Ричард Старк - Flashfire [= Parker]

“But you don’t care if I live or die,” she said, “do you?”

“I’d rather you were dead,” he said.

She thought about that. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

“Because of the bargaining chip.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a little more truthful than I’m ready for,” she said.

He shrugged.

She said, “Is there a bathroom up here?”

He pointed at the door in the rear wall, to the left of the stairs. “No window, it’s vented.”

“I wasn’t planning to call for help or anything,” she said, and got to her feet and went away to the bathroom.

While she was gone, he thought it over. Should he wait until later, then try to get down through that door at the foot of the stairs? No; they knew he was here, and they didn’t trust him, and they’d have the door covered with all kinds of traps, things to make noise, alarms going off. On the other hand, every hour that he kept still his body improved a little more. In the morning, he’d be better able to deal with them.

But the original plan was dead. And Leslie, who’d been a help before this, was now no help at all. Now she was trouble.

She came back out of the bathroom and came over to sit in a chair near him. She looked very solemn, as though she’d made an oath of some kind in the bathroom. She said, “I’ve never been around anything like this before.”

“I know that.”

“The idea of killing somebody, that doesn’t bother you.”

He waited.

“It does bother me,” she said, “but that’s all right. I got us into a hard place, and I know I did. I don’t think they’ll just let me go.”

“No.”

“I think tomorrow,” she said, “they’ll decide to kill us both, once they’ve talked it over together.”

“Probably.”

“If it was just me, I wouldn’t have a chance. If it was just you, without me, I think you would stand a chance.”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t want to get in the way anymore,” she said. “Whatever you say to do, I’ll do. If it’s just sit down and shut up, I’ll sit down and shut up. If I can do anything to help, I’ll do it.”

He said, “That way, through that other door there, is the unfinished part of the attic. I didn’t get a chance to look it over. I want to know about windows, and I want something soft between me and the floor, so I can sleep without getting too stiff.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and was gone almost ten minutes, and came back dragging a large gray canvas painters’ tarpaulin. “Small windows, with bars,” she said. “Decorative bars, but bars. There’s this, and there’s part of a roll of pink insulation. I thought we could put the insulation on the floor and part of the tarp on top of it, and put the rest of the tarp over us.”

“Good,” he said.

While she was gone this time, he went on all fours to the nearest chair and climbed it to his feet. The few hours of sleep had stiffened him, more than he liked to think about. He didn’t have time for the body to heal; it had to come along no matter what.

She came in with the roll of insulation, pulling it along, and they worked together to put down four strips of it, pink side down, shiny paper side up. Then they stretched the middle section of the tarp over it, with extra material on both sides to pull over them.

She said, “Do you want the light on or off?”

“I’m going to sleep,” he said.

The laugh she gave had hysteria in it. “Are you kidding? In the spot we’re in, and in the condition you’re in, who’s going to do anything except sleep? I’ll turn off the light.”

She said, “What’s Claire like?”

“No, Leslie.”

But she was following her own line of thought, answering her own question. “I think she’s very beautiful and very self-sufficient. Neither of you leans on the other, you both stand up straight.”

“Sure,” he said.

She considered him. “I need somebody ... a little different,” she decided.

He shook his head. “You don’t need anybody, Leslie.”

She surprised him by blushing. She turned away, then turned back and smiled sheepishly and said, “I’d like to need somebody. I keep thinking, if I find the right guy, I’ll need him.”

“Could be.”

“That’s how it is with you and Claire, I suppose.”

He knew this talk was simply so she could distract herself from the people downstairs. Her watch had told them it was almost eight-thirty in the morning, so whatever was going to happen would happen soon. But he didn’t feel like playing the game anymore, so he walked around instead, in and among the swivel chairs, rolling his shoulders, judging how his body felt this morning.

A little better, maybe, just a little better. His voice seemed stronger to him, and the night on the fairly hard flat surface — the insulation hadn’t done much — seemed to have been good for his ribs.

She sat in a swivel chair, swiveling slowly back and forth, watching him move. They were both silent for a few minutes, and then she said, “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.”

“Should we knock on the door or something?”

“Let them have their own pace.”

“Okay.” Then, in a rush: “Are they going to kill us?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and stood still, hand on the back of one of the chairs. Now that she was ready, they could talk. He said, “Melander’s the main guy, the big one with all the hair, and as far as he’s concerned they were all reasonable back when. He just borrowed money from me, and he meant to pay me back, and he might even pay me back someday. He thinks he’s straight in our world, that he doesn’t heist a heister, and what happened with me was just business or something.”

She said, “Could you let it be just business or something?”

“We’ll see how it plays out,” he said, to keep her calm. “There’s Carlson, I think he’d prefer we were dead. He doesn’t like it that I didn’t wait at home like a good boy, that I’m here.”

“And the other one?”

“Ross follows. He’ll follow whoever’s on top.”

She thought about all that, slowly shaking her head. Her right shoe was half off, and she waggled it up and down with her toes. Then she said, “What do you think is going to happen?”

“Nobody can leave this house for a few days,” Parker told her, “that’s the problem. If we could all just split now, go our separate ways, they’d lock us up here and take off, and that would be it. But you know this island’s shut down, they’re checking every car on every bridge, every boat in the water, they’ll keep it up for three or four days.”

“I know,” she said.

“I’m going to make Melander itchy after a while,” Parker said. “Just by being here.”

“And you can’t leave, not now,” she said. “Or could you? Could we leave together? We wouldn’t tell anybody.”

He was already shaking his head. “They don’t want us loose. They want us under control. And for now, that means here. Later on, it could mean dead.”

“But not this morning, you think.”

“Parker!” Ross’s voice called up the stairwell. “You two up?”

“Yes,” Parker called. Leslie stooped to pull her shoe back on.

“Come on downstairs.”

Low, Parker said, “Now we’ll find out.”

Ross led them to the dining room, where Melander sat at the table with his back to the sea. The guns were gone from the table, and in their place were a box of doughnuts, a coffeepot, pound box of sugar, quart of half-and-half, white china cups, metal spoons, paper plates, and paper napkins. The shotguns leaned against the wall in a corner. The automatics were out of sight, probably being worn by the three. On a side table were three black mesh pouches attached to belts; Parker caught a glint of gold through the mesh. Carlson wasn’t in sight.