“No,” Parker said, interrupting him, and waited for him to go away.
But he hadn’t yet given up. “You mean she isn’t here at the present time, or that—”
“I already said no.” Enough was enough. Parker reached behind himself for the doorknob, and stepped backward to go into the house again.
But as he turned away into the house, the guy suddenly said, “Parker.”
He stopped, and looked back. He never traveled in the square-john world under that name. To be recognized was one thing; to be called by that name was something else. He said, “What did you call me?”
”Parker.”
“You’re making a mistake. The name is Latham.”
The guy shrugged. “It was Parker in 1962,” he said. “You’ve gotten a new face since then, but the rest is the same.”
Sixty-two; California; a faint memory stirred.
Which the guy confirmed. “My name’s Kearny,” he said. “You were vagged in Bakersfield, broke out of the prison farm. A woman from Fresno gave you a ride, ended up taking you home with her for a two-day shack-up while the heat died down. You never told her you were the one they wanted, but she knew. She didn’t care. She was my wife’s sister. I stayed at the house the second night. We killed a bottle between us.”
Parker remembered. Kearny had a private detective’s ticket, but his field was bad credit risks, not wanted convicts. Parker had allowed him to kill most of that bottle himself that night, and had left early the next morning.
But that still didn’t explain his knowing the name. Stepping back out onto the porch, shutting the door again, he said, “I was Ronald Casper then.”
Kearny said, “She heard you telephoning a guy in Chicago, collect. He wouldn’t accept a call from Casper, you had to use the name Parker. She told me about it afterwards, after you left. She still talks about you. I never told her she was just an easy way for you to be off the street for a couple of days.”
Parker shrugged that off and said, “So what is it now?”
“I’m looking for a paroled con named Howard Odum.”
The name didn’t mean a thing. Parker said, “Odum is a friend of Beaghler’s?”
“Was,” Kearny said. “Friend of the wife’s now. Beaghler doesn’t know.” Kearny added carefully, “This has nothing to do with anything Beaghler’s into now.”
Was this the trouble with the wife? If Beaghler’s heist was going to break down—other than with the problem of a buyer for the statues—it would be something to do with his wife, and if it was going to happen, it might as well happen right now.
Parker half turned, opened the door partway, and called, “Sharon.”It took her a while to come out; she was probably making a lot of denials in advance to her husband. When she did emerge, swinging the door wide and then closing it again, her face was as closed and sullen as a prison door.
Parker gestured a thumb toward Kearny, saying, “He wants Odum. Tell him.”
“Odum?” Her voice was shrill, announcing the lie. “I haven’t seen Howie since—”
Parker made an impatient move with one hand. She gave him a defiant look, but it didn’t last. Her eyes slid away, and finally she cleared her throat and said, in a much lower voice, “Sixteen-eighty-four Galindo Street.”
Parker glanced at Kearny, but the other man shook his head, so he turned back and said, “Try again.”
It was impossible for her to look innocent, but she tried. “Honest,” she said, “that’s his address.”
This was running on. Parker felt suddenly very impatient, very irritable. “Once more,” he said, and he meant it was the last time.
“Well, uh—” She was very nervous. She said, “Maybe he means, uh, Howie’s girl friend over in Antioch.”
This time Kearny nodded. Parker looked back at Sharon.
Now the words poured out in a nervous stream: “He . . . stays over with her a lot. She—I don’t know her name, but her address is, ah, nineteen-oh-two Gavallo Road. It’s a like new apartment building, twelve units. Howie said —”
“Good,” Parker said. “I’ll be right in.”
She’d been dismissed. It took her a second to get it, and then she scrambled back into the house like a cat leaving a full bathtub.
Parker turned to Kearny: “I’d hate to think you’d memorized those car plates to find out who rented them.”
“What cars?” said Kearny.
That was good enough. Kearny had shown himself a long time ago to be a man who minded his own business. Parker nodded and went back inside, where Sharon was white-faced, Beaghler red-faced, and Ducasse and Walheim both looking very uncomfortable. “It wasn’t anything,” Sharon was saying. “I swear to God, Bob, it was a mistaken identity.”
Beaghler turned to Parker. “What was it all about?”
“Mistaken identity,” Parker said. “He’s a skip-tracer named Kearny I met once a long time ago. He’s looking for a dead skip, a woman, and he thought she lived here. He talked to Sharon and found out he was wrong. Now, what about this overnight stuff?”
Sharon was giving him a grateful look that would have tipped the lie if her husband had seen it. But he was glaring at Parker instead, saying, “What overnight stuff?”
