“I think so.”
The fat man nodded his head at the three hoods. “You want me to loan you a boy?”
“I’m better off on my own.”
“This thing ought to be punished. They left me one hell of a headache. I figured to start my own people out.”
“They wouldn’t know where to go or what to look for.”
“That’s where you could help them,” the fat man said.
“I’m better off by myself.” 80 The fat man pursed his lips. “Look,” he said. “If Mrs. Keane knew this friend of yours, Briley, it means she supplied him girls. So what I can do now, I can put some people to work on the phone, check out all her girls, find out who got sent to a guy named Briley. Then I can tell you where he is. Or on the other hand, I can send people of my own and the hell with you.”
“Briley doesn’t know your people. He knows me. He’ll believe me and work with me. If we aren’t wasting too much time here.”
“Time. Aldo, call the office for me. Lynch, go sit down over there.”
Parker went over to the chair in the corner and sat down. The way the room was arranged, all four of them were now between him and his armaments on top of the television set.
Aldo dialed the phone, talked into it briefly, handed the receiver to the fat man. The fat man rumbled into it for a while, then hung up. “Lynch, come over here.”
Parker walked over.
“Lynch, we decided to save our own manpower. You want to take care of them, you take care of them. You wait here now, somebody will call you, tell you where Briley is. Aldo, give him a card. Lynch, you need help, you lose the trail, anything goes wrong, call Aldo.”
The card said, Family Bowling Center, with a Dearborn address and phone number. Parker put it in his pocket.
The fat man heaved himself to his feet. “Don’t go over to your gun till after we leave.” He walked toward the door, the three hoods around him like tugboats around an ocean liner. At the door, he looked back and said, “Have a good hunt.”
“Thank you.”
They left. Parker glanced at the closed bedroom door, then went over and got the automatic and knife and put them away.
There was the possibility he was simply being set up to eat this rap, though it seemed pointless. Still the chance existed that the fat man would have Aldo dial Police Headquarters from some other telephone, and in five or ten minutes the law would walk in and start asking questions Parker couldn’t answer.
None of the apartment windows overlooked the street. Parker propped the hall door open with a straight chair from the kitchen and walked down the corridor past the stairwell to the window at the end. Down below was the sidewalk and the street. Across the way, two of the hoods were helping the fat man into the back of a black Cadillac. Parker watched the three of them drive away. It didn’t surprise him that the fourth had been left behind; he’d expected the fat man would tie shadow to him until he got to the people who’d killed Mrs. Keane. It was a problem that could be handled later.
He waited half an hour. This was a workingmen’s apartment house, and though there was occasional movement on the floors below, no one appeared up on the top floor at all. And then, after half an hour by the window overlooking the street, Parker heard the phone ring in Mrs. Keane’s apartment. He strode down the corridor, shoved the chair out of the way so the door would swing closed, and crossed the room to pick up the receiver.
A colorless female voice said, “Robin Hood Motel, Pontiac.”
The third time Parker pounded on the door, a sleep-heavy man in T-shirt and jockey shorts opened it and blinked blearily out at him, weaving slightly as he said, “What day is it?”
“I’m looking for Briley.”
“Briley? Christ, is that the sun?”
Parker pushed the door the rest of the way open and went in. The sleepy man tottered backward, not quite losing his balance, saying, “Jesus, fella, don’t knock a fella over.”
Briley’s group had a four-unit separate section of the motel completely to themselves. This section was off behind the parking lot, where they wouldn’t disturb anybody. All the connecting doors were open, the drapes were closed over all the windows, and they had their own private dim-lit world in which to party.
A naked girl was curled up asleep on the floor in 83 front of the television set, which was showing a soap opera with the sound turned off. Two fretful women sat at a kitchen table on the grainy screen and mouthed worried remarks at one another.
A couple was asleep in one of the room’s double beds; the other was empty, but rumpled. Empty bottles, full ashtrays, and stray playing cards were all over the room. The girl sleeping in front of the television set was clutching a thick white candle in one hand.
Parker went over to look at the man asleep in the bed, but it wasn’t Briley. He turned back to the one who was semi-awake and said, “Briley’s the one I want to see.”
“It’s got to be too early in the day. What did I do with my watch?”
Parker went over and took him by the upper arm and applied pressure. “Briley,” he said. “Where’s Briley?”
“Jesus! He’s down at the end! I told you twice already, down in the end room!”
Parker released him. “Thanks.”
