Ричард Старк - Flashfire [= Parker]

“I’m an American citizen,” he told her, “but I was born in Ecuador. I don’t know if you saw my birth certificate.”

“That isn’t one of the things I can get at.”

“Well, you’ll see I was born in Quito of American parents. I’ve still got family down there, I’ve lived most of my life down there. The family’s in oil.”

“Banana oil,” she said. “Who is Roderick to you?”

“Nobody.”

“That’s why you were looking for his house? That’s why you walked to his house in the middle of the night?”

“Who says I walked to his house?”

“I do.”

He glanced at her shoes, which were medium-heel pumps, not much use on sand. “I just went for a walk,” he said.

“Coincidence, you headed straight for Roderick’s house.”

“Coincidence,” he agreed. “You say you’ve got problems with this Roderick, too.”

“Well, I didn’t have, until I started thinking about you and looking into who you really are. That led me to run the same thing on Roderick and he’s another guy out of a science-fiction movie, suddenly dropped onto the planet from the mother ship five or six months ago.”

“Why don’t you ask him about himself?”

“I don’t know the man, I didn’t handle the sale. We carried the house, but it was a different broker made the deal.” She sipped wine, put her glass down, leaned toward him. “Let me tell you what I know about Mr. Roderick,” she said.

“Go ahead.”

“He wanted a presence here on the cheap. There was a house nobody wanted because it should be a teardown, but he wanted it, and now he’s got it, and he isn’t doing anything with it.”

“No?”

“No. There’s a general contractor Mr. Roderick was going to hire, to do the renovation work. I called him this afternoon, and Mr. Roderick hasn’t got around to starting the work yet. Says he’s still dealing with his architect.”

“Maybe he is.”

“What architect? There’s nobody there. The place is empty. Nothing’s happening at all.”

“Architects are slow sometimes,” he said.

“Particularly when they don’t exist.” She finished the wine in her glass, looked at his, poured herself a second. Before drinking, she said, “Now you show up, and you want to know about Roderick, but you don’t want Roderick to know about you.”

“You watch too much television,” he told her.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “And I drink too much. And I worry too much. And I live with my mother and my sister. I’m divorced, and I don’t want that son of a bitch back, and I don’t need any other son of a bitch to take his place, in case you were wondering, but I want more than this .”

“Uh-huh.”

“I want more than driving obnoxious fat cats around to show them empty houses, fending off gropes from ninety-year-olds wearing white ascots — oh, yes, white ascots, and they’re all wonderful dancers — sitting at my goddam desk out there every day, waiting for my life when my life is over .”

“Now you’re watching too much daytime television,” he told her.

“I would if I didn’t have to work.” Her glass was empty again; she refilled it and said, “I look at you, and I say, what does this man want? He playacts to be somebody that belongs here, but he doesn’t belong here. And Roderick doesn’t belong here. So who are these people and what do they want?”

“You tell me,” Parker said.

“Palm Beach has only got one thing,” she told him. “Money.”

“Sun and sand,” he said. “Parties. Charity balls. Shopping on Worth Avenue.”

She laughed. “I’d like to see you shopping on Worth Avenue,” she said. “I really would. You could buy a white ascot.”

“I might.”

“Daniel — I’m going to call you Daniel, because I have to call you something, so, Daniel, what I need, to get out of here, to get a running jump on a new life, is money. And what you are here for, and what Roderick is here for, is money.”

“You want me to give you some money,” he suggested.

“Oh, Daniel,” she said, and shook her head. “Dan? No, Daniel. Daniel, I don’t want you to give me money. Do you really think I’m stupid? Do you really think I don’t know why you parked a block away and didn’t want to be seen with me in a public place?”

“Why’s that, Leslie?”

“Because if I’m a problem,” she said, and sat up straight, and looked evenly at him, “you intend to kill me.”

“Leslie,” he said, “while you’re watching all this television, I think you’ve also been smoking some weed.”

She brushed that aside. “I’m being serious,” she said. “I want to earn the money. Do I go to you, or do I go to Roderick? I’ve met you—”

“And Roderick isn’t here,” he pointed out. “At least you tell me he isn’t here.”

“So here’s what I’m telling you now,” she said. “Whatever you have in mind, robbery, I suppose, or maybe a kidnapping, kidnap one of these dowagers here, whatever it is, you need somebody who knows the territory.”

“You.”

“Why not me? I sell real estate, I’ve been in probably a third of the important houses around here, and I know the rest. I know the town, I can answer questions, and I can tell you what questions you’re forgetting to ask. Roderick doesn’t have anybody local, and I think you and Roderick are competitors, so if you have me you have an advantage over him.”

He watched her, thinking about what she was saying, who she was, what she wanted.

She gave him another level look; she didn’t show any nervousness at all now. “To even find Roderick,” she reminded him, “you had to come play that roundabout game with me. And all it did was make me suspicious. How many people do you want wondering about you?”

“None,” he said.

“It’s too late for none, but I can help you limit it to one.”

He picked up his glass and sipped from it. She watched him, and then said, “One thing. I’m not talking about sex.”

He looked at her. “I didn’t think you were.”

She said, “I find it a strain just to talk with you. I certainly don’t ever want to take my clothes off in front of you.”

“But you’re going to have to,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, I—”

“I mean, you’re going to have to now,” he said.

She stared at him, panic leaching through. “I can’t — I thought you—”

“Leslie,” he said, “I have to know if you’re wearing a wire.”

She gaped, trying to make sense of the words. “What?”

“A wire. I have to know. One way or another, Leslie, I have to know.”

“You mean—” She was blinking a lot, catching up with the situation. “You mean you think I could be taping you?”

“Come on, Leslie.”

“But — I wouldn’t, I don’t — honestly, no.”

“Now, Leslie. You stand up over there, and I’ll sit here, and you’ll show me whether or not you’re wearing a wire.”

“I’m not,” she said, her voice fainter.

“Good. Show.”

“And then what?”

“If you’re not wired, I leave here and walk back to my car, while you turn the lights off and lock the place. Tomorrow, you bring Linda another bottle of wine, and I’ll be in touch. Now, Leslie.”

She wasn’t wearing a wire.

Her last name was Mackenzie. The phone book gave her a listing on Utica Street in West Palm Beach. The reverse phone book also gave a listing for Laurel Simons at the same address.

Parker left the phone company building and drove the Jag across Flagler Bridge out of Palm Beach and through West Palm to the airport, where he left it in long-term parking and walked around the lot until he found a red Subaru Outback station wagon, a much less noticeable car than a yellow Jaguar convertible, in any neighborhood except Palm Beach. It had almost no dust on it, so it hadn’t been here long. Breaking into it, he hot-wired the ignition and drove to the exit, where he turned in the ticket he’d just picked up.