Comeback

'It's a message. Come here in the light.'

So he went back into the bathroom with her, where the light was brighter, and she said, 'Eleven p.m. See it?'

'Shit,' Ed said.

'He wants us to pick him up.'

Ed looked shifty. She could tell he didn't like this idea. 'He doesn't say where.'

'Come on, Ed. Back at the motel.'

'Not a chance,' Ed decided. 'You ready? Let's go eat.'

They fought about it through dinner, leaning toward one another over their plates, Brenda hissing while Ed muttered. The waiters thought it was a lovers' quarrel, and gave them space.

Ed had all the arguments, and all Brenda had was persistence. He said, 'We don't know who wrote that, even. It could have been George, and we walk right back into shit.'

'It's Parker, and you know it,' Brenda said. 'And he expects us.'

'If it was the other way around, he wouldn't come back for me, you can bet on it. And I wouldn't expect it.'

'It isn't the other way around,' Brenda said. 'You aren't him, you're you, and he knows we'll come back for him.'

'Then it's you he's counting on, not me.'

Brenda shrugged. 'Okay.'

'Brenda, he's got the whole fucking state looking for him, they've probably even got him by now. And, if they pick him up anywhere near that motel, they'll figure he was making a meet with us, and they'll wait, and we'll drive right into it.'

'He won't get caught,' Brenda said. 'He'll be there at eleven, and so will we.'

'He can't be sure we even got the message,' Ed insisted. 'That's a pretty weird delivery system.'

'I checked out of the room,' Brenda reminded him. 'He can find that out, and then he'll know I got my stuff.'

'We're not copping his goddam money,

Brenda,' Ed told her. 'We'll call him in a week or two, make a meet, give him his half.'

'He wants to meet tonight,' Brenda said. 'So we'll be there.'

'Why, dammit? Why do a risk when we don't have to do a risk?'

'Because,' Brenda said, 'you'll meet him again. You'll work with him again. And he'll look at you, and what will he say? That's the stand-up guy came back for me? Or does he say, That's a guy I don't trust so much any more? What do you want him to say, Ed, next time you see each other?'

Ed leaned back, muttering to himself. After a minute, he shrugged, shook his head, and waved for the check.

The staff didn't think there was much hope for the relationship.

'I'll drive around the block twice,' Ed told her, as they neared the neighborhood, 'and if he doesn't show up, that's it.'

'He doesn't know the car, Ed.'

This was true. The car they had now was a black Honda from a side street near the restaurant where they'd had dinner. But Ed wasn't going to stop, and no argument. 'I'm not gonna be a sitting duck,' he said.

'There's a church, the next block, behind the motel,' Brenda told him. 'Drop me there, drive somewhere else, come back in five minutes.'

Ed clearly didn't like it, but Brenda wasn't going to change her mind, so he said, 'All right, five minutes. But if he isn't there, we go. We don't wait.'

'Naturally,' Brenda said. 'He put down eleven o'clock. He isn't there at eleven o'clock, we did our part, we go away.'

'Sense at last,' Ed said, and stopped in front of the church.

The quick way to the main road and the motel was through the small graveyard beside the church. Brenda went the long way around the block, and slowed as she approached the long brick motel building, with half a dozen cars parked at intervals in front of it. Traffic moved on the avenue, but she was the only pedestrian, and there were no cars parked along the curb. Come on, Parker, she thought, don't make me a dunce. I go back to Ed without you, he'll crow all the way to Baltimore.

She went past the motel office, walking slowly, just walking her dog, but without the dog, on this main traffic road where nobody walked. The office door opened and closed behind her, and she thought, hell. Dammit, goddamit, Ed, will you drive by now, please?

The voice behind her was smooth and non-threatening: 'Miss? Just a second. Miss?'

She turned, and the guy facing her was in plainclothes, but he was a cop, all right. Big and burly, with an open raincoat and that arrogant smile. She said, 'Yes?'

'Detective Lew Calavecci,' the burly man said, and flashed a badge from a leather folder. 'City police.'

Be polite, be a civilian, be not afraid. 'Yes?'