‘Because I want to know how you’re doing with the guy who’s hiring people to kill me.’
Farley nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s a good reason.’
‘I know it is. How are you doing?’
‘Well, the Chicago police’ At Parker’s look, he made a sour face and said, ‘Yeah, Chicago’s taken over now. Bernson, the guy we caught in the hospital’
‘That his name? I only heard you got somebody.’
‘Edward Bernson. A professional killer, according to the Chicago people. One of the guns on him tied him to two other murders over the last couple years. When he saw we had him cold, he flipped.’
‘And gave you the name of the guy that hired him.’
‘No, the go-between. It’s a lawyer in Chicago named Gilma Yard, and now the Chicago police are looking into it. They think she’s like a clearinghouse or an agency for killers, for hit men. They’re not even sure that’s her name, but her files are full of stuff that’s gonna clear up a lot of murders around the country.’
Parker said, ‘This Gilma Yard, she isn’t the principal? She’s just the one that runs the string of killers?’
‘That’s how it looks.’
‘And they haven’t flipped her.’
‘Not yet. She’s stonewalling, and she’s a lawyer, and she seems to think she can skate out of it. I don’t know if she can, but right now they’ve got her in protective custody in case there’s any customers out there that wouldn’t like to be mentioned.’
‘So it’s still that nobody knows who’s hiring these people that are trying to gun me down.’
‘Well, youmust know,’ Farley told him.
‘I don’t.’
Farley shook his head. ‘That isn’t possible. You must have someidea why you’
‘No. We’ll get to that,’ Parker promised, ‘but what’s happening with this lawyer and her files? Don’t they at least have somebody who couldbe the guy?’
Reluctantly, Farley said, ‘Yes.’
‘In Chicago?’
‘No, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.’
‘We do get around,’ Parker said. ‘Who is this guy?’
Farley gave him an exasperated look. ‘Just given the wild chance that you don’tknow who’s gunning for you,’ he said, ‘why should I give you a name? So you can go out to Oklahoma and deal with him yourself? Level with me and let the law deal with him.’
‘I want the law to deal with him.’
‘Well, the law can’t,’ Farley said, ‘not so far, because there’s no connection between the man in Tulsa and Daniel Parmitt. But why should there be, when you aren’tDaniel Parmitt and we don’t know who you are? If we knew who you really were, we’d know the link.’
‘Sheriff Farley,’ Parker said, ‘I’m going to make you an offer.’
Farley thought about that. He squinted at his white car hood, baking in the sun. He adjusted the air conditioner down a notch. He said, ‘I can at least listen to it.’
‘I will tell you the link between this man and me,’ Parker said. ‘It’s a stupid link, but it’s the only one there is. You will tell me the name of the guy in Tulsa, and then I’ll give every law enforcement agency in the country a year to bring him down. You won’t need a month, I think, given the guy. But if you all fuck up, in a year and a day I kill him.’
Farley said, ‘Why do you want to do it that way?’
‘Because he’s already been too much of a distraction. Because I don’t want to have to think about him anymore.’
‘The man had you shot. You don’t feel any desire to go deal with him yourself?’
‘Why? You people are better equipped than me to be sure he’s the right guy. And I want him outof my life, not inmy life. And the other thing, Sheriff, just between you and me, I don’t want you on my backtrail anymore, either. You go live your life in Snake River, and I’ll go live my life somewhere else.’
‘If I see you again’
‘You won’t.’
Farley thought it over. He said, ‘If I took you in, took your prints, asked you questions a few days, showed you to my friends at the FBI, I bet we’d come up with a lot of answers we’d like.’
‘Sheriff,’ Parker said, ‘if you make a single move in that direction, the two of us in the car here together, you’re a much more stupid man than I think you are.’
Farley considered that. ‘I’m armed,’ he pointed out.
Parker held his hands up between them, fingers half-curled. ‘So am I’
‘Jesus, you’ve got gall!’
Parker lowered his hands. ‘Do we have a deal?’
‘You’ll tell me the link between you and the man in Tulsa, and you’ll keep away from him for a year, and we
