She shrugged and shook her head. “I sure hope you got your money’s worth,” she said. She sounded doubtful.
Parker hurried back around the corner, and down the block towards where the truck had turned in. There was no reason to hurry, except he wanted to know what the hell was going on.
Only thing he knew now Handy was still alive. If Handy were dead, they’d either have left him there or driven the body farther away from town. But he was alive, because they still wanted to know what he was up to, and they’d just moved him so they could question him some more. The fat man had hurried away, then set up his new place to bring Handy and called his friends to get Handy out of there. If Parker had taken three minutes longer getting the answer out of the girl, he’d have missed the move completely.
Whether Handy was alive or dead wasn’t the important part. The important part was who these people were and what they wanted. If they were after the mourner too, it would complicate things.
Parker came to the driveway. It was blacktop and narrow, hemmed in on both sides by brick walls. The one on the right was a garage and on the left was a dry cleaner’s. From the front, both looked dark and empty.
Parker moved cautiously down the driveway and found the truck at the end, against another wall. The truck doors were open, and the rug was gone.
Both side walls contained metal doors back here. Parker tried the one leading to the garage first, and it was unlocked. He stepped through into darkness, and listened. A dim murmur of voices came from his right and above. He moved that way, skirting first a workbench and then some machinery, and ahead of him saw a dim light. The ceiling was high, and a row of offices was built out from the rear wall, with a wooden staircase going up. The light was spilling down from one of the offices.
Parker moved forward, and then saw a cigarette glow for a second ahead of him. There was somebody sitting at the foot of the stairs.
Parker moved in slowly, staying back under the stairs, which had been built hastily, without risers. Parker held the Terrier by the barrel, reached through between two of the stairs, and put the guard out with the gun butt. He slumped, and slid down off the stairs to the floor.
Parker came around and checked him, and he was out. The voices were still murmuring upstairs, without a break. He went up the stairs, the butt of the Terrier in his hand now, and followed the sound of the voices.
There was a walkway outside the offices, with the office wall on one side and a wooden railing on the other. The wall was panelling halfway up, and glass the rest of the way. The light was coming through the glass down towards the other end of the walkway. Parker moved that way, and edged close enough to look in through the glass.
It was just a small office, with pale-green filing cabinets and pale-green partitions. There was a desk, and three chairs, and the usual office furniture, with a big calendar on the back wall showing a trout leaping in a mountain stream.
They had Handy sitting on the floor, his back against the wall under the calendar. He was tied with a lot of white clothes line, but not gagged. There was blood on his face, and his clothes were messed up. The two men in the white overalls were with him, talking to him. Handy’s eyes were shut, but from his posture he was probably awake. Or mostly awake.
Parker couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. And he was surprised that the fat man wasn’t there with them. But the way the fat man could run, he maybe never got too close to the action. He just stayed back by a telephone somewhere where he could be the general.
Parker turned back and retraced his steps. There was only one door leading into the offices, but each had connecting doors. Parker stepped into one from the walkway and moved along through three other dark offices, opening and closing the doors as he went without a sound. Then he was at the partition, standing in front of the inner door to the lighted office, and he could hear now.
“
but now we’ve got plenty of time. We’ve got all night, you know that? That partner of yours is pretty good, catching on so quick, but how’s he gonna find you here? Even if he gets anything out of Clara, so what? Off he goes to the house in Cheverly, right? And there’s the dead end.”
The other one said, “Or maybe you got another partner. How many of you in this thing, Pete? Just the two of you? Or maybe three, four? What do you say, Pete?”
There was silence, and then a thud, and the first voice said, “Take it easy, boy. You want to put him out again?”
“All he has to do is be civil, that’s all. Just answer a polite question, that’s all.”
“I tell you what, we’ll go over it for him again. Maybe he’s just a slow study.”
“Let me take my pliers to his fingers. He’ll be a real quick study.”
“No, Mr Menlo said don’t mess him up too bad till we find out what the score is.”
“You gotto mess him up. Look at him.”
“I figure he’ll listen to reason. Isn’t that right, Pete? You know we can’t do nothing drastic to you, but Pete boy, we got all night. Like, I could just take your hair like this, and just real gentle rap your head on the wall, see? Boom. And then again. Boom. See? The first time ain’t so bad. The second time’s a little worse. Now the third time. Boom. See? What do you think, Pete? Maybe forty times? We got all night, Pete.”
“So boom him and get it over.”
“Now wait a minute, let me talk to him. We got interrupted before; let me talk to him. Pete, listen to me. We don’t want so much. We ain’t greedy, Pete. But just listen. We’re getting this operation set up, getting everything ready, and all of a sudden you come into the middle of it. You make a play for Clara, so pretty soon Clara’s got it figured what you’re after is to get into Kapor’s house. You’re working on something, and we’re working on something. Now, all we want to know, Pete is it the same something? What do you want in Kapor’s house, Pete? And how many of you are in it? That’s all we want to know. What the hell, Pete, we were here first. I mean, fair’s fair, right? Boom. Pete. Boom. Isn’t fair, fair, Pete? Boom, Pete.”
There was no sense listening to any more. They wouldn’t be saying anything more about themselves. There was Clara, and the fat man, Menlo, and these two, plus the one downstairs and maybe the one named Angel.
