Flashfire

1

If he didn’t exert himself, the pains in his chest were just a small irritation, a low grumbling, like far-off thunder. But when he had to move, even to do simple things like pull on pants, the pain punched him all over again, like brand-new, like the bullet thudding into him right now instead of a week ago. Still, he didn’t mind the pain as much as the weakness, especially in his legs. He wasn’t used to being dialed down like this; he kept expecting the strength, and it wasn’t there.

The worst part of getting into the house was the climb over the windowsill. He found the suction-cup handles where he’d left them, attached them to the pane of glass he’d scored, removed the glass, and reached in to unlock and open the window. Then he put the glass pane through the opening and stretched to rest it on the floor inside, leaning against the wall.

That was the first punch. His breathing was constricted anyway, because of the bandages around his ribs, and the punch constricted it even more, so that he inhaled with hoarse sounds that he’d have to control later, in the house.

He hoisted himself over the windowsill, gritting his teeth, not blacking out, but lying on his back on the floor until the pain receded and his breath was closer to normal. Then he stood, shut the window, dropped the suction-cup handles through the open pane into the shrubbery outside, and fitted the piece of glass back into place.

He had time to search the house, but not long. There were two changes in the garage: the white Bronco was there, the same one they’d used after the bank robbery, and the trunk where he’d found their weapons was open and empty. Did they have the guns with them, on the job?

No. All six were on the dining room table, the three automatics and the three shotguns. The Sentinel was still under the table. He left it there; what he needed to do would be done differently.

In the living room, the alarm system had been switched on. Its warning light gleamed red, though Parker had seen to it that it would not respond to break-ins. And in the kitchen, the refrigerator was now full of food, as were the shelves. So they planned to spend a few days here, until things calmed down, which was smart.

Parker made his way through the house, slowly, noting the changes, pausing to lean against a wall when the weakness got to be too much. He came last to the big empty room with the piano in the corner and the glass wall facing the sea, and out there lights now moved back and forth, police boats with searchlights, roving this way and that, like dogs who’ve lost a scent. So the trio had gone to the robbery by land, in a fire engine or some other official vehicle, but they’d left by sea.

Soon they’d be back here. In a boat? Or were they diving? Probably diving.

He didn’t have much time to find a hiding place. He had to be secure, but somewhere that would make it possible to move around. He went up to the second floor, tried all the shut doors up there, and found a staircase leading up to the attic. It was covered with black industrial carpet and didn’t make a sound.

The attic area at the top of the stairs had been converted into a screening room, probably by the movie star couple, and then later all the projection equipment had been taken out again, leaving two dozen plush swivel chairs facing a screen attached to the wall. The screening room had been meant to look like a thirties movie house, with art deco lighting sconces and dark red fabric on the walls. There was no reason for the three to come up here, so this was where Parker would wait until he could get at them.

He went back down to the second floor and out one of the bedrooms to the upstairs terrace. Lights still moved back and forth in the thick darkness, but Parker knew the police boats were searching too far out, probably expecting to find a boat. But the three would stick close to shore as they made their way back, without a boat.

He sat on one of the chaises, feet up, and watched the lights roam out there. So long as they stayed out there, restlessly moving, Melander and Carlson and Ross had not been caught. So they had a good operation, and they were now on their way to Parker with twelve million dollars in jewelry.

It was good to sit here for a minute, after the exertion of moving through the house, but he didn’t want to get too comfortable and fall asleep. He could sleep later.

The dim flashlight had been moving on the beach for a minute or two before his mind told him what his eyes were looking at. A small light, fainter and more diffuse than the searchlights out over the ocean, was headed this way up the beach from the water. The three, coming back?

One of them. And it wasn’t a flashlight, it was a headlamp. The figure beneath it was black, almost impossible to see as he came forward across the sand. Parker lost sight of the lamp and the hurrying man as he neared the retaining wall at the edge of the property, then he heard the loud rusty squeal as the gate at the foot of the narrow concrete stairs was opened.

Here came the headlamp, up the stairs to the terrace. And beyond him, two more lights were now coming from the sea.

All three of them. Parker got to his feet and stood back by the door, ready to go inside.

The first one down below stopped on the terrace and was taking something bulky off his back. A scuba tank. And now the other two came up, also removing scuba tanks, and the first one spoke, and it was Melander: “Did you see the dolphin?”

“No. What dolphin?” That was Carlson, the driver.

“He crossed right in front of us.”

“You were out ahead, you were making some sort of race out of it.”

“I wanted to get back.”

Ross, the third one, said, “In the morning, early, we gotta sweep the sand down there.”

Carlson said, “Why?”

“You see those lights? They’ll stay out there till daylight, and when they’re sure we didn’t get picked up in a boat they’ll come back in and search the island, and one thing they’ll look for is footprints coming in from the sea.”

Melander said, “Jerry, you’re right. I never would have thought of that, and tomorrow morning they’d be all over my ass.”

Carlson said, “First light, the cops’ll be out, too, maybe they see us sweeping. We should do it now.”

Melander said, “Let me get out of this wet suit, and then I’ll do anything you want.”

They started to move toward the house, carrying their scuba tanks. They were almost out of sight from Parker’s vantage point, and he was about to step inside, when everybody heard the sudden squeak of the gate down below, abruptly stopped.

Melander was fast. He didn’t bother with the stairs, just ran forward, vaulted over the railing, and dropped the seven feet to the sand below.

Parker heard the woman cry out in sudden fear, and knew immediately it was Leslie. Wanting to be sure she got hers, wanting to hang around and observe from just out of sight, and immediately got herself caught.

Ross and Carlson ran down the stairs to take a hand. Would they kill her? That would be the simplest, for Parker and for them both, kill her and throw the body in the ocean and forget about it.

No. They were bringing her up the stairs. They were curious, they wanted to ask her some questions, complicate things a little more.

Parker watched the three dark men come up, headlamps bobbing, the paler figure of Leslie struggling in their midst. She was protesting, stupid half-sentences, pretending to be just an innocent bystander, nothing to do with anything, which they would not buy for a minute. They’ve just come back from the biggest heist in Palm Beach history, and here’s a woman trying to sneak into their house. Not a coincidence.

But Parker didn’t expect the conclusion that Melander leaped to, as easily as he’d leaped over the wall. While Leslie continued to struggle and to argue, Melander shook her with the one hand holding her arm and said, “Don’t make me punch you, okay? You gotta shut up now so we can talk.”

She did shut up then, shrinking into herself as she looked at the three of them, looming over her, encased in black, with the headlamps shining in her eyes. Parker saw her face unnaturally white against the darkness all around as she forced herself to be silent.

And Melander had a touch of gloating humor in his voice when he said, “Claire Willis, am I right? We visited your house, up north, sorry you weren’t there.”

She blinked at them, baffled. “What?”

Melander said, “So that means our friend Parker’s around someplace, too. He’d probably like us to take good care of you, right? Let’s go inside. You could be valuable to us.”

Damn. Almost as irritated with Leslie as with the other three, Parker faded into the house and up the attic stairs. Leslie didn’t have a purse with her, and probably didn’t have ID, and wouldn’t be able to prove who she was. So let them thrash it out together all they wanted. Sooner or later, they’d go to sleep.

2

But he went to sleep first, not intending to, and woke when the wall sconce lights came on, then heard them coming up the stairs. Why? To have a place to keep their prisoner.

When he’d first come up, in the darkness, he’d sat on one of the swivel chairs with his feet on another, but the curved position was bad for his ribs, bad all around, and he gave up and lay on his back on the black-carpeted floor. He didn’t think he’d sleep, it wasn’t that late. Melander and Carlson and Ross had done the robbery a little after eight, just barely night, then full night by the time they got back to this house, after eight-thirty. They’d be keyed up, and now they’d have Leslie to distract them, so they wouldn’t go to sleep until late. Parker figured he shouldn’t go downstairs until at least three in the morning, so he had six hours up here to rest.

But he hadn’t expected to sleep. Normally, he could hold sleep off until the work at hand was done, but this was some other part of the weakness. He’d been awake, lying on his back in the darkness among all the swivel chairs, planning how he would take them out, and now he was awake again, the red-tinged lights clicking on, the swivel chairs like flying saucers above him.

He heard them coming up the stairs, Melander saying, “This is a nice quiet place for you till the morning, keep you out of trouble.”

Parker rolled against the wall farthest from the stairs, black clothing against black carpet, turned away so the paleness of his face and hands wouldn’t show.

“What is this?” That was Leslie, still trying to catch up.

Melander, the grin in his voice, said, “The previous owners used to watch their own movies in here. Think how much fun people used to have in this room. Maybe if you’re real quiet, you can hear the singing and the dancing and the laughing.”

“And if you’re not real quiet,” Carlson said, “you’ll hear from us.”

“Oh, come on, Hal,” Melander said. “Claire’s gonna cooperate, aren’t you, Claire?”

“I’ve told you I’m not—”

Slap. Melander’s voice, no longer humorous: “And I’ve told you, quit insulting my intelligence. I’m losing my good disposition, Claire, you follow me?”

Silence from Leslie. Ross said, “She’ll be all right now, Boyd. Won’t you?”

“Please...”

“See?” Now Ross was being the good cop, saying, “Here’s the light switch here, you can turn it on or off, whatever you want. The door’s gonna be locked down there, but we’ll let you out in the morning, we’ll have a good breakfast, talk it over.”

“That’s right,” Melander said, in a good mood again. “No more excitement for tonight. You go on over there and sit down. Go on, now, just go right over by those chairs and—”

Her shriek at that second was not because they’d hit her again or anything like that. Parker knew exactly what it was. Coming deeper into the room, she’d piped him, and immediately tipped him to the others, like a bird dog.

She’d been better than the normal amateur, until it mattered.

Yes. Here came the footsteps and Melander’s humorous surprise, saying, “And what have we here?”

Parker rolled over onto his back to look up at them. Carlson and Ross carried the automatics he’d ruined. He said, “You boys pulled a nice one today,” hating the reediness of his voice.

Carlson said, “And you thought you’d wait till we were asleep and take it away from us.”

“Just keeping an eye on my share,” Parker said.

Melander said, “On your feet.”

“He’s been shot!” Leslie blurted. “He isn’t even supposed to be out of the hospital!”

They frowned at her, and then down at Parker. Melander said, “Is that right?”

“Shot in the chest,” Parker said. “Some broken ribs. I’ll live.”

“Maybe,” Carlson said.

Melander backed away a pace. “Okay, Parker,” he said. “You can stay up here with—”

Leslie said, “That’s Parker?”

Before Melander could smack her again, Parker said, “Give it up, Claire, we folded that hand.”

She blinked at him, but at last she was beginning to get her wits about her, and she didn’t argue the point.

Ross came forward, saying, “You bandaged and stuff?”

“Around the chest.”

“Where you carrying? I’ll just ease it out without making trouble for you.”

Parker shook his head. “Not carrying. I don’t want you to think I’m still sore.”

They didn’t believe him. Melander, laughing, said, “We come in peace? Check him out, Jerry.”

Ross handed his automatic to Carlson and went to one knee beside Parker. “Sorry about this,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

Ross patted him down without unnecessary pain, then shrugged and looked up at the other two. “He’s clean.”

“Will wonders never cease,” Melander said. “Okay, Parker, we’ll talk in the morning. Your investment came through, right?”

“Right,” Parker said.

Ross took his dead automatic back from Carlson, and the three of them went downstairs, murmuring together, a little confused. Parker was here, but hurt, and unarmed. What did it mean?

The lock clicked on the door downstairs. Leslie said, “I’m sorry, Daniel. It’s all my fault.”

“Yes,” he said.

3

He sat on the floor, back against the wall. The hard surfaces were best, when he was awake. She sat in one of the swivel chairs. She said, “You were going to hide up here until they were asleep and then go down and kill them, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Pillow for Carlson and Ross. Melander last, the big one, with a bullet. They’re in separate rooms.”

“Are you strong enough to do that? With the pillow?”

“I’m not going to find out,” he said.

“Because of me.”

“Yes.”

“If you weren’t strong enough, you’d use a knife?”

“No. You can’t do a real job with a knife and stay clean. There’s tools in the kitchen. Hammers.”

“Oh.” She blinked, and licked her lips, and moved on away from that, saying, “If it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t have had any reason to come up here, and they wouldn’t have found you.”

“That’s right.”

“But why tell them I’m Claire? Is Claire your girlfriend?”

“If they think you’re Claire,” Parker said, “they’ll think I want to keep you alive, so you’re a bargaining chip in their favor. Keeps them calm.”

“But you don’t care if I live or die,” she said, “do you?”

“I’d rather you were dead,” he said.

She thought about that. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

“Because of the bargaining chip.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a little more truthful than I’m ready for,” she said.

He shrugged.

She said, “Is there a bathroom up here?”

He pointed at the door in the rear wall, to the left of the stairs. “No window, it’s vented.”

“I wasn’t planning to call for help or anything,” she said, and got to her feet and went away to the bathroom.

While she was gone, he thought it over. Should he wait until later, then try to get down through that door at the foot of the stairs? No; they knew he was here, and they didn’t trust him, and they’d have the door covered with all kinds of traps, things to make noise, alarms going off. On the other hand, every hour that he kept still his body improved a little more. In the morning, he’d be better able to deal with them.

But the original plan was dead. And Leslie, who’d been a help before this, was now no help at all. Now she was trouble.

She came back out of the bathroom and came over to sit in a chair near him. She looked very solemn, as though she’d made an oath of some kind in the bathroom. She said, “I’ve never been around anything like this before.”

“I know that.”

“The idea of killing somebody, that doesn’t bother you.”

He waited.

“It does bother me,” she said, “but that’s all right. I got us into a hard place, and I know I did. I don’t think they’ll just let me go.”

“No.”

“I think tomorrow,” she said, “they’ll decide to kill us both, once they’ve talked it over together.”

“Probably.”

“If it was just me, I wouldn’t have a chance. If it was just you, without me, I think you would stand a chance.”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t want to get in the way anymore,” she said. “Whatever you say to do, I’ll do. If it’s just sit down and shut up, I’ll sit down and shut up. If I can do anything to help, I’ll do it.”

He said, “That way, through that other door there, is the unfinished part of the attic. I didn’t get a chance to look it over. I want to know about windows, and I want something soft between me and the floor, so I can sleep without getting too stiff.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and was gone almost ten minutes, and came back dragging a large gray canvas painters’ tarpaulin. “Small windows, with bars,” she said. “Decorative bars, but bars. There’s this, and there’s part of a roll of pink insulation. I thought we could put the insulation on the floor and part of the tarp on top of it, and put the rest of the tarp over us.”

“Good,” he said.

While she was gone this time, he went on all fours to the nearest chair and climbed it to his feet. The few hours of sleep had stiffened him, more than he liked to think about. He didn’t have time for the body to heal; it had to come along no matter what.

She came in with the roll of insulation, pulling it along, and they worked together to put down four strips of it, pink side down, shiny paper side up. Then they stretched the middle section of the tarp over it, with extra material on both sides to pull over them.

She said, “Do you want the light on or off?”

“I’m going to sleep,” he said.

The laugh she gave had hysteria in it. “Are you kidding? In the spot we’re in, and in the condition you’re in, who’s going to do anything except sleep? I’ll turn off the light.”

4

She said, “What’s Claire like?”

“No, Leslie.”

But she was following her own line of thought, answering her own question. “I think she’s very beautiful and very self-sufficient. Neither of you leans on the other, you both stand up straight.”

“Sure,” he said.

She considered him. “I need somebody ... a little different,” she decided.

He shook his head. “You don’t need anybody, Leslie.”

She surprised him by blushing. She turned away, then turned back and smiled sheepishly and said, “I’d like to need somebody. I keep thinking, if I find the right guy, I’ll need him.”

“Could be.”

“That’s how it is with you and Claire, I suppose.”

He knew this talk was simply so she could distract herself from the people downstairs. Her watch had told them it was almost eight-thirty in the morning, so whatever was going to happen would happen soon. But he didn’t feel like playing the game anymore, so he walked around instead, in and among the swivel chairs, rolling his shoulders, judging how his body felt this morning.

A little better, maybe, just a little better. His voice seemed stronger to him, and the night on the fairly hard flat surface — the insulation hadn’t done much — seemed to have been good for his ribs.

She sat in a swivel chair, swiveling slowly back and forth, watching him move. They were both silent for a few minutes, and then she said, “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.”

“Should we knock on the door or something?”

“Let them have their own pace.”

“Okay.” Then, in a rush: “Are they going to kill us?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and stood still, hand on the back of one of the chairs. Now that she was ready, they could talk. He said, “Melander’s the main guy, the big one with all the hair, and as far as he’s concerned they were all reasonable back when. He just borrowed money from me, and he meant to pay me back, and he might even pay me back someday. He thinks he’s straight in our world, that he doesn’t heist a heister, and what happened with me was just business or something.”

She said, “Could you let it be just business or something?”

“We’ll see how it plays out,” he said, to keep her calm. “There’s Carlson, I think he’d prefer we were dead. He doesn’t like it that I didn’t wait at home like a good boy, that I’m here.”

“And the other one?”

“Ross follows. He’ll follow whoever’s on top.”

She thought about all that, slowly shaking her head. Her right shoe was half off, and she waggled it up and down with her toes. Then she said, “What do you think is going to happen?”

“Nobody can leave this house for a few days,” Parker told her, “that’s the problem. If we could all just split now, go our separate ways, they’d lock us up here and take off, and that would be it. But you know this island’s shut down, they’re checking every car on every bridge, every boat in the water, they’ll keep it up for three or four days.”

“I know,” she said.

“I’m going to make Melander itchy after a while,” Parker said. “Just by being here.”

“And you can’t leave, not now,” she said. “Or could you? Could we leave together? We wouldn’t tell anybody.”

He was already shaking his head. “They don’t want us loose. They want us under control. And for now, that means here. Later on, it could mean dead.”

“But not this morning, you think.”

“Parker!” Ross’s voice called up the stairwell. “You two up?”

“Yes,” Parker called. Leslie stooped to pull her shoe back on.

“Come on downstairs.”

Low, Parker said, “Now we’ll find out.”

5

Ross led them to the dining room, where Melander sat at the table with his back to the sea. The guns were gone from the table, and in their place were a box of doughnuts, a coffeepot, pound box of sugar, quart of half-and-half, white china cups, metal spoons, paper plates, and paper napkins. The shotguns leaned against the wall in a corner. The automatics were out of sight, probably being worn by the three. On a side table were three black mesh pouches attached to belts; Parker caught a glint of gold through the mesh. Carlson wasn’t in sight.

Ross had gone into the room first, followed by Leslie, then Parker, so he was too late to stop it when Melander gestured to the chair on his left and said, “Have a seat, Claire. You don’t mind if we’re informal here, do you?”

She was moving with small steps, arms against her sides; holding it in. “No, that’s all right,” she said, and went over to sit where Parker had salted the Sentinel.

“Take a seat,” Ross told Parker, while Melander said to Leslie, “I’m glad. We can all be pals. I’m Boyd, and that’s Jerry. Hal’s in the kitchen, trying to figure out the stove. Maybe you could help him later.”

Parker, sitting to Melander’s right, opposite Leslie, said, “Claire’s not too much for stoves.”

“No?” Melander grinned and shrugged. “Okay, fine. Either Hal figures it out, or he blows us all up.” He gestured at the things on the table. “This is it for breakfast. Help yourselves.”

Leslie looked uncertainly at Parker, who pushed the doughnut box toward her, saying, “Go ahead.”

The coffeepot was near Parker. Melander said, “Parker, why don’t you pour for her?”

“Claire likes to do that for herself,” he said, and pushed the coffeepot toward her, too, because they might think it strange that he didn’t know if his Claire took milk or sugar in her coffee.

She took it black, as did Parker, and they both took doughnuts, as Melander continued the conversation, saying, “Now, Parker, what are we gonna do about you?”

“Hold me until you leave,” Parker said, and sensed movement behind him. That would be Carlson, coming in from the kitchen. Parker faced Melander but kept aware of Leslie; her reaction would let him know if Carlson had anything in mind. He said, “Then you’ll get your money from the fences, and you’ll send me what you owe me, and that’s the end of it.”

Behind him, Carlson said, “Forgive and forget, is that it?”

“No,” Parker said, still talking to Melander. “I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget, but I don’t waste time on the past, either. I won’t work with you people again, but if you pay me my money I won’t think about you anymore, either.”

“That would be nice,” Melander said. “We were talking about that last night, Hal and Jerry and me, how we didn’t like the idea of you thinking about us.”

“Showing up here,” Carlson said. He was still behind Parker, not coming into view.

Parker kept looking at Melander. “This is where my money is,” he said.

Melander laughed. He was buying Parker’s story, though maybe Carlson wasn’t. He said, “This is where your money is.”

“That’s right.”

“What happens if we would have screwed up on the job? If we went up there and something went wrong?”

“I’d try to come in, get what I can.”

Carlson, back there, said, “And help us out?”

“Not a chance,” Parker said.

“I just wish,” Melander said, “you were a more easygoing guy,” and door chimes sounded.

Everybody in the room tensed. Carlson stepped forward to Parker’s right, looking at him, saying, “You got friends?”

“Only you people.”

Melander said, “Jerry, take a look.”

Ross hurried from the room while Carlson crossed to pick up two of the shotguns, bringing one to Melander, neither shotgun pointed exactly at anybody.

Stupid with fear, mouth open, Leslie stared at Parker, and Ross ducked back into the room: “It’s cops!”

“For Christ’s sake, why?” Carlson complained, glaring at Parker.

Parker said, “They’re searching the island. Hello, Mr. Householder, you see anybody looked suspicious?”

Melander laughed and got to his feet, handing his shotgun back to Carlson as he said, “Everybody I see looks suspicious. I’m the householder.” He left the room, smoothing his hair back.

Carlson and Ross went to stand to both sides of the parlor doorway, where they’d be able to hear. Parker waved a hand to get Leslie’s attention, then pointed to her side of the table. She stared at him, not getting it. He tapped his temple: Think. Carlson and Ross wouldn’t be distracted forever.

“Hello, Officers, what can I do for you?”

“Mr. George Roderick?”

“Yes, sir, that’s me.”

Parker put both hands under the table, gesturing that his hands were touching the underside, then again pointed at her side of the table.

“May we come in?”

“Sure. Could I ask—”

“Are you moving in or out, sir?”

At last she reached under her table, and her eyes widened.

“Moving in. Slowly, slowly.”

“I suppose that would explain it.”

Parker patted the air with palms down: Don’t move it yet.

“Explain what?”

“You are aware of the robbery last night.”

“Robbery? No, what robbery?”

“Mr. Roderick, a massive jewel theft and fire took place last night just up the road from here, and you don’t know about it?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t have a TV here, I don’t even have a radio. I stayed home and read last night. I didn’t—”

“You don’t have a phone, either.”

“No, I don’t — it isn’t in yet.”

“We’re phoning residents, asking if anyone saw anything, but you don’t have a phone.”

“No, not yet.”

“You haven’t applied for a phone.”

“No, I haven’t got a—”

“There’s a Dumpster out here, but you have no contractor. No one’s doing work on the property.”

“Officer, I live mostly in Texas. There’ve been business problems there recently. I’ve been delayed in—”

“How many of you are staying here, Mr. Roderick?”

“At the moment, just me. My family’s still—”

A different cop voice said, “Someone else came into the living room, went back out again. I saw it through the window.”

“That was me,” Melander said, still sounding affable, while Carlson and Ross were getting more and more edgy, hands flexing on the shotguns. “I had my coffee cup in my hand, went back to—”

“It wasn’t you,” the second cop voice said. “It was somebody shorter.”

The first cop, sounding tougher, less polite, said, “Mr. Roderick, how many of you are in the house right now?”

“Just me, I’m telling—”

“Mr. Roderick, I’m afraid I’m going to have to search the house.”

“I don’t see why. I’m just a guy from Texas trying to fix up this—”

“And we’ll have to begin with a search of your person, sir.”

“Me? Search me?”

“Sir, if you’ll lean against the wall, arms spread

It was now. Parker snapped his fingers to get Leslie’s attention, and gestured she should toss him the gun. Carlson heard the snap, saw the gesture, saw the Sentinel come up from under the table in Leslie’s two hands, a piece of clear tape still curling away from it, and he swung the shotgun around to shoot at Leslie, trigger going click as he squeezed.

Leslie flinched and screamed and fired the Sentinel, the flat crack of it bouncing in the room, the bullet missing Carlson, beelining somewhere into the living room, where the cops and Melander were.

Parker was on his feet, turning in a quick circle to his left, away from the doorway, reaching for the chairback behind him with his left hand. The pains in his torso drove knives into him, shot arcs of lightning across his vision, popped the sweat beads onto his forehead, but he kept turning, picking up the chair at the end of his left arm, swinging it in a loop that intersected with Ross, who had already fired his shotgun uselessly twice at Parker’s head. The chair knocked him off balance to his right, into the doorway.

There was already shooting out there. Melander had probably drawn his automatic when he saw the situation going to hell, and had gone down pulling a trigger that just wouldn’t deliver.

Ross reeled into the doorway space to the living room, clutching the shotgun, and was brought up short by a sudden squadron of bullets that knocked him backward, knocked the shotgun from his hands, knocked him to the ground.

Leslie had emptied the Sentinel, two-handed, into Carlson, who sprawled in a seated position on the floor against the wall, gaping at her, stupefied.

Parker clapped once, to get her attention. When she stared at him, glassy-eyed, he pointed to himself, fast, urgent, then violently shook his head. I’m not here, I don’t exist, I’m not part of it. She managed an open-mouthed nod, and he turned, grabbed the three pouches full of jewelry, and ran.

But he couldn’t run. His body wasn’t up to it; he was reeling from what he’d already done. He was one room ahead of them and couldn’t go much farther.

He made it to the terrace. The morning sun glared dead ahead, breathing its humidity on him, sapping the rest of his strength.

They weren’t pursuing anybody; they didn’t know there was anybody else to pursue. They were staying with the mess they already had. But he couldn’t just wander the beach, physically battered, carrying the loot from the robbery.

To the left was the chain-link fence he’d climbed the first time he’d come here, with the neighbor’s sea grape crowding against it on the inside. Parker went to the corner of the terrace, looped the three pouch belts through his own belt, and went down the neighbor’s side of the fence.

It was slow going, for many reasons. He didn’t want to break a lot of branches, leave a trail straight to himself. He was bulky and cumbersome and the jewelry pouches kept snagging on branches and leaves. And his body kept trying to pass out.

At the bottom, the tangled stringy trunks were a failed Boy Scout knot. Years of dead leaves had made a mush of the ground. The air was cooler, but just as wet. A foot from the fence, you couldn’t see the fence or the ocean beyond it.

Parker, feeling darkness iris in around his eyes, sank slowly into crotches and curves of branch until he’d given over his entire weight to the tree, as though he’d been hanging there forever and it had grown around him. He’d done what he could do. Arms around a trunk, cheek against a branch, he let the iris close.

6

Darkness and cramping, forcing him to be conscious. He tried to move, to ease the cramps, but he was all tangled in branches and leaves. Too dark to see where he was or what he could do.

He stopped the useless moving about. He ignored the cramps, in his ribs, in his legs, and took a slow deep breath while he oriented himself. Where he was. What had happened.

He’d slept the day away, laced into a sea grape. They hadn’t found him, so they hadn’t looked for him or they would have found him, so Leslie’s story — whatever it had been — had not included him.

Could he get up out of here? The first thing was to try to stand, untie himself from this tree. Reaching this way and that for handholds, his knuckles brushed the chain-link fence, and he grabbed onto it, used it to pull himself forward and then upward until he was vertical and could try to do something about the cramps.

For the torso, just slow breathing, slow and regular breathing, holding it in. For the legs, flexing them and flexing them and flexing them, waiting it out. Until finally only the familiar pains in his chest were left, a little worse than before, but not crippling.

He could see nothing, but he could feel the three jewelry pouches, still looped onto his belt in front and on the left side. He still had hold of the fence, and now he began to climb it, slowly, with long pauses. The legs threatened to bind up on him again, and the breathing was very thick and soupy, but he kept moving upward, a bit at a time, and finally came out onto the terrace behind the late Mr. Roderick’s house. He sprawled there, on his back.

Light. A quarter-moon and many stars. The hushing sound of the ocean, rising and falling. No other sound and no other light.

Finally, when he felt he had the strength for it, he gathered his arms and legs under himself, and levered himself upward, and used the protective wrought-iron fence for support, and then he was on his feet.

The house was dark, its many glass doors dully reflecting the bright night sky. Something ribbonlike fluttered over there, horizontal, at waist height, and when he moved slowly closer to the building it was a yellow police crime-scene tape. They’d sealed the house.

How sealed was it? He needed this house. In slow stages, with many pauses, he worked his way around to the front, where the Dumpster still loomed in the moonlight and more crime-scene tape semaphored in the night breeze. But there were no vehicles, no guards. The crime at the crime scene, as far as the law was concerned, was over.

It took longer this time to find the suction-cup handles, but eventually he did, and got into the house the same way as before, but feeling the damage to his body even worse. He did pass out, for a while, lying on the floor inside the house, the window open beside him, but then he came out of it and stood and finished the job, tossing the suction-cup handles outside again, hoping to never need those anymore. He reinserted the loose pane of glass, and then he was inside.

The alarm pad by the front door gleamed its red warning, but had the police checked to be certain the alarm hadn’t been tampered with? No, they hadn’t. If the alarm was doing its job, his opening the window would have set it off.

And if he were his usual self, he’d have been much more cautious about coming in here. He could see that the physical toll was beginning to make him careless, sloppy in his thinking. He couldn’t let that happen.

It wasn’t really possible to search the place in this darkness, even if he had the strength. But the air had the flat silence of an empty house, and he was sure he was alone.

The same furniture was still in the dining room, though disarranged; nobody had bothered to pick up the chair Parker had knocked over. In the kitchen, the refrigerator was still full of food. There was cold fried chicken in there, and there was beer. He ate and drank, and then curled up on the floor and slept.

7

On Monday they came to clean out the house, where he’d been trying to recuperate since Saturday night. They didn’t expect to find anybody inside the place, so Parker had no trouble keeping out of their way. They were two plainclothes detectives, one bored uniform, and a crew of movers. The detectives would check each room, okay it, and the movers would label everything and take it all out.

Having expected something like this, Parker had already made a stash of provisions, hidden in the unfinished part of the attic. In there were a razor and shaving cream and comb and some clothing, all things the dead heisters had left behind, plus an unopened box of cereal, a plastic bag of rolls, two cans of tuna, and half a dozen bottles of beer. But if they were going to shut this house down completely he wouldn’t be able to stay much longer.

After they left, he came down to see what they’d taken, which was all the furniture, all the personal possessions, all the leftover food. The refrigerator was there, but had been switched off and the door propped open. There was still water and still electricity, so he started the refrigerator and put the beer and rolls in it.

What he was waiting for was Leslie. She’d come back, he knew she would. She’d figure some way to get back to this house, if only out of curiosity. Or, more likely, to try to find his trail. One way or another, she would show up here, and that’s what he had to count on, because he needed her assistance just one more time. He knew he couldn’t just walk out of here and down the road, looking the way he did. He wouldn’t get half a mile before some cop would stop to ask questions. Any question at all.

Wednesday afternoon. He was spending most of his waking time seated on the floor on the second-floor terrace, out of sight of anybody on the beach, but in the open air, giving his body a chance to relax, to heal itself. He had all the interior doors open in the house, and the door to the terrace open, so he’d hear if anybody came in.

Midafternoon, the terrace now in the building’s shadow. He felt hungry, but otherwise not bad. The breathing was better, the ribs less painful. The bandages were now almost a week old, but he didn’t want to remove them or fuss with them because he didn’t have any replacements.

He heard the front door shut, and rose, grunting a little. In the doorway, he could look straight down the staircase to the front hall, where he saw Leslie just disappearing to the right. Going to switch off the useless alarm.

He stepped through the doorway, leaned on the railing at the head of the stairs, waited. She came into view again down there, looking around, as though deciding what to do first. Softly, he called, “You alone?”

She lifted her startled face, saw him up there. “My God! I thought you were a thousand miles from here!”

“Not yet. Wait there, I’ll come down.”

He went down, and they sat together on the staircase, and he noted the clump of keys in her hand. “It’s okay you being here?”

She grinned, pleased with herself. “I’ve got the exclusive,” she said.

“I don’t follow.”

“The house reverted to its former owner,” she explained, “so it’s on the market again. I’m a heroine, so I’ve got the exclusive listing.” She grinned at him, as though bringing him a present. “No one is going to come into this house unless they’re with me.”

“That’s good,” he said. “But I can’t stay here. Are they still doing traffic stops?”

“No,” she said. “They think the fourth man escaped with the jewelry somewhere else.”

“Fourth man?”

“They searched the house all day Saturday and didn’t find the jewelry, so there must be a fourth man.”

“All right.”

“They think the three who came here gave this fourth man the jewelry somewhere along the way, and I’m pretty sure they think he’s somebody locally prominent, but nobody’s saying so.”

Parker stretched his lips in a grin. “Now it’s an inside job,” he said.

“Exactly,” she said, grinning back, but then her expression clouded, and she said, “Except for that sheriff. Farley.”

“He’s still around?”

“He’s decided,” she told him, “that the fourth man was Daniel Parmitt, and the other three got him out of the hospital because they needed him in their plan. Nobody else cares about Daniel Parmitt or thinks he had anything to do with the robbery, only Farley. He thinks Parmitt had a boat or something. He keeps trying to find somebody to tell that story to, but the police here think he’s just a small-town jerk from the Everglades.”

“He’s a small-town jerk, but he’s sharp,” Parker said. “What story did you tell?”

“I said I thought this house had been abandoned, because there was never anybody around, and I wanted the opportunity to sell it if it was on the market, and I even thought you might be a prospect.”

“Parmitt.”

“Right. And I came here, and it was unlocked, and there was nobody home. And I was still looking around when these three terrifying men in wet suits came in and kidnapped me. And I didn’t see them carrying any jewels, then or ever.”

“Good.”

“They held me overnight, and then they gave me breakfast in the morning, and I found that little gun taped under the table, I have no idea where it came from. There was still tape on the gun when I gave it to the police, and they found the rest under the table.”

“Good.”

“I told them I was afraid to touch it at first, but then the police arrived, and I thought they were going to go away again and not rescue me, so that’s why I pulled the gun out to shoot it to attract their attention.”

“That’s good,” Parker said. “And you’re a local, solid reputation, the story’s good enough, so it might be true.”

“They believe me,” she insisted.

He shrugged. “Why not? What do they think about the guns being rigged?”

She looked confused. “Rigged?”

“Their guns didn’t shoot,” Parker pointed out.

“That’s right,” she said in wonder, “I forgot about that. I thought I was dead when that man pointed that rifle at me, but then it didn’t shoot.”

“None of them did,” Parker said. “What do the police say?”

“Nothing. There hasn’t been a word about that.”

Parker thought it over. “Did nobody notice? Everything going by so fast. Or somebody noticed, and they decided, why should we tell everybody we killed three guys that couldn’t shoot back? Okay, just so they’re not making a big deal out of it.”

“They’re not.”

He said, “You know that bank account of mine in San Antonio.”

She shook her head. “I tried,” she said, “on Monday.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I went through a lot of trouble,” she told him. “I wanted some money.”

“Sure.”

“The man was very nice,” she said, “but he told me there was a temporary hold on that account, and he couldn’t ship me any more money.”

So Parmitt was gone for good. “All right. You’ve got some of the ten grand left.”

“Some,” she admitted.

“You’ve still got my clothing sizes. I need some Daniel Parmitt clothes, clothes I don’t look like an ex-con in.”

“I bet you are an ex-con,” she said.

“Polo shirt. Khakis. Tassel loafers. Sunglasses. White yachting cap.”

“I love your disguises,” she said.

“Wait here,” he told her, and stood, and went into the kitchen, where the circuit breaker box stood on the wall beside the window over the sink. He opened the metal cover and snaked out the painted wooden one-by-four running underneath it that he’d loosened the other day. Under there, inside the wall, the three jewelry pouches hung from the Romex wire cables leading out of the box. He removed them, put everything back, and carried them to the front hall, where Leslie abruptly got to her feet at the sight of them, as though she’d seen the Queen walk by.

“Is that it?”

“All of it. Will it fit in your bag?”

Like most career women, Leslie’s brown leather bag was outsize, more utilitarian than fashionable. She said, “Let me just get a couple of these maps and things out of here. You’re giving it all to me?”

“You’re holding it,” he told her. “You take it home, you hide it someplace where your mother and your sister won’t find it, and someday soon, a few weeks or a month from now, a guy’s gonna come around and say he’s from Daniel Parmitt. Only first I’ll phone you, and I’ll tell you what name he’s using and what he looks like.”

She was very solemn, nodding at each thing he said. “All right.”

“He’ll take the stuff away,” Parker said. “He and I’ll work out a price. Then he’ll come back and give you one-third. Okay?”

“One-third.” She was still awed. “How much would that be?”

“We’re guessing four hundred thousand for you, might be less.”

“Not much less.”

“No.”

She hefted the bag, her maps and Filofax in her other hand. “You’re trusting me with this?”

“It isn’t trust, Leslie,” he said. “What are you gonna do with it? Go to a pawnshop?”

“I think there’s a reward.”

“Not four hundred thousand. And then you’d have to explain where you got it. No, you’ll hold on to it, and you’ll take the four.”

“I certainly will,” she said. The awe was being replaced by a broad grin. “This sure worked out, didn’t it?”

“For some of us. Can you come back tonight around eight? With my new clothes.”

“Sure.”

“And drive me down to Miami.”

“Okay. Is that where Claire is?”

He said, “You don’t want to know about Claire, Leslie.”

“Of course I do,” she said.

He looked at her, and decided to finish that part once and for all. “Claire is the only house I ever want to be in,” he said. “All her doors and windows are open, but only for me.”

A blush climbed Leslie’s cheeks, and she stepped back, looking confused, as though a door had just slammed in her face. “You’re probably anxious to see her again,” she said, mumbling, going through the motions. “I’ll see you at eight.”

8

Except, no. Not ten minutes after Leslie left, with Parker once more seated on the upstairs terrace floor, back against the wall of the house, he heard the sound of the front door, and when he stood up to look, it was Farley. The Snake River sheriff, in uniform, right hand on his holstered firearm, creeping cautiously into the house, looking every which way at once.

Followed Leslie. Thought she’d lead him to Parmitt, or to somebody else connected with the jewelry robbery. But giving Parker an opportunity to deal with some of the problems he still had.

It wasn’t possible to go through the house, Farley was too alert for that. Parker went down the corner of the wall from the terrace, the way he’d come up from the lower terrace the first time he’d entered this house, and moved as fast as he could around to the front, where he saw Farley’s official sheriff s car parked by the front door.

It wasn’t locked, and the driver’s window was open so it wouldn’t get too hot and stuffy while Farley was away. Parker got into the passenger seat in front, read the owner’s manual for a while, and twenty minutes later Farley came out of the house, grimacing in frustration. When he saw Parker seated in his car he at first looked enraged, then triumphant, as though he’d been proved right about something.

He came around and got behind the wheel and said, “You were in there.”

“In where? In that house? No, I’ve been out here. I followed you. I wanted to talk to you.”

Farley’s glare meant no-nonsense-pal. He said, “You were in there, and the Mackenzie woman came to see you there.”

“Who? Oh, Leslie. No, I haven’t seen Leslie since she came to visit me at the hospital.” Parker made a crooked-face grin and said, “I think I scared her that time.”

“She helped you escape from the hospital.”

“What, that woman? Don’t be stupid.”

Farley didn’t like being called stupid, but he knew he wasn’t on secure ground here, so he said, “Have it your own way,” and turned to start the engine.

Mild, Parker said, “Where we going?”

“Snake River, of course,” Farley said as he thumbed his window shut. “I’m arresting you.”

“For what?”

“For running away from the hospital.”

“That’s no crime,” Parker told him. “Ask the hospital if there’s any charges they want to press against me.”

The engine was running, the air conditioner blowing its cold breeze into the car, but Farley hadn’t put it in gear. He glowered at Parker, thinking it over, and then said, “You’re mixed up in that big jewel robbery.”

“Wrong again.”

“Don’t tell me. I know.”

“In the first place,” Parker said, “that isn’t your case, and in the second place, nobody who is working on that case thinks I had anything to do with it, and you know it.”

“They’re wrong,” Farley said.

“Everybody’s wrong but you.”

“It happens,” Farley said.

Parker nodded, looking at him. “Happen often?”

“Oh, fuck you, Parmitt,” Farley snapped, and pointed an angry finger at him. “And that’s another thing. You aren’t any Daniel Parmitt.”

“Everybody knows that,” Parker said. As Farley gaped at him, he gestured at the house. “Why don’t we go sit in there and get comfortable? There’s nobody home, is there?”

“It’s empty, it’s got no furniture in it, as you damn well know.”

“Oh, really?” Parker looked at the house, shrugged and said, “Then we might as well stay here. For a cop, you’re goddam incurious.”

“About what?” Farley demanded. He was ready at this point to take offense at just about anything.

“At why I’m sitting in your car,” Parker told him.

That took Farley aback. He thought about it and said, “You didn’t want me following you.”

“You weren’t following me, I was following you.”

“Oh, goddammit, Parmitt, John Doe, whoever the hell you are, all right. Why are you in my car, if not to get arrested for a dozen different things I can think of?”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Farley,” Parker advised him. “If you had any case at all, I’d be in cuffs right now.”

Farley sat back against his door to look Parker up and down. “You’ve been getting me riled up on purpose,” he decided.

“You started it on your own.”

“I did. So you did it like a firebreak, I guess, to calm me down. Okay, I’m calm. Why are you in my car?”

“Because I want to know how you’re doing with the guy who’s hiring people to kill me.”

Farley nodded. “All right,” he said. “It’s a good reason.”

“I know it is. How are you doing?”

“Well, the Chicago police—” At Parker’s look, he made a sour face and said, “Yeah, Chicago’s taken over now. Bernson, the guy we caught in the hospital—”

“That his name? I only heard you got somebody.”

“Edward Bernson. A professional killer, according to the Chicago people. One of the guns on him tied him to two other murders over the last couple years. When he saw we had him cold, he flipped.”

“And gave you the name of the guy that hired him.”

“No, the go-between. It’s a lawyer in Chicago named Gilma Yard, and now the Chicago police are looking into it. They think she’s like a clearinghouse or an agency for killers, for hit men. They’re not even sure that’s her name, but her files are full of stuff that’s gonna clear up a lot of murders around the country.”

Parker said, “This Gilma Yard, she isn’t the principal? She’s just the one that runs the string of killers?”

“That’s how it looks.”

“And they haven’t flipped her.”

“Not yet. She’s stonewalling, and she’s a lawyer, and she seems to think she can skate out of it. I don’t know if she can, but right now they’ve got her in protective custody in case there’s any customers out there that wouldn’t like to be mentioned.”

“So it’s still that nobody knows who’s hiring these people that are trying to gun me down.”

“Well, you must know,” Farley told him.

“I don’t.”

Farley shook his head. “That isn’t possible. You must have some idea why you—”

“No. We’ll get to that,” Parker promised, “but what’s happening with this lawyer and her files? Don’t they at least have somebody who could be the guy?”

Reluctantly, Farley said, “Yes.”

“In Chicago?”

“No, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

“We do get around,” Parker said. “Who is this guy?”

Farley gave him an exasperated look. “Just given the wild chance that you don’t know who’s gunning for you,” he said, “why should I give you a name? So you can go out to Oklahoma and deal with him yourself? Level with me and let the law deal with him.”

“I want the law to deal with him.”

“Well, the law can’t,” Farley said, “not so far, because there’s no connection between the man in Tulsa and Daniel Parmitt. But why should there be, when you aren’t Daniel Parmitt and we don’t know who you are? If we knew who you really were, we’d know the link.”

“Sheriff Farley,” Parker said, “I’m going to make you an offer.”

Farley thought about that. He squinted at his white car hood, baking in the sun. He adjusted the air conditioner down a notch. He said, “I can at least listen to it.”

“I will tell you the link between this man and me,” Parker said. “It’s a stupid link, but it’s the only one there is. You will tell me the name of the guy in Tulsa, and then I’ll give every law enforcement agency in the country a year to bring him down. You won’t need a month, I think, given the guy. But if you all fuck up, in a year and a day I kill him.”

Farley said, “Why do you want to do it that way?”

“Because he’s already been too much of a distraction. Because I don’t want to have to think about him anymore.”

“The man had you shot. You don’t feel any desire to go deal with him yourself?”

“Why? You people are better equipped than me to be sure he’s the right guy. And I want him out of my life, not in my life. And the other thing, Sheriff, just between you and me, I don’t want you on my back-trail anymore, either. You go live your life in Snake River, and I’ll go live my life somewhere else.”

“If I see you again—”

“You won’t.”

Farley thought it over. He said, “If I took you in, took your prints, asked you questions a few days, showed you to my friends at the FBI, I bet we’d come up with a lot of answers we’d like.”

“Sheriff,” Parker said, “if you make a single move in that direction, the two of us in the car here together, you’re a much more stupid man than I think you are.”

Farley considered that. “I’m armed,” he pointed out.

Parker held his hands up between them, fingers half-curled. “So am I.”

“Jesus, you’ve got gall!”

Parker lowered his hands. “Do we have a deal?”

“You’ll tell me the link between you and the man in Tulsa, and you’ll keep away from him for a year, and we should have enough to get the goods on him.”

“And,” Parker said, “you’ll tell me his name.”

“Zulf Masters,” Farley said.

“Zulf Masters.”

“All anybody knows is, he’s rich, everybody thinks from oil. He’s in real estate, office buildings and shopping centers, all through Oklahoma and Kansas and Missouri.”

“That’s laundered money,” Parker said. “It didn’t come from oil. Zulf Masters,” he repeated, in case he’d have to remember it later.

“Nobody’s sure if that’s his real name, either,” Farley said.

“It isn’t,” Parker said.

“These are very dubious people, Parmitt,” Farley said. “Bad as you.”

“Take notes, Sheriff.”

Farley had pen and notepad as part of the console between the front seats. He obediently picked them up and said, “Go ahead.”

“In Galveston, Texas,” Parker told him, “there was a man named Julius Norte.”

“Was.”

Parker spelled the name. “Sometime in the last month he was murdered. I think by the same two that shot me.”

“Oh ho,” Farley said.

“Norte created ID for people.”

“Like Daniel Parmitt.”

“That’s right. He did very good stuff, you could do background checks, whatever. Only the credit history wouldn’t be there.”

“You traveled with your birth certificate,” Farley said. “That snagged at me, but I didn’t think it through.”

Parker said, “If the Chicago cops are right about this guy in Tulsa, he got his name from Norte. And whoever he really is, some South American warlord or drug dealer or whoever, he doesn’t want anybody who can link the new guy to the old guy. So he must have had plastic surgery, and he probably killed the surgeon. He killed Norte. And because I was there, I happened to be there at the time, he’s trying to kill me. It was whoever was gonna be Norte’s customer that day was gonna have this guy breathing down his back.”

Farley looked up from his notepad. “That’s it? That’s all of it? You were with Norte at the wrong minute, and this fellow wants you dead?”

“I think he’s somebody comes from a former life where making people dead was the solution to most problems.”

Farley said, “If we can prove the Zulf Masters identity is a fake, we can get through to the real guy.”

“The one thing Norte couldn’t do,” Parker told him, “was the Social Security number. He said he didn’t have the access to the legit files.”

“That’ll bring him down,” Farley said. “You’re right, we won’t need a year.”

“He’s going to be some stinking piece of work when you find out who he really is.”

Farley laughed. “Worse than you and me?”

“Worse than you,” Parker said. “You going back to Snake River now?”

“Naturally. So I can call Chicago.”

“Drop me off in Miami Beach.”

“That’s out of my way.”

“Not that far. And you can give me a quarter for a phone call.”

Farley shook his head. “You don’t lack for nerve, Parmitt, I’ll give you that.”

Forty minutes south of Palm Beach on Interstate 95, Farley said, “It isn’t Mackenzie.”

Parker looked at him. “What isn’t Mackenzie?”

“Who you’re meeting in Miami Beach.”

“Farley,” Parker said, “you’ve got that woman on your mind. You’ve got the itch for her, haven’t you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Farley said, glaring at the traffic on 95. “I’m a happily married man.”

“They all are,” Parker said, and Farley didn’t talk about Leslie anymore.

Driving down Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Farley said, “Where do you want to get off?”

“Anywhere at all,” Parker said.

“No, I know you’re still hurting, you don’t want to walk a lot, I’ll let you off wherever you say.”

“Anywhere along Collins is fine by me,” Parker said.

Farley laughed. “You don’t want to give me one clue.”

Parker looked at the hard-bodied girls on roller skates, weaving in and out among the retirees. Everything that was extreme was here.

Farley found a fire hydrant and stopped next to it. “I give up,” he said. “Hold on, here’s your quarter.” It came from a cup on the dashboard.

“Thanks.”

“You know, Parmitt,” Farley said as Parker opened the door, “it’s kind of an anticlimax for me, you just walking off like this.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll always wonder,” Farley said, “if I could have taken you.”

“Look on the bright side,” Parker told him. “This way, you have an always.”