Comeback

7

Macready rode down in the elevator with them. He had an air about him of gloomy satisfaction, as though taking pleasure in something he knew to be a sin. He said, 'We got a situation here, I don't know if you two realize this.'

Thorsen said, 'A situation? What kind of situation?'

'I mean,' Macready said, 'Lew Calavecci went out on a limb when he brought the Quindero kid over here, and now maybe the limb broke off.'

The elevator reached the ground floor. They stepped out to find a snag, a traffic jam of people being funneled slowly through one checkpoint at the main entrance. Everybody in and out was being closely studied.

Macready stood on line with them, and Thorsen asked him, 'Out on a limb? Why?'

'What have they got Quindero on?' Macready asked. 'Nothing, or next to nothing. His two pals killed the girl, his sister, but everybody acknowledges Quindero didn't know about it till long afterward, so he isn't a party to that crime at all. The three of them came here intending to commit a crime, but they didn't do it. The other two they're holding on murder one, to be shipped home, but all they have on Quindero, here or anywhere else, is obstruction of justice, because he knew the robbery at the stadium was going to take place and he didn't inform the police. But that's Mickey Mouse, and everybody knows it, that's just to hold onto him a couple days. His lawyer's going to laugh at that one. In fact, he's already laughing at it. But now we got a different situation.'

Thorsen said, 'What?'

Macready seemed to consider whether or not to go on. The line inched forward, people irritable but obedient, one at a time leaving the building, one at a time entering it. Macready said, 'I don't know if you two got much of a sense of Lew Calavecci.'

'I think we do,' Thorsen said.

'Enough to go on,' Parker said.

'Well,' Macready told them, 'Lew let Quindero believe he was in a lot deeper shit than he actually is. You know, he put the screws to him a little. More for fun than to get anything out of him. And he didn't get clearance from anybody to bring Quindero here to confront Carmody because he knew damn well nobody would give him clearance.'

'Oh,' said Thorsen.

'And now,' Macready said, 'it looks like Quindero's teamed up with our shooter.'

Thorsen said, 'Teamed up? He was a hostage.'

'In the stairwell,' Macready said, 'the shooter took the time to shoot the lock on Quindero's cuffs, free him up. We found them there. Quindero must figure he's got nothing to lose, so he's thrown in with the shooter, and they're somewhere together. Two instead of one.'

Parker said, 'Calavecci needs Quindero back safe and sound, doesn't he? Not a scratch on him.'

'Good luck, say I,' said Macready. Looking at Parker, he said, 'I hear the shooter was the guy you're looking for, is that right?'

'George Liss,' Parker agreed. 'Looked like him.'

They were nearly to the head of the line; Macready would usher them through. Waiting, he nodded and said, 'I can see where, following George Liss around, it wouldn't be dull work.'

8

It wasn't a manger. Carlton Tower, where William Archibald and his Christian Crusade were resting their heads while they saved local souls, was a many-tiered wedding cake, white and gleaming in the sun, with the flags of various Scottish clans dangling from horizontal poles stuck out from the facade just above the second level. (Most people had no idea what those colorful flags stood for, and the few who did know couldn't figure out what they stood for here.)

The lobby was broad and two stories high, with a figured carpet in which the dominant color was maroon. The bank of gold-doored elevators stood discreetly around a corner on the right. Thorsen led the way across from the revolving-doored entrance, through an atmosphere of hyper but hushed activity, and Parker looked at it all with approval. He liked this kind of place when he wasn't working. On the job, it was no good, of course, because the byword with a place like this was constant service of the guest, which meant constant observation of the guest. On the job, Parker preferred a place where, once you paid your money and they told you where the ice machine was, you were left alone.

Archibald and his people had taken all or most of the twelfth floor. Thorsen and Parker rode up in the elevator with blushing honey-mooners, who continued on to greater heights. When Thorsen and Parker stepped out of the elevator, they found a very neat and muscular young man in dark gray suit and dark blue tie seated on the nice wing chair against the opposite wall, reading what looked like a missal. He glanced up, saw Thorsen, and said, 'Morning, sir.'

'Morning. Archibald in?'

'I believe everybody's in, sir,' the young man said, and gave Parker a flat look, merely recording him, to remember him. Parker already remembered the young man; he'd been one of the Crusade's guards in the money room at the stadium.

Thorsen led the way down the hall, saying, 'We'll drop in, have a word with Archibald, then go on to my office. He's an interesting fella to meet.'