start new. Just until we get the money. Then you go your way and I go mine, and you know I won't work with you again.'
There was a long silence from behind him. Liss had to weigh it all, had to decide what was the likeliest thing to be the truth. But his judgment would be affected by the fact that he didn't know how to find the money and Parker did. That was why, at last, the slurring whispery voice said, 'I never heard you were a forgiving guy.'
'I'm not forgiving you, George. I know what a piece of shit you are. But I worked with a lot of guys over the years that I didn't want to see off the job. If I was only gonna work with gentlemen, I'd never work.'
Liss laughed. 'And isn't that the truth,' he said. 'All right, we'll try it your way for a while. But my partner's coming over there to take that gun off you. Or however many you have.'
'Not needed, George.'
'/need it, Parker,' Liss said, and for the first time the strain was in his voice. 'The other thing I could do, you know,' the strained voice said, 'I could gut-shoot you right now, and you'd still be able to lead me to the money later on but I wouldn't have to worry about you in between.'
'And if I went into shock?'
'I'd chance it.'
Liss might even do that, he was reckless enough. Parker didn't like giving up the gun he'd taken from Thorsen, but it was a risk he was going to have to accept. He said, 'One gun, George, on my left side, above the waist.'
'My partner's gonna pat you down.'
Parker shrugged.
Silence. Shuffling sounds. Panting in Parker's ear, and a hand that snaked around his chest, feeling for the gun.
Parker saw a scenario. He takes out this one with an elbow, spins around behind him, fires at the spot where Liss's voice had been coming from.
But Liss would know that scenario himself. By now, he would have moved to one of the two corners of the room back there. Parker would be firing at an empty doorway, and Liss would have an angle on him that the punk's body wouldn't shield.
The hand found Thorsen's gun, tugged it out. The panting breath receded. Hands patted his shins, his pockets, like being touched by a flock of passing bats. The hands missed anywhere he might have had a second gun, and then they left.
Parker said, 'George, when I turn around, I don't want to see your gun.'
A little pause. 'Fine,' slurred the voice.
Parker turned, and the Quindero kid was in the open doorway to the next room, his face full of exhausted panic, Thorsen's gun dangling from his right hand, barrel pointed downward. In the left corner of the room, just by the head of that open staircase downward, Liss stood, watchful, waiting. His hands were empty.
5
One level down, there was more light because there was less plywood. This had originally been kitchen, dining room and maid's quarters, with bedrooms below that, and the owner's study at the bottom. With the conversion to the duplex, that fresh stairway had been cut in from the top floor to the maid's quarters, which then became the second bedroom of the upper apartment. The dining room down here became the living room of the lower apartment, with access via the original stairs, which were blocked off from the tenants up above.
The result was, this second level had been messed around with less. No new walls, no wholesale removal of windows. And, since below the top level access from without was very difficult on the ravine side, the windows down here had not been covered with plywood when the bank took over, and still showed the old view out over the ravine. From down here, in the original dining room, most of the development houses were invisible beyond the rim of the ravine, so you could look out and still see some of what had first attracted the site to the original owner and architect.
Squatters had lived in here from time to time. They'd pulled up the plywood that had been laid over the bathroom drains, so now you could use the space where the toilet had been as a toilet; but it was better to slide the plywood back over the hole when not in use. Some wooden boxes and old futons had been dragged down here by the onetime squatters as furniture. Nobody wanted to go near the futons, but the boxes made good chairs when placed against the wall.
Parker and Liss and the punk, Quindero, sat against three walls, Parker in the middle, facing the windows and the late afternoon view; sunlight on tumbled rocks and snarled woods, with the shadow of the building slowly creeping up the other side of the ravine. This place faced east, so the sunrise would look in on whoever was still here.
Liss sat to Parker's left, resting easy, legs out, back against the wall, hands in his lap with fingers curled upward. His eyes were hooded, and the active side of his face was almost as immobile as the frozen side. He was settled into a waiting mode, for as long as it took, patient, unmoving, a skill you learn on heists. Or in prison.
Ralph Quindero jittered to Parker's right. Nobody'd told him what to do with the little automatic, so it was on the floor between his feet, where his jittering made him bump into it with the sides of his shoes from time to time, each hit causing the automatic to scrape along the floor, each scrape sound making Quindero jump yet again. His hands twitched, moving from position to position, arms crossed, or hands resting on lap, or in pants pockets, or scratching his head and his arms and his knees. His eyes skittered back and forth, like a rodent, never looking at anything for long, bouncing every which way.
The stairway from above was just to Parker's left, a darker opening in this rear wall. The stairway down to the next level was along the right wall, between the windows and the jittering Quindero.
Did Liss count on this 'partner' of his? Did he think Ralph Quindero would be any damn use at all? If not, why keep him around?
