“What’s the matter?”
“Now he’s bleeding from the ear.”
“Put some paper in it.”
Grofield opened the glove compartment. “Nothing there.”
“Turn his head then. We’ll unload him in a couple minutes.” Grofield adjusted Abadandi’s head. Parker drove away from the city, looking for a tumoff that might lead to privacy. They were going to be late to Lozini’s, but there wasn’t any help for it. Sunday morning traffic was light and mostly slow-moving; family groups.
“I feel sorry for the bastard,” Grofield said.
Parker glanced at him, and looked back at the road. “If I’d slept late this morning,” he said, “he could be feeling sorry for you by now.”
“An hour ago I was getting laid back there,” Grofield said. “Jesus, his skin looks bad.”
Parker kept driving.
Twenty-one
Lozini was out by the pool, still on his first cup of coffee. He had dressed in paint-stained work pants and an old white shirt and brown loafers, and he was wearing sunglasses against the morning glare. He felt unwell and uncomfortable, and it was only partly because he’d had too little sleep. The rest was nerves, the accumulating tension and unease and a sense of helplessness that he wasn’t used to. He’d lived a life of dealing with his enemies, directly and efficiently, and winning out over them. Now he had a sense of enemies he couldn’t find, couldn’t deal with, wasn’t winning over.
And what had happened now? Parker was late by almost a quarter of an hour, and Lozini wanted to know what the new problem was. His nerves weren’t getting any better sitting here.
Movement over by the house. Lozini shifted in his chair, and put the coffee cup back on the glass-topped table. Parker and Green both came out into the sunlight, followed by the houseman, Harold. Lozini waved to Harold to go back inside, and Parker and Green came on alone.
Lozini didn’t stand. He gestured to the empty chairs at the table, and as they were seating themselves he said, “Harold ask you if you want coffee?”
Parker said, “Michael Abadandi works for you.”
Lozini frowned. “That’s right.”
“He came to our motel this morning, to make a hit.”
“On you?” But that was a stupid question, and Lozini knew Parker wouldn’t answer it.
He didn’t. “You didn’t send him,” he said.
“Christ, no.”
Parker said, “Lozini, if you’ve got the digestion for that coffee, you’re a tough man.”
“I don’t,” Lozini said.
“You’re falling off a cliff,” Parker said.
“I know that. Don’t talk about it.”
“I have a point to make.”
“I know the shape I’m in. Make your point.”
“In all this city, there are only two people you can trust.”
Lozini looked at him. Green, silent, was sitting there next to Parker, with his arms folded, squinting slightly in the sunlight and looking much more serious than when he’d had his little chat with Frankie Faran.
Lozini looked from Green back to Parker and said, “You two?”
“How did Abadandi find us? He was told where we were staying. How did anybody know where we were staying? We were followed after I left your meeting last night. How could we be followed? Because somebody who knew about the meeting put somebody outside to follow us. Who knew about the meeting? Only the people you trust.”
“All right,” Lozini said.
“You’ve got a palace takeover on your hands,” Parker told him. “That means a group, maybe four or five, maybe a dozen. A group of people inside your own organization that want you out and somebody else in. Somebody who’s already up close to the top, that they want to take your place.”
Lozini took his sunglasses off and massaged his closed eyes with thumb and forefinger. His eyes still closed, he said, “For the first time in my life I know what getting old is. It’s wanting to be able to call for a time-out.” He put the sunglasses back on and studied them both. Their faces were closed to him, and always would be. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re the only ones I can trust, because I know exactly where you stand and what you want.”
Neither of them said anything. Lozini looked around at the California pool and the New England house and the Midwest sunshine and said, “I built this by being fast and smart. All of a sudden I look at myself and I’ve been coasting, I don’t even know for how long. Five years? No; I was still fast and smart when I was after you in that amusement park two years ago.”
Parker nodded. “You are different now,” he said.
Lozini made a fist, and rested it on the table next to the coffee. “It didn’t take them long, did it? I start to coast, and right away somebody’s climbing up my back. They can smell it, the bastards. ‘Lozini’s getting old, time to
