Infiniti, and when he got to the front corner of the house Bobby was there, the automatic pointed at Parker’s chest. With his other hand he gestured: Come with me.
Parker shrugged. He walked past Bobby and around to the front door and in, Bobby trailing after him.
Norte was off the phone now, standing behind his desk, looking aggravated. ‘Bad timing, Mr Lynch,’ he said.
‘Hand me the papers and I’ll go,’ Parker told him. Two of the men, not the driver, had twisted around to stare up at Parker, not as though he might help but as though he might be more trouble. Norte, with a sad smile and a harried look, shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You see the situation here, no?’
‘Dissatisfied customers,’ Parker suggested.
But Norte shook that away. ‘No, I don’t have dissatisfied customers. What I got, I got a customer doesn’t want anybody alive that knows who he is now and what he looks like now. That fuckhead sent these fuckheads to kill Bobby and me.’
‘He sent the wrong fuckheads,’ Parker said.
‘So now I gotta take themdown,’ Norte said with a disgusted gesture at the men on the floor, ‘and I gotta take their boss down, because I don’t need this shit.’
‘It’s not my fight,’ Parker said. ‘Just give me the papers and I’ll go.’
‘I wish I could,’ Norte said, and he sounded as though he meant it. ‘But you’re a witness here, no?’
‘I don’t witness things,’ Parker told him.
Norte didn’t like it. He chewed the inside of his cheek, and then he said, ‘I tell you what. When I get this shit straightened out here, I’ll call Ed Mackey, tell him the situation, see what he thinks I should do.’
Parker watched him.
Norte tried a smile while still chewing his check. He said, ‘That’ll work, no? Ed Mackey knows you.’
‘He knows me.’
‘In the meantime,’ Norte said, ‘just lie down on the floor here.’
‘Sure,’ Parker said, and as he bent forward he reached inside his shirt. He pivoted the holster down, lifted his left arm, and fired through his shirt.
The bullet hit Bobby somewhere, it didn’t matter where. It wouldn’t stop him, only confuse him for a second; long enough, maybe, for Parker to drop to his knees, turning, pulling the Sentinel out, hearing the big boom of the automatic bounce in this enclosed room, knowing the bullet had gone over his head. He thrust his arm out as Bobby adjusted his aim, and shot the guard dog in the face.
That still didn’t finish him, but it made him drop the automatic as he whipped both hands up to his ruined face. He tottered there as Parker dropped the Sentinel, grabbed the automatic, and lunged to his feet.
Norte was pulling a blunt revolver out of a desk drawer, ducking down low behind his desk, calling, ‘Drop that!’
‘Fuck you,’ Parker said, and pulled Bobby in front of himself to take Norte’s first three shots. Now he held the dead Bobby up in front of himself and moved forward toward the desk as Norte, still hidden behind it, called, ‘All right! I’m done!’
‘Put the gun on the desk,’ Parker told him.
Norte stayed out of sight behind the desk. ‘We don’t have to kill each other,’ he said.
‘We’re not gonna kill each other.’
‘I was worried, I was upset, I was too hasty. Ed Mackey said you were okay, I should’ve remembered that.’
‘Put the gun on the desk.’
Still he remained out of sight. ‘People need me,’ he said. ‘They won’t like it if you take me down. Ed Mackey won’t like it.’
Parker waited.
‘I was wrong,’ Norte said. ‘I was too hasty.’
Parker waited.
‘There’s no reason to do anything anymore.’
Parker waited.
Norte’s hand appeared, with the revolver. He put it on the green blotter and pushed it a little forward.
Parker let Bobby fall, on top of the men on the floor. He went forward and walked around the side of the desk to where Norte crouched there, looking up. Norte, voice shaking a little, said, ‘You don’t need to do a thing. I got your documents, middle drawer. You’ll see, they’re beautiful.’
‘Let’s see them.’
Norte hesitantly rose, then looked at his revolver still on the desk. ‘Aren’t you gonna take that?’
‘You intend to reach for it?’
‘No!’
‘Let’s see this ID.’
Norte opened the middle drawer, took out a manila envelope, shook two official papers out onto the green
