2
Once or twice, Claire had gotten too close to Parker’s other world, or that world had gotten too close to her, and she hadn’t liked it, so he did his best to keep her separate from that kind of thing. But this business was all right; everything had already happened, this was just a little tidying up.
She drove them eastward across New Jersey late that afternoon, and he told her the situation: “There was a meeting that didn’t pan out. A guy there named Harbin was a problem a lot of different ways. He was wearing a wire—”
“A police wire?”
“Which got him killed. Then it turned out there was federal reward money out on him, and it attracted a bounty hunter named Keenan.”
She said, “This didn’t have anything to do with you in Massachusetts.”
“Nothing. This was just an annoyance, Keenan trying to find everybody at the meeting, so somebody could lead him to Harbin, which nobody was going to do. He got hold of some phone records, Nick Dalesia made two calls to our place here, that brought him around.”
She glanced at him, then looked out at Interstate 80, pretty heavy traffic in both directions, a lot of big trucks, the kind of traffic where you didn’t change lanes a lot. “You mean,” she said, “the law might come around now, using those same records.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Keenan was looking for connections. The law’s looking for Nick, and they’ll know he’s too smart to go hole up with somebody he knows. They won’t be spending time looking at phone bills.”
“Well, where are we going now?”
Parker was rested, most of the day asleep, but this car still felt too small. Maybe it was because he wasn’t at the wheel. He stretched in place and said, “Keenan’s partner, a woman named Sandra Loscalzo, caught up with us in Massachusetts just before the job. McWhitney convinced her to go away, and when he got back to Long Island he’d lead her to Harbin.”
“Who’s already dead.”
“Yes.”
“And McWhitney lives on Long Island?”
“He’s got a bar there, and lives behind it.”
“And that’s where we’re going.”
“And when we get there, the next part is up to you.”
She frowned out at the traffic and the eastern sky darkening ahead of them. “Is this something I won’t like?”
“I don’t think so. When we get there, I can go in and talk to McWhitney and you can wait in the car, or you come in, we have a drink, it’s a social occasion.”
“There isn’t going to be any trouble.”
“None. We’ve got to decide what to do about Loscalzo, and we’ve got to decide what to do about the money. There’s too much heat up in that area right now—”
“Because of what you people did.”
“They’re looking close at strangers,” Parker said, and shrugged. “So we’ll have to leave the cash where it is for a while, but if we leave it too long either they find Nick again and he trades the money for a better sentence, or he gets to it himself and cleans it out because he’s desperate. Being on the run the way he is uses up a lot of cash.”
“You said they have the serial numbers,” she said, “so he can’t use it, can he?”
“He’ll leave a wide backtrail, but he won’t care.”
“But
“Offshore,” he said. “We can sell it for a percentage to people who’ll take it to Africa or Asia, it’ll never get into the banking system again.”
“There are so many ways to do things,” she said.
“There have to be.”
She said, “Before, you said you have to decide what to do about what’s-her-name? The bounty hunter’s partner.”
“Sandra Loscalzo.”
“Why don’t you have to decide what to do about the man? Keenan.”
“He’s dead, too.”
“Oh.”
He looked out at the traffic, which was thickening as they got closer to the city. They were both silent a while, and then he was surprised when she said, “I’ll come in with you.”
3
We can’t go there yet, you know,” McWhitney said, by way of greeting.
Standing at the bar, Parker said, “Nelson McWhitney, this is my friend Claire.”
“Hello, friend,” McWhitney said, and dealt two coasters onto the bar, saying, “Grab a stool. What can the house buy you?”
“I would take a scotch and soda,” Claire said, as she and Parker took the two nearest stools.
“A ladies’ drink,” McWhitney commented. “Good. Parker?”
“Beer.”
McWhitney’s bar, in Bay Shore on Long Island’s south shore, was deep and narrow, its dark wood walls and floors illuminated mostly by beer-sign neon. At eight-thirty on a Monday night in October it was nearly empty, two solitary men finishing whiskey along the bar and a yellow-haired woman hunched inside a black coat at the last dark table along the other side.
McWhitney himself didn’t look much livelier, maybe because he too had had a rough weekend. Red-bearded and red-faced, he was a hard bulky man with a soft middle, a defensive lineman gone out of shape. He made their drinks, brought them over, and leaned close to say, “Those two will be outa here in a couple minutes, and then I’ll close up.”
Parker said, “What do you hear from Sandra?”
Raising an eyebrow toward Claire, McWhitney said, “Your friend’s up to speed on you and me?”
“Always.”
“That’s nice.” Nodding his head toward the rear of the bar, McWhitney said, “Sandra’s not quite that good a friend, but there she is, back there, waiting on a phone call.” He raised his voice: “Sandra! Look who dropped by.”
When Sandra Loscalzo rose to come join them, she was tall and slender, in heels and jeans and the black coat over a dark blue sweater. She walked in a purposeful way, taking charge of her territory. She wasn’t carrying a glass. At the bar, she said to Parker, “The last time I saw you, you were driving a phony police car.”
Parker said, “The police car was real. I was the phony. You were there?”
“Fifty-yard line.” She sounded admiring, but also amused. “You boys are cute, in a destructive kind of way.” Looking at Claire, she said, “Is he destructive at home?”
