walk away? I’d like to burn this city to the ground, I’d like to empty it right down to the basements. And I don’t want to talk about it any more, I want to do it. You’re in, Handy, or you’re out. I told you the setup, I told you what I want, I told you what you’ll get for it. Give me a yes or a no.”
Tom Hurley said, “What’s the goddam rush? We got over an hour before we can hit
Stan Devers, getting to his feet, said, “Just time enough for a nap. I’m in, Parker.” He turned to Wycza, beside him. “Dan?”
Wycza wasn’t quite ready to be pushed. He frowned up at Devers, frowned across the room at Parker, seemed on the verge of telling everybody to go drop dead, and then abruptly-shrugged and said, “Sure, what the hell. I like a little boom-boom sometimes.”
Handy said, “Parker, I was never anything but in, you know that.”
Ed Mackey said, “Shit, we’re all in. I know Grofield, he’s a pleasant guy, we don’t want anybody out there dismantling him.”
Mike Carlow, the driver who hadn’t had anything at all to say up till now, said, “I don’t know this guy Grofield from a dune buggy. In fact, I don’t even know any of you people. But I know Parker, and I’m in.”
They were all in. Parker, looking from face to face, saw that none of them was even thinking of bowing out. Some of the tension eased out of Parker’s shoulders and back. “All right,” he said. “All right.”
Forty-two
In the den, Calesian paced the floor, prowling back and forth while Buenadella sat at the desk with furrowed forehead and watched him as though he were a one-man tennis match. The French doors were closed against the night’s mugginess but the curtains were drawn back, and through the glass panes the floodlit lawn could be seen, the grass and shrubbery and trees all an artificial unhealthy shade of green in the glaring light.
Calesian was sure he was on top of things. He’d nailed down the relationship between himself and Buenadella, he’d had a good productive meeting this afternoon with George Farrell, he’d been present and listened to during the first exploratory meeting this afternoon between Dutch and Ernie Dulare, and he had Parker on the run. And still he was keyed up, tensed and poised and ready as though a starting pistol were about to be fired somewhere and he had to be ready to leap.
It was waiting for the election, that’s all. Nine o’clock tomorrow morning the polls would open, eight o’clock tomorrow night they’d close again, and then it would all be over. Everything would be in place, all the relationships assured, the reins securely in the right hands, and no more possibility of anything lousing up, or of anybody making trouble.
Parker, for instance. If he came back after tomorrow, if he really was stupid enough to come back to this town, it wouldn’t matter how much noise and fuss and trouble he made. The entire local organization could shut down for a day or two and go find the bastard like a thousand cats looking for one rat in a barn, and that would be the end of him. If he ever came back. Which wasn’t in any case going to happen.
There was a tap at the door. Calesian glanced over at Dutch, and saw him sitting there with his eyebrows lifted, waiting to find out whether he should let the person in or not. His own den in his own house, and he was letting Calesian tell him whether or not to say
“Come in,” called Buenadella, and Dr. Beiny walked in, looking disgruntled and sleepy. But that was the way he always looked—except for those moments when he’d got himself in deep water again, when he would look wide awake and terrified.
Calesian said, “How is he?”
“Breathing,” the doctor said. “That’s about all.”
“What about the finger?”
Dr. Beiny looked puzzled. “What finger?”
“You’re supposed to take one off.”
The doctor looked to Buenadella, and Buenadella said, “I told him not to, Hal.”
Mutiny? Calesian said, “What the hell for?”
“He said it was too dangerous, the guy could die of shock maybe. And we don’t know where Parker is, how to even send the thing to him.”
The pleading note in Buenadella’s voice reassured Calesian; not quite a mutiny. And it was true they didn’t know where Parker was, or how to get in touch with him. Messages had been left at Al Lozini’s house, and with Jack Walters and Nate Simms, but so far the guy hadn’t popped to the surface anywhere. Maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he’d had enough and just ran away. Calesian tried to suit that action to his memory of Parker, and as time went on, it seemed to him more and more likely that a run-out was just what Parker had done. So, magnanimously, he told Dutch and the doctor both, “That’s okay, then. We’ll leave the guy alone for now. But, Doctor, if we hear from Parker I want you on tap. I want you to get over here with your little saw double fast.”
“Whatever you say.”
Buenadella said, “But what if it kills him?”
”After tomorrow,” Calesian said, “we don’t need him alive anyway.”
“I don’t want to hear that,” Dr. Beiny said. He was suddenly in a nervous hurry. “I’m going home,” he said. “If you need me. call me and I’ll come right back.”
Calesian gave him a mocking smile. “Good of you to make house calls, Doctor,” he said.
Beiny bowed himself out, closing the door behind him, and Dutch said, “You figure to kill him, don’t you?”
Thinking the doctor was meant. Calesian frowned at Dutch and said, “What? What for?”
