‘I told you your friend Armiston would talk if you didn’t,’ Turley said. ‘Remember that?’
‘Game theory,’ Parker said.
Turley started to smile, proud of his student, then frowned instead, realizing the student wasn’t a student. He said, ‘Armiston’s coming around, I have to tell you that.’
Parker nodded. ‘Nothing to say?’
‘Not yet.’
‘All right,’ Turley said. ‘I’ll tell you what the situation is, so you don’t think I’m trying to play off one fella against another fella.’ He cocked his head, bright-eyed. ‘All right?’
‘Fine,’ Parker said, because some sort of statement was required.
‘So here’s the situation,’ Turley said. ‘Armiston’s beginning to make noises like he’d maybe come around, but so far, it’s just negotiation, you know what I mean? Jerking off, in other words.’
Parker didn’t really care what Armiston did, because it wouldn’t affect what he himself was going to do. It would be better for Armiston, maybe, to make a deal with these people, tell them whatever he knew about the guys with the plane, the customer, and then the customer’s customer; though Parker doubted Armiston knew enough to be really useful.
Still, it seemed to him Armiston wasn’t the sort to plot out a break for himself, particularly from a place filled with loners like this one. He was more of a team player and a follower. Also, he was probably facing nothing more than the warehouse breakin; no California, no extradition, no murder one.
In fact, now that Turley had made him think about the situation, it made sense to Parker that Armiston had already made his deal, whatever it was going to be. He’d had two weeks for it, and nothing he did or said could make things worse for Parker, so why not?
Which meant this meeting was for a different reason. Turley had something else in mind. Parker sat there and waited for it.
Turley let him wait awhile, half-smiling, and then said, ‘No? Still don’t wanna get involved in game theory?’
‘Not right now,’ Parker said.
Turley sat back, toying with a pencil on his desk. ‘You’ve settled in pretty good here,’ he said.
It’s coming now, Parker thought. He said, ‘You don’t settle in here. This is a bus depot.’
‘Granted,’ Turley said. ‘That’s perfectly true. In fact, most people in here never really make connections with one another at all.’
This is it, Parker thought. It’s Jelinekwho’s started the negotiation, ‘beginning to make noises like he’d maybe come around,’ as Turley had said of Armiston. It was Jelinek who’d passed on his observations to the authorities here, so naturally they were hoping to cut out the middleman, get the story without Jelinek’s help.
‘But you,’ Turley was going on, ‘you surprised me, Kasper.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yes, you did. I figured you for the silent type, not the gregarious hail-fellow sort, not the kind of fella who makes friends that easy.’
Parker shrugged at that; what else?
‘But here you are,’ Turley said, ‘you got a couple buddies already.’
‘I do?’
Turley consulted a sheet of paper on the desk in front of himself, the sheet of paper he’d been rolling that pencil on, though the consultation was clearly just a part of the play-act. Turley knew what names he was looking for. ‘Thomas Marcantoni,’ he read; or said. ‘Brandon Williams.’
‘Williams is my cellmate,’ Parker said. ‘Why be rude to a cellmate?’
‘Very wise,’ Turley agreed. ‘And you play checkers with Marcantoni.’
‘It makes the time pass.’
‘And the three of you do weights together.’
‘Sometimes,’ Parker said. ‘You can get out of shape in here, just sit around, wait for your trial to come along. I’m still waiting on my arraignment.’
With a down-turning smile, Turley said, ‘I think your lawyer’s mostly the cause of that. I see, by the way, you weren’t happy with the lawyer the court provided.’
Parker said, ‘Mr Sherman? He looks to me like he was overextended. I didn’t want to take up a lot of his time.’
Turley laughed, and it sounded real. He said, ‘What are you and Marcantoni and Williams up to?’
‘Staying in shape,’ Parker said. ‘Passing the time.’
‘I hope you don’t have anything else in mind,’ Turley said. He gave Parker his bright-bird look, then said, ‘Did you know this place was built seven years ago? Would you believe that? Seven years, and already look how it’s crowded.’
‘Too many bad people around,’ Parker suggested.
‘That must be it,’ Turley agreed. ‘But even with this overcrowding, this situation here being less than ideal, do you know how many escapes there’ve been from Stoneveldt since it opened?’
‘Escapes? No. Why would I want to know about escapes?’
