Firebreak

11

The restaurant was around the corner from Madison Avenue, three blocks from Madame Irina. Inside, it was crowded, tables too close together, people eating elbow to elbow at the long banquette down the right side. In front of the restaurant, on the sidewalk, only two of the tables within the wrought-iron railing were occupied, one of them by Parker and Claire. It was cool out here, traffic noise from the avenue was constant, but they could talk in private.

Parker waited till they'd ordered and the food had arrived. Then he said, "Every once in a while, something that was old that was supposed to be done with, comes back and has to be dealt with again. This is one of those."

'Tell me about it."

"A few years ago," he said, "while I was away on a job, you went to see some people in New Orleans."

"Oh, yes," she said. "Lorraine and Jim."

"I phoned you to wire me money."

"I remember," she said. "You called twice. The first time for five hundred dollars, and the second time for three thousand."

"It was a job that went bad," Parker said. "I came back with nothing."

"You came back," she said.

He shrugged that away. "We were four," he said. "One of them that I didn't know, his name was George Uhl, it turned out he was a crazy. He tried to kill the three of us to keep the money for himself. He got the other two, and I had to go after him. That's when I phoned you."

"George Uhl," she said. 'That isn't one of the names you showed Madame Irina."

"No. Uhl is dead now," Parker said. "But he had a friend, this Matt Rosenstein, and Rosenstein dealt himself in to take the money just because he knew it was there. Brock was his partner, or front man. I had to talk with them because they might know where Uhl was. But then they wanted in."

"And those two are still alive," she said.

"When I last saw them," Parker said, "they were both wounded, neither one of them was moving, and they were in a house where they'd been holding a family prisoner. The woman there had no reason to do anything after I left but call the cops. If she called the cops, those two, if they lived, are in jail the rest of their lives. But somehow they're around somewhere, and they sent a fellow to get me. Revenge, I suppose. They have somebody else out there now, watching the house. I'm on another thing, nothing to do with Brock and Rosenstein, and I don't have the time for this distraction now. The other thing'll go down soon, and then I'll see what to do about Brock and Rosenstein."

"But until then," she said, "I can't go to my house."

"I'm sorry for that," he said. "I know you'd rather be there."

'That's all right," she said. "I'll stay in the city until the alterations are done on my coat, and then I'll wear it for a while in Paris."