“It’s up to you,” Parker said. He took Hoskins’ notebook out of his pocket. “In case this thing acts up again,” he said, “do me a favor. Don’t call the department, call me personally. Otherwise they’ll have me running my ass off. Will you do that?”
“Sure,” the superintendent said. “No skin off my nose.”
“Thanks,” Parker said. He wrote on a page of the notebook Mr Lynch, EL5-2598. That was a number in Gonor’s apartment. If in the next few days the superintendent began to have questions or suspicions, if he was troubled or unhappy in any way, he would now call Parker rather than anyone else. It was a way to guard against surprises when they came back.
Parker tore the page out of the notebook and gave it to the superintendent, who looked at it and tucked it away in his pants pocket. Then the three of them took the elevator down to the basement, Formutesca again carrying the ladder and toolbox. This time Formutesca stayed in character.
In the basement, Parker kept the superintendent busy showing him where things were the fuse boxes, the hot water line, the main water line while Formutesca quietly looked around for an entrance. Parker wrote things on his clipboard, asked questions, and when Formutesca wandered over again, looked sleepy and stupid, Parker said to the superintendent, “All right, that should do it. I don’t want any more trouble if I can help it.”
“I know what you mean,” the superintendent said, and led the way to the elevator. Behind him, Formutesca shook his head at Parker, meaning there was no usable way in.
They rode up to the first floor, walked down toward the door, and Parker stopped and said, “That valve under the sink.”
The superintendent said, “What?” He was obviously thinking most about going back to bed.
Parker said to Formutesca, “You know the one I mean. Go on up and check it.”
“Yeah,” said Formutesca, the word full of boredom and stupidity.
“This won’t take long,” Parker told the superintendent. “You just take him up and let him check that valve.”
“Ain’t you coming?”
“I never want to see that john again,” Parker said, “as long as I live.”
“I feel the same way myself,” the superintendent said. He was beginning to feel peevish and put-upon. He turned away unhappily and led Formutesca back to the elevator.
As soon as the elevator started upstairs, Parker went to the front door, opened it, studied the lock for a minute, and then took a ring with half a dozen keys on it from his pocket. He frowned over the keys, selected one, put it in the lock, and it worked. Satisfied, he put it away again and shut the door.
It was good he had one that would work, since the superintendent’s patience was obviously beginning to run thin. If he hadn’t been able to see a quiet way to get through this door he’d have had to make the superintendent show them the rear of the building next. He didn’t mind exasperating the superintendent, but he didn’t want the man calling some city department of water supply or something tomorrow to complain about being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.
He waited about three minutes, and then the elevator came back down and Formutesca and the superintendent came out. Parker said, “Was it okay?” That phrasing meant things were all right down here. If the door had proved a problem, he would have said, “Was anything wrong?”
Formutesca was obviously glad to hear they were done playing this game. “Sure it was okay,” he said, trying for the sullen and stupid sound again but this time not being completely successful at it.
But it wasn’t a big enough slip for the superintendent to notice. His eyes were half closed; in spirit he was already back in bed and asleep. He walked Parker and Formutesca to the door, held it for them, nodded heavily when Parker voiced the hope that there wouldn’t be any more trouble now, and then shut the door and went away.
Out on the sidewalk, Formutesca permitted himself a nervous grin. “That last part was scary,” he said. “Being on my own with him.”
“It was worth it,” Parker told him.
7
They looked like small bowling pins with clock faces on their undersides. Parker held them both in his hands, looking at the clock faces, and said, “How accurate are they?”
“To the minute,” Gonor said, as proud of them as if he’d manufactured them himself. He pointed to one of the clocks. “You see, you set both those red hands, that one for the hour and that one for the minute. The black hands keep the time, and when they coincide with the red hands it goes off.”
They were in Gonor’s war room, their arsenal spread out on the table for Parker’s inspection. Pistols, machine guns, smoke bombs, gas bombs. Plus coils of rope, knives, rubber gloves, rolls of adhesive tape. And the two time bombs in Parker’s hands.
Parker said, “Good. We’ll go put them in place.” He turned to Manado and Formutesca standing to one side. “You two all set?”
Manado was obviously frightened with something more than stage fright, but it didn’t look as though it would immobilize him. He nodded jerkily, his eyes a little too wide. Formutesca, cocky now since his foray with Parker, grinned and said, “It’s in the bag.”
“It’s never in the bag,” Parker told him, “until afterwards.” He turned back to Gonor. “You ready?”
“Yes.” Gonor picked up two attache cases from the floor and put them on the table. They were exactly alike, both black with brass locks. “This is yours,” Gonor said, pushing one of the cases toward Parker. “Do you want to take it now or come back for it?”
“I’ll take it now.”
Gonor opened the other attache case and put the two time bombs in it. He shut it, then looked at the other case and questioningly at Parker. “Aren’t you going to count it?”
