Breakout

1

“Give me a minute,” Parker said.

The functioning men’s room was upstairs. Parker washed face and hands, then looked at his watch. Not quite nine-thirty; he’d been asleep less than three hours.

When he went downstairs, Williams was back, and so was the Honda. Williams and Mackey sat at the conference table with containers of coffee and a bag of doughnuts; Parker sat with them. “I thought you were gone,” he said to Williams.

“I thought so, too,” Williams said.

“He heard it on the radio,” Mackey explained. “So he turned around and came back.”

Williams’ smile was weak. “I was almost to the state line,” he said.

Parker looked at him. “Why didn’t you keep going?”

“If it wasn’t for you people,” Williams said, “I’d still be in Stoneveldt, and then someplace worse after that, the rest of my life. That’s one. You said, ‘Take the Honda, we don’t need it,’ that’s two. You two make no difference between me and each other, that’s three.”

“Three’s all we need,” Mackey told him. “Tell Parker what you heard on the radio.”

“I had it tuned in to a news station,” Williams said, “to help me know what to watch for. They described everything in the Armory — they had our route pretty good — and they said they were pretty sure it was you and me, escaped from prison, that was part of the gang, because Tom Marcantoni was one of the guys they found dead.”

“All three dead,” Mackey said. “Like we thought.”

“Then they came on,” Williams said, “they said they had an arrest, I thought it was gonna be you two, but then they said it was a woman. Then I thought, it’s Maryenne, it’s my sister they’re after because I called her that one time, but it isn’t. They describe a white woman, and say the only name they have is an alias, Brenda Fawcett.”

Parker shook his head. “What are they doing with Brenda? She was asleep in her hotel with a do not disturb.”

“That’s the bitch of it,” Mackey said. “She wasn’t. She pulled that trick again, that thing she does, where she hangs around near me in case I need help.”

Parker said, “She was out there?”

“Most of the night,” Mackey said. “Maybe a block away. If we could have reached her, she could have come right over in a minute.”

“You told her,” Parker said, “she was gonna make trouble for herself doing that one of these days.”

“And when she went back to the hotel,” Mackey said, “after we busted out and set off that siren, somebody saw her go in. But that isn’t what did it.”

Williams said, “Somebody else turned her in. The woman that runs the dance studio.”

“I’m sorry now,” Mackey said, “we didn’t bust her goddam mirror.”

Parker said, “The woman in the dance studio? What’s she got to do with anything? And what’ve they got on Brenda that they’re gonna pull her in?”

Williams said, “What they said on the radio, Brenda went to this dance studio a few times, took lessons, paid cash, gave a phony name, used phony ID.”

“Now they’re saying,” Mackey said, “she was casing the joint. For us.”

Williams said, “So this woman runs the dance studio, Darlene Something, one of those two-name things, she followed Brenda one time, see where she really lives, so when the cops call her this morning, tell her the dance studio’s all messed up, or where we come through, she says, ‘It’s Brenda Fawcett, she’s part of it.’ And they go pick her up.”

“And find,” Mackey said, “a lot of fake ID I gave her a while back, just like to goof with.”

“So now she’s the brains of the gang,” Williams said, “and they want her to tell them where the rest of us are.”

“Parker,” Mackey said, “I gotta get her out of there.”

“I know that,” Parker said.

“The radio says,” Williams told them, “they’re holding her at the Fifth Street station, until they find out who she really is and what she knows about the rest of us.”

Mackey asked him, “Do you know this Fifth Street station?”

Williams grinned. “I put up there a couple times,” he said. “It isn’t the city jail, it’s more of a holding tank kind of place. Connected to a precinct. You’re there, and then they move you on to some place real, once they decide where you should go.”

Mackey said, “Any place else would be tougher.”

“Fifth Street isn’t easy,” Williams assured him.

“But you know the place,” Mackey said. “You can give us the layout.” Turning to Parker, he said, “We gotta get her out of there today. She isn’t gonna like that place.”

Parker didn’t say anything. Mackey was about to turn back to Williams, but then he frowned at Parker. “Are you saying you aren’t in this?”

Parker didn’t want to be in it, he wanted to get away from this place, get back east, spend some time with Claire, decide what to do next. He’d been nailed to the floor here too long. He didn’t have that feeling of obligation that had sent Mackey to give him a hand when he needed to get out of Stoneveldt, or that had made Williams turn around at the state line and come back into the pit he’d spent all this time crawling out of.

Parker didn’t live by debts accumulated and paid off; but there were times when you had to do things you didn’t want, be places you didn’t want. He could stand up now and walk out of here and head east, and there’d be no problem, not now. Neither of these people would shoot him in the back as he got to the door. But somewhere down the line, Mackey would think about him again, and he’d have a different kind of IOU in his mind. Parker didn’t collect the IOUs, neither the good ones nor the bad ones, but he knew he had to live among people with those tote boards in their minds.

“I didn’t say anything at all yet,” he answered Mackey. “I was thinking, we got to get hold of that lawyer Claire found me.”

Mackey beamed. “You’re right! Jonathan Li. He’s the guy.”

“I’ve still got his card, up with my stuff,” Parker said, and got to his feet. “But we need to get us inside there, too. I don’t know how yet.”

He went upstairs to his room. In the few days they’d been out, they’d accumulated a small amount of possessions; some clothing, toilet articles. Parker’s things were in the drawers of an abandoned wooden desk. He found the card and looked at it again, the many partner names in fine blue letters against ivory, the name Jonathan Li in gold at the bottom right. He carried the card downstairs, put it on the table, and said, “The problem is, none of us can go to him.”

“I can phone him,” Mackey said. “I’m not an escaped felon, where he might have to tell the law about me, I’m just somebody the cops want to talk to about people who are escaped felons.”

“There’s a payphone—” Williams started to say.

“No, I don’t need that,” Mackey told him. “Tom had a cellphone, it should be upstairs with his stuff. I’ll be right back.”

He left, and Williams looked at Parker, considering him. “You don’t like this,” he said.

“None of us likes it.”

“Yeah, I know.” Williams nodded. “But Mackey feels like he owes Brenda, and I feel like I owe you and Mackey, but you don’t feel like you owe anybody anything. Tell you the truth, I wish I could be like that.”

“If you were like that,” Parker told him, “you wouldn’t have phoned your sister.”

“Meaning,” Williams said, “one of these days I’m gonna do something like that, because I feel like I owe somebody something, and I’m gonna put my head right in the noose.”

“Maybe not,” Parker said, and Mackey came back downstairs with the cellphone.

“I don’t know,” he said, hefting the phone. “Is he in the office yet? I can’t leave a callback number.”

“Try,” Williams said.

So Mackey sat at the table and punched out the number, then listened, the cellphone a small black beetle against the side of his blunt head.

“Jonathan Li, please. Would you tell him it’s a guy, he’s so happy about how Mr. Li dealt with the Ronald Kasper problem, now he wants to hire Mr. Li on the Brenda Fawcett problem. Sure.”

Mackey put his other hand over the mouthpiece and said, “He isn’t in the office, but they can patch in to him. In his car, I guess, or wherever.”

Then he bent to the phone again. “Mr. Li? Yes, this is Ed, you remember me.” Shrugging, he said to the others in the room, “He’s laughing.” Then, into the phone: “Yeah, you’re probably right. Yeah, that’s what they said on the radio, Fifth Street station.”

Raising his eyebrows at Parker, he said into the phone, “Sure, I think you can get a retainer from Claire again, same as last time. Probably easiest.”

Parker nodded. Mackey said into the phone, “She wired it to your account last time, didn’t she? So she’ll do it again. You just tell me how much. Fine, tell me then. That’s terrific. Nice to do business with you again, Mr. Li.”

Mackey broke the connection, put the phone on the table, and said, “After he laughed, he told me he wasn’t surprised there’d be a link between a friend of Ronald Kasper and a friend of Brenda Fawcett. He says he knows it’s urgent, he’ll go over to the Fifth Street station right now, let Brenda know he’s her legal, he understands I’m probably somewhere he can’t phone me so I should phone him in three hours. By then he’ll know the situation, he’ll tell us how much is the retainer.”

“In three hours,” Williams said. “Good.”

Parker said, “We still have to get us into this Fifth Street station.” Standing, he said, “I’m gonna spend the three hours asleep.”

2

“He wants to meet,” Mackey said. He held the phone to his chest while he talked to Parker. The three of them were again at the downstairs conference table.

Parker said, “You’re the one he wants to meet.”

Mackey shook his head. “You should be along. We need to know the situation, what we should do.”

“He doesn’t want me anywhere,” Williams said. “I’ll wait here. You leave the phone with me.”

Into the phone, Mackey said, “Two of us, but we gotta be careful. You don’t want us in your office.” He listened, then grinned at Parker: “He likes to laugh, this lawyer.” Into the phone again, he said, “Good, that sounds good. Wait, give me the names.”

There were a notepad and pen on the table, left over from some scheming by Angioni and Kolaski. Williams slid them over and looked alert, and Mackey said, “Fred Burroughs and Martin Hutchinson. Four o’clock. We’ll be there.” Hanging up, he said, “It’s his club, downtown. He wants us to meet at the handball courts. He says it’s loud there, lots of echoes.”

“Nobody can tape,” Parker said.

Mackey nodded. “That’s the idea.”

It wasn’t easy for Parker and Mackey to turn themselves into people who might be accepted as a member’s guests in a club downtown that featured handball courts, not after the twenty-four hours they’d just lived through, but they managed. Washed and shaved, in the clothes they’d planned to wear when they’d quit this town after the job, casual but neat, they left the beer distributor’s at three-thirty and walked half a dozen blocks before they saw a cruising cab and hailed it. It felt strange to Parker to walk along the street in a town where every cop had just last week memorized his face, but the afternoon was November dark and Parker let Mackey walk on the curbside. They saw no law at all, and then they were in the cab.

The Patroon Club had a doorman, under a canvas marquee mounted from building to curb. He held open the cab door while Mackey paid the fare, then called them sir and walked with them under the marquee to the double entrance doors, where he grasped a long brass handle, pulled the door open, bowed with just his head, and said, “Welcome to the Patroon.”

“Thanks,” Mackey said.

Inside was a dark wood vestibule, coat closet with attendant on the left, low broad dark gleaming desk straight ahead, behind which sat an elderly black man in green and white livery. He looked alert, inquisitive, ready to serve: “Help you, gentlemen?”

“We’re here to meet Jonathan Li,” Mackey told him. “Fred Burroughs. And this is Martin Hutchinson.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Li left your names.” Opening a folder on his desk, he said, “If you could just sign the register.”

The register was a sheet of paper with columns to be filled in: name, date, time, company, member to be visited. They both wrote things, and the man behind the desk gestured at the inner door behind himself, saying, “Mr. Li said you’ll find him by the handball courts. That would be straight through, down the stairs, and second on your right.”

Mackey thanked him again, and he and Parker went through the door into a plush dark interior, just slightly seedy. Downstairs, they found three handball courts in a row like three stage sets, side walls not meeting the ceiling, windowed at the interior end to face bleachers where spectators could sit. Only the nearest court was in use, two players in their forties, both of them very fast and very good. They made noise, but not too much.

Li sat on the third row of bleachers, watching the game, then nodded when he saw Mackey and Parker come in. He patted the cushioned bench beside him, and they came over, Parker to take a seat at Li’s right, Mackey choosing a place on the second row, just to their left, where he could sit sideways and look up at them both.

Li nodded to Parker and said, “Before we begin, just let me make the situation clear. I assume you did not come here trailing police—”

“No,” Parker said.

“No, of course not. But to consider the possibility, however remote, if in fact we are interrupted by an official presence, I will explain that we were meeting to work on the details of your turning yourself in, and you will say the same.”

“Naturally,” Parker said.

“Good.” Li turned to Mackey. “Now, to your friend. The police seem unable to learn her true identity.”

“They never will,” Mackey said.

“I begin to believe you’re right. She was paying for her hotel room with a credit card under the Brenda Fawcett name. They have now learned from the credit card company that the bills are sent to an accountant in Long Island, who pays with money taken from the account of a client of theirs named Robert Morrison. They have not physically seen Morrison in some years, but send him statements to a maildrop in New York City. They manage a few money market accounts for Morrison, and he occasionally sends them more money— How, if I may ask? The police don’t know, or at least didn’t tell me.”

“Money orders,” Mackey said. “Every once in a while, top up the tanks with some money orders.”

“So Ms. Fawcett is not their customer, nor can they directly reach Morrison, who pays her bills.”

Mackey said, “Does she give them a story?”

“The police here?” Li smiled, almost in a proprietary way, as though it were a story he’d made up himself. “She says,” he told them, “she is fleeing an abusive husband. Court orders didn’t help, police protection didn’t help — a little dig there, of which they are not unaware — she is in fear of her life, she will never give anybody at all her correct name for fear this man will find her.” Li shrugged. “The police don’t exactly believe her,” he said, “but it isn’t a story they can do anything about.”

“Brenda’s good,” Mackey said. “She can do all the emotions: outrage, fear, just a little sex.”

Parker said, “The point is, to get her out.”

“Clean, if we can,” Mackey added.

“When it comes down to that,” Li told them, “as I’ve been pointing out to the ADA assigned to this case, a young woman with little experience and, if I may say so, no feel for the job, there is no crime here. When picked up this morning, at the hotel, Ms. Fawcett had clearly not spent the night crawling through walls and tunnels. Nothing to connect her to the Armory or to Freedman Jewels was found on her person nor in her hotel room—”

“Suite,” Mackey said.

“I beg your pardon,” Li said, and laughed. Mackey was right; he liked to laugh. “Her suite,” he corrected himself. “Nothing in that fine suite to suggest its sole occupant was a common burglar. They have on their hands a suspicious situation, in that Ms. Fawcett will not reveal her true identity, nor have they been able to find her true identity on their own. Other than that, they have the testimony of Darlene Johnson-Ross—”

“The dance studio woman,” Mackey interjected.

“Yes.” Li nodded. “The source of all Ms. Fawcett’s problems, if it comes to that. She is the one who informed the police that Ms. Fawcett has been operating in this city under a false name and background, and she is the one who claims to have seen Ms. Fawcett in a parked car a block from the Armory late last night.”

Mackey said, “Took a picture?”

Li shook his head. “Drove by, alone, in a moving automobile, in the middle of the night. Saw, for an instant, not near any streetlight, a blonde at the wheel of an unmoving car. While, of course, she has been obsessing about a blonde she has seen at her dance studio. On the stand, I’d demolish that identification in three minutes.”

Mackey said, “We don’t want to go on the stand.”

“Oh, I know,” Li assured him. “We should be getting bail, we really should, since there’s so little to tie Ms. Fawcett to the crime, except for the problem of identity. Still, I could make a strong case in front of a judge, and the police know it, and don’t want to lose control of Ms. Fawcett until they find out who she is.”

“Which is never,” Mackey said.

“In the interim,” Li said, “they’ve put up Ms. Johnson-Ross to file a complaint against Ms. Fawcett for false statements on a credit application.”

Mackey said, “What credit application? Brenda paid cash.”

“Exactly.” Li spread his hands. “It’s merely a plot to stall things, delay the release. A false statement on a credit application is a misdemeanor, but the form Ms. Fawcett filled out at the dance studio was not a credit application, since she was paying cash. It’s simply a maneuver to keep her in their grasp.”

Mackey said, “And this Johnson-Ross goes along with it?”

“She will, in the morning,” Li told him. “They weren’t quite ready today, and I was raising a number of objections, including the possibility that Ms. Johnson-Ross might find herself facing a severe lawsuit from Ms. Fawcett once this is all over, which led Ms. Johnson-Ross to say she’d need to consult her own lawyer before agreeing to make out the complaint, so that step has now been scheduled for ten tomorrow morning.”

Mackey and Parker looked at each other. Catching the look, Li said, calmly, “Let me point out, the very worst thing that could happen to Ms. Fawcett’s chances to successfully put this episode behind her would be for some unfortunate accident to occur before ten tomorrow morning to Ms. Johnson-Ross. The police don’t believe in coincidence.”

Mackey said, “So what do you do next?”

“Argue, dispute, disrupt,” Li told him. “I will do my best to quash Ms. Johnson-Ross’s complaint, I will do my best to have bail set, but, from the way it looks at this point, I’m afraid Ms. Fawcett will be facing at least one more night of detention.”

“You’ll do what you can,” Mackey said.

Li shrugged. “Of course.” From inside his jacket he drew a long white envelope printed with his firm’s return address. “My retainer,” he murmured.

Parker took the envelope and put it away. He said, “She’ll send you an extra two K. You can give it to Brenda or one of us.”

Li nodded. “I understand. Walking-around money.”

“Moving-around money,” Parker said.

3

At the beer distributor’s, Williams had drawn maps of the Fifth Street station, exterior and interior, all four floors, the streets of that neighborhood. “I don’t say it’s complete,” he warned them. “It’s what I remember.”

They stood at the conference table, looking at the half dozen rough pencil drawings on the backs of old order forms. Parker and Mackey hadn’t had much to say to each other in the cab back to this neighborhood, nor the three-block walk through deepening dusk from where they’d left the cab, but now Parker said, “It’s breaking out again.”

“I know,” Williams said. “All we do is break outa things. And now break this woman Brenda out.”

Mackey said, “I don’t want to do it that way.”

Williams looked at him. “What other way is there? They got her in there. She’s locked down.”

“I don’t know what the other way is,” Mackey said.

“She’s never been fingerprinted before. She’s got no record, no history with the law If we go in there and break her out, now she’s got a history and now they’ve got her prints and now she can’t live her life the same way she always did. There’s got to be another way.”

Parker said, “Li’s right, the big problem is the dance studio woman.”

“Yeah, she is,” Mackey said. “But Li’s also right that we can’t touch her. It would make things worse for Brenda because, first of all, it would prove we’re connected to her. If Ms. Johnson-Ross gets a cold sore tonight, Brenda’s behind bars the rest of her life.”

Parker said, “Well, we’ve only got two choices, unless we just walk away, and I know you don’t want to do that.”

“No, I don’t,” Mackey said, almost as though he wanted an argument.

Parker nodded at Williams’ drawings. “We can either go into this Fifth Street station tonight and bring Brenda out, and she lives the way you say, the way you and I live, the way Williams lives, or we go see this dance studio woman, see what kind of handle we can put on her back.”

Williams said, “What if you can’t put any handle at all?”

“Then we remove her,” Parker said, “and go pull Brenda out anyway. She won’t be clean, but she’ll be out.”

“If that’s what we gotta do,” Mackey said, “then that’s what we gotta do.”

Parker shrugged. “Nothing’s gonna happen right away. If we take it easy now, find out where this woman lives—”

“She’ll be in the phone book,” Mackey said. “Everybody’s in the phone book.”

Williams grinned and said, “Probably Brenda is, somewhere, under some name.”

“That’s what I’m trying to keep,” Mackey told him.

Parker said, “We get up at three, three-thirty, go to this woman’s place, see what we can do. Get her maybe to phone the cops in the morning, say she changed her mind, doesn’t want to make any complaints, isn’t even sure that was Brenda in the car.”

Williams said, “They’ll send somebody over to argue with her.”

Mackey said, “I just thought. What if she lives above the shop? What if her place is one of the apartments in the Armory building?”

Williams laughed. “Well, we do know that place,” he said.

Mackey said, “Parker? We go in there again?”

“That isn’t where she lives,” Parker said. “She had a little apartment in the studio, remember? For when she wants to stay over. Not her full-time place, not used much. So her full-time place is not in the same building.”

“I hope not,” Williams said.

“We’ll see how it plays,” Parker said, “and if it isn’t gonna play, we’ll go over to Fifth Street, still early in the morning, and pull Brenda out of there.” He looked at Mackey. “Okay?”

Mackey nodded. “First we try it easy,” he said.

Parker said, “Then we don’t.”

4

There was only one Johnson-Ross in the phone book: JOHNSON-ROSS D B 127 Further R’town

“She’s doing good for herself,” Williams commented.

It was twenty to four in the morning, and they were seated again at the conference table. The phone book left behind by the beer distributor was three years out of date, but this was surely Johnson-Ross’s current address. Parker said, “You know this place?”

“Rosetown,” Williams told him. “North of the city. Pretty rich up there. Until a few years ago, if I was to drive through Rosetown, I’d get stopped sure. DWB.”

Sounding interested, Mackey said, “Not any more?”

Williams shrugged. “Now it would depend on the car,” he said.

Parker said, “So it isn’t city police, it’s a local force.”

“Yeah, but they’re rich,” Williams said. “Those are people spend money on law enforcement.”

“Which means the Honda’s no good to us,” Parker said. “We need a car that’ll make their cops comfortable.”

“Well, I guess that’s me,” Mackey said.

They looked at him, and he said, “Brenda and me, we almost always go by car, but as much as we can, we leave the car out of it. Like we came here, we took it to the airport, left it in long-term, took a rental back.”

Williams said, “What do you do that for?”

“If something happens to one of us,” Mackey told him, “it doesn’t happen to the car, so we’re that far ahead. Like now; they got Brenda, but they didn’t get a car. And a car would have another whole set of ID for the cops to play with.”

Parker said, “What is this car?”

“Two-year-old Saab, the little one, red.”

Williams laughed. “You’ll look like a college boy coming home on vacation.”

“Sounds right for that neighborhood,” Mackey said, “doesn’t it?”

Parker said, “So what we have to do, take the Honda to the airport, get this Saab.”

“And once again,” Williams said, “I’m on the floor in back.”

There were two kinds of long-term parking; inside a brick-and-concrete building or, the cheaper way, in an outside lot. Mackey drove to the outside lot, picked up a check, and found the Saab in its place, small and sleek, gleaming in the high floodlights. Leaving the Honda, he crouched beside the Saab, and from underneath drew a small metal box with a magnet on one side. Opening it, he took out the Saab’s key and used it to unlock the car.

Once the metal box was in the glove compartment, the parking check was out of the glove compartment, the Honda was in the Saab’s old space, and Williams was again on the floor in the narrow rear-passenger area, Mackey steered toward the electric exit sign, saying, “One thing. If we have to go on from the dance woman to the Fifth Street station, we don’t use this. We go back to the Honda.”

“It’s your car and it’s your woman,” Parker pointed out.

From the floor in back, Williams said, “When you’re out of the airport, take the left on Tunney Road, I’ll direct you from there.”

One-twenty-seven Further Lane was a bungalow, a one-story mansarded stucco house with porch, on a winding block of mostly larger and newer houses. Darlene Johnson-Ross had spent for the best neighborhood she could afford, not the best house.

The Saab drove by, slowly, seeing no lights, not in that house or any other house nearby. The dashboard clock read 5:27, and this wasn’t a suburb that rose early to deliver the milk. They’d seen one patrolling police car, half a mile or so back, but no other moving vehicles, no pedestrians.

Most of the houses here had attached garages. The bungalow had a garage beside it, in the same style as the house, but not attached. Blacktop led up to it, then a concrete walk crossed in front of the modest plantings to the porch stoop. A black Infiniti stood on the blacktop, nose against the garage door.

As they went by, Parker said, “Go around the block, cut the lights when you’re coming back down here, turn in, stop next to the other car.”

“And then straight in?”

“Straight in.”

They made the circuit without seeing any people, traffic, or house lights. Mackey slid the Saab up next to the Infiniti, half on blacktop and half on lawn, then the three moved fast out of the car and over to the front door, which Parker kicked in with one flat stomp from the bottom of his foot, the heel hitting next to the knob, the wood of the inside jamb splintering as the lock mechanism tore through.

They didn’t have to search for Johnson-Ross; their entrance had been heard. As they came in, Williams paused to push the door as closed as it would go, and a light switched on toward the rear of the house, showing that they’d entered a living room, with a hall leading back from it. Light spilled from the right side of the hall, most of the way back.

They moved toward the hall, and ahead of them a male voice sounded, high and terrified: “Muriel! Oh, my God, it’s Muriel!”

Then a female voice, more angry than frightened: “Henry? What are you talking about?”

Just entering the hall, Parker stopped and gestured to the other two. Everybody wait. It would be useful to listen to this.

The man’s voice went on, with a broken sound. He was crying. “It’s the detectives, I knew we’d never get away with it, you couldn’t be alone tonight, not after— How could I have been so stupid, she called Jerome, she knows I’m here, all those lies—”

“Henry, stop! Muriel doesn’t know anything because Muriel doesn’t want to know anything! What was that crash?”

“Private detectives, I knew she’d—”

“Henry, get up and see what that was!”

Now the three moved again, down the hall and into the bedroom, where the couple, both naked, sat up in the bed, he babbling and sobbing, she enraged. They both stopped short when Parker and Mackey and Williams walked in and stood like their worst dream at the foot of the bed.

Parker said, “Henry, do we look like private detectives?”

The woman slumped back against the headboard, color drained from her face. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Henry, not knowing what was going on if this was some nightmare other than the nightmare he’d been expecting, picked fretfully at the blanket over his knees as though trying to gather lint. “What do you—” he started, and ran out of air, and tried again: “What do you want?”

Parker looked at the woman. “You recognize us, don’t you?”

“On the news,” she whispered, still staring, still too pale, but recovering. “You” — and her eyes slid toward Williams — “and you.”

Now Henry caught up: “Oh, you’re them,” he cried, and for a second didn’t seem as scared as before. But then he realized he still had reasons to be scared, and shrank back next to the woman. “What are you going to do?”

This was Mackey’s game; Parker said to him, “Tell Henry what we’re going to do.”

“We’re going to have a conversation,” Mackey told them. “We’re going to talk about poor little innocent Brenda Fawcett, pining away in a jail cell while you two roll around in your — adulterous, isn’t it? — adulterous bed.”

5

“I knew she was part of the gang!” the woman cried, forgetting her own fear as she pointed at Mackey in triumph.

“But she wasn’t,” Mackey said. He was being very gentle, very calm, in a way that told the two on the bed he was holding some beast down inside himself that they wouldn’t want him to let go.

The woman blinked. “Of course she was,” she said. “She was casing the place.”

“Casing the dance studio?” Mackey grinned at her, in a way that seemed all teeth. “Come on, Darlene,” he said. “You know why she was there.”

“She’s with you people.”

“She’s with me,” Mackey said. “Not doing anything, not working, you see what I mean? Just along for the ride.” He gestured at Henry seated there now with mouth sagging open, like somebody really caught up in an exciting movie. “Probably like Muriel,” Mackey explained, and Henry’s mouth snapped shut, and Mackey said to him, “Right, Henry? Muriel’s just along for the ride, not part of what you’re doing, am I right?”

Henry shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Then you’re just not thinking, Henry,” Mackey told him. In creating this dialogue, rolling it out, taking his time, Parker knew, Mackey was both easing their fears and keeping the pressure on. They were all in a civilized conversation now, so their survival seemed to them more likely, so they would gradually find it easier to go along with the program, and eventually to do what Mackey wanted them to do.

Rolling it out, Mackey said, “You’re part of the bunch fixed up the Armory, right?”

Henry looked frightened again, as though this were a trick question. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said.

“You got your father in there with his jewelry business.”

Henry’s lips curved down. “Yes, you’d know about that,” he said.

Parker said, “We know about everything, Henry.”

“You put Darlene here in the dance studio,” Mackey went on, “and every once in a while you come around and dance. So there you are, captain of industry, putting together deals, making it happen. Muriel around for much of that, Henry?”

“What do you mean, around?” Henry’s incomprehension was making him desperate. “I’m married to her.”

“Sure, but was she at the meetings? When you and the guys were putting together the Armory deal, when you made the deal with your father, when you made the deal with Darlene here. Muriel in on any of that, Henry?”

“No, of course not,” he said.

Mackey spread his hands: case proved. To Darlene, he said, “You get my point? I’m here, I’m working, my friend’s along. She isn’t working, she’s just along, like Muriel. She gets bored, she takes a few classes over at your place. She can’t give you real information about herself, because maybe something might go wrong with what I’m doing here, but she’s paying you in cash, so it doesn’t matter what she says. But then you decide, ‘Hey, this woman is lying to me, I can’t have that, I can’t have some woman come into my dance studio and lie to me, I’m gonna find out what she’s up to, and if I can make some trouble for her, I’ll make some trouble for her.’ Just like Muriel might get a little pissed off at you, Darlene, and if she could make some trouble for you, and I bet she could, what do you think? You think you can run a dance studio and have an alienation of affection suit going on at the same time, all in public, all over the cheap crap the press has turned itself into? And no help from Henry, you know, Muriel would be keeping him occupied, too.”

“Oh, God,” Henry said, and covered his eyes with one hand, head bowed.

There was a chair against the side wall, with some of Henry’s clothing on it. Saying, “This is gonna take a while, these people are slow,” Williams walked over to the chair, dumped the clothing off it, and sat on it.

Henry lowered his hand to gape at his clothes on the floor. Darlene said, “Even if—”

Mackey looked at her with polite interest. “Yeah?”

“Even if you’re telling the truth,” Darlene said, “even if she wasn’t a part of it, she was here with you, she’s still an accomplice.”

Mackey said, “Is Muriel an accomplice? They still have those old blue laws on the books in this state, did you know that? Who knows how many different felonies you two already committed in that bed there, but the point is, is Muriel your accomplice?”

“That’s absurd,” she said.

“You’re right,” Mackey agreed. “And Brenda’s my accomplice the same way.”

She frowned, trying to find some way around this comparison, then impatiently shrugged and said, “It isn’t up to me, it’s up to the police. If whatever-her-name-is was more than just ‘being around,’ they’ll find out.”

“Oh, but that’s the problem, Darlene,” Mackey said. “It isn’t the police that make trouble for Brenda, it’s you.”

“It’s up to them now,” she insisted. “If she wasn’t doing anything wrong, they’ll let her go.”

“But they don’t want to let her go, do they, Darlene?” Mackey asked her. “They told you themselves, they don’t have a single thing to hold her on, but they don’t want to let her go because they’re suspicious of her because they can’t find out who she is, so that’s why they want you to go back tomorrow morning and sign a complaint against her.”

Henry jerked to a crouch, hands clasped together, staring at Mackey as though he were some kind of evil wizard. “How did you know that?”

Parker said, “I told you, Henry. We know everything.”

Darlene said, “They asked me to cooperate.”

Mackey said, “To sign a complaint that she made false statements on a credit application.”

“Well, they were false,” she said.

Mackey shook his head. “It wasn’t a credit application.”

She started to snap something, angry and impatient, but then stopped herself, as though she hadn’t realized till that second what the law had asked her to do. Maybe she hadn’t. She shook her head, rallied: “They were false statements.”

“Not on a credit application. Not a crime.”

Until now, Darlene and Henry had not looked at each other even once, both being too involved with the three men who’d broken into their room, but now they did turn to gaze at each other, a quick searching look — will you be any help? — and then faced Mackey again. Her voice lower, less pugnacious, she said, “I already said I’d do it.”

Parker said, “What time you supposed to go in there, in the morning?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“So we got three and a half hours,” he told her, “to figure out what you’re gonna to.”

Mackey said, “Brenda’s never been in jail before. She’s never been fingerprinted before, that’s why the cops can’t get a handle on who she really is. You put an innocent woman in the lockup.”

Trying for scorn, not quite making it, Darlene said, “An innocent woman!”

“More innocent than you two,” Mackey told her.

“Give them a few minutes,” Parker said.

Mackey turned to him. “You mean, leave them alone awhile, let them get dressed, talk it over?”

“That’s the best way,” Parker said.

Mackey looked around the room. “But what if they decide to use that phone there?”

Parker said, “Then Muriel’s got a problem she can’t ignore,” and the two on the bed gave each other startled looks.

Mackey said, “Yeah, but what if they aren’t as smart as they look?”

“No problem,” Williams said. He stood, went over to the bed — both people in it flinched, which he didn’t seem to notice — and stooped to unplug the phone. “I’ll take it with me,” he said.

Mackey kept looking around the room. “What if they decide to go out the window?”

Williams, carrying the phone, went to the room’s one window. “It’s locked,” he said. “But it’s just the thing you turn, they could unlock it.”

A dresser stood between the window and the chair Williams had been sitting in. Parker said, “We’ll move the dresser in front of the window. If they move it to get out, we’ll hear them from the hall.”

Mackey said, “Let me see what’s what in the bathroom.”

While Mackey went into the adjoining bathroom, Parker and Williams slid the heavy dresser over in front of the window, where it reached halfway up the lower pane. Then Williams stooped to pick up Henry’s trousers, go through the pockets, remove the wallet and keys. The couple on the bed watched, tense, together but not together.

Mackey came back to the bedroom and said, “It’s okay. No phone in there, and the window’s high and small, looks like it’s painted shut.”

The three moved toward the door, Williams carrying the wallet and the keys and the phone. Parker turned back to say, “You got one chance to get out from under. We’ll open the door in fifteen minutes.”

6

In the darkness of the hall, with only faint distant streetlight illumination to define the space, Williams put the phone on the floor, and they moved down closer to the living room to have a quiet talk. Mackey said, “What do you think?”

“I think she’s smart,” Parker said. “She’ll figure it out.”

“That’s the thing,” Mackey said. “It’s got to come from her.”

Williams said, “I think it will.”

“If we just scare her,” Mackey said, talking out his tension, “and we send her out scared when she talks to the cops, afraid maybe we’re back here roasting Henry for lunch, they’ll smell it on her. They won’t believe the conversation.”

Williams said, “It’ll be a tough sell anyway.”

“She’s tough enough to do it,” Parker said. “He couldn’t do it, but she could.”

Mackey said, “But it has to come from her. Her decision, how to make everything okay again.”

Williams said, “You gonna stay here while she’s doing it?”

Mackey shrugged. “No place else I can think of. And we’ll need to keep track of Henry.”

“This place could be chancy,” Williams said.

Parker said, “I know what you mean. No matter how good she is, they’ll think maybe there’s something wrong. They’ll send somebody here.”

“Not with a warrant,” Mackey said. “No time, and no excuse.”

Parker said, “No, just to eyeball it, while they’ve still got her there.” He nodded toward the front door. “So we’ll have to fix that, make it work again. If the beat cop comes around, looks in the windows, tries the doors, everything’s okay, then that’s it. But if a door’s unlocked, that’s suspicion, that’s probable cause, he’ll come right in.”

Williams said, “I’m gonna leave it all to you guys. You don’t need me any more, and I’m taking Henry’s car.”

Mackey laughed. “A step up from the Honda.”

“This time,” Williams said, “I’m getting out of this state.”

Parker said, “Switch all the cars around. Put ours in the garage, hers outside, then take off with his. That way, in the morning, she drives off, there’s no red Saab sitting there that nobody ever saw before.”

Williams nodded, grinning. “There’s always another detail, huh?”

“Sooner or later,” Parker said, “you get to them all.”

7

“I don’t think I can do it,” she said.

They were in the kitchen now, seated around the Formica table, because lights at the rear of the house wouldn’t draw as much attention. Henry, unshaven, brow creased with worry, wore a pale blue dress shirt, the trousers to a dark blue pinstripe suit, and black oxfords. Darlene was in a high-necked plain white blouse and severe long black skirt; apparently, what she intended to wear to the meeting this morning, a meeting that had now become something else, leaving her uncertain and afraid. She said, “How can I tell them I just changed my mind?”

“People do it all the time,” Mackey assured her.

Parker said, “You were hot, you were angry, but now you’re cooled off, now you don’t want to make trouble for somebody if she really didn’t do anything.”

“Which she didn’t,” Mackey said.

“But they’re going to look at me,” Darlene said. “They’re going to want to know why I changed my mind, and all I’ll be able to think about is you two back here, threatening Henry.”

Mackey turned to Henry. “Do you feel threatened?”

“Yes,” Henry said. He sounded surprised.

Mackey gave him his full attention. “Then let me ask you this,” he said. “What do you want Darlene to do?”

“I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” Henry said. “I don’t want anybody to be... ruined.”

“Henry,” Mackey said, “you’re a braver guy than you know you are. You risk ruin all the time, I know you do, and why? Because you love Darlene. You got your father the jewelry guy to cover for you tonight, because Darlene didn’t want to be alone after what happened to her dance studio. That was tough to ask him that, wasn’t it?”

Henry nodded. He looked miserable. “Yes,” he said.

“I was hysterical,” Darlene said. She was apologizing.

“Sure you were,” Mackey told her, and said to Henry, “But you did it. You risk everything because you love Darlene, and that’s what I’m doing with Brenda. So I’ll ask you, what do you want Darlene to do?”

Henry was already shaking his head halfway through the question. “I can’t put that on—”

“Yes, you can, Henry,” Mackey said. “She’s gonna leave here at eight-thirty” — glance at kitchen clock — “less than three hours from now. We’re gonna let her walk out the door, get in the car, drive away. Do you want her to go tell the cops she changed her mind, she doesn’t think that was Brenda parked there late at night after all, she doesn’t want to file a complaint she knows is a lie? Or do you want her to say there’s two armed and desperate criminals in her house, and they’re holding her lover, you, holding him hostage there? Because then there’s a big standoff, a shootout, and a lot of things happen, maybe even the house burns down—”

“The law does that sometimes,” Parker said. “They always say it was an accident.”

“That’s right,” Mackey agreed. “Took down a whole neighborhood in Philly a few years ago.” To Henry he said, “So all kinds of things could happen, if Darlene tells the law we’re in here, and you’re in here with us, but the one thing that will definitely happen is that you’ll be dead. My guarantee, Henry. You won’t have to worry about ruin any more.”

Darlene, sounding desperate, said, “I want to do it, I know yon two are capable of anything, but I don’t know if I can do it. I think they’ll look at me, and they’ll know, and then the police will come here and everything will happen just the way you say it will, even though I tried, and we’ll all be destroyed, every one of us.”

Parker said, “The meeting this morning. Is this with the detectives?”

“No, it’s an assistant district attorney,” Darlene said, “in her office. She’s Elise something, I don’t remember what.”

Parker nodded. “We heard about her,” he said. “Let me tell you the exact words we were told about her, by somebody who’s seen her and knows her. He said, ‘She’s a young woman with little experience and no feel for the job.’ Is that the way Elise strikes you, Darlene?”

Darlene, wide-eyed, said, “How do you people know all these things?”

Parker said, “Is that a good description of Elise?”

Darlene thought, then nodded. “Yes. You can tell, she’s really mostly bluffing.”

“You can outbluff Elise,” Parker told her.

Mackey said, “Henry? Do you think she can do it?”

Henry looked at the table, deliberately meeting no one’s eye. “Honestly,” he said, “I pray she can do it.”

Mackey grinned at Darlene. “So it’s gonna work out. It isn’t gonna be a piece of cake, we all know that, but you can deal with Elise.”

“I’ll try,” Darlene said. She looked at Henry. “I really will do my best.”

“I know you will,” he said.

Leaning back, a pleased smile on his face, Mackey said, “So now we got plenty of time for a nice breakfast, and we could even rehearse if you want, up to you. I wouldn’t want you to be overtrained. And when you leave, your car’s in the driveway.”

Henry sat up. “You mean, that man took my car?”

“He’s a local boy,” Mackey explained. “He’s too well known around here, it seemed a good idea to leave while he could. Don’t worry, he’ll treat your car well, he won’t be going over any speed limits, you can be sure of that. And once Brenda’s out of that Fifth Street station, you can call in a stolen car report, no problem. He’ll be into some other transportation by then.” Getting to his feet, he said, “Darlene, I’m no sexist. Lemme help you make breakfast.”

8

At eight-thirty she left, with a rueful look at the ruined front door on the way by. Parker had found hammer and nails in a kitchen drawer, and ripped a piece of jamb from an interior door. With the front door lock in place and the splintered pieces of the old jamb back in position, he’d nailed the new length of wood over the old. From the inside, it looked like hell, but nothing showed on the outside, and the door would lock.

Parker watched her cross to her car, parked now where Henry’s had been last night. Her step was firm. She had herself under control.

This was the unknown, starting now. Any time you put somebody on the send, off with the instructions but on their own, you could never be completely certain the glue would hold. She could doublethink herself in the car, on the way to the meeting. She could be blindsided by an unexpected question from somebody there. She could lose her nerve at any step along the way. Or she could hold together and this thing would finally be over.

Darlene got behind the wheel. Carefully she fixed her seat belt. She backed to the street and drove away, not looking toward her house.

Parker turned away from the window. Henry sat slumped on the sofa; he, too, didn’t know if she’d hold up. Mackey stood in the doorway, looking at Parker. “Time to make the call?”

He meant to Li. It wouldn’t be good to mention that name in front of Henry, just in case things fell apart somewhere down the line. They might still need Li in the near future, and they would need him thinking about them and not thinking about saving his license. Parker said, “Henry, I’ll have to lock you in a closet now.”

Startled, frightened all over again after a long time of calm, Henry said, “No, you don’t! I’ll just sit here, I won’t make any trouble.”

“We have to phone somebody,” Parker explained, being slow and patient because it would be better to keep Henry dialed down. “We can’t have you listen to it, but I’m not gonna just ask you to wait in the kitchen, right next to that back door.”

“It won’t be long, Henry,” Mackey said, and then he said, “I tell you what. You just go back into the bedroom and close the door. If you open the door, we can see you from here, so don’t open the door.”

“I won’t,” Henry promised.

“It’ll just be a few minutes, like my friend told you,” Mackey assured him. “And then we’ll call oley oley in-free, and you come back to the living room. Go now, Henry.”

Henry got to his feet. “I won’t make any trouble,” he said, and went away down the hall.

They watched until the bedroom door closed, and then Mackey said, “I believe him. Henry will not make us trouble.”

“Make the call,” Parker said.

Mackey went over to sit on the sofa, next to the phone. He pulled Li’s card from his shirt pocket and dialed, while Parker stood where he could hear Mackey and watch the hall.

“Mr. Li, please. I’m calling on the Brenda Fawcett matter.” Mackey nodded at Parker, and said, “They’re patching him through again. I don’t think he’s ever in his office.”

“He doesn’t need to be,” Parker said.

“No.” Mackey looked at Li’s card. “He’s got all these partners to watch the office.” Then, into the phone, he said, “Mr. Li. This is Brenda’s friend. No, I know that, you don’t have any news yet, but within the hour I think maybe you will. You might even have good news. Yeah, it would be. The thing is, if the news is as good as I think it’s gonna be, Brenda’s gonna be out from under before we know it. Yeah, that would be very nice. Now, if it works out like that, maybe you could give her some change to make a phone call, let me know what’s happening. Yeah, I think she should use change to make that phone call. The number’s—” and he read off the number from the phone he was using. “I’ll be here, hoping for the best. Thank you, Mr. Li.”

Mackey hung up, and grinned at Parker. “Tell the stud he can come out now,” he said.

Parker did, and when Henry got back to the living room he said, “Is it all right if I use the phone?”

Mackey said, “You gotta cover your tracks.”

“Muriel believes,” Henry said, “I’m spending the night at my father’s place. But she’ll expect me back some time this morning. So I’ll have to call her, tell her I’ll stay with my father while they assess the damage at the company, and then I’ll have to call my father and say we have to pretend we’re still together because I have problems I have to work out even more than before.”

Mackey said, “Problems? Doesn’t he know what’s going on?”

Sheepish, Henry said, “He doesn’t know about Darlene. I had to tell him there was somebody I was seeing, which was bad enough, but I said it was somebody he didn’t know. He doesn’t really like Darlene, and he might not do it if he knew it was her.”

“That’s a tangled web you’re weaving there,” Mackey told him, and gestured at the phone. “Go ahead and call. You won’t mind if we listen in.”

9

At twenty to ten, Mackey was by the living room window, looking out at the street, when he said, “Well, she’s telling the story.”

Parker, in a chair near the hall, got to his feet. Henry, on the sofa, looked from one to the other, watchful, apprehensive. Looking past Mackey, Parker saw the white sedan just stopping at the curb out front, red block letters RPD on its door. “Rosetown Police Department,” he said, and two uniforms came out of the front seat, one on either side.

So Darlene was going through with it. As Mackey had said, she was telling the story, and as they had both known, that meant the law would check her house, just to be sure everything was on the up and up.

As the cops started toward the front porch, Parker said, “Up, Henry.”

Rising, Henry said, “Where are we going?”

“Bathroom,” Parker told him, as Mackey passed them and went down the hall. “Just till they leave.”

Parker shooed him, and Henry followed Mackey, Parker coming third. They went into the bedroom and Mackey said, “Go on in, Henry, we’ll be along.”

Henry was no trouble. He was like a horse who’s learned that obedience is followed by sugar lumps; he went on into the bathroom while Parker and Mackey dragged the dresser away from the window, back to its original position. Then they followed Henry into the bathroom, leaving the door open.

This was the one room in the house that couldn’t be looked into from outside. The only window was high and small, its lower half of frosted glass. It was a fairly small room, and they had to stand close to one another, as though in an elevator. Henry stood with his arms folded across his chest. He looked at the wall, and took short audible breaths through his nose.

After a minute, Mackey said, “Henry, take some deep breaths. You’re gonna make yourself pass out, you breathe like that.”

“Sorry,” Henry said. He swallowed and said, “Could I get myself a glass of water?”

“After they leave,” Parker said, and from the front of the house came the two-tone call of the doorbell.

They became very silent, even Henry, and after a minute the bell rang again. Another silence, and the rattle of the doorknob, testing the lock.

Quietly, Mackey said, “Now they split, one down either side of the house, look in the windows. Meet at the back, try the door. Go back to the car, call in: Nobody home, no sign of a problem.”

The wait seemed long, but probably wasn’t, and then they heard another doorknob being tested, at the rear of the house. They’d be looking into the kitchen now, which had been made neat, no evidence left of even one breakfast, let alone four.

Whispering, Henry said, “Do you think they’re gone?”

“Let’s give them another minute,” Mackey said.

They waited another minute, and then Mackey stepped slowly through the doorway, looking to his right, where the bedroom window was. “Looks good,” he said, and went on across the bedroom to the hall.

“You can have your water now,” Parker said, and Henry drank a glass of water, spilling a little. Then Parker followed him out the door.

No one was looking into the window. They walked down the hall and when they got to the living room and looked out, being careful to stay deep in the room, not too close to the glass, the white RFD car was still there, both cops now inside it. The one in the passenger seat was on the radio.

Henry said, “What are they doing?”

Mackey told him, “The case is in the city. These guys report to their station, their station passes the word to the DA’s office in the city, these guys wait here until the word comes back, okay, you’re done. Another minute or two. We’ll all sit down, and the next time we stand up, they’ll be gone.”

They were.

10

At twenty-five minutes after eleven, the phone rang. Parker said, “Henry, bedroom. Door closed.”

“Go with him,” Mackey said, and the phone rang again. “We moved the dresser.”

Which meant Henry might be able to get out the window. “Right,” Parker said, and followed Henry down the hall. In the bedroom, he said, “Sit around on the other side of the bed,” farther away from the doorway. Then he left the door partway open and leaned against the jamb, so he could look at the window and still hear the living room.

If this was Brenda, then they were probably in endgame. If it was some friend of Darlene’s, or anybody else, Mackey would say, “Wrong number,” hang up, and not answer when they called back. Darlene’s answering machine could handle it.

Parker could hear Mackey’s voice, but not make out the words. It didn’t seem to him that Mackey was talking to Brenda, it didn’t have that style to it, but he was having a conversation, not cutting it short, so what was this?

Li. It had to be. Another delay? Another kind of trouble?

Mackey appeared at the end of the hall. “Okay,” he said, and walked back into the living room.

“Come on, Henry.”

They went back to the living room and Mackey said, “They’re stonewalling.”

“That was who you talked to before.”

“Sure. Darlene’s in with this ADA, it’s going on and on, and nothing’s happening. It should be over by now.”

“They’re trying to break her down,” Parker said. “Get her to switch the story back again.”

“She won’t,” Henry said. “If they put pressure on Darlene, I know her, she’ll just get more and more determined.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mackey said. To Parker he said, “The thing is, before, I only told him there should be news, I didn’t say what the news was, and now everything’s on hold, so he wants to know what’s happening. She’s in there, and her lawyer is in there with her, and he needs information.” He frowned at Henry and said, “Speaking of which, how much of this is Henry supposed to hear?”

Henry said, “Oh, come on. I’m not stupid. I’m afraid of you two, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Who could you be talking to, this time or last time, except your friend’s lawyer? Can I prove that? No. Do I hope nobody ever has any reason to ask me what I was doing today? Yes.”

“Well, what the hell,” Mackey said. “Sit down, Henry, we got a little longer to wait.”

Henry sat on the sofa, and Mackey said to Parker, “So he needed to know what was happening, because nothing’s coming out of the ADA’s office, and I told him, the story is, she flipped, won’t sign a complaint, won’t identify Brenda. So he’s mad, he says once she’s flipped it over, they gotta let Darlene go, they gotta let Brenda go, they gotta take a time-out break with coffee and danish. So what he’s going to do, he’s going to the judge, talk to the judge in chambers, say what’s with the delay with this witness, I need to know what’s going on here. He’ll try to get the judge to raise the question to find out what’s going on with the alleged witness, and of course once he does find out the cat’s out of the bag and Brenda’s out of the Fifth Street station. The judge is not gonna let them browbeat Darlene forever just because she flipped.” Mackey shrugged. “Anyway, that’s the theory,” he said. “I mean, some time today they’re gonna have to give up, we know that. It’s just we’d rather it was sooner.”

“Poor Darlene,” Henry said.

Mackey looked at him. “Brenda isn’t having that good a day, either, pal,” he said.

11

This was a variant on the Stockholm Syndrome. They hadn’t planned to hold Henry captive, hadn’t planned an encounter with Henry at all. But here he was, and once he was here he couldn’t be permitted to just wander off. And his presence would put extra pressure on Darlene to do things right, and not have some sort of mess break out at home.

So they had to spend time together, some hours together, not knowing when or how it would end. Parker kept aloof, but didn’t do anything to increase Henry’s nervousness; he was tame, let him alone. Mackey was aggressively chummy with him, because that was Mackey’s style, to be a pal with a hint of threat inside there. And Henry played his Stockholm part, too, which was to befriend his captors as much as possible, keep them feeling relaxed about him, prove himself useful when and where he could.

Like lunch. At twelve-thirty, still no phone call from Brenda, no follow-up from Li, Henry broke a long silence to say, “I know this house, I could — If you want, I could make sandwiches. Darlene usually has cold cuts, cheese, things like that.”

“That’s a very good suggestion, Henry,” Mackey said. “We all want to keep our strength up, and you want to keep yourself occupied.”

So all three transferred to the kitchen, where Parker and Mackey sat at the table while Henry made sandwiches and a pot of coffee. Henry hesitated for a second before sitting with them, then went ahead, pretending he felt natural about it, and Mackey grinned at him, saying, “You make a good sandwich, Henry.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not so sure about this coffee, though.”

Apologetic, Henry said, “Darlene and I like it strong. It’s espresso mix.”

“Huh. I thought I liked it strong, too.” He sipped, thought about it, said, “Okay, maybe.” Turning to Parker, he said, “What do you think of it?”

“It’s good coffee,” Parker said.

“Okay, then.” Mackey grinned some more at Henry. “It’s good coffee,” he told him, and they finished their lunch in silence.

It was while Henry was doing the cleanup that the phone rang again. Parker said, “Henry, turn off the water,” as Mackey moved to the kitchen wall-phone. Henry turned off the water and faced the room, back against the sink, hands folded at his crotch.

Mackey got to the phone as it started its second ring: “Yeah?” A big smile creased his face, this one without the usual hint of menace. “So there you are! Where are you? He got nice offices? Yeah, I thought he would. You’re not calling from his phone, are you? Across the street, outdoors, that’s even better. So you’re loose now?” Mackey was looking at the clock on the wall, which read almost one-thirty. He said, “So what I think you oughta do, you oughta go back to the hotel and check out, maybe check out at two-thirty, and take a cab to the airport. Okay? Check out at two-thirty, and take a cab to the airport. See you soon, baby.” He hung up, and said to Parker, “Li finally levered her out of there.”

“They’ll tail her,” Parker said.

“Oh, sure,” Mackey agreed. He didn’t seem troubled. Turning to Henry, he said, “Henry, would Darlene have a local map here?”

“I’m not sure,” Henry said, with an uncertain look at the kitchen. “I’m not usually here, we have another—”

“Oh, the place at the dance studio!” Mackey said. “Very nice apartment, we saw that.”

Henry surprised everybody, including himself, by blushing. As he touched shaky fingertips to his cheek, he said, “I’ll see if she has maps here.” And did a lot of bustling through kitchen drawers until he got over his embarrassment.

And he did finally come up with a city map, that included downtown, where Brenda was, and Rosetown, the suburb where they were right now, and the airport, west of the city, not far from Stoneveldt. Parker and Mackey sat at the table to study the map while Henry finished at the sink. They didn’t speak, but pointed out to each other Brenda’s route and their own. As they were folding the map again, the phone rang. Looking at it, on the wall, Mackey said, “No. We don’t expect any more calls. Henry, where’s the answering machine?”

“In the bedroom.”

Parker stood, saying, “Come along.”

Henry obediently followed, and the three moved into the bedroom, as the phone continued to ring. They stood in the bedroom, looking at the answering machine on the bedside table, and it clicked, and they moved closer during Darlene’s outgoing message. It ended, there was another click, and they listened to Darlene again; much more frantic than on the recording: “Is anybody there? Oh, God, somebody be there!”

Parker reached for him, but before he could grab him Henry had picked up the phone: “Hi, Darlene.”

“Henry!” They all heard her because, since Henry hadn’t pressed the stop button, the machine was still recording the conversation. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, sure, everything’s fine. Are you coming home now?”

“Have they gone?”

“Shit,” Mackey said.

Parker said, fast, into Henry’s ear, “I’m alone, come home.”

“I’m all alone here, Darlene,” Henry said. “Everything’s fine. Why don’t you come home? We don’t want to discuss this on the phone.”

“Just so they’re gone, that’s all I ask.”

It was hopeless. Parker said, “End it, Henry.”

“I have to hang up now,” Henry said. “Hurry home, Darlene.” And he hung up. Turning away from the phone, he said, “I did my best.”

“We know,” Parker said.

12

Mackey said, “Henry, wherever she made that call from, somebody was listening.”

Henry shook his head. He was ready to apologize for her: “She’s not used to this—”

“No time, Henry,” Mackey told him. “Cops are on their way now. We don’t want to talk to them, and neither do you. Go out that front door, walk do not run to the nearest store, call a cab, go home. Goodbye, Henry.”

Henry blinked at them both. Parker said, “Now, Henry.”

They followed him through the house to the front door. Henry opened it, paused, and Mackey said, “No goodbyes. Go.”

Henry left. They watched through the front window as he strode briskly to the sidewalk and turned left. Their problem was, they couldn’t leave until he was away from here because they didn’t want him to know what they were driving. In case he didn’t evade the law himself, he shouldn’t know that.

Watching Henry’s arms swing as he marched away, Mackey said, “The simplest thing, of course, is a bullet in the head. But you know, it’s hard to go with the bullet in the head once a guy’s made you lunch.”

“We can go,” Parker said.

They left the house, pulling the breached door shut behind them, and crossed the porch, headed for the garage. “They become real,” Mackey explained.

Williams had turned the Saab around before he put it away, backing it into the garage, so they could leave fast if they needed to. They needed to. As Mackey slid behind the wheel, Parker got into the small backseat and curled down sideways to be out of sight, so nobody would have two males in a car with out-of-state plates to think about.

Three blocks later, that turned out to have been a good idea, because four police cars, two of them from Rosetown and two from the city, went tearing by, toward Darlene’s house, Tootsie Roll lights flashing on their roofs. As he watched them recede in the rearview mirror, Mackey said, “They’re not using their sirens.”

Parker sat up and looked out the back window. “Sneaking up on us,” he said.

13

The only sensible way to drive from the Park Regal, the hotel Brenda was checking out of, to the airport was to cut across downtown to a highway called the Harrick Freeway. It was more complicated to get to the Harrick from Rosetown, but Parker, in the backseat, gave directions from Darlene’s map, and a little after two Mackey took an on-ramp and joined the traffic headed west. Twenty minutes later they saw the exit sign for McCaughey International and took it, Mackey saying, “What we need now is a place we can wait.”

That turned out not to be a problem. The four blocks of city street between the freeway and the airport entrance were lined with motels. Mackey pulled in at one in the second block, where the parking area for the attached restaurant was in front, just off the street. Parked to face the traffic, he said, “Now we wait.”

“I should do the driving, this part,” Parker told him. “When we get there, you follow Brenda in, I stay with the car. The cops here would make me right away.”

“Fine,” Mackey said. “Circle the airport and come back for me. Either I’ll shake her loose, or I’ll see what plane she takes.”

They switched places, Parker at the wheel and Mackey beside him, and watched the traffic, which seemed to be about half cabs. They waited a quarter of an hour, and then Mackey said, “There she is,” and they watched Brenda go by in the backseat of a taxi, sitting forward, looking in a hurry to be somewhere else.

“There’s her tail,” Parker said.

“And there’s her other one. They put two on her.”

The unmarked police car is unmarked, but it’s still a police car, still with police equipment, built to government specifications. They’re always large American sedans, heavy, four-door, in the lower price range, Ply-mouths or Chevrolets. They’re usually painted some drab color that civilians would never choose but that’s supposed to make them less noticeable, and they have the same tires municipalities buy for all their official vehicles, making them the only apparently civilian cars on the road without a white stripe on the tires.

Now, when Parker pulled out from the motel parking lot to follow the followers, both cars were Ply-mouths, one a dull green, the other a dull tan. Two bulky men rode in the front seat of each. He couldn’t see Brenda’s cab, but that was all right; the cops could.

They all drove to the airport entrance and in, taking the loop past the terminal buildings. Ahead, first one unmarked car and then the other flashed right-turn signals, so Brenda was going to the terminal for Great Lakes Air, a regional carrier. Parker also pulled over, behind everybody else, stopping just long enough for Mackey to hop out, then angling back into the traffic. One cop was getting out of each car to follow Brenda, the other staying at the wheel. Mackey trailed them all.

This road would eventually circle back to the entrance, where he could swing back to go past Great Lakes Air again. If Mackey was there, he’d stop.

He was taking the left ramp that would lead him around and into the airport again when he glanced in the mirror and saw the green Plymouth behind him. The cop had been hiding in the traffic, but no one else was taking the turn to go back into the airport, so there he was. He’d made a very quick and sure ID as Parker had driven by him. Parker couldn’t see him well enough, inside the car back there, but he knew the guy would be on his radio.

This little red car was too identifiable. He couldn’t stay in it, but how could he get clear of it without the cop being all over him?

He completed the left-turn U, and this time he noticed the additional lanes that went off to the right, before the terminals, with a big sign above: cargo.

Those lanes were empty. Parker accelerated into them, widening the distance from the pursuer, the Saab giving him just that much more juice than the Plymouth could deliver. But he wouldn’t have the advantage for long.

This road curved rightward away from the passenger terminals and soon had large storage buildings on its left side, each with an airline name prominent on it. On the right were a high chain-link fence and scrubby fields. A few trucks moved along this road, and Parker snaked through them, looking for an out.

There. On the left, a building with a large open hangar-type entrance on the front. Parker hit the brakes, spun the wheel, hit the accelerator, and roared into the building.

There were trucks in here, too, being loaded or unloaded, with one narrow lane among them and stacks of goods piled high on both sides. Too many workmen moved among the trucks; Parker held down the horn, accelerated, saw the broad open door at the far end, cluttered with electric carts for carrying cargo out to the planes, and braced his forearms on the steering wheel as he slammed down onto the brake, then pushed open his door and slid out of the Saab as it continued to travel at ten miles an hour, straight toward that far opening.

Parker hit the floor rolling, under a truck and out the other side, coming to his feet with the Terrier in his hand. He ran to the front of the truck, saw that the Saab had stopped when it ran into the carts just outside the building, and the Plymouth was just braking to a stop behind it. He ran toward the Plymouth, and its door opened, and the cop got out, and was Turley.

The CID man from Stoneveldt, student of game theory. Of course the law would have him part of this detail, since he knew Parker, had sat across a desk from him twice, told him nobody had ever escaped from Stoneveldt. A small bulky red-haired middleweight, now reaching inside his windbreaker as he slammed the Plymouth’s door and took a step toward the Saab.

“Turley!” Parker yelled.

Turley spun around, astonished, and Parker took a flat stance, the Terrier held out in front of himself with both hands. “Hands where I can see them!”

Turley stared all around, not sure what to do. His hand was still inside the windbreaker, but he had to know what would happen if it came out full. Half a dozen workmen, wide-eyed, backed away.

Parker yelled, “I’m a police officer! This man is under arrest!”

“For Christ’s sake!” Turley yelled. Now his hand did come out from inside his windbreaker, empty, so he could wave his arms in outrage, “Tm the cop!” he yelled. “This man’s an escaped—”

Parker had reached him now. “Stop yelling,” he said.

Turley blinked at him, trying to catch up.

Parker shook his head. “Game theory,” he said. “Chapter two.”

“You’ll never get out of the airport,” Turley told him. “Do you want to add murder one?”

“So everything’s going your way,” Parker agreed. “So all you have to be is calm, am I right?”

Turley nodded, thinking about that. He’d come down from his rage as quickly as he’d gone up. “You’re right,” he said. “So why don’t you just hand me the weapon and let’s let these people go back to work.”

“We’re getting in your car,” Parker told him. “You’re driving. If you don’t like that idea, I’ll give you some murder one and do my own driving.”

“You would, too,” Turley said. “You proved that with Jelinek.”

Parker waited for Turley to get used to the idea. Turley thought for a second, glancing toward the useless workmen, and then shrugged. “You’re the escape artist. I’ll enjoy watching you at work.”

“That’s the way,” Parker said. Backing away from Turley, he said, “We open our doors at the same time. We get in at the same time.”

Turley nodded, and stood with his left hand on top of the car while Parker moved around it to the passenger side and said, “Now.”

They opened both doors, slid in, and Parker said, “Don’t drive backwards. You can get around the Saab.”

Turley put the Plymouth in gear and drove them out of there, through the tight fit between the Saab and a couple of the electric carts, out to the business side of the airport, while behind them the workmen clustered into groups to try to decide what they’d just been witnesses to.

Now they were among the taxiways, with planes landing and taking off some distance away. Clear routes were marked in white paint on the gray concrete, and various vehicles traveled around back here, all staying within the lines.

Turley said, “Do you have some sort of plan in mind?” As though the idea were ridiculous.

To the left were the main terminal buildings. To the right the buildings grew fewer, and some chain-link fence could be seen. Whatever was happening with Mackey and Brenda, there was no point in Parker trying to link up with them again. “To the right,” he said.

Turley nodded, and they drove along the rear of the cargo buildings, hundreds of workmen moving around, dozens of vehicles of all kinds, nobody paying them any attention in their unmarked car.

Parker said, “Call in.”

Turley seemed surprised. “What do I say, I’m bringing you in?”

“You followed me into that cargo building, I abandoned the red car. You’ve got the car, but you don’t have me. You figure I’m hiding in that building somewhere.”

“And I’m standing by?”

“That’s right,” Parker said. “Waiting for backup.”

Turley snorted. “That’ll buy you maybe thirty seconds,” he said.

“Just do it.”

Turley did it, saying it the way Parker had told him to, adding nothing, the dispatcher brisk, in a hurry. Putting the microphone back on its hook, Turley said, “I’ll look like a real idiot, once I finally do bring you in.”

Parker said, “I didn’t take your gun.”

Turley looked at him sideways, looked at the road ahead. “Meaning what?”

“I’m not out to make you feel bad about yourself,” Parker told him. “It’s just that it’s time for me to get to some other part of the world.”

“And you figure,” Turley said, “if I’m your chauffeur, but you don’t disarm me, I didn’t lose my weapon to you, that way I’ve still got my dignity.”

“Up to you,” Parker said.

“And I’ll be easier to control,” Turley said, “if I’ve still got my dignity.”

“Up to you.”

Turley laughed, not as though he meant it, and said, “Here I was telling you all about game theory. We could have had some nice discussions, back in Stoneveldt.”

“I don’t think so,” Parker said.

“I knew you had something in mind, back there,” Turley told him. “I had my eye on you, just not enough.”

“I felt the eye,” Parker assured him.

“I hope so,” Turley said. “There’s a gate up there.”

Ahead, there was an open guarded gate where the delivery trucks drove in. Four rent-a-cops were on duty there. “Flash the badge,” Parker said.

“Naturally.”

A gasoline truck was just pulling out when they arrived. Turley lowered his window, dangled the leather folder that held his badge, and Parker put his other arm over the Terrier in his lap as the rent-a-cop leaned down to say, “Help you guys?” He was in his fifties, surely a retired cop himself.

“Undercover work,” Turley told him. “Baggage thefts.”

The rent-a-cop gave an angry laugh. “We can slow em down,” he said, “but nothing will ever stop em.” He stepped back and waved them through.

A two-lane road ran along the chain-link fence outside the airport property. Closing his window, Turley said, “Which way?”

“Left.” Which would be away from the main bulk of the airport.

This was the flattest part of this flat state, where they’d chosen to put the airport. Miles away to the right, as they rode along beside the fence, Parker could see Stoneveldt looming. So could Turley. He said, “Want me to drop you off there?”

“I don’t think so.”

The radio squawked. Turley looked at it, looked at Parker. “They’re calling me,” he said.

“Don’t answer.”

“I don’t have anything cute to say, throw them off the scent?”

“There’s nothing cute,” Parker told him. “There’s just me, going away from here.”

The radio squawked again, and Parker said, “Shut it off. There’s nothing we need to hear.”

Turley switched the radio off, stopping the voice in midsquawk. They drove a minute in silence, and then Turley said, “I’m state, as I guess you know, but this is a local car we’re in.”

“Working together to get the bad guys,” Parker suggested.

“That’s right,” Turley said. He seemed serious about it. He said, “A couple years ago, the city police union put a proposal on the table, to city government, install locators in all the cars. You know, bounce off the satellite, tells you exactly where you are, also tells the dispatchers at headquarters exactly where you are.”

Parker said, “The politicians didn’t want to spend the money.”

“You know that’s true,” Turley said. “They said, you boys are local law enforcement, you know exactly where you are.”

“If they’d spent the money,” Parker said, “I’d have to do something else now.”

“If they’d spent the money,” Turley corrected him, “and if I told you about it.”

“You’d tell me,” Parker said. “You don’t want me surprised.”

“Well, you’re right about that, too,” Turley agreed. “We’re coming to an intersection up here, which way you want to go?”

Stoneveldt was to the right. “Left,” Parker said.

14

It was almost three o’clock. He was out of that city at last, away from the airport and the gathering cops, but he wasn’t finished. He couldn’t stay in this car much longer, because they’d be putting planes up soon, to look for him. There were two hours of daylight left, far too much, and they were running southwestward away from the city over this tabletop.

Parker said, “What’s out in front of us?”

“Corn,” Turley said, but then corrected himself. “Not this time of year. Farms, a few little towns, railroad towns.”

Railroad towns sounded good. Wouldn’t the rails run east-west? “Take your next left,” Parker said, which would send them more southerly, to cross a railroad line eventually. Sooner, rather than later.

An intersection grew ahead of them, a gas station and convenience store on one corner, farm equipment dealer diagonally across, nothing on the other two corners but breezy fields with billboards. The intersection was marked by a yellow blinker; Turley waited for a pickup to go by, then turned left. There was little traffic out here.

They rolled along for a while and then Turley said, “Where’s Williams?”

“Long gone,” Parker said.

Turley nodded. “Dead?”

“No, just gone. Some other state.”

“You two didn’t stick together?”

“We had different things to do.”

“You were both in the jewelry heist, weren’t you?”

Parker said, “You hearing my confession?”

Turley chuckled and shook his head. “I’m just interested,” he said. “You know, I knew you wouldn’t work inside the system, so you didn’t surprise me. It’s Marcantoni I underestimated.”

Just as Parker had known what Turley was doing underneath his words back in Stoneveldt, he understood now what this cosy chat was all about. Turley was a good cop, but he was also mortal. His second job, if he could do it, was to bring Parker in, but his first job was to keep himself alive. Talk with a man, exchange confidences with him, he’s less likely to pull the trigger if and when the time comes. Like Mackey deciding to do it the more difficult way because Henry had made him lunch.

That was all right. Part of Parker’s job right now was to keep Turley calm, and so long as Turley devoted his mind to his little strategies he would remain calm. So Parker said, “Underestimated Marcantoni? How?”

“I didn’t think he’d team with a black,” Turley said. “I could see the three of you working something or other, but I thought it’d go a different way.”

“That was the way we had,” Parker said.

Turley thought about that. “You mean, your original bunch was broken up. You needed to work with the population around you, and most of that, as you know, is pretty sorry stuff.”

“That’s what you get in there,” Parker said.

Turley nodded, agreeing with him. “So you did a little talent search,” he said, “came up with the best team, didn’t care about any other qualifications.”

“Nothing else to care about,” Parker said.

“Is that right? Walheim didn’t make it, you know.”

The abrupt change of subject left Parker blank for a second, and then he remembered. Walheim had had a heart attack. He said, “So he escaped, too.”

“You could look at it that way.”

They drove in silence a minute, and then Turley said, “You didn’t ask me about Bruhl.”

“Ask you what about Bruhl?”

Turley looked at him, then faced the road again. “I guess you don’t care, but I’ll tell you anyway. Bruhl will live and do time. More than Armiston, and in a harder place.”

Parker said, “Armiston was dealing with you before you ever talked with me.”

“Well, around that time,” Turley agreed.

Far away, miles away, a few low buildings were clustered around the road. At the moment, there was no nearby traffic. Parker said, “Pull off the road and stop.”

Turley did, and said, “Engine on or off?”

“On. In Park.”

Turley did that, and faced Parker. “What now?”

“You know the easy way to take a piece out of its holster,” Parker said. “Thumb and forefinger, just holding the butt.”

Affecting surprise, Turley said, “I thought you weren’t going to take my weapon. I’m keeping my dignity that way.”

“You’ll get it right back,” Parker assured him. “I just don’t want you shooting out my tires.”

“Oh, I see, we’re saying so long now.” Turley shrugged. “Okay, fine, here it comes, gentle and easy.”

Holding the windbreaker open with his left hand, he grasped his revolver, a .38 Colt Trooper, by the bottom of the butt between thumb and forefinger and slowly lifted it out of the holster strapped around his underarm. Once it was clear, Parker took it away and said, “You got one in an ankle holster?”

“I’m not that kind of cop.”

“Show anyway.”

Turley lifted both legs of his tan chinos. Black socks above black oxfords, nothing else.

Parker said, “Fine. Now you step out.”

“See you again,” Turley said.

“I don’t think so.”

Turley opened his door and climbed out. On the gravel, he leaned to look back in and say, “Kasper, do us all a favor. When they come get you, don’t do anything crazy.”

“I’ll try,” Parker said.

Turley nodded and shut the door, as Parker slid over to get behind the wheel. He drove away from there, and a football field’s length down the road pulled over again. Triggering the passenger window open, he hurled the Trooper into the field, seeing in that outside mirror Turley, way back there, trudge this way. Parker drove on, mashing the accelerator, holding the Plymouth on this straight flat road above eighty.

The cluster of buildings still looked a long way away.

15

It wasn’t a railroad town, one of the freight depots that feed the midwest and help the midwest feed the world. It was a river town, from an earlier era, when barges kept the commerce moving. It was partly kept alive now by the east-west interstate highway that had been built just to its south. Even coming into the town from the north, Parker could see the fifty-foot-high signs of the two competing gas stations at the interstate exit.

Trucks were as good as trains, if you needed to travel fast and not be noticed. The problem now was time; there was no way to go around the town, so Parker had to go through it, all seven of the traffic lights on its main street, past the county courthouse, past the police station and the firehouse, past all the places where his own picture would have been posted now for a week, in a car that half the state was looking for.

He was prepared to cut and run at any second, and would rely on the weight of the Plymouth, a fully equipped police car under its mufti, to get him through or out of any problem. But nothing happened. Three-fifteen on a midday afternoon, very little traffic in the town, not a local cop in sight. The last traffic light turned green, the city street became a road again, and there was the interstate overpass just ahead, earringed with on-ramps.

Driving under the interstate, he looked at the long sloping shelves of rock to both sides, angled up to meet the bottom of the highway angling down. He could put the Plymouth off the road here, as far up the slope as he could go before the highway would be low enough to hit its roof, and not be seen at all from the air.

But for anybody driving by — particularly any cop — it would be an anomaly. Even if the cop didn’t recognize the vehicle or the license plate, he’d wonder why it was there. Parker drove on, out the other side to clear November afternoon sky, and entered the gas station on his right, where a second big sign, aimed at the traffic on the highway, blared easy on easy off.

This was much more than a gas station. There was a cafe attached, and a convenience store. For the long-haul truckers, or anyone else who wanted, showers and cots were available.

There were two parking areas, separating trucks from cars, and the truck area was more full. Parker drove in among the cars and parked as much in the center of the pack as possible. Before he left the Plymouth, he searched its glove compartment and trunk, finding a shotgun, a Colt automatic, flares, a first-aid kit, handcuffs, a box of Ace bandages, an extra radio. He left it all, with the key in the ignition, and walked away toward the convenience store.

Money could start to be a problem. He had a few hundred dollars on him, but no credit cards, no way to get quick cash except a minor-league holdup that would bring more trouble than profit. Claire’s two thousand through Brenda hadn’t gotten to him, and wouldn’t. He had no choice but to just keep moving, as fast as possible.

In the convenience store, he bought half a dozen small cans of tomato juice and a box of crackers. Leaving the store, stowing the food inside his jacket, he turned toward the truck parking area but then veered away again. They had a guard on it.

A lot of these places had trouble with minor thefts out of the trucks while the truckers ate or slept or showered. Or screwed. So the gas station would hire a guard, just a big dumb guy with a billy club to walk around among the trucks, keep them safe. He was always a guy guaranteed to be bored enough to welcome the rare opportunity to use the club; though he might ask one or two questions while reaching for it.

Parker had meant to get inside a truck that looked to be headed eastbound, but not if it meant leaving a dead guard outside. So he turned away and walked over to one of the concrete picnic tables nobody ever uses, and waited.

He knew what he was waiting for. A couple, in their forties or fifties. More and more, the owner-driven big rigs are operated by couples, people whose kids are grown or who never happened to have any. Wife and husband share the driving and take turns sleeping in the cot behind the main bench seat. They own the truck together, so nobody’s an employee. It keeps her out of the house and him out of trouble, and it works out better than two guys going into a partnership.

He wanted a couple because he needed to be invited aboard. A singleton trucker might not like the look of Parker as a passenger, might be more curious about him than helpful toward him. A male pair wouldn’t want another male in their midst. But for a husband-wife, with nothing but each other and the radio for all those miles and all those days, it would be like inviting somebody onto their porch. A little conversation, a little change of pace.

He waited twenty minutes, watching people go by, getting a few inquisitive stares. He drank one of the cans of tomato juice and went over to toss the can in the trash basket, then went back to sit and wait some more.

Then here they came. He knew they were right the instant they walked out of the cafe. Midfifties, both overweight from sitting in the truck all the time, dressed alike in boots and jeans and windbreakers and black cowboy hats, they were obviously comfortable together, happy, telling each other stories. Parker rose and walked toward them, and they stopped, grinning at him, as though they’d expected him.

They had. “I knew it,” the man said, and said to his wife, “Didn’t I tell you?”

“Well, it was pretty obvious,” she said.

Parker said, “You know I want a lift.”

The man gestured at the building behind him. “We saw you sitting out here, speculated about you.”

The woman said, “We don’t have that much to distract us.”

“You were here too long to be waiting for a partner,” the man said. “Or a wife. So you want a lift. But you let half a dozen fellas go by. I said to Gail here, ‘He’s looking for a couple, cause he knows we won’t turn him down.’”

“After I saw you throw the tomato can away,” she said, “and not litter, I said, ‘All right. If he asks, we’ll say yes.’”

“If you’re headed east,” the man said.

“I am,” Parker said, and put his hand out. “My name’s John.”

“I’m Marty,” the man said, “and this is Gail.”

They started walking, Parker beside them, and Marty said, “Where you headed?”

“New Jersey.”

“Well, we’ll get you to Baltimore, and you can work it out from there.”

“I could walk it from Baltimore,” Parker said.

16

Their truck was a blue Sterling Aero Bullet Plus, one of the biggest long-haul tractors on the road, with room enough to stand upright in the sleeper box behind the seat, and a separate door to that area on the right side, behind the regular passenger door. No one would be using the bunk right now; Gail would drive, with Marty in the middle on the wide bench seat, and Parker on the right.

“We’re still on California time,” Marty said, as Gail started them up, “which is why the late lunch. We probably won’t want dinner until late, either.”

“That’s fine,” Parker said.

The truck nosed out of its place, Gail turning the big wheel, and as they followed the truck lane around behind the station building, headed for the interstate on-ramp, Parker saw a state police car moving slowly along an aisle over in the other parking area, the one for cars. He didn’t turn his head to watch it, and neither Marty nor Gail seemed to notice it.

It was a different experience, being up here in this high cab, streaming straight eastward toward the night, the remnants of red sun low to the horizon behind streaks of cloud and pollution. You looked down on the tops of cars, across at other truckers, and it felt as though the load in the trailer was pushing the cab rather than the cab providing the power. Gail set the cruise control button on the steering wheel to 77, and they ran smoothly in the river of moderate traffic.

Once they were up to speed, part of the flow, Gail said, “There we are. Anybody want the radio?”

“Not now, Gail,” Marty said. “You get tired of local news.” To Parker he said, “Don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Parker said.

Marty said, “You don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem like a man spends much time in parking lots, looking for a ride home.”

“I’m not,” Parker said. He’d known he’d have to explain himself, and was ready. Everybody on the highway believes the country-and-western songs, so he’d sing them one. “I’m embarrassed to tell you,” he began. “Usually — excuse this, Gail — usually I got good instincts when it comes to women.”

“Ho ho,” Marty said.

“Well, there I was in Vegas—”

“Ha ha!” Marty said.

Gail, looking at him past her husband, said, “I thought they cleaned Vegas up.”

“Maybe so,” Parker said. “But Vegas cleaned me out I hope you don’t mind, I don’t want to go through the details—”

“Not at all,” Gail said.

“I learned my lesson, this time,” Parker assured them. “Back in Jersey, I got a car, and a house, and a bank account, so I’ll be okay.”

“Good,” Gail said.

“Just don’t introduce me to anybody between here and there,” Parker said. “You know what I mean.”

“Hah,” Marty said.

Jouncing woke Parker out of therapeutic sleep, and when he lifted his head, oriented himself in the dashboard lights, they were leaving the highway, bouncing down a badly maintained off-ramp toward a small country road. Parker had been sleeping against the right door, and Marty was now at the wheel, Gail nowhere in sight, the curtain closed over the sleeper box. Parker swallowed. “What’s up?”

“Oh, could be delays, up ahead,” Marty said. “Seemed like a good idea, go around it.”

“Go around what?”

“A few fellas coming the other way,” Marty explained, “mentioned on the radio, there’s a roadblock a few miles up ahead.”

“Roadblock?” Parker shifted in the seat, trying to get more comfortable after sleeping in his clothes. “After drunk drivers?”

“Probably,” Marty said. “They always take the opportunity, long as they’ve got you stopped, check every goddam thing they can think of. Looking for drugs, illegals, overweight. Check your license, your manifest, your log. You can kill an hour, one of those places, just on line, waiting your turn. Better to get off, take one of these slow roads, come back up on the highway a little later.”

“Well,” Parker said, “drunk drivers can be trouble.”

“Sure they can,” Marty agreed. “Get em off the road. But it could be anything, up there. Maybe they’re looking for somebody escaped from prison, that happens sometimes, I even heard it on the local news, somewhere along here, the trip out.”

“They don’t stay out long,” Parker said.

“You’re right.” Marty hesitated, wanting to say something, not sure he would, then said, “Let me tell you a little story, long as Gail’s asleep back there. And even if she isn’t asleep, she can’t hear us.”

“All right.”

“Not that she doesn’t know the story,” Marty went on. “God knows, she does. Anyway, I was dumb like you about a woman once.” He nodded his head at the curtain behind them. “Before I met Gail.”

The road they were on now was two-lane asphalt with potholes, and the big truck had to slow-dance along it, Marty steering all the time. He said, “But I was even dumber than you, for even longer. Well, I was younger, too. But the fact is, I wound up doing four years — well, almost four years — in a state pen. Attempted robbery. Seven to ten, got out in the minimum.”

“Four years is a long minimum,” Parker said.

“Oh, you know it.” Marty concentrated on the road awhile, then said, “I know there’s fellas belong in there, I know there’s fellas I’d prefer was in there, but after being in there myself I could never put a man in a cage, personally. Never.”

“I know the feeling,” Parker said.

“If a man wants to learn from his mistakes, fine,” Marty said. “You look at me. You see the job I gave myself. Coast-to-coast hauling. You can’t get much farther from a four-man cage inside a six-hundred-man cage inside a four-thousand-man cage.”

“Not much farther,” Parker agreed. He looked out at the road, picked out by the white lights of the truck, with the ghosts passing just outside the light of the occasional farmhouse, gas station, diner, bar, all of them shut and dark. The dashboard clock read 4:27 a.m. He said, “What time zone is this?”

“This,” Marty told him. “We change it to keep track. Easier than changing our stomachs.”

“There’s your roadblock,” Parker said. Far off to their left, at a higher elevation, the cluster of red-white-blue shimmering lights was like a jamboree for machinery.

Marty looked over there, then back at the road. “No sense going through that,” he said.

Parker said, “Won’t they see all the lights on this rig, over here, come over to see who we are?”

“Not if they’re looking for a runaway,” Marty said. “A runaway won’t be driving something like this.”

“All right.”

“They’re not evil geniuses, over there,” Marty said. “They’re just boys doing their ob. Go up on the highway, hassle anybody comes through. So that’s what they’re doing. Six o’clock, they’re told, go on back to the barracks, that’s what they’ll do. They aren’t hunters. They’re just boys doing a job.”

They went through an intersection marked by a yellow blinker, and Marty said, “Another fifteen, twenty miles, there’ll be an on-ramp. We’ll be fine from there.”

17

Claire rolled over when he walked into the room. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness, but she didn’t say anything as she watched him move. Out of his pocket and onto the dresser went the three Patek watches that were the only result of the jewel job. He stripped and got into bed and then, folding into his arms, she said, “Gone a long time.”

“It felt like a long time.”

“I knew you’d be back,” she said.

“This time,” he said.