Parker grinned. “That’s cute,” he said. “But it’s no go.”
“Why not?”
“In the first place, French won’t drive the truck away. He’ll stick with us until we’re completely out of this town. In the second place, Billy’s dead now, so we—”
“Please,” she said, and her face had gone chalky again. “Don’t say anything about any of that.”
He shrugged. “The point is, we need a new fence, somebody to take this stuff off our hands. We could find one without French but it would take time, and we’re better off the sooner we get out from under.”
“But isn’t that dangerous? To keep French around like that. What if he tries to double-cross us?”
“He will. Don’t worry about it.”
She shook her head. “Whatever you say,” she said, and went back to work.
A minute later, as they were finishing up, she said, “I know what you were going to do.”
He looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“If the police came upstairs,” she said. “I know what you were going to do. But you wouldn’t have to. I’d never tell them anything.”
He thought about it a few seconds, and then he nodded. “I’ll remember that,” he said.
Four
FRENCH WAS sitting in the office with the attendant. When Parker came in, French looked up and said, “He was very good.”
“Fine. Put him out. Sit in for him while I bring it down.”
French got to his feet. “Can we move now?”
“We can’t wait anymore. It’s almost four o’clock. All the cops moved on anyway.”
“Good.”
Parker started out of the office, then looked back to say, “Don’t put him out permanently. Just for now.”
“I know. Parker, I’m not a killer. Your boy Lebatard forced my hand back there.”
“All right.”
Parker went back upstairs. The D.C. license plates that had originally been on the truck were now on the Microbus, with its own local plates stashed away inside. The D.C. plates had been brought along on the truck to be slipped back onto it when it was abandoned.
Claire was already in the passenger seat. Parker got behind the wheel and drove slowly down the ramp. The Microbus moved ponderously because of the weight in back, and Parker had to keep the brakes on hard to prevent it from shooting on down the curving ramp.
French came out of the office as they reached the bottom. He opened the door beside Claire, but Parker told him, “Get in back.”
“Right.” He shut the door again, opened the side door instead, and climbed in with all the coin cases. “Good idea to make the switch,” he said. “That truck was bad news.”
Parker drove on out to the street and turned left, back toward the hotel. He took a right turn before getting there, went around Monument Circle, took Indiana northwest, and after half a dozen blocks turned off onto a dark side street and parked at the curb.
French said, “What now?”
“We find a place to hole up.” Parker turned to Claire. “You’re local. Who do you know that we can move in on?”
Claire frowned. “You mean, somebody to trust? I wouldn’t know any—”
“Not to trust. Somebody who won’t be missed if they don’t show up anywhere for a couple days.”
“You don’t mean to kill,” she said, and a touch of panic showed again behind her eyes.
“No, I don’t mean to kill. Killing is something we do only if we don’t have any choice.”
From in back, French said to Claire, “It was Lebatard forced my play back at the hotel. I didn’t—”
“Don’t!” She clutched at Parker’s forearm, saying, “Parker, please, don’t let him talk about it.”
Parker said, “Shut up, French. Let her think.” To Claire he said, “It would be best if it was a neighborhood where we could park this bus at the curb without it looking out of place.”
She was obviously glad at the chance to think about something besides Billy. Nodding, she said, “Someone who won’t be missed. That would be someone who doesn’t work, who— I know! I know just the one.”
“Good. Let’s go there.”
“She’s a divorcee, she—”
“I don’t care what she is. Let’s get off the street.”
Five
THE DOOR was finally opened after Parker had been pounding on it for nearly five minutes. “Do you know what time it is?” the bleached blonde in the pink negligee started to say, and then she saw the gun in Parker’s hand and she tried, too late, to slam the door again.
