“Parker?”
“I’m here.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t know you were finished,” Parker said.
“I’m not—I’m not exactly finished.” Nervousness was coming into Buenadella’s voice, meaning some sort of lie or con or trap was about to be brought out. Buenadella’s problem was that he wasn’t mobster enough; he could run circles around somebody like Lozini when it came to politics and business, but a job like Lozini’s wasn’t the right slot for a politician or a businessman. Buenadella would have found that out sooner or later; he could consider himself lucky he found out before he tried on the crown.
“Parker?”
“If you have something to say, Buenadella, go ahead and say it.”
“About your partner—”
“That isn’t the subject.”
“All right. The money.”
Another goddam pause. What did Buenadella want, fill-in about the weather, how’s the wife and kids, what do you think of the Miami Dolphins? A fucking businessmen’s lunch, on the phone. “I’m in a hurry, Buenadella,” Parker said.
“I want to set up a meeting.” Which was said all in a rush; leaping into the lie, meaning the lie was in the form of an ambush.
“What for?”
“To—to explain things. To make another deal.”
“Where and when?”
“You say. And it won’t be with me, or Calesian, or any of my other people. You know Ted Shevelly, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
”He’s not my man, absolutely not. He’s Al Lozini’s man all the way.”
Parker believed that. It made sense to tether a goat out as bait. “All right.”
“He’ll carry the message,” Buenadella said. “You meet with him, talk it over, make your decision. Okay?”
“Where is Shevelly now?”
“Right here with me. You can talk to him yourself, set up the meeting any way you want it. I swear to God, Parker, that last time was a mistake. I was negotiating in good faith.”
Parker believed that one, too. What he didn’t believe was that Buenadella was still negotiating in good faith. “Put Shevelly on,” he said.
“Just a minute.”
Shevelly, when he came on, sounded scared and mistrustful, as though he, too, had the whole thing figured for an ambush, but didn’t know yet whether he was supposed to come out of it standing up or lying down. He said, “Parker?”
“What’s your car look like?”
“A maroon Buick Riviera. License number five-two-five, J-X-J.”
“Get up on the Belt Highway going clockwise,” Parker told him. “I’ll get in touch with you.”
“What car do I look for?”
“You’ll recognize it,” Parker told him, and hung up, and went looking for the houseman, who was still on the phone. “Forget Shevelly,” he said, “I’m going to go meet him now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You get the others?”
“Mr. Faran and Mr. Dulare, yes, sir. I’m trying to reach Mr. Simms and Mr. Walters now.”
“When they get here,” Parker said, “tell them to wait, until either Lozini or I get back.”
“Yes, sir.”
Parker went outside and around to the rear of the house, where a four-car garage stood next to the tennis court. Only two spaces inside it were occupied, one by a tan Mercedes-Benz sedan and the other by a red Corvette. The keys were in both cars, and Parker chose the Mercedes because it was likelier to be associated with Lozini in Shevelly’s mind. He drove it out to the Belt Highway, went up the ramp, and stayed at forty in the right lane until he saw the maroon Buick Riviera go by. He hung well back, watching the other traffic, and could see no sign that Shevelly was being followed, so finally he accelerated until he was less than a car length behind the tight-clenched rear end of the Riviera, and then tapped the horn until he saw Shevelly’s head move as the man checked his rear-view mirror.
All right; Shevelly would recognize the car and would now know that he had been met. Since they were both in the left lane, Parker eased over into the middle and accelerated past Shevelly, glancing at him on the way by, seeing the strain in the man’s face and posture.
The Mercedes was a strong and graceful animal, more bull than horse. It was powerful and responsive, but there was no softness or leniency anywhere in the controls. It would be a good car if you wanted to leave a place fast.
Sunday afternoon traffic on the highway was moderate, mostly slower drivers with no sense of urgency, and leaving enough gaps so that it was possible to get through them at any speed you might want. Parker pushed it for a while, to see how good Shevelly was, but when the Buick began to lag far back, he slowed again and took an off-ramp at random, turning right on the local street, toward the center of town.
This was a lower-middle-income section, small houses set three or four feet apart, mostly with enclosed front porches, many with false-brick sheeting over the original clapboard. Parker made half a dozen turns in a maze of narrow side streets before being convinced that Shevelly wasn’t being followed, and then went looking for the right place to stop.
He found it right away, a business block lined with small stores, all of them closed on Sunday: a dry cleaner’s, a meat market, a record store, shops like that. Traffic here was almost nonexistent, and only three cars were parked at the curbs along the whole block.
Parker stopped in front of a children’s clothing store, and Shevelly pulled in behind him. Parker waited where he was, and after half a minute Shevelly got out of the Riviera, came hesitantly forward, and slid into the front seat of the Mercedes next to Parker. “You’ve got Al’s car,” he said.
“So you’d recognize it.”
”Al was a friend of mine,” Shevelly said. He seemed very intense about it.
So they’d told him Lozini was dead. It was a surprise he’d carry messages for them after that, but maybe he figured the only thing to do was line up with the winners. Parker himself had nothing to say about Lozini, so he said, “You have some sort of message for me.”
“Right.” Shevelly reached into his jacket pocket, and Parker showed him a pistol. Shevelly froze, then said, “It’s all right. I’m taking a package out.”
“Slow.”
“Very slow.”
Being very slow, Shevelly withdrew his hand from his pocket, bringing with it a small white box. “This is it,” he said, and extended it toward Parker.
Parker still had the pistol in his hand. “You open it,” he said.
Shevelly considered, then nodded. He took the top off the box, and showed Parker what was inside it.
Parker looked at the finger. The first knuckle was bent slightly, so that the finger seemed to be calm, at ease, resting. But at the other end were small clots of dark blood, and lighter smears of blood on the cotton gauze.
Shevelly said, “Your friend is alive. This is the proof.”
Parker looked at him and waited.
Shevelly seemed uncomfortable now, but to be pushing himself through the scene out of some inner conviction or determination. Almost as though he had a personal grudge against Parker. “The deal is,” he said, “that you come to Buenadella’s. That’s where Green is. They’ve got him in bed there, and they called a doctor. You come there by noon tomorrow, you can have your money, and you can take Green away with you. Buenadella will supply the ambulance to take him wherever you want out of town. Even two or three hundred miles from here.”
Parker glanced at the finger. “That’s no proof of anything,” he said.
“If you don’t get to Buenadella’s by noon tomorrow,” Shevelly said, “they’ll send you another finger. And another finger every day after that, and then toes. To prove he’s still alive, and not a decomposing body.”
“And if I go there by tomorrow I get him and the money both, and an ambulance to take him away in.”
“That’s right.”
Parker said, “Do you believe
that, Shevelly?”
“He’s alive,” Shevelly said. “I saw him, he doesn’t look good, but he’s alive.”
“The deal is Buenadella’s way of doing things,” Parker said, “but Buenadella isn’t in charge any more.” He gestured with the pistol at the finger in the white box. “Calesian’s running things now.”
“It was a stupid thing to kill Al Lozini,” Shevelly said.
Parker frowned at him, looking at the coldly angry face. “Oh. They told you I did that, huh?”
Shevelly had nothing to say. Parker, studying him, saw there was no point arguing with him, and no longer possible to either trust him or make use of him. He gestured with the pistol toward Shevelly, saying, “Get out of the car.”
“What?”
“Just get out. Leave the door open, back away to the sidewalk, keep facing me.”
Shevelly frowned. “What for?”
“I take precautions. Do it.”
Puzzled, Shevelly opened the door and climbed out onto the thin grass next to the curb. He took a step to the sidewalk and turned around to face the car again.
Parker leaned far to the right, aiming the pistol out at arm’s length in front of him, the line of the barrel sighted on Shevelly’s head. Shevelly read his intention and suddenly thrust his hands out protectively in front of himself, shouting, “I’m only the messenger!”
“Now you’re the message,” Parker told him, and shot him.
Thirty-two
Nathan Simms did dogged laps in the pool out behind his house. At his age it was hard to keep in shape, to trim away those fat rolls at the sides of the waist, to keep the belly from hanging out as though he had swallowed a soft basketball, to keep from panting like a walrus after making love to Donna. Swimming was supposed to be good for all that, wind and belly and spare tire, so whenever the weather was at all good enough Simms was in the pool, exhausting himself, plodding earnestly from end to end, keeping track in his head of the number of laps he had done, and from time to time lying like a discarded doll on the hot concrete beside the pool, listening to his heart drum while he waited for strength to go on.
Elaine came out, shielding her eyes from the sun like an Indian looking for cavalry. It had been ten years or more since she’d made any effort to keep herself in shape, and now she was a dumpy woman with bad digestion and a perpetual manner of ill-treatment. “Phone, Nate,” she called, managing to imply by her tone of voice that the phone call was frivolous and that it had interrupted something very important that she had been doing.
Simms was grateful for any excuse to stop the endless back-and-forth swimming. He churned laboriously to the steps, and by the time he got out of the pool Elaine had already disappeared back into the house. He was grateful for that too; Elaine’s presence, the last few years, grated on him like an old bedsore. Dripping, he padded into the house and used the wall phone in the kitchen. “Hello?”
It was Harold, Al Lozini’s houseman. “Mr. Lozini wants you to come over right away.”
Now what? A wooden ball of apprehension formed high on Simms’ stomach. “I’ll leave right now,” he said, and hung up, and went upstairs to his bedroom to dress. Putting on plum-colored slacks, brown suede high-top shoes, a white turtleneck shirt and a madras jacket, he thought about last night’s meeting with Dutch. Had a contract really been put out on Parker and Green, were they dead now? Had something gone wrong, did Al know the whole truth all of a sudden?
These last few days were grinding him down. He wished it was all over, that the dust was settled and he was already comfortable and safe at the new plateau, with more money and more power and more to offer Donna.
He drove across town to Lozini’s house and was met by the houseman. Simms said, “Mr. Lozini in his office?”
“He isn’t here yet, Mr. Simms. Would you wait in the living room?”
“Not here? Where is he?”
“He went out this morning. He’s supposed to be back pretty soon.”
That wasn’t satisfactory, but Simms could see it was the only answer he was going to get, so he gave an irritated shrug and went on into the living room, where he found Frank Faran standing by the window, swirling a colorless drink in a tall glass. A bit of lime in the drink suggested it was probably a vodka-tonic.
Faran turned and gave Simms his professional smile and a salute with the glass. “How de do, Nate. Your hair’s wet.”
“I was in the pool.”
“Harold!” Faran shouted. When the houseman appeared in the doorway, Faran gestured to him, saying to Simms, “Have a drink.”
“No, thanks,” Simms said. He was worrying about the meeting, the reason for it, and he wanted to ask Faran as soon as they were alone. But then he suddenly thought that a drink might calm him, and he said, “Wait. All right. I’ll have one of those.”
Holding the glass up, Faran said doubtfully, “It’s made with rum.”
“All right. No, vodka. No, wait, I’ll try the rum.”
The houseman left, and Faran grinned at Simms, saying, “You seem nervous, Nate. Trouble at home?”
“I’m fine,” Simms said. “What’s this meeting all about, anyway?”
Faran shrugged. “Beats me. Probably something with that Parker and Green.”
“I wish to Christ those two had never showed up.”
“Amen,” Faran said, and Jack Walters waddled in, looking absurd in a short-sleeved white shirt open at the collar and a pair of trousers left over from some suit. A balled-up handkerchief was in his right hand, and when he lifted it to pat his damp forehead, he made it look as though he’d never attempted that particular movement before in his life and was finding it very unnatural to his body. “Good afternoon,” he said.
“You look hot,” Faran told him. “When Harold gets back, get yourself a drink.”
“No, thank you. Where’s Al?”
“Out somewhere. We’re supposed to wait.”
Simms said to Walters, “Jack, do you know what this is all about?”
“No idea.”
The houseman brought the drink and Simms took it, while Faran made cheerful small talk with Walters. They were all standing, like an underattended cocktail party. Simms tried the rum and tonic and found it sweeter than he would have guessed, but not cloying. He lowered the glass, and discovered with astonishment that he’d downed half the drink.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and put the glass on an end table. But as he was about to leave the room Ernie Dulare walked in, and he changed his mind again.
Dulare ran the important gambling concessions in town, everything except Simms’ own stepchild, policy. A tall, smooth, self-contained man in his fifties, he usually dressed in casual jackets and no tie, and his frequent trips to Las Vegas and the Caribbean had given him a deeper and glossier tan than was possible for people limited to the summer sun of Tyler. He had what Simms thought of as a radio-announcer’s voice, smooth but with a kind of mellifluous gravel in it. His presence always made Simms very nervous, for no rational reason.
There were hellos back and forth, through which Simms waited impatiently, until he could say, as though casually, “Ernie, what’s this meeting all about, do you know?”
“No idea,” Dulare said. His ignorance didn’t seem to bother him. “I got a call, and I came. I haven’t seen Al for quite some time. Where is he?”
“Due back pretty soon,” Faran said.
“Excuse me,” Simms said, and went out to use the phone in the front hall, but Dulare’s bodyguards were there, two burly men in pastel jackets, talking pro football with one another.
The bodyguards were, so far as Simms knew, Ernie Dulare’s only affectation. Nobody traveled like that any more, nobody had to. Even Al Lozini didn’t cart bodyguards around with him wherever he went. But Dulare, who did a lot of traveling and hosted a lot of parties and spent a lot of time in public, never made a move without his two sluggers. There was no need for them, but Dulare apparently liked the idea of them; like a professional gunslin
ger in the Old West having pearl-handled revolvers even though a normal grip was safer and less likely to draw the wrong kind of attention.
Well. With the bodyguards in the hall, Simms went in search of another phone. He heard faint movement sounds from upstairs; probably Mrs. Lozini, and her resident married daughter, whose husband was in prison on check-kiting charges. It had been a first offense and he would have gotten off with probation if he hadn’t been an in-law of Al Lozini; the judge had gone out of his way to demonstrate that he hadn’t been bought.
There was a phone in the library, a room full of magazines and religious books. Simms called Donna, and when she answered, her voice clear and happy, he found himself smiling at the phone. “Hi, honey,” he said. “It’s me.”
“Well, hi.” He could visualize her in her yellow and red kitchen, leaning against the wall by the phone, one ankle crossed over the other. “Long time no see, stranger.”
“You know how things are sometimes,” he said. “Listen, I’m in a meeting now, but why don’t I come over as soon as it breaks?”
“Sure, honey. How long?”
”I don’t know. We’re waiting for Mr. Lozini now. It shouldn’t be too long, and I’ll call you the second it’s over.”
“Just come on when you can,” she said. “I’ll be here.”
She likes me, Simms thought, and felt warmth spreading through his chest. “You’re a sweet girl,” he said.
She laughed. She really did like him. “Don’t be too long,” she said.
“I won’t.”
He hung up and went back through the hall to the living room. On the way by, the bodyguards gave him flat incurious glances. In the living room, Dulare and Walters and Faran were standing in a group near the window, talking. Dulare was just finishing Simms’ drink.
Thirty-three
When Parker got back to Lozini’s house, two burly men in the front hall stopped their conversation to look at him. One said, “You looking for somebody, friend?”
Parker glanced at them. “Which one brought the army? Not Faran, not Simms, not Walters. You’re with Dulare.”
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