“All right, come on out.” When nothing happened, he said, “Nobody’s going to hurt you, come on out. If I have to shoot the lock off, you won’t like it.”
A key grated in the lock, and the door was opened hesitantly. The woman who came, reluctant and blinking, from the dark bedroom was short and somewhat plump, and sour-looking. She was probably in her early thirties, and wore the kind of black dress women wear to cheap bars. Her hair was dyed a brassy blonde, and her skin was white.
“He forced me,” she said, looking at Parker’s chest rather than his face. She had a twangy voice and sullenness riddled it. “I didn’t wanna come up here. He forced me.”
“Sure. Come on along.”
“It’s the truth,” she insisted sullenly.
Parker took her elbow and led her back to the living room. When Handy saw her, he grinned in sudden understanding. He turned to the chauffeur. “Is thatwhat you were worried about?”
“He forced me,” repeated the woman sullenly. She said it as though it were something she’d memorized for a pageant she hadn’t wanted to be a part of anyway.
Handy shook his head, grinning. “Listen,” he said to the chauffeur. “You weren’t planning on going to schoolwith her up here, were you?”
The chauffeur blinked and stared at him.
“It’ll go hard on you if you were figuring on studying geometry with her or anything contaminating like that,” Handy said to him. “Were you?”
The chauffeur was getting his own complexion back. He essayed a small smile in answer to Handy’s grin and shook his head.
“That’s all right, then,” said Handy. “Just so you weren’t figuring on learning anything.”
The chauffeur’s smile faded away again, as he stared at the gun in Handy’s hand.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Handy told him. “Or with the woman.”
“He forced me.”
“Shut up,” Parker said.
Handy said, “We’re going in after Bronson, that’s all. And we thought it might be a good idea to just tie you up to keep you out of trouble.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said the chauffeur. “Well, I’ll be double-die-damned.”
“So you and the lady lie down on the floor,” Handy told him.
“I didn’t wanna come up here.”
Parker knocked her down. “You’re supposed to lie down on the floor,’ he said.
She started to snuffle.
The chauffeur stretched out on the floor, seeming relieved at the chance to get off his feet. Parker stood covering the two of them while Handy went to get something to tie them.
The chauffeur looked up and said, “You going to kill him?”
“Probably. You’ll have to find a new job for yourself.”
“You going to kill her, too?”
“His wife? No.”
“Then I won’t have to look for a new job. Just make sure you tie me good and tight, so she’ll know I couldn’t of got loose and warned him.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like him?”
“He’s a royal son of a bitch.”
“That’s right,” Parker said.
Handy came back with a ball of heavy twine and two extension cords. He used the twine to secure their hands behind their backs, and the extension cords to tie their ankles together. He had found undershirts in a drawer of the dresser and he used these to gag them.
When the two of them were tied and gagged, Parker went through the apartment turning off the lights. Then he and Handy went out to the landing, shutting the door behind them. They went down the stairs and crossed the blacktop towards the dark hulk of the house.
“The poor bastard,” said Handy, speaking softly. “We sure picked the wrong night.”
6
HANDY HAD THREE small, slender tools wrapped in flannel tucked inside his topcoat. He took them out now and unwrapped them. It was pitch-black at the rear of the house, but Handy could see with his hands. His tools made muted, metallic sounds against the lock on the back door and then the door came open as though the lock had been made of butter. Handy wrapped his tools up again, tucked them inside his topcoat, and took his .38 back out of his pocket.
Parker went in first. He had his gun in his right hand, a pencil flash in his left. There was electric tape over the tip of the flash, leaving only a small opening for the fight to peep through.
They had entered a stair well. Concrete stairs led down to the basement, wooden stairs led to the upper floors. Straight ahead was another door, unlocked. Parker opened it cautiously, to find more darkness. He aimed the light into the darkness and saw that they were in a big, square kitchen. He crossed it, Handy behind him, and on the
