Therefore Quayle felt unusually conspicuous in a booth at the Great Lost Bear in Portland, even with Mors keeping vigil from the bar, the stools at either side of her curiously unoccupied despite the presence of a large crowd, and with seating at a premium. Quayle sat with a gin before him, although he had barely touched it. He had no desire to be here, and therefore drinking would give him no pleasure. This whole country was encrusting him, like dust falling in the aftermath of an eruption. He wanted to be done with it.
A man made his way through the throng, his body undulating so that, no matter how densely packed the masses, he passed between all without difficulty. He was small and slim, but had learned to make himself less noticeable still. He was dressed in an overcoat that looked older than he, its sleeves hanging below his knuckles, its hem frayed. His eyes were brown and hooded, and his hair very dark and full, its line so close to his eyebrows that he barely possessed a forehead at all. His nose was tiny and pointed. Combined with the coat, and the swift precision of his movements, these features lent him the aspect of a clever rodent. Quayle caught him squint at Mors and hold the look she gave him, and Quayle thought that the Principal Backer must have described her to the new arrival in forewarning. He held a soda in one hand, but he struck Quayle as being no more likely to finish it than Quayle was his gin. He took the facing seat in the booth without asking permission, and placed his glass on a coaster. He did not offer a hand in greeting, and Quayle surmised that this, too, the Principal Backer might have mentioned to him: Mr Quayle prefers not to shake hands. You should probably be grateful for it, otherwise you might never remove the chill from your fingers, assuming Quayle leaves you with as many of them as before.
‘You’re the Englishman.’
No names, no preamble. His voice was too high for a grown male, and curiously without accent. He could have been from anywhere, anywhere at all.
‘Yes,’ said Quayle.
‘You like this place?’
‘No,’ said Quayle. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘Because you’re looking for the child.’ With the tiniest nod of that ratlike head, he indicated a man at the other side of the bar, engaged in conversation with an older, bearded figure. ‘And so is he.’
It was Dave Evans’s birthday, and various friends had gathered to wish the owner of the Great Lost Bear well. With Angel and Louis indisposed, and the Fulci brothers acting as temporary bodyguards for the invalid, it was particularly incumbent on Parker to be present. Not that this was in any way a chore, because he owed Dave a lot. Dave had offered Parker a bar manager’s job back when times were hard, both personally and financially, and the Bear still functioned as Parker’s de facto meeting place and occasional office.
‘You hear the Fulcis are looking to open a bar of their own?’ he remarked to Dave.
‘I thought it was just a rumor, like trickle-down economics.’
‘No, they sound serious. They have the money, and I hear they’ve put a marker somewhere on Washington Avenue.’
‘That’s too close to us,’ said Dave.
Washington Avenue was right at the other side of town from the Bear.
‘How far away do you want them to be?’ asked Parker.
‘Africa. Antarctica. Somewhere else beginning with “A,” like Alpha Centauri.’
Parker did his best to look hurt on the Fulcis’ behalf.
‘You know, too much of that kind of talk and they’ll get to thinking you don’t like them. That would be bad.’
‘How much worse could it be?’ said Dave. ‘They already drink here.’
‘You still have a roof. And walls.’
‘Just about.’
Over by the men’s room, a fist-shaped hole marked the spot where Paulie Fulci had chosen to express his unhappiness at the result of a recent hockey game. Parker hadn’t been present on the night in question, but according to regulars, the whole bar shook.
Dave mulled on the Fulcis for a while. His face brightened.
‘If they open their own place,’ he said, ‘maybe they’ll drink there instead.’
Parker decided to cut that one off at the pass.
‘You’re clutching at straws. The Bear is like a second home to them, and you never drink in your own establishment. Look on the bright side: you haven’t had any trouble since they started coming here.’
‘But we didn’t have any trouble before they started coming here, either. I think they interfere with my blood pressure. They arrive and I feel the urge to lie down.’
‘You could always just retire and sell them the Bear.’
‘It would be like handing my child over to pirates.’
‘Go on, admit it: you kind of enjoy them.’
‘I really don’t.’
‘You’d miss them if they were gone.’
‘I’d welcome the opportunity to find out.’
Parker called for another drink, and took in the bar, the other customers, and the two men in a booth by the wall. He had caught both of them glancing at him moments earlier, in a manner that was something more than casual – or so it seemed to Parker, and he had learned long ago not to ignore his instincts on such matters. The man in velvet was older, and unknown to him, but the smaller one made his skin crawl, and his face was familiar.
‘The guys in the next-to-last booth by the wall,’ he said to Dave. ‘One dresses off a frequent buyer card at Goodwill, the other like he got lost on the way to a séance. Know them?’
Dave didn’t even need to look in their direction. This was why Dave was good at what he did, and the Bear ran so smoothly.
‘Velvet Goldmine, no. But the smaller one, he’s been here in the past. Not often, but enough for me to learn not to like him.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘His attitude, mostly. Other than that: pure prejudice. He’s usually alone, but always on the periphery of someone else’s business. He’s the kind of guy who likes watching kids search for lost pets, because he’s the one who makes sure the pets were lost to begin with. Why?’
‘I got the feeling they’re paying me more than passing attention.’
‘Well, you’re a handsome man.’
‘I won’t argue with you on your birthday. The little one – I don’t think it’s the first time he’s given me the bad-luck squint in this place. That may be why he’s ringing my bells.’
‘I get the feeling you’re about to make a more formal introduction.’
Parker patted Dave on the shoulder.
‘Well, this is a friendly place.’
Quayle was listening intently to the little man, who had finally admitted to a name: Ivan Giller. Quayle didn’t particularly care to find out anything more about him. All he wanted from Giller was what he knew, or could find out, about Karis Lamb and her child.
And now also the private investigator named Parker.
‘He was on TV, visiting the burial site,’ said Giller. ‘The reporter made a fuss about it. Slow news day, I guess.’
‘And you’ve come across him before?’
‘Not one-on-one, but our mutual acquaintances pay me to keep an eye on him, and I pass on anything worth knowing. Not that I have to, most of the time. They learn about the big stuff without my help. If there’s trouble, he’ll find it. If there isn’t trouble, he’ll make some, just for a way to pass a few hours.’
‘Has he made any of this trouble for these mutual acquaintances?’
‘It’s an ongoing project for him, which is why I’m still here.’
‘The more pertinent question is why is he still here?’
‘You mean, why isn’t he dead? People have tried.’
‘Clearly not hard enough.’
‘You’d be surprised. You—’
A shadow fell across the table, and both men looked up at the face of Charlie Parker.
52
Quayle and Giller were not alone that evening in considering the possible implications of Parker’s involvement in their affairs.
Holly Weaver was sitting at her kitchen table, drinking a glass of Maker’s Mark, light on the ice and heavy on the bourbon. The Maker’s was a Christmas gift from her father. Holly rarely drank hard liquor, but once or twice a month she liked to treat herself to a small one, usually over a book or while watching an old movie on TCM. So each Christmas, Owen Weaver presented his daughter with a bottle, and this was usually enough to take her through to the next Christmas.
Not this time, though, Owen thought. This one wouldn’t even carry her to Easter, not unless she started watering it.