ever.”
“So are you. I want to ask you a favor.”
“I thought you were my long lost brother. Sit down. What are you drinking?”
“I’ll take a beer.”
“I’ve got vodka.”
“Beer.”
“Oh well, the hell with it. I should have known better. Parker doesn’t make social calls. You don’t have to have the beer if you don’t want it.”
“Good,” he said. He sat down on the sofa. “You look good.”
She sat on the leather chair facing him, flouncing into it, one leg dangling over the arm. “Small talk was never your forte,” she said. “Go ahead and ask your favor.”
“You know a guy named Mal Resnick?”
She hunched her shoulders, bit the corner of her lower lip, stared sideways at a fringed lampshade. “Resnick,” she said, the name coming out muffled because her teeth still held the corner of her lip. “Resnick.” Then she shook her head and bounced to her feet. “Nope, it doesn’t ring a bell. Was he one of our crowd? Should I know him from the coast?”
“No, from here in New York. He’s in the syndicate somewhere.”
“The Outfit, baby. We don’t say syndicate any more. It’s square.”
“I don’t care what you call it.”
“Anyway — oh.” Her eyes widened and she stared at the ceiling. “Oh! That bastard!”
“You know him?”
“No, of him. One of the girls was bitching to me. He got her for an all night — it was supposed to be fifty bucks. There was only thirty-five in the envelope. She complained to Irma, and Irma told her there was no sense raising a stink about it, he was in the Outfit. She said he was lousy anyway. All grunts and groans, no real action.”
Parker leaned forward, elbows on knees, and cracked his knuckles. “You can find out where he is?”
“I suppose he’s at the Outfit,” she said.
“What’s that, some kind of club?”
“No, the hotel.” She started to say more, then suddenly swirled around, reaching for a carved silver box on the teakwood table. She flipped it open, withdrew a cigarette with a rose red filter, and picked up a heavy silver Grecian-style lighter.
Parker watched her, waiting till she had the cigarette lit before he said, “Okay, Wanda, what is it?”
“Call me Rose, will you, dear? I’m out of the habit of answering to the other.”
“What is it?”
She looked at him a moment, thoughtfully, cigarette smoke misting around her face. Then she nodded and said, “We’re friends, Parker. I suppose we’re friends, if either one of us could be said to have friends.”
“That’s why I came to you.”
“Sure. The loyalty of friendship. But I’m an employee, too, Parker. In a business where it pays to have loyalty to the company. And the company wouldn’t like me to tell anybody about the Outfit hotel.”
“So you didn’t tell me a thing.” He cracked his knuckles impatiently. “You know that already, why talk about it?”
“How strong are you, Parker?” She turned away and walked across the room to the draped windows, talking over her shoulder as she went. “I’ve often wondered about that. I think you’re the strongest man I’ve ever met.” She stopped and looked back at him, one hand on the drapes. “But I wonder if that’s enough.”
“Enough for what?”
She pulled the drape to one side. The window was tall and wide. She stood framed against it, looking out, tiny and shapely. “You want an Outfit man named Resnick,” she said. “If I know you, you want him for something he won’t like.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Parker said.
She smiled, nodding. “There,” she said. “That’s something he won’t like. But what if something goeHwrbng, and you get grabbed, and they ask you where you found out about the hotel? If they ask you hard?”
“I got it from a guy named Stegman.”
“Oh? What you got against Stegman?”
“Nothing, it’s just believable. Why, do you know him?”
“No.” She slid the drapes shut again, prowled the room some more, crossing to the opposite side merely to flick ashes into a blue seashell. “All right,” she said, “you wait here. I’ll make a phone call. I want to know for sure whether that’s where he is or not.”
“Fine.”
“If you want a beer after all,” she said, “the kitchen is that way.”
She left the room, and he killed time by lighting a cigarette. Then he picked up a green porcelain frog from the nearest table and looked at it. It gleamed and its eyes were black. He turned it over and it was hollow, with a round
