Dalesia said, "Parker, go back to your question. What does she want?"

McWhitney said, "She wants to know what happened to her guy."

"I don't think so," Parker said. "She knows Keenan is dead. She's not gonna be into revenge, or justice, or take care of your partner, or any of that. She's a pro. She's here because she wants something else."

Dalesia said, "Maybe she just wants to know what we're all up to."

McWhitney, growling again, said, "We all know what she wants. It's the same as ever. She wants Harbin."

They studied that. "The reward," Dalesia said. "It's still the reward. We're busy over here, and she's still working her agenda."

McWhitney said, "She thinks what's going on, we're protecting Harbin. We think Harbin is in the past, she thinks he's in the present."

Parker walked to the door, opened it, looked out, saw running lights now on the trucks streaming along the highway. He shut the door and said, "We can't have her here when we're working."

Dalesia looked at McWhitney, who nodded, then shrugged. "I always think," he said, "it's a waste to kill a good-looking woman." He shrugged again. "But we live in a wasteful world."

9.

The phone rang. Parker opened his eyes, and the LED readout on the bedside clock radio read 2:17. The red numbers also gave enough light so he could see the phone. He unhooked it, put it between pillow and ear while he looked around to be sure nothing had changed since he'd switched the lights out, and said, "Yes."

It was McWhitney's voice: "Your Sandra's here. She drew down on me. She wants a meet, the four of us. She says, don't bring a gun."

"Of course I'll bring a gun."

Sitting up, Parker kicked the crumpled newspapers away from the bed while he listened to McWhitney breathe and then say, "Hold on."

There were faint voices away from the phone in McWhitney's room, and then the clatter of the receiver being put down; and then a female voice, hoa.r.s.e and impatient, said, "If you carry it in your hand, I'll kill you. If you carry it in your pocket, what's the point?"

"I don't leave home without it."

"If you make me nervous," she said, "it won't be good."

He had nothing to say to that, and after a bit the receiver clattered again and then McWhitney said, "I gotta call Nick."

"I'll be there."

Parker walked down the line of green motel doors. Off to the right, the running lights on the highway had thinned out but still drew a yellow-white-red scarf across the throat of the night.

Ahead of him, a door opened. He paused, but it was Dalesia coming out. He saw Parker, grinned, and said, "The lady's taking things into her own hands."

"I don't need this," Parker said. Twenty-four hours from now, they would be waiting for the armored cars. No, Parker would be at the stop sign, waiting for Elaine Langen and the number of the truck they'd want.

"n.o.body needs it," Dalesia said, as they walked down the line together. "But it's what we got."

Dalesia knocked, and the door was opened by McWhitney. He was barefoot, wearing dark trousers with a white T-shirt hanging loose, and his expression was disgusted. "Do you believe this s.h.i.t?"

They entered, and the hard-faced blonde was seated at the round table, which she'd pulled back into the front corner opposite the door, leaving the hanging swag light to dangle over air. She wore black leather slacks and boots, a bright green high-neck sweater, and a black leather jacket with exaggerated shoulders. Her left hand was on the table, palm down. Her right hand held a pistol, loosely, pointed no-where, its b.u.t.t on the back of her left hand.

"Come in, gentlemen," she said. "I like you all over there."

Meaning the diagonally far corner of the room, straight back from the door. They went over and stood in a row, leaning their backs against the rear wall of the room, the bathroom door immediately to their left, and the bed beyond it.

McWhitney said, "Okay, we're all here. Just say it."

"I've got a mortgage," she said, "on a nice little house on the Cape. I'm helping to keep my friend's daughter in private school. I made good money with Roy Keenan, all in all, sometimes fat, sometimes thin, but now that's done."

Dalesia said, "You need another Roy Keenan."

"As a matter of fact," she said, "I was always better than he was, and we both knew it. The way the business works, it was better for him to be in front. I'll find another front man, that isn't the problem. The problem is, the current job. I need it for my cash flow, before I can move on to something else, but there's been too much time wasted on it."

McWhitney, surly and rebellious, said, "What the f.u.c.k do we care about your your problems for?" problems for?"

"You made my problems," she said. "That a.s.shole Harbin should have been in our kill jar weeks ago. There's no way for him to go that far out of sight and still be breathing. It's been obvious for a long time that one of you put him down and knows where the remains are, and that's all I need. I don't need to point any fingers, I just need to get this job off the books."

Parker said, "Why should we deal with you?"

"Because I've got dossiers on you," she said. Pointing at McWhitney, she said, "I can give the law very good reasons to dig around in that cellar of yours." To the others she said, "I don't have convictable stuff on either of you, but I have interesting interesting stuff, and I have every one of you in the room where Michael Harbin was last seen alive. I'm pretty sure you were all in that room to plan a robbery that then didn't happen, for whatever reason, and I know d.a.m.n well you're all hanging around in this place because you've got some other robbery worked out." stuff, and I have every one of you in the room where Michael Harbin was last seen alive. I'm pretty sure you were all in that room to plan a robbery that then didn't happen, for whatever reason, and I know d.a.m.n well you're all hanging around in this place because you've got some other robbery worked out."

She lifted the gun hand and waved it, not threatening but betraying impatience, rubbing away their misconceptions. "I don't give a s.h.i.t what crimes you people get up to," she said. "I know you're wide boys, and I want nothing to do with your play, including informing on you. When I saw yesterday, you two in the pickup truck, that you'd made me, I knew it was time to come talk."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," McWhitney said.

She said, "If you cold-shoulder me tonight, I'll walk away and I'll eat the loss, and I hate hate to walk away from time invested with no return. I hate it so much I'll turn in those dossiers just out of spite. And if you think you can take me down, my friend has the dossiers and you'll never find her, and she'll know what to do with them the day I don't phone in." to walk away from time invested with no return. I hate it so much I'll turn in those dossiers just out of spite. And if you think you can take me down, my friend has the dossiers and you'll never find her, and she'll know what to do with them the day I don't phone in."

Parker said, "To find a d.y.k.e on Cape Cod with a daughter in private school and a canary-yellow-haired roommate would not be impossible."

Quietly, Dalesia said, "There's three of us and one of her and it's a small room."

"No, f.u.c.k that," McWhitney said. "Wait a minute, I'm trying to think." But then he frowned at the woman and said, "Just to satisfy my curiosity, do you know why Harbin was wired?"

Parker said, "What difference does that make?"

"I just want to know."

"So that's what happened," she said. "Somebody did have a handle on him, and you people found the wire."

Disappointed, McWhitney said, "But you don't know why it was there."

"No, I get it," she said. "I didn't know he had it on, but it makes sense." She gestured a little with the gun. "The state reward money on Harbin is for killing a trooper during the commission of a crime. The crime was smuggling, off the Jersey coast."

"Drugs," Dalesia said.

She nodded. "That's what was coming in, from Central America, that's what made it state. What made it federal was, what was going out was guns. You know, down there the rebels and the drug guys are all mixed together."

Parker said, "That doesn't add up. If they wired him, they know where he is, so how can there be reward money out on him?"

"One of the things that helps guys like you," she said, "is, the law is a lot of little competing offices. Turf battles. So one bunch got hold of Harbin, and for a while they'd rather run him than turn him in. They They don't get the reward. And they know he's got to do what they want for as long as they let him walk around loose. Like wear a wire whenever there's a meet." don't get the reward. And they know he's got to do what they want for as long as they let him walk around loose. Like wear a wire whenever there's a meet."

"Turns out, they didn't do him any favors," McWhitney said. "Let me make you a suggestion. You go away for two days, just two days."

"No," she said.

Parker said to McWhitney, "Why? What are you offering?"

"Take it easy," McWhitney told him, and turned back to the woman. "It happens," he said, "I know where Harbin is." Hastily he added, "I didn't kill him, I just want you to know that. It doesn't matter, but I just want you to know."

"Noted," she said. Clearly, to her it really didn't matter.

"But I know," McWhitney went on, "where he is. Take a powder out of here, lady, you're too distracting. Give me a place to reach you, day after tomorrow, I'll take you to where Harbin is. I'll point and say there, there, and then you go your way and I go mine." and then you go your way and I go mine."

The woman considered, then shook her head. "You just want two days to try to find my friend."

Parker said, "No, McWhitney's right. We're busy. We're too busy to go looking anywhere tomorrow or the next day. But after that, we got all the time in the world."

Dalesia said, "Add two days to your cost-time equation. A small percentage, right?"

Again she thought it over, and this time she frowned at McWhitney and said, "The body's available. It isn't burned or at the bottom of the ocean."

"There's probably some acid damage," said McWhitney.

She shook her head. "You and your acid. You going back to that bar, when you're done here?"

"Oh, yeah."

She got to her feet. "I'll get in touch," she said. "Don't come outside for a few minutes." And she walked sideways to the door, watching their hands, and left.

McWhitney sighed. "I sure hope it doesn't come down to her or me," he said. "I think I'd lose."

10.

The next day was Friday, and that night the bank would move, so the bank people would have the whole weekend to get everything into its new position. Which meant that today Parker and Dalesia and McWhitney would also make their move.

When the three went out for lunch in Dalesia's Audi early that afternoon, there were two guys in warmup jackets closing the pool, disa.s.sembling the ladders and the board while the clear water glinted a goodbye at the sunless white sky. When they came back, a little before three in the afternoon, a gray cover like a trampoline, its segments st.i.tched together with thick seams, spread across the rectangle of the pool inside its low chain-link fence, and around back a Honda Accord, the same shade of gray as the pool cover, stood just beyond the rented Dodge.

Dalesia drove past it, toward his own room, and Parker saw that there was someone seated at the wheel of the Honda: Wendy Beckham. "Something," he said.

Dalesia looked at his rearview mirror. "Something?"

"Jake's sister. I'll see what it is."

Dalesia parked, and they got out, McWhitney saying, "I don't want any more problems."

"I'll tell her," Parker said.

Dalesia said, "We'll still be ready to go in ten minutes, right?"

"If not, I'll call your room."

McWhitney said, "I'm starting to wipe my room down now, and when I'm done, I want to go. I don't want to stand around with my hands in my pockets, afraid to leave a print somewhere."

"I'll see what she wants," Parker said, and went away from them, over to where Wendy Beckham had gotten out of her car and stood now on the concrete walk in front of it. She was looking past him at the other two, now going into their rooms, and she looked worried.

Parker said, "A message from Jake?"

"A message from me, me," she said, and now instead of worried she looked angry. "Jake finally told me what's going on."

"That was stupid," Parker said. "What did he do that for?"

"Because he noticed, very late in the day," she said, "that he's the one gonna be left holding the bag."

He said, "You want to talk out here, or in the room?"

"Out here," she said.

"Because . . ."

"Because I'm here to tell you, the deal's off."

He frowned at her. "What deal's off?"

"The robbery," she said. "The armored car with all the cash from the bank. The bank, G.o.d help us, that Jake used to work work for. You aren't going to rob it. You aren't going to take it." for. You aren't going to rob it. You aren't going to take it."

He said, "Why not?"

"Because you're all staying here, here, at Jake's motel." She was really very angry. "He's still the same irresponsible clown he always was," she told him. "You people will go, you'll get away with it or you'll be killed by the guards in the armored car, but whatever happens to you people, at Jake's motel." She was really very angry. "He's still the same irresponsible clown he always was," she told him. "You people will go, you'll get away with it or you'll be killed by the guards in the armored car, but whatever happens to you people, he's he's in trouble again." in trouble again."

"I don't see that," Parker said. "We aren't registered here, under any names at all."

"Don't you think the maids will talk?" she demanded. "Don't you think the people that work here already know there's something funny going on? Three guys staying here without management knowing about it, three guys disappear, all of a sudden three guys rob an armored car. No, they won't catch up with you, you, but how long will it take them to get but how long will it take them to get here here?"

"Doesn't mean anything," Parker said. "They might even think Jake had something to do with it, because he's an ex-con, but every ex-con in this part of the state will be under suspicion and so what? Jake's in the hospital, legitimately in the hospital. He doesn't know anything about anything. They can suspect whatever they want, but how are they gonna prove anything?"

"You're here, in his motel."

"He doesn't know a thing about it. Somebody pulled a fast one while he was away in the hospital. Besides, it isn't his his motel, he's on staff here, he's an a.s.sistant manager." motel, he's on staff here, he's an a.s.sistant manager."