“Parker, is this a complicated way to get rid of me?”
“No. You either take my word for it or you don’t.”
She said, “You don’t have to be complicated, you know. If you don’t want me around, you just say so.”
“I know that.”
“Then—” She stopped, and stared past Parker, and her mouth stayed open.
Parker turned his head, slowly, and saw French in the doorway with a gun in his hand. “You’ll never find the truck,” he said.
French said, “I’m not out for the whole thing. I can’t hang around and play and cat and mouse with you, Parker. When I came in here, before your woman woke up, I called the fence. It’s Ray Jensen, in Cincinnati. I told him enough of the situation, and he’ll hold my sixth for me. He’ll be here tonight and you can dicker with him yourself. I’m clearing out.”
Parker watched French’s eyes, waiting to see how his chance was going to come, but then Claire said in a tight voice, “Don’t do anything, Parker. Please. Don’t do anything.”
Parker shrugged. “I’ll see you around, French,” he said.
French said, “We could call it square. You’re coming out in good shape.”
“If you say so. “But let Claire cut out first, she’s going back and square herself.”
French grinned. “Don’t be stupid. She’s the only thing keeping you from making a play at me. The two of you just stay here a few minutes. Don’t make me nervous. Good-bye, Parker.”
“So long, French.”
They stayed in the kitchen, Parker sitting at the table and Claire standing near the sink, until they heard the front door slam. Then Claire said, “I’m sorry. But I just wouldn’t have been able to take it.”
Parker got to his feet. “Wait ten minutes before you leave. I’ll see you in Utica.”
“Parker—”
He shook his head, and went for the door.
Seven
PARKER HELD the door barely open, and listened. French wouldn’t have had time to get all the way down the stairs yet, but there was no sound, no movement. So he was being cagey and smart.
Where would he be? He wouldn’t take a chance on hitting some other apartment; there might be people home, and then he’d have too much to think about all at once. He might go downstairs one flight and wait in the hall there to see what Parker was going to do, but the best bet was that he’d go up instead, wait one floor up, so that if Parker came out after him French would have a clear shot at Parker’s back in the hallway. So the thing to do was wait him out.
And there were two further complications. First, there was Claire, whose one taste of violence had made her allergic. Parker could see where that might complicate things a lot in the days to come, but it had its advantages too, in that Claire would be a rare find in a woman, one who would never pry into his affairs. So there was no point aggravating her if it wasn’t necessary.
The second complication was the fence. It was set up for him to come here tonight, according to French, and Parker didn’t want any ruckus in this building, or even in this immediate neighborhood. So he’d have to wait for French to leave, and then follow him.
He half-expected Claire to come down the corridor after him, asking him not to go after French, but she stayed in the kitchen, That was good; it meant she might have her hang-ups but she wouldn’t bug him about them more than absolutely necessary.
French was cautious, more cautious than Parker hud anticipated. When fifteen minutes had gone by with nothing happening, Parker finally left the door, hurried down the corridor to the kitchen, and said under his breath, “Time for you to clear out. Don’t look around, don’t hesitate, just keep moving.”
“All right,” she said. She looked composed, but pale. “I’ll see you in two months,” she said.
“Right.”
They went back to the door together, and Parker stood behind it as she went out. He held it so she couldn’t close it all the way, and he listened as she went down the stairs and out the door. And then at last he heard the small scuffling sound from upstairs that meant French was going to make his move.
The thing was, French had almost faked Parker out. Parker had been prepared to believe that French was worried enough to pull out, and now he had to remind himself that French was both a pro and hungry. He wanted the whole pie, French did.
Parker pushed the door soundlessly shut, hurried into the living room, and crouched behind an armchair in there, out of sight from the door.
This was another long wait, and he never did hear French come in. French was m the living-room doorway all of a sudden, gun in hand, eyes moving every way at once. He didn’t see Parker, and he didn’t think Parker was waiting for him, so he moved on down the corridor without making sure.
Parker moved fast and silent across the living room, stepped out into the corridor, and said to French’s back, “Right there is good.”
French stopped moving. Still facing the other way, he said, “I lied about the fence. I gave you the wrong name.”
“Maybe. Drop it.”
French’s gun bounced on the carpet. Parker stepped forward and put him out with his gunbarrel.
It took one fast guarded phone call to Cincinnati, using French’s name, to find out that French had been telling the truth the first time; Ray Jensen was the fence, and was on his way.
It was going to be complicated keeping French alive a while longer, but there was nowhere to stash a corpse here without getting Mavis Gross excited, and Parker wanted her to go on being calm. He was going to have to let her up once or twice between now and when Jensen showed up, and it would be better if she wasn’t hysterical.
He went down the hall to the bedroom, opened the door, and found Mavis awake and all in a tangle on the bed. She’d done some thrashing around in a useless attempt to untie herself, and her negligee was now high over heavy thighs.
Parker said, “What’s the point of all that? I’m going to untie you now and you shouldn’t do anything stupid.”
She lay there unmoving while he worked at the tight knots of the stockings around her wrists, and when he had her wrists freed she immediately pulled the tape away from her mouth and said, “What’s the matter with you people? You never heard of the calls of nature?”
“That’s why I’m letting you up now,” he said. “That, and breakfast.”
She rolled over and sat up, not bothering about the rumpled negligee. “Thanks a lot.”
“Untie your ankles.”
“My fingers are all numb.”
He had to do it for her himself, and then he said, “My partner’s lying out in the hall, but don’t worry. He isn’t dead. But he wanted to kill you because you saw our faces, and I don’t want to get mixed up in any murder rap.”
She looked pale, and then she managed a crooked grin and said, “I’m on your side, pal. Will you help me up?”
He took her hand and heaved her up off the bed. She moved clumsily, because of the poor circulation in her arms and legs, and when she got to the hall she said, “You really laid him out, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t have any choice. Of course, if you lock the bathroom door and start hollering out the window I’ll have to think he was right.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m not about to cause anybody any trouble.”
“Good.”
While she was in the bathroom he used more of her stockings to tie French. He didn’t bother with a gag, but when he was done with the stockings dragged French into the bedroom and left him on the floor there.
He went back to the corridor and waited, and after a while Mavis came out of the bathroom. First he saw that she’d put lipstick on, then he saw the way she was looking at him. He said, “Go on in and get some breakfast.”
“I was thinking,” she said. “You sort of saved my life, didn’t you?”