“It’s all there,” Parker said. “You ready?”
“Yes.”
Parker took his case and left the room, Gonor following him. The other two stayed behind.
Parker and Gonor walked through the apartment in silence, went out to the elevator, rode it down, went out to Fifth Avenue, and got themselves a cab heading downtown.
“Thirty-eighth Street between Park and Lexington,” Gonor said.
It was drizzling slightly, a cold March rain, the air full of clamminess. The cabby had a balled-up rag on the seat beside him, and every block or two he used it to clear condensation from the windshield. He had the wipers on slow, and they clicked back and forth with abrupt starts and slow sweeps across the glass.
They got out in front of the museum, knowing the Kasempas would be watching them from windows on the upper floors. But what would they see? Gonor, in the middle of the afternoon, unsuspectingly bringing another American scholar around to the museum.
Gonor unlocked the front door and led the way in. The air inside had the smell of an empty building, dry and chill and dusty. Shields hung on the walls in the foyer, and through doorways to the left and right Parker could see rows of glass-topped display cases. The wooden floor was highly polished and bare of rugs.
Gonor led the way: straight ahead and through a long narrow room with display cases on the left and wooden statuettes on pedestals on the right. At the far end was a doorway to a small square room with paintings on the side walls. Opposite was the elevator.
It was on the first floor now. They boarded, and as they rode up to three Parker checked the trapdoor in the ceiling. There was a small handle that had to be turned. Parker left it in the “open” position.
The elevator reached the third floor, and for the next ten minutes they looked at the exhibits there. They had no way of knowing if one of the Kasempa brothers was close enough to hear them, so they spoke seldom, and everything they did say they phrased as though Parker were a visiting professor from some college, here for research purposes.
When they went back down to the first floor, they kept up the act. In the half-hour they spent downstairs they set the two time bombs and planted them in places where they would be least likely to start fires. They were set to go off two minutes apart.
Finally, Parker said, “Thank you, Mr Gonor. It’s all been very helpful to me.”
“Thank you,” Gonor said. “I’m glad it has been.” He sounded exactly like a man trying not to show boredom.
They left the building together, Gonor carefully locking the front door, and walked up to Park Avenue, where Gonor waved and said, “There’s a cab.”
“I’ll take the next one,” Parker said.
Gonor looked at him in surprise. “Aren’t you coming back with me?”
“There’s no need to.”
“We’d assumed” Gonor was at a loss. “We thought you’d be coming back.”
“There’s nothing more to say,” Parker said. “They know what to do, they know how to do it.”
The cab Gonor had waved to was waiting beside them. “This is so abrupt,” he said.
“We’re finished,” Parker said. “All you have to remember for yourself is don’t leave the truck. And if something goes wrong and you have to start again, call me through Handy McKay.”
“All right,” said Gonor. “Well
thank you.”
“That’s all right,” Parker said. He saw another cab coming up Park, and he waved to it. “Good luck,” he said.
“Thank you.” Gonor suddenly stuck his hand out, as though breaking a promise to himself. “It’s been a pleasure,” he said.
Parker took his hand. “I hope you make out,” he said.
They got into their separate cabs. Parker said to the driver, “Winchester Hotel, West Forty-fourth Street.” Then he sat back and watched the world outside the cab window and stopped thinking about Gonor and the diamonds and the museum.
He thought about Claire. What name was she using? Mrs Carol Bowen. At Herridge House, in Boston. In the last few days, while working out the details of this one, he hadn’t thought of Claire at all, but suddenly his mind was full of her.
He could take the air shuttle; he could be with her in less than two hours.
At the hotel, he paused by the desk to tell them to get his bill ready. Then he went upstairs and into his room, and number one was there again, standing by the window watching the drizzle. The ex-colonist, the one who’d been going through Parker’s suitcase way back at the beginning of this.
His two friends weren’t around. In their place he held a Colt automatic casually in his right hand as though he knew how to use it but was sure it wouldn’t be necessary.
Parker said, “What now?”
“I thought we could have a talk,” he said.
Parker remembered the three names in Hoskins’ notebook. “Which one are you?” he said. “Daask?”
He seemed surprised. “You know the names? Oh, from Hoskins, of course. No, I’m Marten, Aaron
