Fusco shook his head. “I’m not sure, Parker, that’s the honest to God truth. What kind of question?”
“I want to know did he ever tell her what he’s got going.”
“You want to know how he works it?”
Parker shook is head in impatience. “I want to know if he opened his mouth to her.”
“Oh.” Fusco nodded, saying, “Sure. I can find out something like that. Not directly, you know what I mean?”
“Any way you want to do it.” Parker lit a cigarette, walked over to drop the match in the ashtray on the nightstand. Looking at Fusco again, he said, “Back in San Juan, I said the job could be done maybe even if Devers wasn’t solid. You didn’t like that.”
“Because he is solid, I know he is.”
“I don’t know it,” Parker told him. He waited a second, and said, “How important is Devers to you?”
“Important?” Fusco looked confused. “What do you mean, important?”
“I mean, what if Devers looks like a problem to me? What if I say the job is good but Devers is bad? What if I say we run it and bump Devers? Do we go ahead, or do we forget the job?”
Fusco spread his hands, for just a second at a loss for words. Then he said, “Parker, the question won’t come up, I know it won’t.”
“I’m bringing it up now.”
Fusco shook his head, looked at his outspread hands, looked over at the window where sunlight made bright slits across the Venetian blind. Finally, not looking at Parker, he said, “What it is, I’ll tell you what the problem is. It’s Ellen, it’s—I don’t want Ellen to—I wouldn’t want her to think it’s because of her. That I rigged the whole thing to bump Stan because of her. That’s what she’d think.”
“What does it matter what she thinks?”
Fusco shrugged, kept looking away toward the window. “She’d want to get even, get back at me. She’d blow the whistle.”
“You mean they’d both be unreliable.” Parker flicked ashes into the ashtray. Watching Fusco, he said, “We could handle her the same way.”
Now Fusco did look at Parker, surprised and shocked. “For Christ’s sake, Parker! She’s got my kid, I told you that! For Christ’s sake, you can’t—you don’t just—”
Parker nodded and walked toward the door. “That’s what I wanted to know,” he said. “What the rules are.”
Fusco was still sputtering. “Parker, we’re not going to—”
“I know we’re not. But I have to know the limitations. Now I know. Devers has to be all right, or the job’s no good.”
Fusco looked at him.
Parker shook his head. “I don’t want to kill your kid’s mother,” he said. “I want to know what we can do and what we can’t do, what kills the job and what keeps it alive.” He opened the door, and sunlight sliced in. “Let’s go.”
“You scared the crap out of me,” Fusco said. He got to his feet, grinning weakly. “The next thing I thought you’d say, I thought you’d say, okay, we’ll bump the kid, too.”
“I didn’t think you’d go for it,” Parker told him.
5
”Ellen,” said Fusco, “this is Parker. Parker, my ex-wife.”
Ellen Fusco said, “How are you?” Parker nodded. “Good.”
Ellen Fusco was something different from what he’d expected. A short intense bony girl, she would have been good-looking except for the vertical frown lines gouged deep into her forehead and the way she had of looking at the world as though challenging it to a spitting contest. She looked as though she should go through life with her hands always on her hips.
Her home reflected this attitude of belligerence. It was shabby, but clean, as though neither fancy frills nor dirt would ever dare enter here. The furniture was usual enough, from the swaybacked sofa to the table-model television set on its wheeled stand, but the bookcase was maybe a little larger than in the average living-room, and the books it contained were for the most part fairly heavy reading, Sartre and de Beauvoir, the James brothers, Uwe Johnson, Edmund Wilson.
Her clothing showed the same truculent plainness. She was wearing black slacks, a short-sleeved gray pullover sweater, brown loafers, no socks. Her hair was black and long and straight, held together with a rubber band at the nape of her neck. She wore no makeup or nail polish, as though the image she was trying to get across lay somewhere between a Greenwich Village bohemian and a Nebraskan farm wife.
Fusco said to her, “Is Stan up yet?”
”He’s in the bathroom.”
Parker looked at his watch. Ten-forty.
Ellen Fusco said, “You want some coffee?”
“Sure thing,” said Fusco. “What about you, Parker?” He was somewhat eager, somewhat nervous, and couldn’t make up his mind whether he should play host or not. He’d been married to this woman, he’d brought Parker here to her house, but there was another man in the bathroom.
