openmouthed out the windshield, as though seeing some horror on the far horizon, she said, “How can you say that? How can you just say a thing like that?”
“Because it doesn’t have to happen. I’m giving you advice, Mrs. Langen. You’re in something very deep. It’s over your head out here. You gotta keep swimming. If you don’t keep swimming, you’re gonna drown. No use blaming me for it, or my partner, or Jake. You swim, or you drown.”
“You drown me.”
“Easily. You’re dead before you can worry about it.”
They had reached the exit. She steered the Infiniti down the ramp, and Parker pointed at a diner some distance away. “Pull into the parking lot there.”
“I’m afraid to stop.”
“I don’t have that fax number yet. Pull in.”
She pulled in, switching off the engine, and sat with both hands on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the dashboard. “What now?”
“You were going to say,” Parker told her, “call it off, the cops are too close, they’re suspicious already, we can’t go through with it.”
Blazing up, forgetting to be terrified, she turned her head to glare at him, fingers clutching the wheel even tighter as she said, “That’s right! And it’s true, they
Parker said, “Remember you decided, my partner and me, we’re good cop, bad cop?”
She didn’t follow. “Yes?”
“This woman cop you’ve got.”
“Detective Second Grade Gwen Reversa.”
“Is she good cop or bad cop?”
“Good, at least so far. I mean, she’s on her own. So there is no bad cop.”
“Yes, there is,” Parker said. “Me.”
The look she gave him turned bleak.
Parker said, “Everything she says to you, every hour she spends on you, just keep reminding yourself. This is the good cop. The bad cop is out there, and he’s not very far away, and he doesn’t go for second chances.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” Her voice now was a whisper, as though all strength had been drained from her.
“The bad cop is nearby.”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
“Talk to the good cop all you want,” Parker said. “But always think about the bad cop.”
“I will.” Whispered again, this time almost a prayer.
“Good,” Parker said. “Let’s drive to your house, you can get me that fax number and drive me back to my car.”
She nodded, and started the engine.
As they moved out of the diner’s parking area, Parker said, “This is an Infiniti.”
“Yes.”
“That means forever.”
“Yes.”
“Seems worth going for,” he said.
She nodded, not looking at him. “Yes,” she said.
4
Jake’s mobile home was all cleaned up. No dishes in the sink, no clothes on the bedroom floor, no newspapers on top of the water closet. Having knocked once and gotten no response, Parker had let himself in, the flimsy lock on this structure offering not much of a challenge, and now there was nothing to do but settle down and wait.
There were books on a living room table that hadn’t been there before, most of them fantasies about life in medieval castles on other planets—the sister’s reading, it must be. Parker took one of them, read for a while, then stopped reading and merely waited.
He had come here direct from the meeting with Elaine Langen, Dalesia’s original note with his contact’s fax number now in Parker’s pocket. He had a couple of details to settle with Jake, which would have to be through the sister, and then he could go back to Trails End Motor Inne. And there wouldn’t be much to do after that but wait for Briggs to get here, and then the armored cars.
Before they’d separated, Parker had reminded Elaine Langen once more about the handover at the stop sign on the night, while the armored cars were being loaded, when she would let them know which one carried the cash. That was the last piece, and it seemed to him that the woman was cowed enough just to do her job and not make any more trouble.
He waited an hour and a half, and got to his feet when he heard the key in the lock. The sister walked in, looking busy and preoccupied, carrying a plastic bag with a drugstore’s name and logo on it. She saw him as she was closing the door, jolted, recovered, finished shutting the door, and said, “Well. You specialize in scaring the life out of me, don’t you?”
“I need,” Parker told her, “for you to take a message to Jake.”
