should have enough to get the goods on him.’
‘And,’ Parker said, ‘you’ll tell me his name.’
‘Zulf Masters,’ Farley said.
‘Zulf Masters.’
‘All anybody knows is, he’s rich, everybody thinks from oil. He’s in real estate, office buildings and shopping centers, all through Oklahoma and Kansas and Missouri.’
‘That’s laundered money,’ Parker said. ‘It didn’t come from oil. Zulf Masters,’ he repeated, in case he’d have to remember it later.
‘Nobody’s sure if that’s hisreal name, either,’ Farley said.
‘It isn’t,’ Parker said.
‘These are very dubious people, Parmitt,’ Farley said. ‘Bad as you.’
‘Take notes, Sheriff.’
Farley had pen and notepad as part of the console between the front seats. He obediently picked them up and said, ‘Go ahead.’
‘In Galveston, Texas,’ Parker told him, ‘there was a man named Julius Norte.’
‘Was.’
Parker spelled the name. ‘Sometime in the last month he was murdered. I think by the same two that shot me.’
‘Oh ho,’ Farley said.
‘Norte created ID for people.’
‘Like Daniel Parmitt.’
‘That’s right. He did very good stuff, you could do background checks, whatever. Only the credit history wouldn’t be there.’
‘You traveled with your birth certificate,’ Farley said. ‘That snagged at me, but I didn’t think it through.’
Parker said, ‘If the Chicago cops are right about this guy in Tulsa, he got his name from Norte. And whoever he really is, some South American warlord or drug dealer or whoever, he doesn’t want anybody who can link the new guy to the old guy. So he must have had plastic surgery, and he probably killed the surgeon. He killed Norte. And because I was there, I happened to be there at the time, he’s trying to kill me. It was whoever was gonna be Norte’s customer that day was gonna have this guy breathing down his back.’
Farley looked up from his notepad. ‘That’s it? That’s all of it? You were with Norte at the wrong minute, and this fellow wants you dead?’
‘I think he’s somebody comes from a former life where making people dead was the solution to most problems.’
Farley said, ‘If we can prove the Zulf Masters identity is a fake, we can get through to the real guy.’
‘The one thing Norte couldn’t do,’ Parker told him, ‘was the Social Security number. He said he didn’t have the access to the legit files.’
‘That’ll bring him down,’ Farley said. ‘You’re right, we won’t need a year.’
‘He’s going to be some stinking piece of work when you find out who he really is.’
Farley laughed. ‘Worse than you and me?’
‘Worse than you,’ Parker said. ‘You going back to Snake River now?’
‘Naturally. So I can call Chicago.’
‘Drop me off in Miami Beach.’
‘That’s out of my way.’
‘Not that far. And you can give me a quarter for a phone call.’
Farley shook his head. ‘You don’t lack for nerve, Parmitt, I’ll give you that.’
Forty minutes south of Palm Beach on Interstate 95, Farley said, ‘It isn’t Mackenzie.’
Parker looked at him. ‘What isn’t Mackenzie?’
‘Who you’re meeting in Miami Beach.’
‘Farley,’ Parker said, ‘you’ve got that woman on your mind. You’ve got the itch for her, haven’t you?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Farley said, glaring at the traffic on 95. ‘I’m a happily married man.’
‘They all are,’ Parker said, and Farley didn’t talk about Lesley anymore.
Driving down Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Farley said, ‘Where do you want to get off?’
‘Anywhere at all,’ Parker said.
‘No, I know you’re still hurting, you don’t want to walk a lot, I’ll let you off wherever you say.’
‘Anywhere along Collins is fine by me,’ Parker said.
Farley laughed. ‘You don’t want to give me one clue.’
