'Where?' Parker said.
Arthur shook his head. 'He'll talk to me, he won't talk to you.'
Parker thought it over. Arthur had his own dreams of revenge, which would have to be controlled, but it was true Hargetty was likelier to talk to Arthur than some hard stranger. 'Come along, then,' he said, and turned to Lloyd. 'I can't have a bomb stashed in that other house,' he said.
'Not a good time,' Lloyd agreed, 'for a wrong number.'
'Arthur and I will see this Hargetty,' Parker said, 'and then I'll go on and clean up this business. You stay here, get rid of that cigar box, find the one at the other house and get rid of it.'
Lloyd nodded. 'Can do.'
'When I get back,' Parker said, 'maybe we can get to Montana at last.'
6
'That's it there,' Arthur said. 'I'll just find a place to park.'
Parker looked at the building as they drove by it in Arthur's Volvo. A squat two-story brick commercial structure on Hudson Street, just a few blocks north of the Holland Tunnel, most of its downstairs facade was taken up by two wide metal garage doors, painted a dull rust color, with a row of squarish large windows upstairs. To the right of the garage doors was a gray metal door with company names painted on it in gold, and to the right of the building itself was a pale concrete parking area, as broad as the building, half full of delivery vans, sealed at the back and the other side by the dark gray walls of much taller old factory buildings, and fronted on the street side by a chain- link gate in a chain-link fence topped by razor wire.
Arthur drove slowly, looking for a clear space at the curb, and Parker said, 'None of that says Cosmopolitan.' The names on the door had been All-Nite Delivery, Boro-Cab, and Stronghold Sentries.
'I used to be All-Nite Delivery,' Arthur said. 'They've got a lot of brand names.' Looking around, he said, 'Just a minute, maybe on a side street.' He turned onto Leroy Street and said, 'There's my parking place, right up there. Cosmopolitan's got a lot of other companies and shells of companies tucked inside it,' he went on. 'Some of them act like they're completely independent, and some are empty, just brand names in case they happen to need something.'
Arthur parked in the space he'd found, locked the Volvo, and they walked back down Hudson. On the way, he said, 'I never had to know the corporate structure there. In fact, I always had the idea it was better for me
'You've been to this place before,' Parker said.
'It used to be my office.'
'What's the layout?'
'All the offices are upstairs,' Arthur told him. 'Receptionist, little room at the top of the stairs. Behind her, a center hall, offices on left and right. Left has those front windows. Mine was the last window up there on the left. That's where Rafe is now.'
'We'll go up,' Parker said. 'You give your name and ask for Hargetty.'
'Right.'
Parker opened the street door, had Arthur go in first, and they headed up the stairs.
Some effort had been made to soften this fireproof iron-and-concrete stairwell, with beige carpeting and walls, plus framed nineteenth-century photographs of New York City street scenes; horse-drawn trolleys, slender distant women in black silhouette lifting their skirts out of the mud.
There was a dark wood railing at the top of the stairs, but no wall. Arthur stepped around the ornate newel at the end of the rail and Parker followed, seeing, against the rear wall, a thin middle-aged woman in thick black sweater and black-framed harlequin glasses seated behind a broad desk cluttered with phone and computer equipment, in-out baskets, packages of various kinds, phone books, small file boxes, a long Rolodex, and a variety of over-the-counter medicines. She was on the phone, nodding, not speaking, taking notes on a memo pad. She nodded at Arthur, wagged her pen briefly to assure him he was next, and went on listening and writing. Finally, she said, 'I'll be sure he gets this as soon as he comes in. Yes, thank you. Thank you, you did the right thing.'
One more nod and she hung up, then shook her head, said, 'Phew,' looked at the notes she'd made, shook her head again, pushed that pad to one side, and gave Arthur a bright look: 'Yes, sir, good morning.'
'Morning,' Arthur said. 'Rafe Hargetty in?'
Already reaching for the phone, she said, 'Who shall I say?'
'Arthur Hembridge.'
She dialed a two-digit number, waited briefly, said, 'Mr. Hargetty, an Arthur Hembridge and another gentleman are here.' She nodded, sending a little meaningless smile in Arthur's direction, then said, 'I will,' hung up, and said, 'Mr. Hargetty will be right out. You could have a seat over there while you wait.'
Across the room, under a window overlooking the street, were two sofas in an L, with a glass coffee table bearing half a dozen newspapers and magazines. As they crossed to it, Arthur said, 'She's new. Well, it's been eight years.'
Parker sat with the window behind him, the receptionist ahead of him across the room, Arthur on the other sofa to his left, the inner door to the offices beyond Arthur. The receptionist was now typing, interrupted from time to time by the telephone. She handled all these calls herself, making notes or asking questions, never transferring anyone to the people in the other offices.
They waited a little more than five minutes, and then that inner door opened and a man came out. Big-muscled
