Backflash. Part 17

He switched off his headlights as he crossed the railroad tracks, and ahead he saw the glow of some other light. He stopped in the clearing, got out of the Lexus, and the light came from Hanzen's boat, still beached up onto the sh.o.r.e. A not-very-bright light was on in the cabin, and the cabin door was open, facing the river.

Parker didn't get into the boat; he was too tired to climb over the side. He held the Python in his right hand and walked down beside the boat until the water was ankle-deep, cold inside his shoes, where he could look back in at the cabin, and Hanzen was in there. He was awake and miserable, hunched over his battery lantern. He'd tied a towel under his jaw and over the top of his head, like somebody in a comic strip with a toothache. He sensed Parker, and looked at him with watery eyes. "Now what?" he said. His speech was mushy.

Parker said, "I came to tell you, your problems are over after all."

7.

Driving north toward Albany on the Taconic Parkway, Parker watched both dawn and a heavy cloud cover move in from the west. He drove with the windows open, for the rush of air to keep him awake.

One more detail, and it was over. He'd take a motel room, sleep the day and night away, not try to get back to Claire until tomorrow.

Howell should never have given Cathman Parker's name and phone number. When he'd done it, of course, Howell hadn't known he'd soon be dead, unable to keep control of what was going on. Still, he shouldn't have exposed Parker this way.

Before Claire, it was simpler. Then, there was no phone number that would reach Parker, no "address" where you could put your hand and touch him. It was harder now to stay remote, but it could still be done. It was just more work, that's all.

North, and then west, over the Hudson toward Albany and the gray day. It was after six, and there was starting to be traffic, early-morning workers. Once Parker left highway to drive on city streets, there were a few school buses.

Delmar was still mostly asleep. The supermarket where he'd left the Subaru when he'd visited Cathman at home that one time was not yet open, and the blacktop expanse of its parking lot was empty. One of the few houses in the neighborhood with lights gleaming inside the windows was Cathman's, both upstairs and down. And in the next block, parked on the right side of the street in front of a two-family house, was the pickup truck.

Parker drove on another half block, looking at the pickup in his rearview mirror, and there was no question. He stopped the Lexus, rolled up its windows, locked it, and walked back to the pickup.

It had some new dents and scratches on it. There was a rental company decal just under the right headlight, like a teardrop. The guy had gone away without locking the truck, and when Parker opened the driver's door to look inside there was a little dried blood on the seatback; not a lot, but some.

These trucks have storage s.p.a.ces behind the bench seats. Parker tilted the seatback forward, and looked at a shotgun. It too had a decal on it, like the truck, this one smaller, gold letters on black, on the side of the b.u.t.t, just above the base. It read "MONROVILLE P.D."

Monroville? Did he know that name? And what was this guy doing with a police department shotgun?

And how come he was visiting Cathman?

Parker didn't feel tired any more. He shut the pickup's door, and walked toward Cathman's house, number 437.

8.

As before, shades were drawn over the windows of the enclosed porch downstairs and the front windows above. Light gleamed behind the shades, upstairs and down.

Parker took the same route in as when he'd come here wearing the utility company jacket. This time, it was early morning, n.o.body around, no traffic on this residential side street, so he just walked forward as though he belonged here. With the shades drawn in the house, n.o.body could watch the outside without shifting a shade, making a movement that he would see.

The kitchen door was locked again, and the lock still didn't matter. He went through it, and then stopped to listen. Nothing; no sound anywhere.

Slowly he moved through the house. Three lamps burned in the living room, but no one was there. Two magazines and a newspaper lay messily beside one armchair.

Parker continued on, checked the enclosed porch, and the entire downstairs was empty. The staircase leading up was dark, but light shone around the corner up there. He held the Python across his chest and went up sideways, slowly. The stairs were carpeted, and though the carpet was worn the steps didn't squeak.

There was a short upstairs hall, with doorways off it, none of the doors closed. Two of the rooms showed light, and from his last time here he knew the one on the left was Cathman's bedroom, and the one at the end was his office.

The dark room on the right was empty, and so was its closet. Cathman himself was in his bedroom, in bed, asleep, curled up on his side, frowning. The ceiling light and a bedside lamp were both lit. Parker silently crossed the room and checked the closet, and no one was hiding there.

No one else was upstairs at all. Parker came last to the office, and it was empty, too, and where the h.e.l.l was the guy from the pickup truck? It made sense he was linked to Cathman some way, that had made sense from the time he showed up at the cottages, and it made even more sense when his pickup was parked a block from here. But Cathman is sleeping with his lights on, and there's n.o.body else around, so something in the equation doesn't make sense after all.

The last time Parker had been in this house the office had been the neatest room in it, as though Cathman were demonstrating his professionalism to himself, convincing himself he deserved a hearing and respect and a job. This time, three or four sheets of lined paper were askew on the desk, covered with handwriting in black ink, with a lot of editing and second thoughts.

What's with Cathman now? Why was he afraid to sleep in the dark? What idea is he trying so hard to express?

Standing over the desk, Python in right hand, Parker moved the sheets around with his left index finger. The writing was very neat and legible, a bureaucrat's penmanship, but there were a lot of crossings-out and inserted additions. Numbers in circles were at the top left of each page. Parker picked up the page marked "1" and read: "Gambling is not only a vice itself, but is an attraction to other vice. Theft, prost.i.tution, usury, drug dealing and more, all follow in gambling's train."

Oh; it was his dead horse again, still being beaten. Parker was about to put the page back down on the desk, but something tugged at his attention, and he skimmed the page to the bottom, then went on to page 2, and began to see that this was more than just the dead horse, more than just Cathman's usual whine. This time, he was building toward something, some point, some deal...

"Knowing the dangers, seeing those dangers ignored by the elected officials around me, believing it was my duty to expose the dangers and give the people of the State of New York the opportunity to choose for themselves what path they might take, I have, for some time, cultivated contacts with certain underworld characters. I felt very out of place among these people, but I knew it was my duty to stay with them. I was convinced that the presence of so much cash money on that gambling ship, so large and obvious and available, would have to attract criminals, as bees are attracted to the honey pot. And now we see I was right."

This was it, this was coming to the point at last. There'd always been something wrong about Cathman, something that didn't ring true, and it was tied up with his fixation on gambling. And now Parker himself had made an appearance in this diatribe, along with Marshall Howell, and the others, all of them certain underworld characters. And all to what purpose?

Parker read on. More pounding on the dead horse, more self-congratulation. Parker skimmed to the bottom, and moved on to page 3, and midway down it he read: "My recent contacts with career criminals have made it possible for me to be of very material a.s.sistance in capturing the gang involved in the crime and also in recovering at least part of the stolen money. In return for my a.s.sistance, which could be obtained nowhere else, and which I am offering freely and completely, I would expect proper publicity for my contribution to the solution of this crime. That publicity must include my reasons for having sought out these criminals in the first place, which is my conviction that gambling inevitably brings crime in its wake. I would need the opportunity to make these views widely known to the public. I would insist on at least one press conference..."

Insane. The son of a b.i.t.c.h is insane. The dead horse is riding him. He's so determined to prove that gambling leads to crime that he's got to rig the crime. He went out to find people to commit the crime for him; first Howell, then Parker. Point them at the ship, give them every bit of help they want, so after they do their job he can say, "See? I was right. Gambling led to the robbery, so shut down the gambling ship. And listen to me from now on, don't shunt me off into retirement, as though I was old and useless and not valuable any more."

There was no way to make that fly. Was he so far gone into his own dreams, his own fantasy, that he didn't see it couldn't work?

Does Cathman really believe he can tell the law he knows details about a robbery, but he won't give them over unless he gets a press conference? If he clams up, that's already a crime. He'll have no choice, once he sends this G.o.ddam manifesto to whoever he's going to send it to the governor, probably, being the megalomaniac lunatic he is he'll have no choice but to tell the law everything he knows.

And everything he knows is Parker.

"-at the tone seven-thirty. Expect high clouds today, seasonable temperatures..."

Cathman's radio alarm clock. It went on, talking about this and that, and soon it would tell Cathman his designer robbery had come off according to plan. Time he should type up that letter neat and send it out.

Along with what? What else would Cathman have to give? Parker's name and phone number written down somewhere. Maybe a diary? How much of his own involvement with the heist was he figuring to admit? (They'd get the whole thing out of him in five minutes, which he wouldn't be likely to realize.) Cathman is a danger and an irritation and a lunatic, but he has to be talked to, for just a little while, to make sure all of the danger and all of the lunacy is known about. What else are Cathman and his idle hands up to?

Parker folded the four pages, folded them again, put them in his left hip pocket. Then he picked up the Python from the desk and walked down the hall and stopped in the bedroom doorway.

Cathman lay on his back now, pajama'd arms over the covers, still frowning as he stared at the ceiling. He didn't notice Parker right away, and when the excited news announcer began the story of last night's robbery all he did was close his eyes, as though the effort to make that robbery happen had merely left him exhausted.

"Turn it off," Parker said.

Cathman's eyes snapped open. He stared at Parker in terror. He didn't move.

Parker pointed the Python at the radio. "Turn it off or I shoot it off."

Cathman blinked at the gun, at Parker's face, at the radio. At last he hunched himself up onto his left elbow and reached over to shut it off. Then he moved upward in the bed so he could slump with his back against the headboard. He looked dull, weary, as though his sleep had not been restful. He said, "I didn't know you'd come here. I didn't think you'd actually give me the money."

Parker almost laughed at him. "Give you the money? I just read your confession."

"My con-? Oh. That's not a confession."

"The cops will think it is."

Cathman sat up straighter, smoothing the covers with his hands, looking at Parker more carefully. He had finally realized his survival was at issue here. He said, "You don't think I intend to mail that, do you?"

"With copies to the media."

"Certainly not," Cathman said. He was a bureaucrat, he lied effortlessly. He said, "It occurred to me, there was a remote possibility you people might get caught, and then, what if you implicated me? In that case, I had that letter to show, the letter I would have said I was just about to mail."

"What else-" Parker said, and too late he saw Cathman's eyes shift, and something solid shut down his brain.

9.

Voices, far away, down a yellow tunnel, then rushing forward: "All I want is the money."

"Why would I know where any-"

"You ran this thing! It's your rob-!"

"I never did! I'm not a thief!"

"He's here. Look, look at him, he's here."

Handcuffs, behind back. Pain, in small mean lightning bolts, in the back of the head.

"I didn't know he was coming here, I never thought he-"

"I've been watching. You think you can lie to me? I've watched this house. He was here before, dressed like from the electric company, he spent hours here-"

"I never expected him to-"

"I'm thinking, who is this guy? He's not from the electric company, breaking in, staying hours."

"He wasn't supposed to-"

"You came home. You talked with him."

"He was in my-"

"You drank wine with him!"

Lying on the floor. Legs free. That idiot Cathman silent now. This one isn't connected to Cathman after all, he was following him, watching him. Why?

"I didn't hear everything you said, I came over after you came home, I listened at the side window. You called him Parker and he said he needed police ID and there was something about an a.s.semblyman and you asked him when he was going to commit the robbery and he wouldn't tell you."

This one has been here all along, bird-d.o.g.g.i.ng, waiting for it to happen. Who the h.e.l.l is he? Where did he come from?

Cathman finally had his voice back: "You've still got it wrong. I'm afraid of that gun of yours, I won't pretend I'm not, but you're still wrong. I don't know where the money is. You'll have to ask him, if you didn't kill him."

"I didn't kill him, but let's wake him up. Go get a gla.s.s of water from the bathroom."

"I'm awake."

Parker rolled over onto his back, as much as he could with his hands cuffed behind him, and tried not to wince. When he moved, the pain in his head gave an extra little kick. He opened his eyes and squinted upward.

The guy was youngish, pudgy, thick-necked, in wrinkled chinos and a pale blue dress shirt; Parker had never seen him before in his life. His right ear was covered by a bulky makeshift bandage, what looked like a length of duct tape over several thicknesses of toilet paper. A red scar pointed to the bandage along his right cheekbone.

The biker back at the cottages had come very close, almost close enough. The.45 automatic slug does a lot of damage even on the near misses, and that's what this had been. The bullet sc.r.a.ped facial bone, took out an ear, and kept going.

Parker nodded at the bandage. "You got any ear left down in there?"

The guy looked surprised, and almost glad. "Are you wising off with me?"

"Tell him, Mr. Parker," Cathman said. "Tell him I have nothing to do with it."

The guy laughed. He enjoyed being in charge. "Oh, now he's mister, is he?" He held a little.38 revolver in his right hand, which he pointed at Parker as he said, "I bet, if I shoot you in the ankle, and then ask a question, you'll answer it. Whadaya think?"

"I think this is the wrong neighborhood for gunshots," Parker said. "I think it'll fill up with cops, and I don't think anybody in this room wants that. If you'd like to think with your brain instead of your gun, reach in my left hip pocket and read Cathman's confession."

That threw the guy off-stride. "His what?"

Cathman babbled, "It was a letter, I was never going to send it, I needed a-"

"Read it," Parker said. With difficulty, he rolled the other way. "Then we can talk."

The guy was cautious, and not completely an amateur. He came the long way around Parker, staying away from his feet, crouching down behind him, touched the barrel of the revolver to the back of his neck, and held it there while he pulled the folded pages out of his pocket. Then he stood and backed away to the doorway, where Parker could see him again.

Cathman said, "I have to go to the bathroom."

The guy was struggling to unfold the pages while not letting go of the gun or looking away from Parker. Distracted, he said, "Go on, go on."

Cathman, looking like a large sad child in his yellow and green striped pajamas, got out of the bed and padded barefoot into the connecting bathroom, while the guy got the pages open at last and started to read.

Parker rolled again and managed to sit up, then moved backward until he could lean against the foot of the bed. He looked around on the floor and didn't see the Python, so it was probably in the guy's pocket. He watched him read, and thought about how to deal with this situation.

'Jesus Christ." The guy had finished. He dropped the pages on the floor and looked at Parker and said, "He's a f.u.c.king lunatic."

"Yes, he is."