for years.’
Parker said, ‘Who, then? Clinger?’
‘New. Who, Clinger? He ain’t the type.’
‘How about Shelly? Or Rudd?’
Kifka shook his head to both of them. ‘You know those guys as well as I do,’ he said.
‘Somebody took the cash,’ Parker reminded him. ‘There’s only seven of us. It wasn’t me and it isn’t you. So that leaves five.’
Kifka frowned hard, rumpling his face up like a beagle. ‘I just can’t see it,’ he said. ‘It couldn’t be some outsider?’
‘Sure. Coincidence. I don’t mind coincidence, it won’t be the first time. A flat worker just happened to pick that apartment while I was out. He didn’t know Ellie was there, and she saw him and he figured she could identify him, so he took the sword down off the wall and killed her. Then he found the cash by accident and took off. Except burglars don’t like to kill if they can avoid it; they’d rather run. And why should he blow the whistle to the cops after I go back in the apartment?’
Kifka nodded reluctantly. ‘Yeah, it don’t sound probable,’ he admitted.
‘Maybe it was a stranger after all,’ Parker told him. ‘I’ll believe it after I’ve checked and found out for sure it wasn’t any one of us.’
‘That makes sense, I guess.’
Parker looked around. ‘You got pencil and paper?’
‘Ask Janey. There ought to be some out in the living room.’
Parker went over and opened the door and looked out. Janey was sitting in a basket chair across the room leading a paperback. Parker said, ‘We need pencil and paper. Just one sheet of paper.’
She got to her feet without a word, dropped the book on the chair, and walked across the room to where a secretary stood in the corner. She opened it and started looking for a pencil. She was still dressed the same way, and she’d been sitting in a cane chair, and her bottom now looked like a rounded pink waffle.
She came over finally with ballpoint pen and a small notepad. ‘Is it going to be much longer?’
Parker took pen and pad from her. ‘A minute or two.’ He shut the door in her face and went back to the bed. ‘You want to give me the addresses?’
‘They’re together,’ Kifka told him. ‘Arnie and Little Bob, the both of them. They’re at a place called Vimorama, out on route 12N, about two miles out of town.’
‘Vimorama.’ Parker wrote it down.
‘It’s a health-food place,’ Kifka told him. ‘They got all kinds of carrot juice there, crap like that. And like cabins in back. In the summertime they run like a diet farm there; fat people go out and spend a week and don’t eat nothing but the carrot juice.’
‘They’re in one of the cabins?’
‘Yeah. Number four. You know how to get to 12N?’
‘No.’
‘You know Ridgeworth Boulevard, that’s where the hotel is where you stayed when you first came to town.’
Parker nodded.
‘Well, you lake that out past the hotel, going so the hotel is on your right, and you just stay on it out of town and it turns into 12N. Vimorama’s about two miles beyond the city limits, on the right. There’s a City Line Diner on your left, and you go just about two miles past that.’
Parker said, ‘All right. You got a phone number here?’
‘Victor 6-2598.’
Parker wrote it down and said, ‘I’ll get in touch with you, let you know what the story is.’
‘Good.’
Parker got to his feet and started for the door, but Kifka said, ‘How much was it?’
Parker turned. ‘What?’
‘You counted it, didn’t you? The take? How much was it?’
‘A hundred thirty-four thousand.’
‘I get a seventh,’ Kifka said. ‘How much is that?’
‘About nineteen grand.’
‘Nineteen grand.’ Kifka savored the words on his tongue. ‘I could use nineteen grand,’ he said.
‘So could I.’
Kifka nodded. ‘Sure. You want your seventh, too.’
‘That’s right.’ Parker turned away again, opened the door, and went into the living room. He said to Janey, ‘He’s yours again.’
She immediately dropped the book and got to her feet. ‘Good.’
