She was out. He picked her up and carried her into the living room and dumped her on the sofa, then went back to the bedroom and went through dresser drawers and found stockings and belts and a clean handkerchief. He took these back to the living room and bound and gagged her. She would keep now, for a while. But she still complicated things; her presence here still made the situation too difficult.
But he could work all that out later. He went back to the bedroom and Uhl had faded back down into sleep again, the frown lines gone from his face. Parker took the chair he’d been sitting in and pulled it over beside the bed and sat down. He already had a pencil and a piece of paper on the bedside table.
He said, “George.”
A faint frown.
“George, listen to me. Wake up and listen to me.”
The frown deepened; it became petulant, like a child not wanting to wake up from a nap. Uhl’s head moved slowly back and forth, once to the left and once to the right, as though he wanted to shake his head in a no gesture but couldn’t because it was too much effort.
“Wake up, George. Listen to me. Can you hear me? George? Can you hear .me, George?”
He wasn’t getting all the way through. He reached over and slapped Uhl’s face, not hard, and Uhl said, “Unn-nn,” the frown deepening even more into an exaggerated grimace, the eyes squeezing shut as though a bright light had been aimed at them.
“George? Can you hear me?”
“Ohh,” said Uhl, still grimacing, the sound petulant.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” As though to say leave me alone.
“This is Parker. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes.” Said more calmly now, as though he was getting more resigned to answering questions.
“Who am I?”
“You’re Parker.”
“And who are you?”
“George. George Uhl.”
“You took some money away from me.”
No answer.
Parker looked at him, wondering if he’d faded out again, but then remembered his own session with this drug. It was necessary to phrase the sentences as direct questions, obviously requiring an answer. Statements weren’t answered, only questions were answered.
All right. He said, “Do you remember taking some money away from me?”
“Yes.” Very prompt, and without any emotional reaction at all. Uhl’s eyes were still closed but in a more relaxed way now, no longer squeezed shut. He seemed calm now, his answers calm, almost mechanical.
Parker said, “Where is that money? The money you took from me.”
“I don’t know.”
That couldn’t be the right answer. Was the drug not working? Had he given too little? He looked at Uhl’s face, but he couldn’t believe Uhl was acting. The drug was affecting him, it had to be. Then how could he come up with an answer like that?
Was it true? Had the damn fool managed to lose the money sometime in the last five days?
Parker said, “What did you do with the money?”
“Left it with Ed.”
That was better. There was an explanation in here somewhere. All he had to do was work out the right questions to ask. He picked up the pencil and wrote Ed on the paper, then said, “Ed who?”
“Saugherty.”
“Spell it. Will you spell that name?”
Uhl spelled it, slowly and steadily, like a talking computer, and Parker wrote it down.
Parker said, “You left the money with Ed Saugherty. What did Ed Saugherty do with the money?”
“Hid it.”
“He hid it from you?”
Uhl frowned. The question was too complicated for him somehow.
Parker found another way to phrase it. “Did he hide the money for you?”
Uhl’s expression cleared. He was contented again. He said. “Yes.”
“Do you know where he hid it?”
“No.”
“When did he hide it?”
“Friday.”
That would be yesterday. Parker said, “Were you staying with Ed Saugherty before you came here?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you leave there?”
“Matt Rosenstein was after me.”
“How do you know?”
“He beat up Barri.”
“Did you see Barri?”
“Yes.”
“Did you call the doctor for her?” “Yes.”
Parker grimaced. He and Uhl had been doing a long-distance dance up and down the eastern seaboard for three days. He’d gotten to Pearson before Uhl, but Uhl had caught up. And then Uhl had gotten to Barri Dane before Parker, but Parker didn’t catch up. But that was all right, because Parker had gotten to Joyce Langer before Uhl, and that meant everything was caught up.
But if only the timing had been a little different somewhere along the line.
Parker said, “Did Barri Dane tell Matt Rosenstein anything?”
“Phone number.”
“What phone number?”
“Ed’s phone number.”
“Could Rosenstein get to Ed through that phone number?”
“Yes.”
Which meant Rosenstein was now a full day ahead of him. Had he gotten the money away from this Ed Saugherty?
Parker said, “Where do you know Ed Saugherty from?”
“High school.”
Parker frowned. It was another strange answer. He said, “What does Ed Saugherty do?”
“Works for a computer company.”
“You mean he’s legit?”
“Yes.”
Another problem. It had been smart of Uhl to do that, pick somebody on the outside to hole up with, somebody that didn’t have any connections to his bent life, but now that everything was blown open it made for complications. With Rosenstein and Parker both descending on him, this Ed Saugherty would probably be calling copper or anyway confusing the issue.
Parker said, “Where does Ed Saugherty live?”
“Philadelphia.”
Another drive. Ninety miles this time. If it weren’t such a time-consuming pain in the ass it would be comic.
Parker asked for the address and wrote down Uhl’s answer. He then had Uhl describe the house, give physical descriptions of Saugherty and the other members of his family, and give a general description of the neighborhood.
A solid, middle-class family in a solid, middle-class development. All very straight, all very innocent, all having no idea how to handle the kind of situation they were in now. With Saugherty’s wife already giving her husband static about Uhl, according to Uhl. What would she be doing with Rosenstein and Parker descending on the household?
In fact, with Rosenstein a day ahead of him, there was no telling what sort of situation existed down there now. The thing could have blown wide open to the cops. Rosenstein could have been in and gotten the money and gone away already. A lot could have happened. Parker could pick Uhl’s brain clean and he’d still be going down there to a blind situation. He could be walking to a house full of law, or a house full of Rosenstein, or even a house where Ed Saugherty had grabbed himself a gun and gone on the alert. Anything could have happened; anything could happen next.
Parker next asked, “Who else knows about the money besides you and me arid Rosenstein and Ed Saugherty?”
“Nobody.”
“Not Barri Dane?”
“No.”
“Not Joyce Langer?”
“No.”
“You’ve been with Ed Saugherty, and Barri Dane, and Joyce Langer. You went to Lew Pearson’s, when you shot him. Where else have you been?”
“Nowhere.”
“Haven’t you seen anybody else?”
“No.”
All right. At least he now was sure of how many were in the game. The odds were still against him, but at least he knew how many were playing. He folded the piece of paper and put it away in his pocket. Then he got to his feet and left the bedroom.
The phone was in the living room, beside the sofa. Joyce Langer was still unconscious. Parker sat down near her feet and dialed the Philadelphia number he’d gotten from Uhl.
It was answered on the second ring by a noncommital voice that asked, “Hello?”
“Ed Saugherty?”
“Speaking,” said the voice. It was vaguely reminiscent.