“I’m sure you are,” Bob Quilp said.
Marten listened to the voices behind him and looked at the lights across the river.
Jock was saying, “How do we know she isn’t in trouble with the police herself? She’s traveling with a wanted man; they could be after her, too. And here we are giving her to them.”
Still facing New Jersey, Marten said, “Can’t be helped. We warned them to stay out of it.”
Bob said sarcastically, “You could go on up there tomorrow and untie her if you wanted. Untie her legs, anyway.”
Marten did look around then, frowning at Bob. “That will be enough of that,” he said.
Bob shrugged, a sardonic smile on his face. “Just trying to be helpful.”
Jock came walking across the room toward Marten, a pleading expression on his face. “Aaron,” he said, “what difference does it make? Why can’twe let him live? We’ll be in Africa, for heaven’s sake. He’ll have his woman back. Why kill him?”
Marten shrugged. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for him,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Bob said, “He must have impressed you tonight.”
“He did.”
Jock said, “Why? Why is it all different now? Why change the plans at all?”
“I don’t want him alive,” Marten said, and turned his back and looked out at the river again.
Was this the first time in his life he had actively desired the death of another man? Marten thought it was. There had been other moments when the death of this one or that one, known or anonymous, was necessary to the completion of something else that Marten wanted, but this was the first time that the death itself was the goal.
He thought it was Parker’s eyes, or perhaps the bone structure of his face. He didn’t know what it was exactly, but talking with Parker tonight, listening to his voice, looking at his eyes, watching him move, he understood that Parker was the most dangerous man he had ever met, and that he had made himself Parker’s enemy, and that he would not sleep securely at night so long as Parker was still alive. He had had the irrational urge to pull out his pistol and kill Parker right then, almost as a nervous tic, but he had controlled it. Not until afterwards, he had thought, not until we have the diamonds. We need him alive until we have the diamonds.
But afterwards he must die.
Bob broke the silence behind him at last, saying, “Shouldn’t we be on our way?”
Marten turned around again. The clock on the mantel said not quite two fifty. “Not yet,” he said. “We don’t want to be there too early.”
“I don’t understand that,” Bob said. “We’d do better to be there ahead of them, that’s what I say.”
Marten shook his head. “We wouldn’t. Parker was right about that. If we get there first, we’re likely to leave traces when we break in. Then Gonor and the others come along, they see marks on the door or whatever, and they don’t come in at all.”
Bob shook his head and started to pace around the room. “I don’t trust Parker,” he said. “I don’t like doing things to hissuggestions.”
“Why not?” Marten spread his hands, saying, “If there’s something I’m not seeing, Bob, I’m willing to listen.”
Bob made an angry gesture and kept pacing.
“Parker wantsto tell us the truth,” Marten said. “He wantsus to get the diamonds, because he wants his woman back. After that he may be dangerous, but not before.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Bob, there’s nothing he can do to us. There’s no way he can get at us. He doesn’t know where the farm is and he doesn’t know about this apartment. He can’t find his woman without our help and he can’t find us.”
Jock said doubtfully, watching Bob pace back and forth, “But what if he’s guessed we mean to kill him?”
“Then he wouldn’t tell us anything. It doesn’t do him any good to send us on a wild-goose chase. Say this museum isn’twhere they’re taking the diamonds. Say we go there at five o’clock and break in and the place is empty. What good does that do him?”
“He might have warned the police,” Bob said. “It could be a trap.”
Marten shook his head. “What good does it do him? He wants his woman. If we don’t get the diamonds we don’t call him; we don’t tell him where she is. Believe me, he’s sitting in his hotel room right now next to the phone waiting for us to call, hoping we don’t lose out to Gonor and his people.”
“It makes sense,” Bob said grudgingly. “It’s smooth and it’s easy and it makes sense. But I’ve just got a feeling.”
“I hope you’re wrong.” Marten told him. “I think you are. I don’t think Parker is stupid, and it would be stupid for him to try to double-cross us. We hold all the cards.”
Bob shrugged. “I hope you’re right,” he said.
8
Until he heard the explosions from inside the museum, Gonor sat quietly in the truck smoking his pipe, watching the rare automobile drive by, once watching a police car roll slowly down the block without its occupants appearing to take any interest in the truck, watching the silent and empty street, thinking about the past and the future, thinking about Major Indindu and the future of Dhaba and thinking about the future of himself.
