Butcher's Moon

Eleven

At two-thirty in the afternoon Parker made another call to Lozini. When he’d phoned twenty minutes ago, Lozini hadn’t been available. “But I know he wants to talk to you,” the male voice had said. “He’s between destinations at the moment. Could he reach you anywhere?”

That had been too stupid a question even to answer. “I’ll call back in twenty minutes,” Parker had said, and had hung up, and now he was in a different phone booth making the second call.

The same male voice as last time said, “Oh, yes. Mr. Lozini just came in. Hold on, please.”

“For sixty seconds,” Parker said. Two years ago the local hoods and the local law had been in tight with each other enough to work together hunting him down in that amusement park, so maybe they were close enough for Lozini to have friends on the force who wouldn’t mind tracing him a phone call.

“Less,” the voice said, and went away.

Waiting, Parker looked around at the sunny afternoon. Grofield was at the wheel of the bronze Impala they’d rented this morning, after they’d checked out separately from the hotel. With the amount of fuss they’d made in this town last night, it was a good idea not to stay in any one place too long. The credit card they’d used in renting the car should be good for at least another week, giving them a mobile base of operations; later today, if necessary, they could find another spot to settle down for the night.

This phone booth was on a corner of Western Avenue, nearly out to the city line. The street was wide, lined with used-car lots and discount furniture stores. A supermarket the size and shape of an airplane hangar was a block away. Traffic went by fast, sensing the suburbs, but this was still a local in-town phone call.

“Parker?”

Parker recognized the rasping voice of Lozini. He said, “I still want my money.”

“I called Karns,” Lozini said.

“Good,” Parker said. “He told you to give me my money.”

“Yes, he did. I want a meeting with you, Parker.”

“No meeting. Just the cash. Seventy-three thousand.”

“I have a problem with that,” Lozini said.

“You want a few days to get it together?”

“I need to talk to you. Goddamn it, I’m not trying to ambush you.”

“We don’t have anything to say to each other.”

“We do! And I can’t do it on the phone. We’ve already said too much.”

“There’s nothing you can say to me,” Parker said, “that I need to hear. You going to give me my money or not?”

“If you won’t come off the dime, goddamn it, neither will I! I’m not saying no to you, I’m saying we have to have a meeting. There’s things to this you don’t know about.”

Parker frowned, brooding out at the sunlight, the speeding traffic, Grofield waiting in the car. Wasn’t this an either-or proposition? Either Lozini would pay off today, or he’d pay off later, after he’d been pushed a little harder. Or whoever took his place would pay off.

“Parker? Goddamn it, man, unbend.”

There was something new in Lozini’s voice, something older and more tired. It was that different tone, that weaker sound, that changed Parker’s mind. Maybe there was something more to know.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “I’ll call you back in half an hour.”