“Well, let’s just say that’s something else outside my need to know,” Keenan said. “I know there was a meeting. I know Stratton called it, and Harbin was there. Stratton has disappeared just about as completely as Harbin, so maybe they’re both together, time will tell. But I got my hands on Stratton’s phone bills, and the only thing interesting there was two calls to a guy named Nicholas Dalesia, who it turns out has something of a record as a heister.”
“Is that so.”
“Not that I care. Anyway, I’ve been trying to make contact with this guy Dalesia, but so far no luck.”
“Another disappearance?”
“No, he’s around, but he’s in and out, he seems to be a very busy man, I just haven’t managed to touch base with him yet. But I did get to his phone bill, and there’s not much on it, but there’s a call to somebody in New Jersey named Willis.” With a sidelong look at Parker, he said, “You wouldn’t be named Willis, would you?”
“Not usually,” Parker said.
“I thought not. Anyway, there’s three other guys at that meeting I haven’t tracked down yet, so it could be you could help me on that side. Or you might have some idea where I could find out a little more about our friend Harbin, who, after all, is the only and sole point of my entire inquiry.”
“Maybe he’s dead,” Parker said.
“Show me where to dig.”
“Or maybe not.”
“Dead doesn’t bother me,” Keenan said. “If I can show proof of death, I collect just as much as if I walked in with the miscreant on the hoof. Mr. Not-Willis, my usual livelihood comes from overly trusting bail bondsmen, but now and again some government reward money comes along that’s rich enough to cause me to change my diet. I don’t know what Harbin did or didn’t do, but there’s both state and federal paper out on him, and the combined jackpot is enough to get Keenan and Associates on the trail.”
“Then I’m sorry I’m wasting your time,” Parker said.
“Those other guys at the meeting.”
Parker shook his head. “New to me. I believe they were new to Nick Dalesia, too, except for Stratton. Stratton called him and invited him. Then Nick called and invited me. He said I wouldn’t know anybody else there, and he was right. Nothing came of the meeting, it turned out we weren’t going to work anything out after all, so we went our separate ways.”
“I spend much of my life,” Keenan said, “wishing I’d been the fly on this or that wall. Mr. Not-Willis, far be it from me to cause you to leave bloodstains here and there around the world, but I want you to know, I am not going to be satisfied until I have my hands on either Michael Maurice Harbin or some certain sure proof of his death. I don’t suppose you can help me find Nick Dalesia, either.”
“He travels around a lot, he’s a busy man.”
“So I’m finding out.” Keenan shook his head. “I know we’d both like it,” he said, “if I could guarantee you we’d never see one another again, but I’m too much at sea here to say never again. You keep thinking about Michael Maurice, and any way at all that you could be of help to me, so that
“Goodbye,” Parker said, and got out of the Chevy.
13
The problem was, what to do about Keenan? It would be best if nothing had to be done, at least not by Parker. If Keenan’s search for Harbin would lead him sooner rather than later to McWhitney, the one who’d brought Harbin to the meeting, that would take care of it. McWhitney would at least keep Keenan busy for a while, and might even get rid of him. Somebody might eventually have to get rid of Keenan, one way or another. Having a bounty hunter rooting around in the background while they put together a bank job would not be a good thing.
What did Keenan know, and what didn’t he know, and what did his knowledge mean? He knew there had been a meeting of seven men who weren’t well known to one another. He knew Harbin was one of them, and he knew Harbin disappeared after that meeting. He knew there were rewards out for Harbin, sufficient to bring somebody like himself sniffing around.
But what didn’t he know? The purpose of the meeting. The backgrounds of the people who were there. He had some low-level tipster somewhere in law enforcement, but he wasn’t hooked in with the law in any major way. He could not have heard the tape, and so he probably didn’t even know that Harbin had gone to the meeting wired.
All of which meant that Keenan wasn’t getting much by way of help or input from the law. He was a freebooter, on his own, developing his sources and his information the hard, one-step-at-a-time way. If it became necessary to get rid of him, no lawman would care, or no more than usual.
As Parker had told Keenan, Dalesia was hard to get hold of. He had a phone but never answered it, had no machine on it, used it only for outgoing calls if he happened to be home. Parker could reach him eventually by sending a message to whoever was at that fax number Dalesia had given Elaine Langen. It would be good to let Dalesia know that this guy was lurking in the underbrush, but would it be necessary?
He hadn’t decided that question when he’d finished the drive back from the conversation with Keenan, but then it turned out the decision had been made for him. He came into the house, found Claire in her swimsuit just coming in from the lake, and she said, “Nick called. He left a number where you could call him, at six, or seven, or eight.”
It was now quarter past five. The number Dalesia had left would be a pay phone. “I’ll call him at six,” Parker said.
Outside the Mobil station where he’d waited in vain to see the Chevy Suburban was the phone-on-a-stick Parker used when he wanted to make a call that wouldn’t be monitored for training purposes. He got there just at six with a pocketful of change and dialed the number in upstate New York, and Dalesia answered on the first ring: “We got an event.”
“So have I,” Parker said. “Would yours be the same one? A guy named Keenan?”
“No, mine is Jake Beckham. He was shot.”
“Shot?” That made no sense. “The husband?”
