'It's a sad story,' Thorsen told him. 'Carmody had a girlfriend. He told her what was going down here.'
'Everybody talks to everybody,' Parker said.
'They do,' agreed Thorsen. 'The girlfriend talked to her brother, who's an asshole. He talked to two other assholes he knew, and they decided to come hit the hitters.'
'Did they,' Parker said.
'Before they left,' Thorsen went on, 'the other two assholes went to see what else the sister might know, and killed her. Not meaning to, I guess.'
Parker said, 'The sister?'
'They didn't mention that part to the brother,' Thorsen said. 'They just all came here.'
'To the motel, you mean. So they could follow the heisters.'
'That's right.'
'Liss told Carmody this was the motel, Carmody told the girlfriend, the girlfriend told the brother.'
'As you say,' Thorsen said, 'everybody talks to everybody.'
'The question is,' Parker said, 'who do I talk to?'
'The second bunch is in custody,' Thorsen told him. 'Calavecci was teasing the brother about the sister's death, not quite telling him, when I left.'
'Uh huh.'
'But I don't know that that bunch has much you want to know.'
'They're nothing to me,' Parker said. He was thinking, trying to find a way to turn this meeting into something useful. 'I might want Carmody,' he decided. 'He could know associates of Liss, people Liss might go to if he has to go to ground.'
'Calavecci and his people squeezed him pretty good, I think,' Thorsen said.
'But they're thinking about the stadium, and the money. I'm thinking about Liss.'
'That's true.' Thorsen thought it over, and said, 'I could phone, say we want to drop by—'
'You and the insurance man.'
Thorsen grinned. 'That's right. Just get an okay, a phone call from Calavecci to the hospital saying we're cleared to go in. That way, Calavecci won't have to come with us.'
'He's a busy man anyway,' Parker suggested.
Thorsen got to his feet. 'I'll just make the call.'
Also rising, Parker said, 'Give me a minute in the john, and I'll be with you.'
As Thorsen went over to the telephone on the bedside table, Parker went into the bathroom, shut the door, and looked through Brenda's cosmetics until he found a round black compact. He opened it, and the inside of the top was mirrored. With eyebrow pencil, he wrote on the mirror
The one place he was sure Brenda would look was in a mirror.
4
Thorsen was still on the phone, saying, 'Yeah,' and, 'I see,' and, 'How about that.' He held a finger up toward Parker—one minute—and went on listening to the phone. Then he said, 'Well, we'll come over and hang around until you're done,' and hung up, and said, 'I could grow to dislike that slime ball.'
'The detective? Whatsisname?'
'Calavecci. He's waiting for the doctors to say he can go over and have a conversation with Carmody himself, probably by ten o'clock. When he's done, then we can go in.'
The clock radio in the room read 9:23. 'So we wait a while,' Parker said.
'The thing is,' Thorsen said, 'what he's waiting to do. He wants to bring Quindero over there, let him and Carmody have a conversation.'
'Quindero?' This was a new name to Parker.
'The brother,' Thorsen explained. 'This is just the sadistic son of a bitch wanting to turn the knife a little more. Let Quindero and Carmody reminisce together about good old Mary.'
'A nice guy, your detective.'
'Let's get out of here,' Thorsen said, looking around, disgusted. 'There's more, I'll tell you in the car.'
'Fine.'
Thorsen nodded at the connecting door. 'Nothing in there?'
'Same as here. They didn't leave any address books.'
'These are not people with address books,' Thorsen said. 'Come along— What do I call you? John, or
