Liss made a small strangled sound and dropped out of sight. Parker got to his feet and ran across the room and could just make out Liss's retreating shape at the foot of the stairs. He fired, but didn't hit anything, and Liss scurried away.
Parker went rapidly down the stairs. This level was the little maze of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the closet where they'd held him for a while. Standing at the foot of the stairs, Thorsen's automatic in his hand, he listened. Sooner or later, he'd have to hear Liss's breathing.
'Parker.'
Liss was off to the right, sounding as though he'd taken cover inside one of the rooms off this central hall. Parker turned in that direction, and waited.
'Parker, I'm hurt.'
Parker moved two quick quiet steps forward while Liss spoke, then stopped.
'I just want out of here. Parker? Take the car, do what you want. Call it quits. We can only mess each other up even more. Call it off.'
Parker moved when Liss spoke, stopped when he was silent. He'd reached the doorway now. Liss would be in the darkness just inside this room.
'Parker, why should we—? You son of a bitch, you're right
There must have been some light behind Parker, that he'd now blocked with his body. Liss suddenly leaped at him, punching, kicking, trying to get past him. Parker pushed him off, to get a good shot, but Liss bounded away into the hall, and Parker fired after him, at all the noise he was making.
They both heard the click.
Silence. Parker reversed the automatic, gripping it by the barrel. What would Liss do now?
'Parker? Parker, listen, we're done, we're both done. Quit it. Neither of us has anything any more. Forget it, it's over.'
Parker had moved forward while Liss talked, and now he swung the butt of the automatic at the spot where the voice had come from. He hit something, something solid that recoiled away. Liss yelled and retreated, and suddenly he went thundering down the final flight of stairs, down to the first owner's study.
Parker stood at the head of the stairs, listening to Liss gasp and curse down there. Bottom of the house. No way out.
Time to go down there and end it.
13
The moon was higher now, and only one narrow band of its light reached into the study, a stripe of silver-gray along the floor next to the windows. In that stripe Liss stood, panting, hunched, his right arm across his torso, protecting wounds.
Parker came down the stairs and stopped, still in darkness. Liss couldn't see him, but he looked across to where he knew Parker must be, and said, 'I'm all done, Parker. Leave me here.'
'I'm going to,' Parker said, and moved toward him.
Liss waved his left hand back and forth, as though to stop him. His breath was heavier and more ragged, his body hunched in tighter. 'Let it go!' he cried. 'You'll get the money, you'll get everything. Let it go.'
'If I leave you here,' Parker said, 'you'll rat me out, for a plea bargain.'
'Then take me along. Not to the money, just to get away from here.'
'I don't need you,' Parker said, and reached for him, and Liss came around hard with the knife he'd been concealing under his right hand and arm, pressed to his torso. A switchblade, with four inches of knife.
Parker jumped back, and the knife sliced shirt and skin just under his heart, scraping on bone. Parker kicked Liss's knee, but then had to retreat again as Liss swung the knife once more.
Parker still held the automatic by the barrel, but it wouldn't be any good as a club against that knife. He'd have to be in too close, and Liss could cut him up from farther out.
They moved in little jerks and pauses, back into the darkness, away from the band of light beneath the windows. The knife was a faint gleam, moving like a dowsing rod in Liss's hand, dowsing for blood.
Parker paused, and Liss lunged. Parker chopped the butt of the automatic at Liss's wrist, but only hit it a glancing blow, and then had to skip backward again.
They circled one another in the large room, slowly, with sudden dashes by Liss, trying to get that knife in among Parker's ribs. Parker dodged a dozen lunges, but Liss cut him twice more, and then again.
Parker's back was to the windows. There was nothing useful down here, no trash on the floor, nothing he could turn into a weapon. And Liss was crowding him closer, trying to get him into the corner of the room, the windows to his right, the solid wall to his left.
He couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let Liss corner him. He was still a few feet from the windows, there was still time. He feinted left, and then right, and then threw the automatic at Liss's head. He jumped in when Liss ducked, grabbed a double handful of shirtfront, and then rolled himself backward down onto the floor. His feet went up as he went down and back, his ankles catching Liss in the groin, lifting him up, the double grip on his shirtfront pulling him inexorably up and over, Liss swinging desperately back and forth with the knife, slicing Parker's forearms as Parker heaved him up into the air and over in a midair somersault, and through the window behind him with a great shout of smashing glass.
Parker rolled quickly away from descending dishes of jagged glass. A scream rolled back into the window from
