Butcher's Moon

noticeable.”

“You’ll do your best,” Lozini told him.

Calesian spread his hands, easy and assured. “Naturally,” he said.

Parker said, “That’s tomorrow, too, right?”

“It’s tough on Sunday,” Calesian said. “I’ll do what I can, but some of it may have to wait till Monday.”

Lozini said, “Why? The cops work seven days a week.”

“Not the clerical staff,” Calesian said. “The kind of small-time check we’re talking about, no urgency, nothing major, that’s always done during the week and during regular business hours. For instance, I can’t call a bank tomorrow, check on anybody’s balance.”

Parker said, “Lozini, the simple answer is, you pay me my money now, and get it back when you find the right people. That way, you can wait till after election and I won’t be sitting in a room somewhere getting impatient.”

“I don’t have the money,” Lozini told him. “Nate told you; receipts are down. Not just in policy, everywhere. Receipts down, expenses up. This election cost us an arm and a leg, and my man may not even stay in. Listen, I’m just as impatient as you are.”

“No, you’re not,” Parker told him. He looked around and said, “Is there anything else I have to hear?” Everybody looked at everybody else.

“All right,” Parker said. “Lozini, I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Try me at home,” Lozini said, and sourly added, “You know the number.”

Calesian, rising, said, “I’m finished, too, for now. I’ll ride down with you, Parker.”

“By God,” Lozini said grimly, “we’re going to put this together. I don’t like the whole feel of this.”

As Parker left, he heard Lozini behind him going on in the same vein, with his three lieutenants silently listening and nodding their heads. Walking across the empty receptionist’s office with Calesian, Parker listened to Lozini’s voice without the words, and there seemed a slight echo in the sound, a touch of hollowness created both by distance and the tone of the man’s voice. Lozini sounded more and more like someone blustering to hide his uncertainty.

Parker and Calesian walked down the hall to the elevator. Calesian pushed the button, then turned to say, “You know, just between us, what Nate said wasn’t all that stupid.”

Parker shrugged.

“There’s such a thing as too much pressure,” Calesian said. “You have Al where you want him; now might be a good time to ease off a bit. Let him take care of business first, get this election out of the way.”

“No.”

Calesian looked puzzled. “Why not? What’s the problem?”

“Lozini.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

Parker said, “He’s a man who didn’t hear the twig snap.”

Calesian frowned a second, then said, “Oh. Somebody’s coming up behind him?”

“Somebody came up.”

“You think somebody’s going to try a takeover.”

Parker gestured a thumb toward Lozini’s office. “Isn’t that what that was all about?”

Calesian thought about it. “Maybe,” he said. “But who?”

“You know the territory better than I do.”

The elevator door slid back, showing an empty interior. Grinning at it, Calesian said, “That’s a smart boy.”

They stepped into the elevator, and started down.

Calesian said, “If you’re right, you know, that’s even more reason to ease up on Al a little. Don’t distract him while he’s trying to hold his business together.”

“This election you’ve got coming up,” Parker said. “I think maybe that’s the key. Come Wednesday, Lozini may not be around any more.”

Calesian looked troubled, but had nothing to say.

Parker said, “I wouldn’t want to start all over again with somebody new.”

Seventeen

The two men sat in the back seat of a darkened car on Brower Road, near the baseball field and the amusement park. It was four o’clock Sunday morning, six hours after the meeting in Lozini’s office had broken up, and it was almost pitch-dark. The stars were thin and aloof and far away, the thin crescent of moon was like a tiny rip in a black plastic bag showing the sugar inside. There were no houses out in this part of town, no traffic, nobody moving except the driver of the car, strolling back and forth a hundred feet down the road, kicking at stones he could barely see, while the two men in the car, dark faceless mounds to one another, talked things over.

“So Al knows what’s happening, does he?”

“Not yet. He knows something is happening, but he doesn’t know what.”