Comeback (22 page)

"It's a message. Come here in the light."

So he went back into the bathroom with her, where the light was brighter, and she said, "Eleven
p.m
. See it?"

"Shit," Ed said.

"He wants us to pick him up."

Ed looked shifty. She could tell he didn't like this idea. "He doesn't say where."

"Come on, Ed. Back at the motel."

"Not a chance," Ed decided. "You ready? Let's go eat."

They fought about it through dinner, leaning toward one another over their plates, Brenda hissing while Ed muttered. The waiters thought it was a lovers' quarrel, and gave them space.

Ed had all the arguments, and all Brenda had was persistence. He said, "We don't know who wrote that, even. It could have been George, and we walk right back into shit."

"It's Parker, and you know it," Brenda said. "And he expects us."

"If it was the other way around, he wouldn't come back for me, you can bet on it. And I wouldn't expect it."

"It isn't the other way around," Brenda said. 'You aren't him, you're you, and he knows we'll come back for him."

"Then it's
you
he's counting on, not me."

Brenda shrugged. "Okay."

"Brenda, he's got the whole fucking
state
looking for him, they've probably even got him by now.
And
, if they pick him up anywhere near that motel, they'll figure he was making a meet with us, and they'll wait, and we'll drive right into it."

"He won't get caught," Brenda said. "He'll be there at eleven, and so will we."

"He can't be sure we even got the message," Ed insisted. "That's a pretty weird delivery system."

"I checked out of the room," Brenda reminded him. "He can find that out, and then he'll know I got my stuff."

"We're not copping his goddam money,

Brenda," Ed told her. "We'll call him in a week or two, make a meet, give him his half."

"He wants to meet tonight," Brenda said. "So we'll be there."

"Why,
dammit? Why do a risk when we don't have to do a risk?"

"Because," Brenda said, "you'll meet him again. You'll work with him again. And he'll look at you, and what will he say? That's the stand-up guy came back for me? Or does he say, That's a guy I don't trust so much any more? What do you want him to say, Ed, next time you see each other?"

Ed leaned back, muttering to himself. After a minute, he shrugged, shook his head, and waved for the check.

The staff didn't think there was much hope for the relationship.

"I'll drive around the block twice," Ed told her, as they neared the neighborhood, "and if he doesn't show up, that's it."

"He doesn't know the
car,
Ed."

This was true. The car they had now was a black Honda from a side street near the restaurant where they'd had dinner. But Ed wasn't going to stop, and no argument. "I'm not gonna be a sitting duck," he said.

'There's a church, the next block, behind the motel," Brenda told him. "Drop me there, drive somewhere else, come back in five minutes."

Ed clearly didn't like it, but Brenda wasn't going to change her mind, so he said, "All right, five minutes. But if he isn't there, we go. We don't wait."

"Naturally," Brenda said. "He put down eleven o'clock. He isn't there at eleven o'clock, we did our part, we go away."

"Sense at last," Ed said, and stopped in front of the church.

The quick way to the main road and the motel was through the small graveyard beside the church. Brenda went the long way around the block, and slowed as she approached the long brick motel building, with half a dozen cars parked at intervals in front of it. Traffic moved on the avenue, but she was the only pedestrian, and there were no cars parked along the curb. Come on, Parker, she thought, don't make me a dunce. I go back to Ed without you, he'll crow all the way to Baltimore.

She went past the motel office, walking slowly, just walking her dog, but without the dog, on this main traffic road where nobody walked. The office door opened and closed behind her, and she thought, hell. Dammit, goddamit, Ed, will you drive by now, please?

The voice behind her was smooth and non-threatening: "Miss? Just a second. Miss?"

She turned, and the guy facing her was in plainclothes, but he was a cop, all right. Big and burly, with an open raincoat and that arrogant smile. She said, "Yes?"

"Detective Lew Calavecci," the burly man said, and flashed a badge from a leather folder. "City police."

Be polite, be a civilian, be not afraid. "Yes?"

"Could I see some ID, Miss?"

Be a civilian, know your rights. Polite but firm, she said, "Why?"

He grinned, suddenly changing, as though he'd just remembered a dirty joke. "Come on now," he said. "I showed you mine, you show me yours."

"Of course I could," she said, wondering if a civilian would get indignant now, or scared, or what, "but I don't see—"

"Yeah, you're it," Detective Lew Calavecci said, and grinned all over his face.

Ed, where are you? Drive
by,
Ed. She said, "It? What do you mean, it?"

"Three men and a woman," Calavecci said. "When we finally listened to those other clowns. And the woman came
back
here and checked out. Nobody expected that. You play a tough game."

Indignant: "I don't know what you—"

Calavecci brought handcuffs out of his raincoat pocket. "Let's just see your wrists," he said.

"But— I don't—"

"You could turn and run," Calavecci told her, "and I'd wing you. I'd like that, relieve my feelings a little. Because I'm alone here, nobody could say it was excess force."

"Detective, please, I don't—"

"I
need
you," he said, with sudden passion. "They relieved me, sent me home, but I can still make it all right. I've had a tough day, I lost some . . . But
this
makes up for it, I was right, I knew they'd come back. You'd come back. Put out your goddam
wrists."

"Lew!"

They both turned, and somebody was getting out of one of the cars parked nose-in along the front of the motel. "Lew, let me talk to you," he said, and straightened, and strode this way, and it was Parker.

Calavecci saw him, and his jaw dropped. "You! By God,
you're
a dead man!"

Calavecci dropped the handcuffs to the ground in his hurry to get at the gun in his shoulder holster. Parker was still too far away, but coming fast. Brenda lifted a leg, pulled off her shoe, and did a roundhouse right with it, the heel digging into the side of Calavecci's neck, missing the main veins but almost giving him a tracheotomy.

Calavecci yelled, slapping her away, yanking the shoe out of his neck. He threw the bloody shoe at her, gasping loudly, blood pumping over his collar, and he reached for his gun again as Parker got to him and put him down with two quick movements.

Brenda hopped around on one leg, getting the shoe back on, while Parker went to one knee and took Calavecci's wallet, badge and gun. Straightening, he said, "Where's Ed?"

Two cars had stopped out at the curb, wondering what was going on with the guy on the ground. Brenda said, "The church—"

Parker took her arm and hurried her away, back past the office, where the woman stood staring out, afraid to move. They went through the cemetery, dark and uneven but with just enough illumination from streetlights on both sides. Parker said, "Church. He's praying?"

"Probably," Brenda said.

As they came out to the next street, the Honda was just rolling down past the church. Brenda waved, and the Honda stopped, and they piled in, Brenda in front, Parker in back with the suitcases.

They drove down the street, and at the corner Ed turned right, away from the main road.

"We'll circle around," he said. "Then get out of here." He glanced in the mirror at Parker in the back seat. "You seen George?"

"Yes," Parker said.