Parker said, “Lempke, when did you get out?”
Lempke looked at him in surprise. “Where’d you hear about that?”
“From you. You’re too hungry to be smart.”
“Parker, you got to listen to the rest of this.”
“No, I don’t.” Parker got to his feet, and said to French, “I’ll take a cab with you.”
When they left, Lempke was looking after them with a pleading expression on his face, Billy was smiling in bewilderment at Lempke, and Claire was wearily studying her fingernails.
Four
THEY WALKED six blocks before they found a bar where they could call for a cab. Along the way, they found out there were half a dozen people they knew in common. Because they didn’t know each other yet, they avoided mention of any specific jobs either of them had been on.
As they walked along, French said, “I’m sorry that wasn’t any good. I could use a job. I’m dipping into my stake. You don’t know anything else happening, do you?”
“No,” said Parker. “But I’d like to.”
“If you hear of anything—”
“Sure,” said Parker. “The way to get in touch with me is through a fella named Handy McKay in Presque Isle, Maine.”
“I think I met him once,” said French. “He’s in the business, too, isn’t he?”
“Retired a couple years ago. The two of us got shot up on something that went sour.”
“It takes a smart man to retire,” said French. “My man is Solly Hinkle, San Antonio. Tell him the Frenchman.”
“Right.”
They went into the bar, called a cab, and sat at a booth with drinks till it came. Neither of them was much of a talker, so they sat in silence, hands around their drinks. Three locals at the bar were telling each other about Willie Sutton, deciding he was a genius and they just don’t make them anymore like that these days.
The cab got there about ten minutes later. They got in and French told the driver, “Union Station.” Then, to Parker, “You’ve got to go back to your hotel, don’t you?”
“Right. The Clayborn.”
The cab started up, and Parker sat and tried to decide where to go tomorrow. There were unlikely to be any more planes out tonight, so he’d have to stay over.
If French was traveling by train, he must be really close to the edge of his cash. He’d said he was going into his stake, but he hadn’t said how long that had been going on. To be that tight, and yet to turn down a job that fast, meant a good man. Parker filed the contact’s name and address in his head for some other time.
French got out at Union Station, and from there it was a quick drive up Illinois Street to the Clayborn. There shouldn’t have been any messages at the desk, and there weren’t any, but he checked anyway. He thought about calling Handy, but he didn’t have anything to say to him yet, and if Handy had any other kind of news it could wait till morning.
Parker went on up to his room. He neither undressed nor turned on a light, but went over in the dark to his bed and lay down there on his back, looking up into the darkness.
There was no place he wanted to go, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting to sleep until he’d made some sort of decision about tomorrow. He thought about going out again, looking for a woman, but at one o’clock on a Wednesday night in Indianapolis the prospects were probably very bad.
He thought about all the towns he knew, all the places he’d ever been, from Miami to Seattle, from San Diego to New York, and there was nothing good to be said about any of them.
He lay looking up into the darkness at the ceiling, and his nerves were starting to jump again.
Five
WHOEVER WAS knocking at the door wouldn’t quit, so after a while Parker got up and went to see who was there. He didn’t turn the light on this time, because he didn’t care about whoever this was.
Claire. She said, “I thought you were asleep. At the desk, they said you were in.” She was looking at the darkness of the room behind him, and registering the fact that he was dressed.
Parker said, “Billy sent you to sex me back in. Tell him forget it.”
She shook her head. “Billy doesn’t send me anywhere,” she said. “You’ve got the wrong idea about us.”
“I don’t have any ideas about you. Go home.”
But she wouldn’t. Pressing one hand against the door, she said, “Do you really think Billy’s the one behind this idea? Do you really think he’s got the brains to know what time it is?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter whose idea it is,” he said. “It’s still sour.”
“It doesn’t have to be, I know it doesn’t. Let me in, let me talk to you.”
“There’s no point,” he said, but he felt his restlessness winning out over logic. Not urging him to get back into Billy Lebatard’s harebrained scheme, but just to spend some time with,this woman; listen to her, bed her, fill an hour or so till he could sleep.
She sensed his indecision, but maybe not its cause, and pressed the point, leaning inward toward him, palm still pressed flat against the door. “Just let me talk to you for five minutes. Five minutes.”
