corridor. He said, 'Do we still go upstairs?'
'Why not?'
'If Bachman isn't there-'
'He's there. I'm sure he is,' Tucker said. 'That little sonofabitch Keesey was lying.'
Shirillo said, 'You sure?'
Tucker's smile was broad, visible even in that dim light. 'Don't you think Keesey's capable of trying to mislead us?'
'Truthfully, no.'
'Why? Because he's fat and he blushes easily?' Tucker shook his head, looked Shirillo up and down. 'In that case, I'd say you're too thin and too young to be worth a damn on a job like this. But here you are, and you're holding up your end well enough.'
'Okay,' Shirillo said. 'Then Bachman's upstairs. That's a good sign, isn't it? It must mean he hasn't talked yet.'
'Maybe.'
Harris said, 'Friends, we're wasting time.'
'Too right,' Tucker said. 'Let's go up and say hello to Mr. Baglio.'
They climbed to the second floor by way of the back stairs and came out in the wing where Deffer and the Halversons had their quarters. Tucker listened to the stilled corridor, squinted at the deep shadows that lay the length of it, then motioned for Harris and Shirillo to take the door on the left, where, according to Keesey, the maid and the handyman would be sleeping, while he went to the first door on the right and leaned against it, listening. He couldn't hear even the slightest sound behind it. If Henry Deffer had been alerted by their muffled voices in Keesey's room just below his own, he was playing it very cool indeed. Tucker slowly twisted the knob as far around as it would go and eased the bedroom door inward. As if that were a signal, Harris and Shirillo went into the Halversons' room across the hall, flicked on the light there and, briefly, backlighted Tucker until he could locate the switch just inside the door of Deffer's room.
In the sudden burst of bright light the old man sat up as if he'd been given a jolt of electricity, slid quickly to the edge of the bed, jammed his white feet into a tattered pair of slippers and started to stand up.
'Sit down,' Tucker said.
Deffer looked like a plucked turkey, his scrawny neck bright red, the stubble of his beard like the pinfeathers that the plucker had missed. He scowled at Tucker and smacked his lips as if he were considering pecking out his adversary's eyes.
'Sit down and be quiet,' Tucker said again.
Deffer looked longingly at the top dresser drawer only three steps away. He raised his arms like wings, let them drop to his sides when he realized he couldn't fly, caught himself staring, looked away from the dresser and back at Tucker again. 'Punk,' he said. He evidently liked the sound of it. He wrinkled up his gray face and said it again: 'Punk!' Satisfied that he hadn't been completely cowed, he sat down on the bed as directed.
Tucker went to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer, lifted out a Marley.38 that lay on top of two piles of neatly folded underwear. It was a beautiful gun, well cared for, and it was also fully loaded.
'That's mine!' the chauffeur snapped.
Tucker turned to face him and raised the barrel of the Luger to his lips, like a long finger, to signal the need for silence. In a thin whisper he said, 'Be quiet, or I'll have to kill you with it.'
Deffer tried not to look upset.
Tucker unloaded the Marley, admiring the craftsmanship and design even now when the situation would seem to rule out consideration of anything but the job. He put the empty gun and the bullets in the unused pocket of his windbreaker, zipped the pocket shut.
'You don't got a chance-punk,' Deffer said.
Smiling falsely, Tucker stepped up to the chauffeur and put the cold end of the silenced barrel against Deffer's forehead. He said, 'I asked you to whisper.'
Deffer scowled. His teeth were in a glass of water on the night stand, smiling at Tucker like a fragment of the Cheshire cat. Without his dentures he looked older than before. 'What do you want?' he asked in a whisper.
'Why don't you relax, just stretch out there on the bed,' Tucker directed.
' 'Cause I don't feel like it,' the turkey said, fluffing his wings again, smacking his lips.
'That wasn't a question,' Tucker said wearily, motioning with the barrel of the Luger.
Deffer stretched out on his back.
Tucker got a chair and dragged it to the bed, sat down. He felt less nervous sitting down, because he couldn't feel the weakness in his legs that way. He said, 'I'm going to ask questions, and you're going to provide answers. If you lie to me, I'll make sure you don't get a chance to collect your pension from the organization.'
Deffer said nothing at all. He simply glared at Tucker with malevolent red-rimmed eyes, lying as stiff and straight as if he were on a plank bed.
Tucker said, 'Where's Baglio keeping the man who wrecked the Chevrolet Tuesday morning?'
Deffer's eyes brightened. Clearly he had not connected this affair with the events of Tuesday morning. That was all Tucker had to see to understand why Baglio, a much younger man, was in the driver's seat figuratively, while Deffer was there literally.
The chauffeur cleared his throat and smiled broadly. He said, 'You can't get away with this. You punks. Nice bunch of punks. There's guards all over this place.'
'You're lying,' Tucker said.
'See if I am.'
'I've already talked to Keesey. Two guards. One gagged and tied downstairs, the other knocked out by a bullet wound.'
'Dead?' the turkey asked, his grin fading.
'Not yet.' Tucker asked about Bachman again.
'They moved him,' Deffer said.
He had lost all expression in his wizened, gray face. He only looked old and tired now. But that wasn't genuine; it was a poker face, and there was no way to tell what all it concealed. Deffer might not be exceptionally bright, but he had a lot of guts for an old man and a canniness that was not going to be easy to break down.
'Killed him?' Tucker asked.
Deffer looked at the silenced Luger with more respect than he had shown to this point, though that might be as much pretense as was his expression of weariness. He said, 'No.'
'Where'd they take him?'
'Don't know.'
'Bullshit. You're the chauffeur.'
'They didn't move him by car.'
'How?'
'Ambulance.'
'That's a lie. The last thing that Baglio wants is a public record of that man's injuries. The police come nosing around a hospital, our man might find it to his advantage to spill the beans about Tuesday's caper. Baglio doesn't want anyone to know about those biweekly shipments of cash.'
'It was a private ambulance,' the turkey squawked. He looked, just a little, as if he were beginning to be afraid, a patently manufactured fear.
'What's that got to do with anything?'
'They didn't necessarily take him to a hospital.'
'Where, then?'
'I don't know.'
'The whole story's a lie,' Harris said. He had entered the room without Tucker hearing him, and he stood beside Tucker's chair, the machine gun pointed directly at Deffer.
Deffer swallowed hard. Maybe he really did respect something as heavy as the Thompson. It was impossible to be certain.
'You questioned the Halversons?' Tucker asked.
