reacted with barely concealed rage and revulsion, covering panic; the sexuality of this woman was clearly far more than Thorsen could take. He wanted out of here, and now, gruffly, without looking at the woman, he said, 'Will, Mr. Orr and I are going to my office, call Broad Street, find out if there's any developments.'
'Broad Street.' Archibald frowned slightly. 'That's what they call their police headquarters here?'
'They better not ever move it,' Christine Mackenzie said, and giggled, and showed Parker her tongue.
Thorsen turned away, his hands clenched into fists. 'Come on, Jack,' he said.
'Nice to meet you,' Parker told Archibald, and nodded to Mackenzie. 'Both of you.'
But Archibald said, 'Dwayne, you go ahead. Let me have a little word with Mr. Orr, if I might. I'll send him right along.'
'Fine,' Thorsen said. To Parker he said, 'I'm down on the right, 1237.'
'Got it.'
Thorsen left, and Archibald said, 'More coffee, Mr. Orr?'
'No, I'm fine.'
Archibald turned to Mackenzie, saying, 'Tina, go in the other room, please, and phone the concierge, and ask for somebody to come up and lay a fire, would you do that, please?'
She would rather stay, but that wasn't being given as a choice. 'All right,' she said, with a shrug that made her breasts call attention to themselves, even within all that nunnery. Approaching Parker, 'Glad to meet you,' she said, with another smile, and offered her hand once more. 'I hope we meet again.'
'That'd be nice,' Parker assured her.
Archibald was impatient for her to leave, and was making it increasingly obvious. Now, he said, 'I'll be along after a while, Tina.'
Which meant don't come back, a message Tina understood. She rolled her eyes discreetly at Parker, and went away, and twitched just a little as she left.
Archibald said, 'Mr. Orr, sit down a minute, won't you?'
They sat on sofas at right angles to one another near the fireplace, toward which Archibald sent a fretful look, saying, 'I meant to call someone, have them lay a fire in there, but I just haven't had a minute to myself.' Smiling at Parker in amused self-pity, he said, 'I do think a fire cheers up a room, at any season. Don't you?'
'Sure.'
'What I wanted to talk about,' Archibald said, hunched forward slightly, becoming more confidential, 'is your job. You're a sort of undercover policeman, aren't you? But with the insurance company, not the regular police.'
'Something like that.'
'You have . . . contacts within the underworld, different from what the police might have.'
'I'm supposed to, anyway,' Parker said.
'People like you,' Archibald said, 'people in your position, they do moonlight, I believe, from time to time. Isn't that what it's called? To moonlight?'
'You mean collect from two bosses for the same work.'
'Well, slightly different work,' Archibald corrected him. 'Similar work. For instance, you're
looking for this one man anyway, but my understanding is, there were at least three involved in the robbery at the stadium, and probably a fourth man to drive them away. When you catch the man you're looking for, and I have no doubt that you're very able at your job, that you will run this fellow to earth, but when you do, it's extremely unlikely he'll have all the money from that robbery on his person.'
'Very unlikely,' Parker agreed.
'If you could make it a part of your business,' Archibald said, looking Parker forthrightly in the eye, 'to retrieve the money stolen from me, whether it's in the possession of the man you're hunting or not, I'd be very appreciative.'
'Would you,' Parker said.
'I'd pay in cash, of course.'
'Uh huh.'
'And you ought to have— What do they call it in your business? A retainer?'
'That's one word,' Parker agreed.
'Let's say a thousand.' Getting to his feet, not waiting for an answer, Archibald turned toward, the desk where he'd been on the phone before. Crossing to it, he said over his shoulder, 'Against, let us say, five percent of whatever you reclaim. That's a maximum of twenty-five thousand dollars, Mr. Orr, or just a little less.'
Parker got to his feet and watched. Archibald opened a drawer in the desk, took out a thick envelope that seemed to be full of cash, thumbed some bills out, and put the still-full envelope back in the drawer. Then he took up the bills he'd selected, slipped them into a hotel envelope, and came smiling back, envelope held out. 'An extra little blessing on your job,' he said. 'Shall we call it that?'
This was the first time Parker had ever been offered a bribe to help find the money he'd stolen. 'Let's call it that,' he said, and took the envelope and put it in his pocket.
