the neighborhood, just the same day Dalesia slips his bonds.”
Returning to the others, staying now on this side of the bar, McWhitney said, “Sandra, don’t excite yourself. We aren’t helping Nick. He isn’t gonna let us know where he is.”
Skeptical, Sandra said, “Why? Because you’d turn him in?”
“That’s the last thing we’d do,” McWhitney said, “and he knows it. Unless it was turn him in like you’re turning in Harbin.”
She shook her head. “You were a team.”
“Not any more.”
Parker said, “If they take him again, all he has for bargaining chips is the money and us.”
“Well, it’s me more than you,” McWhitney said. “He knows this place here.”
“I think,” Claire said carefully, “he knows our phone number.”
Sandra looked at her with a little smile. “You mean, he knows your phone number. He’s used your phone number. Roy Keenan and me, we looked at that number. Nick Dalesia never did have a wide range of telephone pals. Ms. Willis stood out.”
Claire shrugged. “I never actually met the man,” she said. “I have no real link with him at all. I was looking for somebody to blacktop my driveway. I forget who said they’d have Mr. Dalesia call me. I talked to him twice, but I thought he sounded unreliable.”
“That’s nice,” Sandra said. “As long as Nick isn’t there to say it didn’t happen that way.”
“That’s what we’re saying,” McWhitney told her. He had taken the stool next to Parker, with Claire beyond, the three facing Sandra with her right hand in her pocket and her back braced against the booth’s tall coatrack.
“All right,” Sandra said. “But while we’re waiting here, it might be we could do some other business together. I mean, if this Harbin thing turns out to be on the up-and-up.”