Comeback (18 page)

"I'm not forgiving you, George. I know what a piece of shit you are. But I worked with a lot of guys over the years that I didn't want to see off the job. If I was only gonna work with gentlemen, I'd never work."

Liss laughed. "And isn't that the truth," he said. "All right, we'll try it your way for a while. But my partner's coming over there to take that gun off you. Or however many you have."

"Not needed, George."

"/need it, Parker," Liss said, and for the first time the strain was in his voice. "The other thing I could do, you know," the strained voice said, "I could gut-shoot you right now, and you'd still be able to lead me to the money later on but I wouldn't have to worry about you in between."

"And if I went into shock?"

"I'd chance it."

Liss might even do that, he was reckless enough. Parker didn't like giving up the gun he'd taken from Thorsen, but it was a risk he was going to have to accept. He said, "One gun, George, on my left side, above the waist."

"My partner's gonna pat you down."

Parker shrugged.

Silence. Shuffling sounds. Panting in Parker's ear, and a hand that snaked around his chest, feeling for the gun.

Parker saw a scenario. He takes out this one with an elbow, spins around behind him, fires at the spot where Liss's voice had been coming from.

But Liss would know that scenario himself. By now, he would have moved to one of the two corners of the room back there. Parker would be firing at an empty doorway, and Liss would have an angle on him that the punk's body wouldn't shield.

The hand found Thorsen's gun, tugged it out. The panting breath receded. Hands patted his shins, his pockets, like being touched by a flock of passing bats. The hands missed anywhere he might have had a second gun, and then they left.

Parker said, "George, when I turn around, I don't want to see your gun."

A little pause. "Fine," slurred the voice.

Parker turned, and the Quindero kid was in the open doorway to the next room, his face full of exhausted panic, Thorsen's gun dangling from his right hand, barrel pointed downward. In the left corner of the room, just by the head of that open staircase downward, Liss stood, watchful, waiting. His hands were empty.

One level down, there was more light because there was less plywood. This had originally been kitchen, dining room and maid's quarters, with bedrooms below that, and the owner's study at the bottom. With the conversion to the duplex, that fresh stairway had been cut in from the top floor to the maid's quarters, which then became the second bedroom of the upper apartment. The dining room down here became the living room of the lower apartment, with access via the original stairs, which were blocked off from the tenants up above.

The result was, this second level had been messed around with less. No new walls, no wholesale removal of windows. And, since below the top level access from without was very difficult on the ravine side, the windows down here had not been covered with plywood when the bank took over, and still showed the old view out over the ravine. From down here, in the original dining room, most of the development houses were invisible beyond the rim of the ravine, so you could look out and still see some of what had first attracted the site to the original owner and architect.

Squatters had lived in here from time to time. They'd pulled up the plywood that had been laid over the bathroom drains, so now you could use the space where the toilet had been as a toilet; but it was better to slide the plywood back over the hole when not in use. Some wooden boxes and old futons had been dragged down here by the onetime squatters as furniture. Nobody wanted to go near the futons, but the boxes made good chairs when placed against the wall.

Parker and Liss and the punk, Quindero, sat against three walls, Parker in the middle, facing the windows and the late afternoon view; sunlight on tumbled rocks and snarled woods, with the shadow of the building slowly creeping up the other side of the ravine. This place faced east, so the sunrise would look in on whoever was still here.

Liss sat to Parker's left, resting easy, legs out, back against the wall, hands in his lap with fingers curled upward. His eyes were hooded, and the active side of his face was almost as immobile as the frozen side. He was settled into a waiting mode, for as long as it took, patient, unmoving, a skill you learn on heists. Or in prison.

Ralph Quindero jittered to Parker's right. Nobody'd told him what to do with the little automatic, so it was on the floor between his feet, where his jittering made him bump into it with the sides of his shoes from time to time, each hit causing the automatic to scrape along the floor, each scrape sound making Quindero jump yet again. His hands twitched, moving from position to position, arms crossed, or hands resting on lap, or in pants pockets, or scratching his head and his arms and his knees. His eyes skittered back and forth, like a rodent, never looking at anything for long, bouncing every which way.

The stairway from above was just to Parker's left, a darker opening in this rear wall. The stairway down to the next level was along the right wall, between the windows and the jittering Quindero.

Did Liss count on this "partner" of his? Did he think Ralph Quindero would be any damn use at all? If not, why keep him around?

They didn't have much to talk about, but after a while Liss roused himself and said, "One thing."

Parker looked at him.

The good half of Liss's face smiled a little. He turned his head enough to look at Parker, and said, "What the hell were you doing in that hospital? You weren't after old Tom."

"No. Not the way you were. You saw the guy gave me a shove."

"Spoiled my aim."

"That's him. He's Archibald's security man."

Quindero, with his nervous whiny voice, unexpectedly joined the conversation: "I remember him."

They both ignored the interruption. Interested in what Parker had said, Liss raised the one eyebrow: "Oh, yeah?"

Pointing, Parker said, 'That used to be his gun."

"He gave it to you?"

"Not exactly. I went back to the motel, looking for Mackey—"

'They won't go back there," Liss said, flat, with dismissive assurance.

"But they did," Parker told him. "Brenda and her cosmetics, remember?"

Liss didn't want to believe it. Gesturing at Quindero, he said, "With these wild cards in the deck? The motel was spoiled, we all knew that."

"Not later." Parker shrugged. "They went back, that's all, and checked out. That's why I know where they'll be at midnight. George, you can call the motel yourself. Jack Grant's still registered, but the Fawcetts are gone."

Liss thought that over, and decided he could believe Parker this time. "Hell," he said. "I could have had them. I'd never have thought it."

"While I was there," Parker said, "after Mackey and Brenda left and we made our arrangements, this guy Thorsen showed up, the security man. I told him I was an insurance investigator."

Liss gave a little snort. "You? Don't tell me he bought it."

"For awhile."

"So the security guy's the one got you into the hospital. For the hell of it?"

"I wanted to talk to Carmody," Parker said, "only you got to him first."

"What the hell you want to talk to old Tom about?"

"You."

"What about me?"

"He was your parole guy. He might know people you knew, some way for me to track you down."

Liss looked confused and irritable. "Whadaya wanna track
me
down for? I didn't have the damn money."

"I wanted to kill you," Parker said.

Quindero jumped at that, the automatic

scraping on the floor, but Liss laughed. Then he nodded a while, thinking that over, and when he looked again at Parker he said, "You still want to kill me."

"Not necessarily," Parker told him. "Not if we all get our money. Your new partner here gets his out of yours, you know."

"Naturally," Liss said.

Liss and Parker looked at one another with faint smiles, both knowing how unlikely it was that anybody would share with anybody, and how impossible that Quindero would come out of this with anything at all. Anything at all.

Liss thought some more, then said, "You got any money on you?"

"A few bucks."

"There's a deli about half a mile from here. We can send Ralph out for some more food. Another pizza. And sodas. Unless you want beer."

Parker shook his head. As Liss knew, you didn't drink when you were working, and the both of them were working right now, very hard.

"Soda, then," Liss said. "You got a ten or a twenty?"

"You've got money, George."

"I'll pay my share," Liss assured him. "And Ralph's, too, the poor bastard doesn't have a dime on him, the cops took it all. And his ID, and his shoelaces, and everything. Isn't that right, Ralph?"

"Uh huh," Quindero said. He looked as though he suspected he was being made fun of, but knew better than to make an issue of it.

Parker took a twenty out of his wallet, and extended it toward Ralph, saying, "You come over here to get it. Then you go over to George to get his. Leave that gun right where it is."

Liss laughed. "You gonna make a dash for it?"

"No," Parker said.

Quindero looked at Liss, who told him, "Do it that way, Ralph, it's fine."

So Quindero got to his feet and came over to take Parker's twenty, then crossed to Liss, who said, "Lean down, Ralph, let me tell you especially what I want."

Liss whispered to Quindero, while Parker watched the shadows inch up the opposite side of the ravine. Then Quindero started for the door, and Parker told him, "George told you, call the motel, see did they really check out. Now, their name at the motel is Fawcett, be sure you get that right. And while you're at it, ask if Mr. Grant checked out, too." Looking at Liss, he said, "Because I didn't."

Liss laughed. "Shit, I was just hoping you'd lied to me. I mean, Parker, it's fine we're partners again and all that, but if it could turn out you don't know where that money is any more than I do, it would simplify my life, it really would."

Parker said to Quindero, "Be sure to make the call, and get the names right. George here is anxious to kill me, you know."

Quindero threw frightened looks at both of them. He stood in the doorway, clutching the money in his right hand.

Liss said, "Ralph. You know you'll come back."

"Yes," Quindero said.

"Because you got nowhere else to go," Liss told him. "I saved your ass, and I'll go on saving it. Just so long as you do what you're told."

Parker said, "Quindero. Have George describe his retirement plan some time."

Liss laughed, but then he said, "Parker, that isn't funny. Ralph is new at the game. Don't upset him."

Parker looked out at the ravine again, and Liss made shooing motions at Quindero, who scurried away.

They were silent for almost five minutes, sitting against two walls at right angles to one another, resting, not seeming to look at one another. Then Parker said, "What do you want him for, George? Besides to send for pizza."

"To throw out of the sled," Liss said.

It was unnatural to sit here like this. Parker needed Liss dead, and he knew Liss felt the same way about him, and they were both held back. Liss was held back because Parker was his only sure route to the duffel bags full of money, and Parker was held back because Liss had the gun.

After dark, Parker thought. A chance will come after dark.

The afternoon slowly descended outside, the sunny areas growing bright even as they narrowed, the shadows getting darker. The rock and the tangled underbrush out there would be full of creatures, wary, moving in sudden jumps, hidden away in the cat's cradle of vines and branches, living their lives with all senses alert. Darkness would be good for them, too.

Thorsen's gun was pale, standing out against the dark floor over next to the box where Quindero had been. Neither of them looked directly at it, but both knew it was there. Parker looked out the windows at the ravine and watched the light change. Liss didn't seem to look at anything.

Quindero was gone almost an hour, and when he came back he seemed more agitated than ever. He carried a brown paper shopping bag with handles, and when he came in he said, "My picture's in the paper."

They looked at him. Liss said, "Is it a good picture, Ralph? Is it one you like?"

Parker said, "Show me the paper." And held his hand out.

Quindero dithered, not sure what to do, looking first at Parker, then at Liss.

Liss did his half-grin. "You bought the paper, Ralph? Did you? For your scrapbook? Sure, go ahead, let Parker see it."

Quindero put the bag on the floor, rooted in it, came out with a newspaper, handed it to Parker. Then he carried the bag over to Liss, to divvy up the food.

It was this city's one newspaper, full-size, not tabloid. It was heavy on the ads, heavy on the wire service reports, with just barely enough local staff to cover robbery, murder, arson and escapes all happening at once. Under the main headline:

WITNESS MURDERED IN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL Police Guard Not Enough; Killer Escapes

was an excited story about the events in the hospital, plus a recap of the robbery at the stadium, plus a lot of self-confident official pronouncements.

Three photos of equal size and importance ran horizontally under the main headline and next to the subhead and story. From left to right, they were the local police commissioner, Tom Carmody and Ralph Quindero. The newspaper couldn't have done a better job of taking attention away from Ralph Quindero's features if they'd decided not to run the picture at all.

The photo they'd used of Quindero was a black-and-white blowup of something from the family's collection, and it showed him in sunshine, full face, smiling and squinting, two things he wasn't likely to do for a while. When Parker looked at this picture and its placement, and then looked at Ralph Quindero, it seemed to him Quindero could probably walk through the newspaper's editorial department without anybody recognizing him.