eight miles above the posted speed limit. It was just a little after midnight now, and traffic was pretty light once they moved away from the airport. Devers stayed on good roads all the way, Grand Central Parkway and the Triborough Bridge and then over to the Major Deegan Expressway, and despite the rain they were only about half an hour getting to the beginning of the Thruway at the New York City line.
Parker waited until then, until Devers was on the Thruway and settled in for the straight run north, the tires whining on the wet concrete, the wipers ticking back and forth, and then he said, “What are your payments on a car like this?”
Devers was surprised at the question. He looked at Parker, seemed about to ask him why he wanted to know, but then shrugged and looked back at the highway and said, “I don’t know exactly. I paid cash.”
Parker nodded, and looked out the window, and when a minute later Devers asked him if he minded a little music he said no. Devers found a rock-and-roll station, but he kept the volume down and the tone control toward bass, so it wasn’t bad. Most of the time, the beat of the music worked against the pace of the windshield wipers.
They stopped at the Ramapo service area near Sloatsburg. Sitting in a booth over a late dinner, Parker said, “That’s a good-looking suit you’ve got.”
Devers smiled in pleasure, glancing down at himself. “You like it?”
“Where’d you get it? Not in Monequois.”
“Hell, no. Lord & Taylor, in New York.” Devers spoke like a man justifiably proud of his store.
Parker nodded and said, “You go there much?”
“I got a charge account there,” Devers told him. “Lord & Taylor and Macy’s, between the two I can get anything I want.”
“I guess so,” said Parker, and went back to his meal.
When they went out to the car, the rain had stopped. The Pontiac glittered in the lights from the restaurant, looking almost black. This time Parker had Fusco get in front while he sat in back. Devers glided them back out to the almost-deserted Thruway, took it up a little above seventy, and turned on the radio again. It was a different station now, but it was playing the same music.
Nobody talked. The dashboard lights were green, the night outside the windows was rarely punctured by headlights. From time to time Parker saw Devers looking at him in the rearview mirror; the boy kept studying him, with curiosity and respect and some puzzlement.
Parker shut his eyes and listened to the night whine by under the tires.
4
Cold bright sunlight flooded in when Parker opened the door. He gestured and Fusco came in, saying, “You had breakfast?”
“Yes.” Parker shut the light out again and said, “Sit down.”
It was a room in a motel in a town called Malone, about fifteen or twenty miles from Monequois. It was a standard small-town motel, with the concrete block walls painted green, the imitation Danish modern furniture, the tough beige carpeting, not enough towels. Parker had learned years ago that you don’t take up residence in the place where you’re going to make your hit, so this would be home for him either until the job was over or until he decided he wanted to bow out of it. Fusco was already staying in Monequois, had been for the last few months since he’d gotten out, so there was nothing to be done about that, but he and Devers had let Parker off here last night on the way in, arranging for Fusco to borrow the Pontiac and come back for him this morning.
Now, sitting down in the room’s only chair, Fusco said, “You want to talk about Stan.”
“He’s either very good or very bad,” Parker said. “I want to know which one it is.”
‘He’s good Parker. What makes you think he’s anything else?”
“How long’s he been tapping the till?”
Fusco looked blank. “Tapping the till?”
Come on,” Parker said. “He’s got himself an angle going in that finance office, he’s bleeding off a couple hundred a month, maybe more.”
“Parker, he never said a word to me, honest to God.”
“Would he have to tell you?” Parker asked him. “He goes to New York to buy a suit at Lord & Taylor, on his charge account. How much you think that suit set him back?”
Fusco spread his hands. “It never even occurred to me. I don’t think that way, Parker, I take a man at his word.”
“You used his car to come here just now?”
Fusco frowned, rubbed a knuckle across his jawline. “That’s a pretty good car, isn’t it? I never thought about it. You think he’s been hooking the company, huh?”
“He didn’t tell you about it,” Parker said. “That’s good. Buying the car with full cash down was stupid, but if he keeps his mouth shut maybe he’s all right anyway. How well do you get along with this ex-wife of yours, what’s her name?”
“Ellen. She still calls herself Ellen Fusco.”
“You get along with her?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Well enough to ask her a question about Devers?”
