He looked back at Hoskins. “It’s your ball,” he said.
Hoskins ducked his head slightly, still smiling, as though he’d been complimented and was showing a pretty embarrassment. Then he turned his head to look at Parker directly, his little smile disappeared, and he said, “What did you tell them?”
“That I didn’t know what was going on.”
Hoskins made an impatient gesture. “Not them,” he said. “Gonor and that bunch of his, what did you tell them?”
Parker said, “Why?”
The little smile came back. “I have to know if you’re working for them, don’t I? I have to know if your sense of loyalty is involved, don’t I?”
“It isn’t,” Parker said.
“You told them no?”
“I haven’t told them anything.”
Hoskins was pleased. “Good,” he said. “Let him wait a little while, let him get anxious. That was my mistake, you know; I looked too eager, I jumped too soon. I admit it, I was too anxious.”
“So now you’re out?”
Hoskins looked surprised. “They wouldn’t be coming to you if I was still their man, would they?”
“No, they wouldn’t,” said Parker. He was still waiting for Hoskins to say the one thing that would turn all the rest of this gibberish into sense. Given enough time, and by the obvious slackness of his nature, Hoskins finally would come up with it. All it took was patience, which for Parker did not come naturally.
“There’s plenty in it for two men,” Hoskins was saying. “They tell you how much?”
“No.”
Hoskins nodded grimly. “Full of little hints, aren’t they? But they won’t come right out with it. Well, I tell you I’m convinced it can’t be less than a million! It can’t be! It only stands to reason. The Colonel wouldn’t walk out with less than that, would he?”
“Maybe not,” Parker said. He was wondering if the Colonel was the same as Gonor, the other name Hoskins had mentioned. Or was the Colonel one of the three who’d been in the room before?
Hoskins said, “So there’s plenty for two men, you can see that. Two smart men working together. Whitemen. You see what I mean.”
“It’s possible,” Parker said, and the bartender appeared and put his drink in front of him, saying:
“Are you Mr Walker?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wanted on the phone, sir. I’ll bring it to you.”
The bartender went away, and Hoskins, looking very suspicious and nervous, said, “Is that them?”
“My wife is the only one who knows I’m here,” Parker said. He and Claire were traveling as Mr and Mrs Walker, and since this one obviously didn’t know about the Parker name, he probably accepted Claire’s wife status, too. In any case, it was simplest to describe her that way.
Hoskins worked moodily at his drink while they waited for the phone to be brought. He didn’t look at Parker at all now, neither directly nor in the mirror, but gloomily studied the surface of the bar as though thinking about flaws in his course of action.
The bartender brought the phone and handed the receiver to Parker.
Parker said, “Yes?”
It was Claire. “There are four men here,” she said. It was hard to tell anything from her voice.
Parker said, “The same?”
“No,” she said. “These are different ones. I told them about the others, and what you’re doing now, and they promised to explain everything.”
“Why did you?”
“Tell them? They aren’t like the others; you’ll see. There’s nothing to worry about.”
There was always something to worry about when various groups were maneuvering around each other and at least one of them was flashing guns, but Parker didn’t say anything about that. He said, “I’ll be right up,” and hung up.
Hoskins was watching him worriedly. “Trouble?”
“My wife wants to see me. I have to go up for just a minute. You want to come along or wait here?”
“I believe I’ll wait,” Hoskins said.
“Watch my drink,” Parker told him. “I’ll be right back.”
5
Four black men in red robes stood and sat around the room, like a scene in a Negro version of Julius Caesar. Claire, legs crossed, cigarette in hand, at ease, sat in the chair near the window. She was still wearing the new outfit she’d put on to show him just before he left.
Parker shut the door with his left hand and let the hand dangle near his hip. He looked around at the
