She sat quite still, her hands folded on the lap of her robe.
"Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "would you like to tell us where your husband is?"
Parker opened the door with a skeleton key.
On the sofa bed in the living room, a male midget and a female midget were asleep. They jumped up the minute the door opened.
"Hello," Parker said softly, and showed them the gun.
Wee Willie Winkie was one of the midgets. He was wearing striped pajamas. He looked cute as a button, but his face went pale the moment he saw the gun. His wife, Corky, was wearing panties and a baby-doll nightgown. Pink. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her breasts as Parker approached the bed. Light from the hallway spilled illumination into the room. It glinted on the gun in Parker's hand. Gorky's brown eyes were opened wide. She kept holding the pillow to her breasts. Parker thought she looked a little bit like Debbie Reynolds.
"Are the others asleep?" he whispered.
Willie nodded.
"Where?"
Willie pointed to a pair of closed doors.
"Up," Parker whispered.
They got out of bed. Corky looked embarrassed in only her nightgown and panties. She kept holding the pillow to her in front, but her back was exposed. Parker gestured with the gun.
"We're going to wake them up," he whispered. "Don't yell or I'll shoot you both."
In one of the bedrooms, Oliver Twist was asleep with a full-sized woman. The woman was very fat and very blonde. Parker remembered the old joke about the midget marrying the circus fat lady and running around the bed all night yelling, "Mine, all mine!"
He nudged the midget.
The midget popped up in bed.
Red hair all mussed, blue eyes wide.
"Shhhh," Parker said. "It's the police."
Oliver blinked. So did Willie. This was the first he was hearing of this. Up to now, he'd thought they were dealing with a burglar, which was bad enough. Now he knew it was a cop in here, his worst nightmare realized. He glanced at Corky, his eyes blaming his wife for her goddamn friendship with Little Annie Oakley and her trigger-happy finger.
"Wake up your lady," Parker said to Oliver.
Oliver nudged the fat blonde.
She rolled over.
He nudged her again.
"Go away," she said.
Parker pulled the blanket off her. She was wearing a long granny nightgown. She tried to pull the blanket back over her again, grasped futilely at only thin air, and then sat up, annoyed and still half-asleep.
"Police," Parker said, smiling.
"What?" she said, blinking.
"You the one did the driving?" he said.
"What driving?" she said.
"She don't know what driving," Parker said to Oliver, still smiling.
"Quentin did the driving," Oliver said. "This lady had nothing to do with any of it."
"Any of what?" the blonde said.
Quentin, Parker thought. The guy at the party.
"Where is he?" he asked.
"In the other room," Oliver said.
"Let's go tell him the party's over," Parker said. "Get out of bed. Both of you."
They got out of bed.
"Is this a joke?" the blonde whispered to Oliver.
"I don't think it's a joke," Oliver whispered back.
Parker herded the four of them into the other bedroom. The radiator was hissing, and the room was suffocatingly hot. Parker snapped on the lights. Quentin Forbes was in bed with Alice. Neither of them stirred. They had thrown back the covers in their sleep, and they were both naked. Alice looked as pretty as a little doll, her blonde hair fanned out over the pillow.
"Police!" Parker shouted, and they both jumped up at the same time. "Hello, Alice," he said, and smiled.
"Hello, Andy," she said, and smiled back.
"We have to get dressed now," he said, as if to a child.
"Okay," she said, and reached under the pillow.
Parker said it even before he saw the gun in her hand.
"Don't."
She hesitated.
"Please, Alice," he said. "Don't."
She must have discerned something in his eyes. She must have known she was looking into the eyes of a cop who had seen it all and heard it all.
"Okay," she said, and put down the gun.
Forbes said, "This is an outrage."
"It is, I know," Parker said.
"Let me see your badge," the blonde said.
Parker showed her his shield.