Rehearsing the way she would handle it when she got the news. If she got the news. When she got the news.
There was a long, taut second when it could go either way— she could fall to the floor or go on making the coffee— and then she sighed, a long, shuddering sound, and shifted her weight and reached for the coffeepot. Still with her back to him, hands busy making the coffee, she said, “That wouldn’t be why you’re here. Not just to tell me about it. You aren’t the type, Parker. You never were, you never will be.”
“That’s right,” Parker said.
“You’re strictly business,” she said.
“I didn’t kill him,” Parker said. “Don’t take it out on me.”
She stopped what she was doing and just stood there for a minute. Then, in a muffled voice, she said, “Excuse me,” and hurried from the room, keeping her face turned away from him.
He made the coffee himself, a full pot, and then sat down at the table again to wait. When the coffee was done perking he poured himself a cup and was sitting at the table drinking it when she came back into the room. She was red-eyed, and her face looked puffier than before. There was a pinched look around her eyes and a strained, artificial smile on her mouth. “You were right,” she said. “I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
She got herself a cup from the cupboard, poured coffee, and sat down across the table from him. “So what is it you want?”
“Do you know a guy named George Uhl?”
“George? Young?”
“About thirty.”
“Thin hair on top. Black hair. And kind of tall and skinny.” . “That’s the one,” Parker said.
“Benny brought him around a couple of times,” she said. “I never got his last name, just the George part.”
“Do you know where he came from? How I get in touch with him?”
She shook her head thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think so. Benny just brought him around once or twice. Wasn’t he with you people this time?”
“Yeah, he was.”
She looked closely at him. “Did he do something? Is that it?”
Parker nodded.
“Something that caused what happened to Benny?”
“Yes.”
She frowned, trying to understand things, and took the time to sip some coffee. Then she said, “You aren’t the revenge type, Parker, not if there’s nothing in it for you. What do you want with this boy?”
Parker said, “He crossed us. He shot your husband in the head. He killed the other guy in the job, and he tried to kill me. And he took off with the money.”
“Oh,” she said. “The money.”
“That’s what I want,” Parker said.
“But you don’t have any way to find this George, is that it?”
“Not if you can’t help me.”
“I can see that,” she said. She drank some more coffee and then said, “But if you could have found him without me, I never would have seen you at all. Seen you or heard a word from you.”
“That’s right,” Parker said.
“Some of the money belongs to me now,” she said.
Parker shook his head. “Come off it,” he said. “Some things you don’t inherit.”
“Not unless I can help you,” she said.
“That’s right. You want a cut, is that it?”
“Half,” she said.
“No.”
“If there’s just you left,” she said, “then half that money belongs to me.”
“Wrong. Phil Andrews left people, too. He’s got a cut coming.”
“Are you going to give it to them?”
“No. But I’m not going to give his share to you either. Benny would have had a quarter of the pie if things had worked out. That would be somewhere between seven and eight thousand.”
“What do you mean, seven or eight thousand? Benny told me he’d be coming back with fifteen.”
“That was a top estimate. We ran into bad luck and got about as little as we could. Benny ever overestimate in front before?”
She nodded grudingly. “All right, all the time. But when he told me fifteen I thought sure he’d come back with ten or twelve.”
“So did we, but it didn’t work out that way.”
