“Sure,” he said. “Mal don’t trust you. Nobody trusts the Judas ewe.”
“I didn’t want to, Parker, I swear before all the saints! You were the only man I ever wanted. The only man I ever needed. But I had to.”
“You’d do it again,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not this time — not now. I couldn’t go through this again.”
“You’re afraid to die,” he said. He held his hands out and flexed them, looking at her throat.
She shrank away. “Yes. Yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid to live, too. I couldn’t go through it all over again.”
“The first of the month,” he said, “you’ll open your mouth to the messenger. You’ll say, ‘Tell Mal to look out. Tell him Parker’s in town.’”
She shook her head violently. “I’ve got no reason,” she said desperately. “I’m going down to the core now, Parker. I’m telling you the bottom truth. If I had to, I would. I’d do it all over again, everything, if I had to. But I don’t have to. Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody knows you’re alive. Nobody’s threatening me, making me turn you up.”
“Maybe you’ll play it safe and volunteer,” he said.
“No. That’s no way to play it safe.”
He laughed. “You been in the Army too? Or just nearby?”
Surprisingly, she flushed, and her answer was sullen. “I was never a whore, Parker,” she said. “You know that.”
“No. You sold my body instead.”
He got to his feet and left the kitchen. She trailed after him, and he went into the living room. He stood for a minute glowering at the furniture, and then he sprawled on the sofa.
“I’ll take a chance,” he said. “I’ll take a small chance. Mal can’t trust you, so he didn’t leave you any contacts. No phone numbers, no drops, nothing. So you can’t play Judas ewe till the first of the month, when the messenger comes. Four days from now, when the messenger comes. Right?”
“Not then, either,” she said, face and voice urgent. “I wouldn’t, Parker — there’s nobody forcing me.”
He laughed again. “You won’t get the chance,” he said. “You won’t have to make the choice.” He got up with a suddenness that terrified her, but he made no move toward her. “I’ll meet liim for you.”
“Are you going to stay?” she asked him. Fear and desire were mixed up together in her expression. “Will you stay?”
“I’ll stay.”
He turned away from her, crossed the living room and pushed into the bedroom again. She followed, the tip of her tongue trembling between her lips, her eyes darting from him to the bed.
He circled the bed, knelt beside it, in front of the nightstand. He reached in under the nightstand and ripped the telephone wires loose. Then he straightened again.
She had opened her robe. He looked at her, and the desire stabbed him once more, stronger than the last time. He remembered her now.
She said, “Will you stay in here?”
He shook his head. “For you, that tree is dead.”
He went over to the window, pushed the drapes aside and looked out. There was no fire escape, and no ledge.
She whispered his name.
He crossed the room again, headed toward the door. She took a step toward him, her arms coming up. He stepped around her, and went on to the door.
The key was in the lock on the inside. He took it out, stepped through the doorway, closed and locked the door.
On the other side, she called his name, just once.
He switched out the living room and kitchen lights, and lay down on the sofa. In the dark, he stared at the window. He had lied. The tree wasn’t dead: he was afraid of her.
Chapter 3
She was a corpse naked on the bed. He stood in the doorway a minute, looking at her. The drapes were drawn against the noon sun, leaving the room as coo] and dark as a funeral parlor. An odor of perfume and cosmetics and cologne was vaguely flower-like. Where a faint breeze rippled the separation of the drapes, sunlight flickered like a candle flame. Far away there was the hum of traffic.
She lay on her back, breasts and belly flattened. She had apparently composed herself for death, legs together, hands crossed at the waist, elbows close to her sides. But, in falling asleep, she had moved, destroying the symmetry.
One knee had bent, the right leg now lying awkwardly T-shaped, the wrinkled sole of her right foot against the side of the left knee, in a kind of graceless parody of ballet. Her left hand was still reposed, palm down, over her navel, but her right arm had fallen away and lay now outstretched, palm up and fingers curled. Her head was canted at an angle to the right, and her mouth had fallen open.
Parker came into the room, strode around the bed, and picked up the empty pill bottle from the nightstand. Printed on the label was the name and address and phone number of the drug store. Typed in the white space below were Lynn’s name, the name of a doctor, a number, and the message: “One on retiring as necessary. Do not exceed dosage.”
