look like wood, presented its long face to the street, with blacktop across the front for guests' cars to park, nose in. At seven-thirty that morning, cars and pickups stood in front of eleven of the twenty units, but not in front of either 16 or 17.
Parker walked down the other side of Western Avenue and climbed the concrete steps to the squat brick professional building. He stood in the little lobby, looking at the directory, aware of what was happening in the street. A few cars went by; nothing else.
'Can I help you?'
It was a caretaker, looking nosy. Parker said, 'No.'
'Well. . .' The guy was miffed. 'I'll be over here,' he said, and went away.
Parker stepped outside and paused, like anybody, to study the weather and the day. Going to be sunny, not hot. Nobody moving around the motel. No cars yet this morning in the Professional Building's parking lot, no cars with occupants inside stopped up or down the street.
Parker still had the key to room 17 in his pocket. When no traffic was in sight, he crossed the street, moving directly to 17, watching for movement from inside any of those windows along the front, and there was nothing. Now the key and its rectangular plastic tab were in his palm.
He went in fast, slapping the door shut behind him as he crouched down and ran across the room, looking left and right. Nothing, nobody. In the bathroom, dark. Nothing, nobody.
The drape was already closed across the front window beside the door. Parker switched on lights and looked around, and nobody had been in here since they'd left except the maid. They all traveled light, all except Brenda and her cosmetics, and their goods, Parker's and Liss's, were still here where they'd been left, nothing but some clothing and toothbrushes and other things that didn't matter, weren't traceable, could always be bought new.
The original plan, now nothing but a memory, was that they'd wait in the construction trailer until the excitement was over. Then, at six in the morning, Brenda would pick them up, and they'd drive the three miles to the empty house, in town but isolated, and stash the money there. Then they'd come back here and stay in the motel until it seemed safe to leave town, when they'd go by the house once more, pick up the money, and be off.
Now everything was random. Mackey and Brenda and the money were somewhere in this city. Liss was somewhere else, looking for them. And Parker was counting on Brenda, sooner or later, wanting to come here.
There was a connecting door to the room where Brenda and Mackey had stayed. They hadn't bothered to unlock it before but Parker did now, and this room was also empty. And in this bathroom were Brenda's famous cosmetics, spread over every surface.
Parker switched off the lights in Brenda and Mackey's room, went back to his own, and closed the connecting door almost completely, leaving just a crack to see and hear through. Then he went into the bathroom in here, stripped off his shirt, and washed out the angry red line along his upper left arm. He found one last fresh shirt, put it on, moved a chair over near the connecting door, switched off the lights in this room, and sat down in the dark to wait.
Parker sat up straighter, and a vertical line of gray light appeared in front of him, brightened, darkened, went out.
Somebody'd come into Brenda and Mackey's room; that was daylight when the door had opened. It was no more than two hours, Parker thought, that he'd been waiting in here.
The lights didn't go on, in the next room. Parker leaned close to the door and heard very small movements.
Brenda and Mackey would switch the light on, right away. Was this Liss? Parker listened.
Now the lights did come on. And the sounds of movement stopped. Then there was brisk walking, past this door and beyond, and Parker heard the bathroom light click on. He eased the door open a bit more, but his angle of view was toward the front of the room. He could see most of the bed, on the opposite wall, and the bedside table, and the round table and two chairs and swag lamp in front of the window, and part of the window with its drape pulled across. He couldn't see the door.
More footsteps. The closet door was slid open. Ruffling sounds as somebody went through whatever clothes were in there. Then a drawer was opened, and shut.
Somebody searching. Somebody neat searching; he shuts the drawer. Knowing this wasn't Brenda, coming to believe it wasn't Liss, wondering if it was one of the three guys from that car that had nosed around the stadium parking lot, Parker waited, and then a guy he'd never seen in his life before came around the end of the bed and crossed over to look in the drawer of the bedside table.
Parker looked at this guy, trying to fit him in. A friend of Liss's? Was Liss waiting at the empty house, and he sent this other guy just in case the money showed up at the motel?
No. Liss wouldn't trust anybody else that far, and nobody else would trust him that far. Also, this guy didn't look the type. He was a very trim fifty, with short-cropped gray hair, wire frame eyeglasses, and a look of competence and self-assurance. He was dressed in a neat gray suit that made him look more like a cop than a banker, but this wasn't a cop.
Something like a cop? Somebody who doesn't mind breaking and entering, and who feels there might be something here he's looking for. Somebody who's dealt himself in.
Parker's eyes were now once again used to the light. As the guy turned away from the empty drawer in the bedside table, Parker stood, pushed open the door, and stepped into the room.
The guy saw him. His eyes focused, his body became still, and his right hand snaked inside his suit jacket, coming out with a small flat automatic. 'Stop right there.'
Not law, but close to law. 'Don't be stupid,' Parker told him, and spread his own empty hands. 'Put that thing away, or I'll take it off you.'
The guy ignored that. He waggled the gun toward the table and two chairs by the front door. 'Sit down over there,' he said.
