Parker came back to the living room. The girl was on her feet but weaving, moving at a snail’s pace toward the door. Parker came after her, grabbed her by a shoulder, flung her back into the living room. The chain attachment on the front door was broken but the bolt still worked. Parker shot it, and went back to the living room.
The girl was no more than half-conscious. She’d been battered once too often in the last five minutes. She was standing in the middle of the room, frowning and squinting as though not sure what was going on. Parker took hold of her arm and steered her into the kitchen. She moved with no complaint, repeating under her breath, “Mr. Menlo? Mr. Menlo?”
Parker sat her on a kitchen chair and slapped her face to get her attention. “Where have they got Pete Castle?”
She frowned up at him, and then rationality came back to her and her face hardened. “You can just go to hell.”
Parker shook his head in irritation. He hated this kind of thing, hurting people to make them talk. It was messy and time-consuming and there ought to be a better way. But there wasn’t.
He found twine in a kitchen drawer, and tied her to the chair, and gagged her. She fought it, but not successfully. He left her right hand free and put paper and pencil on the table.
“Write the address when you’re ready,” he said. Then he reached for the kitchen matches.
3
There was a delivery truck out front, a small, dark panel truck with the name KELSON FURNITURE on the sides. It was way after one o’clock, but two men in white coveralls were carrying a rolled-up rug out of the dark bungalow.
This was in Cheverly, off Landover Road. Parker crouched in the back seat of the cab, watching them through the windshield. They were half a block ahead, and on the other side of the street. Just the two men in white coveralls and the rolled-up rug. No fat man.
Parker said, “Douse your lights.”
It was a lady cab driver, a small, middle-aged black woman with a wild red hat. She glared over her shoulder at him. “What was that?”
Parker found a twenty and shoved it at her, wishing he had the Pontiac. But Handy had taken that with him. Parker said, “I want you to put out your lights. Then follow that delivery truck over there when it takes off.”
She now looked baffled, but just as suspicious. “Is this some kind of gag, mister?”
“No gag.”
“We’re not supposed to do nothing like that.”
“Just take the twenty.”
“How I know you ain’t a cop? Or a inspector or something?”
“Do I look like a cop?”
“Some cops, yeah.”
“All right,” Parker said. “We’ll do it the hard way.” He dropped the twenty in her lap and showed her the Terrier.
The gun she could understand. She doused the lights. “If you got robbery or rapery on your mind, big man,” she said, “you just forget it.”
“All you do is follow that delivery truck. Get ready now.”
“Sure. They got a body in that rug.” She thought she was being scornful.
“That’s right,” Parker answered.
“Huh?”
The delivery truck started away from the curb. Parker said, “Give them a block. Keep the lights off till I say so. You can see by the street lights.”
“If I get stopped by a cop—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The cab, with its headlights off, trailed the taillights of the delivery truck out to Landover Road, where the truck turned back toward the city. As soon as it had made the turn and was out of sight, Parker said, “Put your lights on now.”
The truck barreled along ahead of them, and didn’t seem aware it was being followed. There was no circling of blocks, or speeding up and slowing down, to check for a possible tail. The truck just ran on over to Bladensburg road and down into the city. In the Trinidad section it made a right turn. Parker said, “Keep back a block and a half unless they turn.”
Ahead, the truck turned in at a driveway. This was a commercial section, shut down tight. Parker said, “Turn at the corner here. Don’t go past where they turned in. Now go half a block and stop.”
He had another twenty ready when the cab stopped. He tossed it to her. “This one’s to forget to call the cops.”
She shrugged and shook her head. “I sure hope you got your money’s worth,” she said. She sounded doubtful.
Parker hurried back around the corner, and down the block toward where the truck had turned in. There was no reason to hurry, except he wanted to know what the hell was going on.
One thing he knew now — Handy was still alive. If Handy were dead, they’d either have left him there or driven the body further away from town. But he was alive, because they still wanted to know what he was up to, and they’d just moved him so they could question him some more. The fat man had hurried away, then set up this new place to bring Handy and called his friends to get Handy out of there. If Parker had taken three minutes longer getting the answers out of the girl, he’d have missed the move completely.
Whether Handy was alive or dead wasn’t the important part. The important part was who these people were and what they wanted. If they were after the mourner too, it would complicate things.
Parker came to the driveway. It was blacktop and narrow, hemmed in on both sides by brick walls. The one on the right was a garage and on the left was a dry cleaner’s. From the front, both looked dark and empty.
Parker moved cautiously down the driveway and found the truck at the end, against another wall. The truck doors were open, and the rug was gone.
Both side walls contained metal doors back here. Parker tried the one leading to the garage first, and it was unlocked. He stepped through into darkness, and listened. A dim murmur of voices came from his right and above. He moved that way, skirting first a workbench and then some machinery, and ahead of him saw a dim light. The ceiling was high, and a row of offices was built out from the rear wall, with a wooden staircase going up. The light was spilling down from one of the offices.
Parker moved forward, and then saw a cigarette glow for a second ahead of him. There was somebody sitting at the foot of the stairs.
Parker moved in slowly, staying back under the stairs, which had been built hastily, without risers. Parker held the Terrier by the barrel, reached through between two of the stairs, and put the guard out with the gun butt. He slumped, and slid off the stairs to the floor.
Parker came around and checked him, and he was out. The voices were still murmuring upstairs, without a break. He went up the stairs, the butt of the Terrier in his hand now, and followed the sound of the voices.
There was a walkway outside the offices, with the office wall on one side and a wooden railing on the other. The wall was paneling halfway up, and glass the rest of the way. The light was coming through the glass down toward the other end of the walkway. Parker moved that way, and edged close enough to look in through the glass.
It was just a small office, with pale-green filing cabinets and pale-green partitions. There was a desk, and three chairs, and the usual office furniture, with a big calendar on the back wall showing a trout leaping in a mountain stream.
They had Handy sitting on the floor, his back against the wall under the calendar. He was tied with a lot of white clothesline, but not gagged. There was blood on his face, and his clothes were messed up. The two men in the white coveralls were with him, talking to him. Handy’s eyes were shut, but from his posture he was probably awake. Or mostly awake.