His grin was just a little sour. “Good idea,” he said.
She had Daniel stashed in the condo where he’d first told her about the three men who planned to rob tonight’s jewelry auction. That condo had now been sold, by her, but the closing hadn’t happened yet, so nobody would have any reason to go in there for a couple of weeks. She’d brought him in last night, with the help of Loretta, who was suddenly happy and perky and full of good cheer now that the scary part was over, and they’d left him with milk and candy bars and two blankets.
Now, once she was sure Farley wasn’t still around and following her, she drove back down to the condo, carried the canvas bag in with her, and found Parker seated on the bench on the terrace, where they’d talked the first time. He had one of the blankets wrapped around himself.
“I have clothes for you,” she said, and showed him the canvas bag.
He got up stiffly, but he could move better today than last night. He took the bag from her and went off to another room, and when he came back, dressed, he looked almost his normal self, but more gaunt, and still moving slowly. “I could use a razor,” he said as he sat on the terrace bench again. His voice at last was above a whisper, was now a hoarse burr, like a palm brushing corduroy.
She sat beside him, saying, “Okay. Anything else?”
“Can you pick me up at seven-thirty?”
“Daniel, you still want to go after those people? Tonight?”
“Tonight’s when they’re doing it.”
“But you’re — I don’t suppose I could argue you out of it.”
“If you argue me out of it,” he said, “you don’t get anything.”
“If they kill you I don’t get anything either.”
“Maybe it won’t happen.”
“Maybe,” she said, giving up. “Sergeant Farley came to see me this afternoon.”
He watched her. “Did he worry you?”
“A little,” she admitted. “But he had more news.”
“What?”
She told him about the hired killer Farley had captured. He grunted at that and said, “That’s the end of it, then.”
“But who is he? Who’s after you like this?”
“The stupid thing is,” he said, “I don’t know. The guy’s making trouble, and he doesn’t have to.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I got some identification from a guy,” he said.
“Daniel Parmitt’s identification?”
He shrugged. “He’s a guy who does that kind of thing. He did it for somebody else, South American or Central American I think, maybe a drug guy or a general, whoever. Turns out that guy wants to erase anybody knows about his changeover. He sent people to kill the guy did the work for him. I was there, he thinks I know his story, too, he’s tracking me down. Only now the law’s gonna follow the string back from the guy they just nabbed, and they’re gonna find him, and his cover’s blown. He must be wanted badly somewhere, and it’ll come out. You’ll read about it in the papers, a month or two from now, some guy everybody’s after, he suddenly pops up.”
“But you’re not concerned about him,” she said. “He tries to kill you, and it doesn’t matter to you. These other people, you feel they cheated you, that’s all, but you won’t give up.”
“The other guy’s gonna self-destruct,” he told her. “He has to, he’s too stupid to last. He’s somebody used to power, not brains. But these three are mechanics, we had an understanding, they broke it. They don’t do that.” He shrugged. “It makes sense, or it doesn’t.”
Did anything about Daniel Parmitt make sense? Getting to her feet, she said, “I’ll see you at seven-thirty. With the razor.”
13
At seven, the big doors were opened onto the driveway to Mrs. Fritz’s house, and the police car drove in to park just off the gravel, facing out. The private security people set up their lectern on the left side of the entrance and stood around waiting, but no one was going to be unfashionably on time, and the first guests didn’t arrive till seven-twelve.
Each car stopped at the lectern, where the driver handed over to the guard the invitation the guest had received last night after making his sealed bid on one of the items up for auction. The guard checked the invitation against the list on his lectern, then politely nodded the guest through. At the main entrance, staff opened the car doors, the partygoers emerged, the driver was given a claim check, and the car was driven by a valet around to the parking area at the side.
Just over half a mile to the south, Melander and Carlson and Ross had started to dress. Stacked on the dining room table and on the floor were their fire boots, their rubberized gloves, red fire helmets, and black turnout coats with the reflective horizontal yellow stripes and, in block yellow letters on the back, PBFD. Leaning against a wall were their three black air canisters, also with PBFD on them in block white letters. When completely dressed, their visored eyeguards and the mouthpieces from their air canisters would cover their faces entirely.
“I love a costume party,” Ross said.
A few miles farther south, Leslie stood in the bathroom doorway and watched Daniel shave off that ridiculous little mustache. It changed him. Without the mustache, he was a hard man, very cold. She realized with surprise that, if she’d seen him this way at first, she wouldn’t have dared approach him.
He was still battered, though, and she didn’t see how he could hope to beat those three men. He’d stripped to the waist to shave, and his torso was still swathed in bandages, partly because of the bullet holes front and back but mostly because of the broken ribs. Why wouldn’t they just ride right over him?
And what happens to me? she wondered.
Mrs. Fritz’s ballroom quickly filled. All the men wore essentially what they’d worn at the Breakers last night, and all the women wore something strikingly different. Staff moved among them with canapés and champagne, and special lights gleamed on the display tables where the jewelry was arrayed. Maroon velvet ropes kept the guests from getting within reaching distance of the jewelry. Everybody was here now except the musicians, who would arrive later, and play for dancing after the auction was complete. To one side, Mrs. Fritz and the auctioneer, a professional man who’d worked any number of charity balls around here over the years, consulted together about timing.
“I think it’s time,” Melander said, and the three of them, encumbered in their full firefighter gear, tromped out of the house and around to the fire engine parked at the side. Carlson climbed up behind the wheel while Melander and Ross took up standing positions on the outside of the fire engine, just to increase the visual plausibility of the thing.
Carlson said, “Ready?” and the other two agreed they were ready. Carlson picked up the two small radio transmitters from the seat beside him and pressed down on the buttons.
In the ballroom, the incendiary rockets came thundering out of the amplifiers still in the corner. Some of the rockets flew straight up, to embed themselves in the ceiling and spray sparks and flame onto the people below. Some shot directly back into the wall, gouting flame and smoke, and the rest drilled down into the floor. None were aimed at the guests or the display tables of jewelry.
Shocking heat and noise and smoke abruptly filled the room. No one knew what had happened, where this sudden disaster had come from. A lot of people thought rockets were being fired from outside the house. Everybody milled around in sudden fear, trying to find a way out. The display tables and the auctioneer’s stand blocked the terrace doors, so the only way out was through the broad interior doorway into the rest of the house. People jammed together, making a bottleneck in the doorway, clawing to get through.