This was another long wait, and he never did hear French come in. French was m the living-room doorway all of a sudden, gun in hand, eyes moving every way at once. He didn’t see Parker, and he didn’t think Parker was waiting for him, so he moved on down the corridor without making sure.
Parker moved fast and silent across the living room, stepped out into the corridor, and said to French’s back, “Right there is good.”
French stopped moving. Still facing the other way, he said, “I lied about the fence. I gave you the wrong name.”
“Maybe. Drop it.”
French’s gun bounced on the carpet. Parker stepped forward and put him out with his gunbarrel.
It took one fast guarded phone call to Cincinnati, using French’s name, to find out that French had been telling the truth the first time; Ray Jensen was the fence, and was on his way.
It was going to be complicated keeping French alive a while longer, but there was nowhere to stash a corpse here without getting Mavis Gross excited, and Parker wanted her to go on being calm. He was going to have to let her up once or twice between now and when Jensen showed up, and it would be better if she wasn’t hysterical.
He went down the hall to the bedroom, opened the door, and found Mavis awake and all in a tangle on the bed. She’d done some thrashing around in a useless attempt to untie herself, and her negligee was now high over heavy thighs.
Parker said, “What’s the point of all that? I’m going to untie you now and you shouldn’t do anything stupid.”
She lay there unmoving while he worked at the tight knots of the stockings around her wrists, and when he had her wrists freed she immediately pulled the tape away from her mouth and said, “What’s the matter with you people? You never heard of the calls of nature?”
“That’s why I’m letting you up now,” he said. “That, and breakfast.”
She rolled over and sat up, not bothering about the rumpled negligee. “Thanks a lot.”
“Untie your ankles.”
“My fingers are all numb.”
He had to do it for her himself, and then he said, “My partner’s lying out in the hall, but don’t worry. He isn’t dead. But he wanted to kill you because you saw our faces, and I don’t want to get mixed up in any murder rap.”
She looked pale, and then she managed a crooked grin and said, “I’m on your side, pal. Will you help me up?”
He took her hand and heaved her up off the bed. She moved clumsily, because of the poor circulation in her arms and legs, and when she got to the hall she said, “You really laid him out, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t have any choice. Of course, if you lock the bathroom door and start hollering out the window I’ll have to think he was right.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m not about to cause anybody any trouble.”
“Good.”
While she was in the bathroom he used more of her stockings to tie French. He didn’t bother with a gag, but when he was done with the stockings dragged French into the bedroom and left him on the floor there.
He went back to the corridor and waited, and after a while Mavis came out of the bathroom. First he saw that she’d put lipstick on, then he saw the way she was looking at him. He said, “Go on in and get some breakfast.”
“I was thinking,” she said. “You sort of saved my life, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“I’ll have to find some way to express my gratitude,” she said. She smiled suggestively. “I wonder if I’ll be able to think of anything?”
Parker looked at her, trying to decide whether she really had hot pants or was out to distract him in hopes she could get the drop on him. But the expression on her face wasn’t faked, and even if it was he could handle anything along those lines. And it was going to be a long day, waiting for Ray Jensen to show up.
Parker smiled back. “I’ll help you think,” he said.
Eight
JENSEN ARRIVED at ten-thirty, and he was surprised to see Parker. “You in on this?” he said. “French didn’t tell me.”
“French isn’t in charge anymore,” Parker told him. “Come on in.” He and Jensen had met a couple of times before, but didn’t really know one another all that well.
Jensen came in warily, saying, “I’m not sure there’s anything to discuss, if French isn’t around.”
“You seen the local papers?”
“I just came in from the airport.”
“Come into the living room.”
Both Mavis and French were stowed away in the bedroom now, Mavis tied and gagged on the bed and French tied on the floor, and the living room was neat and empty. A faint musky odor still hung in the air around the sofa, where Mavis had expressed her appreciation, and where later on she had expressed her astonishment that Parker should still mistrust her and want to tie her up again.
