Butcher's Moon

Twenty

Parker kicked the guy in the head, stepped to the right, kicked the gun from the slackening fingers across the room, dropped to one knee as the guy landed heavily on his left side, and chopped down hard on his neck with the edge of his hand.

That was enough; maybe more than enough. Parker shoved his shoulder so that he fell out flat on his back, and patted him quickly for more weapons. A .22-caliber Browning Lightweight automatic in a small clamshell holster attached to the inside of his right shin. Nothing else.

“What the hell is that?”

Parker looked up; it was Grofield, in the bathroom doorway, naked and with a cake of soap in his hand. “Either an angry husband,” Parker said, “or somebody from the people who got our money.”

Grofield came padding forward, dripping on the rug. Frowning at the unconscious man, he said, “No husbands this trip. He came here to kill me, huh?”

“Both of us,” Parker said. “He picked you first because he had a make on the car.”

“I’m too trusting,” Grofield said. He looked at the cake of soap he was holding. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.”

Grofield went back to his shower, and Parker went more carefully through the unconscious man’s pockets. Crumpled Viceroys in the shirt. Right side trouser pocket a key chain, containing two house keys, a small anonymous key, and ignition and trunk keys for a Chrysler Corporation car. In the same pocket forty-three cents in change. Left pocket a matchbook advertising the New York Room. Left rear pocket five twenty-dollar bills folded separately into thin flat lengths. Right rear pocket the wallet.

Parker carried the wallet over to one of the room’s two chairs, lit the table lamp next to it, sat down, and went through every piece of paper the wallet contained.

The guy on the floor was named Michael A. Abadandi. He lived at 157 Edgeworth Avenue. He was a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners and the American Alliance of Machinists & Skilled Trades. He had credit cards, driver’s license, and a bank courtesy identification card, but nothing indicating his employment. He was carrying fifty-seven dollars in the wallet, in addition to the hundred that had been tucked away in the other hip pocket.

The phone was over by the bed. Parker went over there, carrying the wallet, and put a call through to Lozini, at home. The male voice that answered said, “Mr. Lozini isn’t up yet.”

“Get him up. Tell him it’s Parker.”

“He left a call for nine.”

“You tell him,” Parker said, “that I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“But—”

Parker hung up, got to his feet, and started over to Abadandi as Grofield came back out of the bathroom, one white towel wrapped around his waist as he scrubbed his hair with another. Parker said to him, “We’re going to Lozini’s.”

Grofield stopped drying his hair, but left the towel draped around his head, so that he looked like a sheik’s younger son. “Both of us?” Nodding at the man on the floor, he said, “You think Lozini did that?”

“No. This is the other side. But they’re using Lozini’s people.”

“It said so in his wallet?”

“He was in the amusement park two years ago,” Parker said. “I recognized him.”

Grofield went to the closet to get the suitcase. Putting it on the bed, he said, “Good thing you did. But where was he?”

”Outside.” Parker nodded at the room next door, saying, “I was in my place, I looked out the window to see if the car was back, and I saw him doing a circuit down there, looking things over.”

“Somebody followed us last night.” Grofield was stepping into his clothes.

“He was just giving up when you came in. He watched where you went, and then he faded away for a while. So I let myself in over here, and watched out the window till he came back.”

“All the time I was in the shower? Why not tell me something?”

“What point? You’re tired and naked and wet, and I can handle it.”

Grofield went back to the closet for his shoes. Putting them on, he looked at Abadandi and said, frowning, “He’s bleeding.”

“Put a towel under him. We don’t want marks on the rug.”

Getting one of his white towels, Grofield knelt next to Abadandi and lifted the man’s head to put the towel underneath. The blood trickling down the side of his face and around his ear into his hair was a slender dark red ribbon. Grofield, leaning close, said, “Jesus, Parker.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s his eye.”

Parker went over and stood watching while Grofield thumbed back the man’s other eyelid. The eye stared upward wetly, without expression, and Grofield gently touched a fingertip to the pupil, then let the lid close again; it did so slowly, like a rusted gate.

“Contact lens,” Grofield said. He moved slightly to the side, so Parker could see the blood seeping from Abadandi’s other eyelid: thin, unceasing, with a slight pulsing effect in it. “The other one’s back in his head someplace,” Grofield said.

Parker went down on one knee, and twisted Abadandi’s cheek. The flesh was cold, doughlike. There was no reaction to the pinch. “Damn,” Parker said.

“He’s in shock,” Grofield said.

“I wanted him to talk to us,” Parker said.

“Not today. Maybe not ever.”

“He doesn’t die here,” Parker said. “You ready?”

”Sure.”

“We need tape, some kind of tape.”

“Electric tape?”

“Anything.”

Grofield went to his suitcase, and came back with a roll of glossy-backed electric tape, half-inch width. Parker ripped two two-inch lengths of it, and taped Abadandi’s right eyelid down. The eye felt strange beneath the thin skin. Parker wiped the blood away from the side of the face, and waited. No more blood seeped out from under the tape, which looked like a small neat black eyepatch. “Good,” Parker said. He rolled up the towel, bloody side in, and gave it to Grofield. “Stash that.”

“Right.”

Standing, Parker said, “We’ll walk him to the car, leave him somewhere.”

Grofield closed his suitcase and put it away again. Then they picked up Abadandi’s awkward weight between them, lifting him by the armpits, putting his arms over their shoulders. From a distance, he could be a drunk being helped along by his friends.

They went out to the balcony. Two maids were talking in an open doorway halfway around the horseshoe, but nobody else was visible. They carried Abadandi along the balcony, his feet dragging, and maneuvered him awkwardly down the stairs. Two disapproving middle-aged women in their Sunday finery, purses hanging from their forearms, waited at the bottom of the steps, and glared impartially at all three men as they went by, before clicking huffily up, nattering to one another.

They put him in the back seat of the Impala and drove away from the motel, Parker at the wheel and Grofield occasionally glancing back at Abadandi. After several blocks, Grofield said, in a troubled and unhappy way, “Goddamnit.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Now he’s bleeding from the ear.”

“Put some paper in it.”

Grofield opened the glove compartment. “Nothing there.”

“Turn his head then. We’ll unload him in a couple minutes.” Grofield adjusted Abadandi’s head. Parker drove away from the city, looking for a tumoff that might lead to privacy. They were going to be late to Lozini’s, but there wasn’t any help for it. Sunday morning traffic was light and mostly slow-moving; family groups.

“I feel sorry for the bastard,” Grofield said.

Parker glanced at him, and looked back at the road. “If I’d slept late this morning,” he said, “he could be feeling sorry for you by now.”

“An hour ago I was getting laid back there,” Grofield said. “Jesus, his skin looks bad.”

Parker kept driving.