The Hunter

Parker looked at the woman. “Get out of here,” he said. “Get dressed and get out of here.”

She jumped up from the bed, clumsy with terror, and if she was normally a beautiful and graceful woman it was impossible to tell it now.

“Mal,” said Parker. “Do you want her to call the police?”

“No,” croaked Mal.

“Do you want her to call the Outfit?”

“No.”

Parker nodded, and turned to the woman, who was bent awkwardly, stepping into her panties, cumbersome in her haste. “Listen, you,” he said. “Listen to what Mal has to say.”

She stopped, staring at them, and Mal croaked, “Don’t talk to nobody, don’t tell nobody about this. The envelope’s in the living room. Take it — go home — don’t say nothing to nobody.”

“That’s good,” Parker said. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and they waited until the woman had left. Then Parker got to his feet again. “You owe me forty-five thousand dollars, Mal.”

Mal thought now that maybe he wouldn’t be killed after all. Maybe Parker didn’t want to kill him, just to get half of the money. He struggled up from the floor, still shaky, and said, “I don’t have it right now, Parker, I — “

“What did you do with it?”

“I had to pay the Outfit eighty thousand dollars. I gave it all to them.”

That would do it. That would be enough. To go to the syndicate — the Outfit, whatever they wanted to call it — to go to them and get his money back. He needed that much — he needed to act, to force, to push. Mal wasn’t enough, he was easy, he was too easy, he was the easiest thing that ever happened.

“All right,” said Parker. “It’s the same Outfit here as Chicago, right?”

Mal nodded, puzzled. “Sure. Coast to coast, Parker, it’s all the same.”

“Who runs it here? Here in New York, who’s the boss?”

“What do you want, Parker? You can’t — “

“Do you want to die, Mal?”

“What? No! For Christ’s sake, Parker — “

They stood facing each other. Parker held out his hands where Mal could see them, curved, ready to fit around Mal’s neck. “Who’s the boss in New York, Mal?”

“They’ll kill me, Parker, they’ll — “

“Not if you’re already dead.” Parker rested his hands on Mal’s neck, just easy, not squeezing yet. His arms were straight out, and this way he was unprotected should Mal decide to kick him in the groin or punch him in the stomach, but he knew Mal wouldn’t try anything like that. He didn’t have anything to worry about from Mal. Mal was easy.

Mal’s lip quivered, and then he said, “There’s two of them, Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Carter. They run things in New York, Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Carter.”

“And where do I find them, Mal?”

“Mr. Fairfax isn’t in town right now.” Mal’s tongue came out, moistening his lips, and his eyes flickered to the corner where Parker had thrown the gun.

“Parker,” he said, pleading, “we can work something — “

“Where do I find Carter?”

“Please, Parker, it won’t do you any good. You couldn’t get in to see him anyway, and we can work — “

Parkers hands tensed and relaxed on Mal’s neck. “Where do I find Carter?”

Mal hesitated, flickered his eyes, gestured with his hands, shifted his weight back and forth from leg to leg, and capitulated. “582 Fifth Avenue,” he said. He closed his eyes, as though then it wouldn’t really be him telling. “He’s got an office there, Frederick Carter Investments. Seventh floor, I forget the num-ber.”

Parker let his hands fall away from Mal’s neck. “Fine,” he said. “That’s fine.”

Mal wanted to plead again, started to say something again about how they could work something out, but Parker stopped him. “Tell me about the office. You say I couldn’t get in. Why not?”

Mal told him about the layout of the office, the silent man who came out, and what the silent man said when it was someone Mr. Carter didn’t want to see.

Parker nodded, listening, and said. “You been there recently, huh, Mal? When you heard I was after you?” He looked around the room. “They threw you away, huh? They wouldn’t help you?”

“They said it was up to me. Mr. Carter said so.”

Parker laughed at him. “They should have known better, huh, Mal?”

Then he took Mal’s neck in his hands again, and this time he didn’t let go till Mal stopped breathing.

FOUR

Chapter 1

The silent man pulled open the unmarked door and looked out at Parker. He hesitated and then said, “Can I help you?” He sounded puzzled. He didn’t recognize Parker as an Outfit man, but he didn’t look like an investment customer either.

Parker said, “Tell your boss the guy who killed Mal Resnick is here.”

The puzzlement on the silent man’s face shifted subtly from real to fake. He said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to,” Parker said.

He turned his back and walked over to one of the sofas. Sitting down, he reached over to the table and picked up a copy of U.S. News & World Report. He read on the cover that the automobile industry was recovering.

The silent man stood watching him, not knowing what to do. When Parker didn’t look up, he shrugged and went out and closed the door again. Parker put the magazine down and got to his feet. He studied the two fox-hunting prints on the wall, but neither were one-way mirrors. He looked at the unmarked door. The knob was a golden brass, with the keyhole set in it. It looked like a tough lock. Parker thought of three men he knew who could go through it like a knife through butter.

Five minutes went by, and the silent man came back, looking mistrustful. He said, “Mr. Carter will see you. I’ve got to frisk you first.”

Parker raised his arms at his sides. Mal was dead now, and the mean urgency was out of him. He was reasonable now, a businessman coming to discuss a debt. The silent man could frisk him — it didn’t matter.

The silent man finished and stepped back. “You’re clean,” he said grudgingly. He unlocked the door and led the way through. They went through the gray office and the living room — bar into Mr. Carter’s office. Mr. Carter sat at his desk, reading a mimeographed stock report. He looked up and said, “I didn’t know Mal was dead.”

“He is.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt your word.” He motioned at the leather chair Mal had sat in. “Sit down there.”

The silent man was behind Parker. He turned away, heading for his chair in the corner, and Parker spun around, Left hand extended, fingers rigid. The tips of his fingers jolted into the silent man’s side, just above the belt. The silent man grunted and bent sideways, trying to breathe. Parker’s right hand came across, balled in a fist, and clipped the side of his jaw, just under the ear. The silent man started to fall, and before he hit the floor Parker had the .32 out of his hip holster. He turned back and Mr. Carter was still reaching into his drawer. He stopped when he saw the .32 pointed at him.

Parker said, “Close the drawer.”

Mr. Carter looked at his man on the floor and closed the drawer. Parker broke the .32 open and emptied the shells into his hand. The noses had been scored, to make them spread when they hit. He walked over to the desk and put the .32 on the green blotter. The shells rattled into the wastebasket.

“You don’t want me with a gun. I don’t want you with a gun either.”

Mr. Carter looked at his man again. “He’s one of the best.”

Parker shook his head. “No, he isn’t. He lulls too easy.” He sat down in the leather chair. “We can talk now.”

Mr. Carter smiled thinly. “I think Resnick lied to me.”

“Why? What did he say?”

“He said he shot you, took your proceeds from a payroll robbery, and ran off with your wife.”

“One part’s a lie. My wife was the one who shot me.”

“Oh? That way I can see it.” Mr. Carter spread his hands palm down on the blotter, to either side of the empty gun. “There’s something you want from me?”

“Mal gave you people eighty thousand dollars.”

“Paid us. It was a debt.”

“Forty-five thousand of it was mine. I want it back.”

Mr. Carter’s faint smile disappeared. He blinked, looked again at his man on the floor and said, “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s my money.”

“The organization was owed a certain sum,” Mr. Carter said. “The organization was paid. Any debt Resnick owed you has died with him, so far as the organization is concerned. We don’t undertake to settle our employees’ personal debts.”

Parker said, “You people have forty-five thousand dollars of my money. You’ll give it to me.”

Mr. Carter shook his head. “The request would never be approved. The organization would certainly decline to — “

Parker interrupted. “The funnies call it the syndicate. The goons and hustlers call it the Outfit. You call it the organization. I hope you people have fun with your words. But I don’t care if you call yourselves the Red Cross, you owe me forty-five thousand dollars and you’ll pay me back whether you like it or not.”

Mr. Carter’s cold smile came back to his lips. “Do you realize, my friend, just what you’re trying to fight? Do you have any idea just how many employees are on our organization payroll, coast to coast? Just how many affiliate organizations in how many towns? How many officials we control at local and state level all across the country?”

Parker shrugged. “You’re as big as the Post Office. So you’ve got the assets, you can pay me back my money with no trouble at all.”

Mr. Carter shook his head. “I’m trying to tell you for your own good,” he said, “uh — I’ve forgotten your name. Resnick told me but I’m sorry, it slipped my mind.”

“Parker. It won’t again.”

The smile strengthened for just a second. “No, I don’t suppose it will. All right, Parker, allow me to give you the facts of life. The organization is not unreasonable. It pays its debts, works within acceptable business ethics, and does its best to run at a profit. Except for the fact that it works outside the law, it conforms as closely as possible to the corporate concept. In other words, if you had come to me with a legitimate corporate debt, you would have no trouble. But you are asking us to reimburse you for a personal debt contracted by a former employee. No corporation in the world would agree to that, Parker, and I’m sure our organization wouldn’t either.”

“Mal gave you money that didn’t belong to him. It belonged to me. You know that now, so you can give it back.”

“In the first place,” said Mr. Carter, “ personally couldn’t give it back. That would have to be the result of a top-level decision. In the second place, I can’t tell you right now that I’m so certain what that decision would be that I’m not even going to pass the request on.”p>

“It’s not a request,” Parker said. Without waiting for a comment on that, he went on. “What’s your job in this organization, anyway — this corporation of yours? What are you, a vice president or something?”

“You might call me a regional manager. With another gentleman — “

“Fairfax.”

Mr. Carter nodded, smiling. “Resnick told you quite a bit before he died, didn’t he? Yes, Mr. Fairfax. He and I manage the New York interests of the organization.”

“All right, then who runs the whole thing? You said you knew what the decision would be. Who’d make the decision?”

“A committee would — “

“One man, Carter. You go up high enough, you always come to one man.”

“Not exactly. Not in this case. Three men. Any one of them, actually — “

“Are any of them in New York?”

“One. But if you’re asking me to call — “

“I’m not asking you to call.” Parker heard movement behind him. He got to his feet. The silent man was coming back to consciousness, doing a push-up off the floor, getting his knees beneath him. Parker heel-kicked him in the head, and he subsided. He turned back to Mr. Carter. “I’m not asking you to call,” he repeated. “I’m telling you to call.”

“What will you do if I refuse?”

“Kill you, and wait for Fairfax to come back to town.”

Mr. Carter made a tent of his fingers ^d studied it. His lips pursed and relaxed, pursed and relaxed. He looked up from under his brows at Parker and said, “I believe you. And if I call, and this gentleman refuses, as I know he will?”

“I don’t know,” Parker told him. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

Mr. Carter thought about it some more. Finally he said, “Very well. You’re not going to get anywhere, but I’ll call.” He reached for the phone and dialed. Parker watched, remembering the number. Mr. Carter waited a moment, then said, “Fred Carter to talk to your boss, sweetheart.” He paused, then frowned with annoyance and said, “Tell him Fred Carter.” Another pause and, with more irritation, he said, “Bronson. I want to talk to Bronson.”

Parker smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back.

There was a longer wait before Bronson came on the line, and then Mr. Carter said, “Fred Carter here. I’m sorry to call you about this, but there’s a problem. And your secretary made me say your name. No, I didn’t want to — there’s someone else here. That’s essentially the problem.”

Parker sat listening as Mr. Carter outlined the situation. He smiled again when Mr. Carter said the money had come from a payroll robbery in Des Moines. After that, he just sat and listened.

When the story was done, there was a pause and Mr. Carter said, “I explained all that to him. He insisted I call or he’d kill me. He’s already killed his ex-wife and this man Resnick, and God knows how many others.”

“Nine,” said Parker, though he didn’t know if that was right or not.

There was more talk. Finally Mr. Carter said, “All right. Hold on.” He cupped the mouthpiece. “He wants to call one of the other two, in Florida. Then he’ll call us back.”

Parker shook his head. “The second you hang up, he’ll send an army. We do it in one phone call.”

Mr. Carter relayed the information, then said to Parker, “He says in that case the answer is no.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“He wants to talk to you.” Mt. Carter handed over the receiver.

Parker said, “How much is this guy Carter worth to you?”

The voice in his ear was harsh and angry. “What do you mean?”

“Either I get paid, or Carter is dead.”

“I don’t like to be threatened.”

“No one does. If you say no, I’ll kill Mr. Carter, and then I’ll come after you. We’ll let your buddy in Florida decide. And if he says no, I’ll kill you and go after him.”

“You can’t buck the organization, you damn fool!”

“Yes or no.”

Parker waited, looking at nothing, hearing only the sound of breathing on the line. At last the angry voice said: “You’ll regret it. You’ll never get away from us.”

“Yes or no.”

“No.”

“Hold on a minute.”

Parker put the phone down and started around the desk. Mr. Carter blinked at him, then dove for the middle desk drawer. He got it open, but Parker’s hand was first on the gun.

Mr. Carter lunged up from the chair, trying to wrestle the gun away from him, and Parker shoved it hard into his belly, to muffle the sound. He pulled the trigger, and Mr. Carter slid down him, half-falling back into the chair and then rolling out of it, hitting his head on the desk as he fell the rest of the way to the floor.

Parker put the gun down and picked up the phone. “All right,” he said. “He’s dead. I’ve got your name and phone number. In five minutes I’ll have your address. In twenty-four hours I’ll have you in my hands. Yes or no?”

“In twenty-four hours you’ll be dead! No lone man can buck the organization.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” Parker said.

Chapter 2

When Justin Fairfax walked into his parkside Fifth Avenue apartment, he had two bodyguards with him, but they were both carrying luggage. When Parker met them in the living room he already had Mr. Carter’s gun in his hand. “Don’t put the luggage down,” he said.

Fairfax was angry anyway. His Florida vacation had been cut short by what was obviously a lot of nonsense. He glowered at Parker and demanded, “Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?” The bodyguards stood flat-footed, holding the luggage. They weren’t paid to be foolhardy.

Parker said, “I’m the reason you’re back in New York. Stand over there by the sofa. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“You’re Parker?”

“Stand over there by the sofa.”

Fairfax backed cautiously to the sofa, watching Parker’s face. He was looking at a man who had challenged the organization. 1 le wanted to know what such a man would look like.

To the bodyguards, Parker said, “Turn around. Hold on to that luggage.”

They turned. Being professionals, they knew what was coming. Knowing what was coming, they tensed themselves, hunching their heads low on their necks, tightening their shoulders.

Parker turned the gun around, held it by the barrel, and looped his arm over twice. The bodyguards dropped, the luggage thumping on the rug. Fairfax reached up and touched his mustache as though to reassure himself it was*thece.

He was a tall and stately man, graying at the temples, with a clipped pepper-and-salt mustache. An aging movie star perhaps, or an idealized casino owner. He was perhaps fifty-five or a little over and clearly spent a lot of his time being pummeled by the machinery in a gymnasium.

Parker turned the gun around again and motioned with it at the bodyguards. “Drag them into the bedroom.”

Fairfax touched his mustache again, considering, and then said: “This isn’t going to do you any good, Parker.”

“I think it will. Do you want a bullet in the knee?”

“No.”

“Then drag them into the bedroom.”

The bodyguards were heavy. By the time he had dragged both of them to the nearest bedroom, Fairfax was puffing, looking more his age. There wasn’t any key in the lock of the bedroom door so Parker asked for it. Fairfax said, “There’s only the one key. It’s in the closet door there.”

“Get it. And disconnect the phone. Pull out the wires.”

“I don’t have to. It plugs in.” He unplugged the phone and showed Parker the jack. “I don’t have extensions. I have outlets for the phone in all the rooms.”

“Bring the phone with you.”

He knew already that the fire escape was outside the window of the other bedroom. He had Fairfax lock the door, and then the two of them went back to the living room. Parker told him to sit down and he did so, saying, “I don’t understand what you’re doing here. I thought you were going after Bronson.”

“I’m not stupid. Is that a phone outlet there?”

“Yes.”

“Plug the phone in. Call Bronson. Tell him he owes me forty-five thousand dollars. Either he pays me, or he won’t have anybody left to manage the New York end.”

“I can’t call him. He left town.”

Parker grinned. “He’s a brave man. Make it a long-distance call.”

“It won’t do any good, Parker. He let Carter die and he’ll let me die too.”

“With Carter, he thought I was bluffing.”

“It didn’t make any difference to him.” Fairfax touched his mustache again. “I don’t know the full details of the case,” he said. “I don’t know if you should get your money or not. All I know is, Bronson said no. He won’t change, not for anything. He never does.”

“This time he will.” Parker sat down, facing the other man. “When you call him, I want you to tell him something for me. I’ve worked my particular line for the last eighteen years. In that time I’ve worked with about a hundred different men. Among them, they’ve worked with just about every professional in the business. You know the business I mean.”

“All I know about you,” said Fairfax, his mouth hidden by the fingers against his mustache, “is that you were involved in a payroll robbery in Des Moines.”

“That’s the business I mean.” Parker shifted the gun to the other hand. “There’s you people with your organization, and there’s us. We don’t have any organization, but we’re professionals. We know each other. We stick with each other. Do yo* know what I’m talking about?”

“Bank robbers,” said Fairfax.

“Banks, payrolls, armored cars, jewelers, adf yplace that’s worth the risk.” Parker leaned forward. “But we don’t hit casinos,” he said. “We don’t hit layoff bookies or narcotic caches. We don’t hit the syndicate. You’re sitting there wide open — you can’t squeal to the law, but we don’t hit you.”

“There’s a good reason for that,” said Fairfax. “We’d get you if you tried it.”

Parker shook his head. “You’d never find us. We aren’t organized, we’re just a guy here and a guy there that know each other. You’re organized, so you’re easy to find.”

“In other words,” said Fairfax, “if we don’t give you the forty-five thousand dollars, you’ll steal it — is that it?”

“No. I don’t do things like that. I just keep chopping off heads. But I also write letters, to those hundred men I told you about. I tell them the syndicate hit me for forty-five Gs; do me a favor and hit them back once when you’ve got the chance. Maybe half of them will say the hell with it. The other half are like me; they’ve got the job all cased. A lot of us are like that. You organized people are so wide open. We walk into a syndicate place and we look around, and just automatically we think it over — we think about it like a job. We don’t do anything about it because you people are on the same side as us, but we think about it. I’ve walked around for years with three syndicate grabs all mapped out in my head, but I’ve never done anything about it. The same with a lot of the people I know. So all of a sudden they’ve got the green light, they’ve got an excuse. They’ll grab for it.”

“And split with you?”

“Hell, no. I’ll get my money from you people, personally. They’ll keep it for themselves. And they’ll cost you a hell of a lot more than forty-five thousand dollars.”

Fairfax rubbed his mustache with the tips of his fingers. “I don’t know if that’s a bluff or not,” he said. “I don’t know your kind. But if they’re anything like the people I do know, it’s a bluff. The people I know worry about their own skins, not about mine.

Parker grinned again. “I’m not saying they’d do it for me,” he said. “Not because it was me. Because they’ve got a syndicate grab in their heads, and all they need is an excuse.” He switched the gun back to his right hand. “Take your fingers down from your face.”

Fairfax dropped his hand into his lap, quickly, as though touching his mustache was a habit he was trying to stop. He cleared his throat and said, “Maybe you know what you’re talking about, I couldn’t say.”

“You can say it to Bronson.” Parker motioned to the phone. “Call him now. Tell him what I told you. If he says no, you’re dead and it costs him money. He’ll still have to pay me sooner or later anyway.”

“I’ll call him,” said Fairfax. “But it won’t do any good.”

Parker sat listening as Fairfax put in a call to Bronson at the Ravenwing Hotel, Las Vegas. It took a while because Bronson was out of his room and had to be paged, but finally he came on the phone and Fairfax gave him the setup, including Parker’s threat. “I don’t know if he’s bluffing or not. He says they wouldn’t do it out of friendship to him, but because they’ve wanted to hit some of our places for years anyway.”

After that there was a pause, and Fairfax studied Parker as he listened. Then he said, “No, I don’t think so. He’s hard, that’s all. Hard and determined and don’t give a damn.”

Parker shifted the gun to his other llnnd. Fairfax listened again, then extended the phone to Park;r. “He wants to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Terms.”

“Stand over there by the window.”

Fairfax set the receiver on the table, got to his feet, and walked over to the window. From deeper in the apartment, a hammering began. Fairfax grimaced and said, “I’m replacing those two.”

“It was your fault,” Parker said. “Don’t make your bodyguards carry your suitcases.” He crossed over to the sofa, sat down where Fairfax had been sitting, and put the phone to his ear. “All right, what is it?”

“You’re an annoyance, Parker,” said Bronson’s heavy angry voice. “You’re an irritation, like a mosquito. All right. Forty-five thousand dollars is chickenfeed. It’s a small account, for small punks with small minds. To get rid of the mosquito, all right — I’ll swat you with forty-five thousand dollars. But let me tell you something, Parker.”

“Tell me, then,” said Parker.

“You’re a marked man. You’ll get your petty payoff, and after that you’re dead whether you know it or not. I’m not going to send anybody out after you especially. I wouldn’t spend the time or the money. I’m just going to spread the word around. A cheap penny-ante heister named Parker, I’m going to say. If you happen to see him, make him dead. That’s all, just if you happen to see him. Do you get what I’m talking about, Parker?”

“Sure,” said Parker. “Carter told me all about it. You’re as big as the Post Office. You’re coast to coast. I should look you up in the yellow pages.”

“You can’t go anywhere, Parker. Not anywhere. The organization will find you.”

“The organization doesn’t have three men in it from coast to coast who could make me dead. Send your Mal Resnicks after me, Bronson. Send your Carters and your Fairfaxes. Send their bodyguards. You’ll have to hire a lot of new people, Bronson.”

“All right, bush leaguer,” said Bronson angrily. “Keep talking big. Just tell me where to make the drop on your crummy forty-five thousand.”

“There’s a section of Brooklyn,” Parker said. “Canarsie. There’s a BMT subway to it. Two men, carrying the cash in a briefcase, should hit there at two o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll be on the platform. No bill over a hundred, none under a ten. If it’s stuff you printed yourself, you better send two expendable men. If you send more than two, the mosquito will drain your blood.”

“Talk big, Parker,” said Bronson. “What’s the name of this subway stop?”

“It’s the end of the line.”

“For you too, Parker.” Bronson hung up.

Parker put the phone back on its hook and got to his feet. The pounding still echoed dully from the bedroom. Fairfax was touching his mustache with the tips of his fingers. When Parker stood up, he seemed to suddenly notice he was doing it because his hand jerked down to his side and he looked embarrassed^

Parker said, “You’re lucky, Fairfax. Your boss gave in easier than I figured. And that’s a pity. I would have enjoyed finishing you.” Then he smiled. “Maybe he’ll cross me. Maybe he’ll try for an ambush. Then I’ll be able to come back.”

Fairfax touched his mustache. “I’m going %> fire those two,” he said.

Parker shook his head. “It won’t do any good.”

Chapter 3

Momentum kept him rolling. He wasn’t sure himself any more how much was a tough front to impress the organization and how much was himself. He knew he was hard, he knew that he worried less about emotion than other people. But he’d never enjoyed the idea of a killing. And now he wasn’t sure himself whether he’d just been putting a scare into Fairfax or if he’d really meant it.

It was momentum, that was all. Eighteen years in one business, doing one or two clean fast simple operations a year, living relaxed and easy in the resort hotels the rest of the time with a woman he liked, and then all of a sudden it all got twisted around. The woman was gone, the pattern was gone, the relaxation was gone, the clean swiftness was gone.

He spent months as a vag in a prison farm; he spent over a month coming across the country like an O. Henry tramp; he devoted time and effort and thought on an operation that wasn’t clean or fast or simple and that didn’t net him a dime — the finding and killing of Mal Resnick. And more killing, and bucking the syndicate more for the mean hell of it than anything else, as though for eighteen years he’d been storing up all the meanness, all the viciousness, and now it had to come rushing out.

He didn’t know if he was going to make it, if h* was going to hold up the syndicate and get away with it, and he didn’t really care. He was doing it, and rolling along with the momentum, and that was all that mattered.

And now, another killing. He stood leaning against a tree, in the darkness of Farragut Avenue, looking at the shack housing Stegman’s cab company, waiting for Stegman to come back out. Stegman had lied: he’d known how to get in touch with Mal. He had gotten in touch with Mal. There wasn’t any other way Mal could have gotten spooked that way.

So there was now a debt to settle with Stegman, too. That was the whole difference right there. From the easy known pattern to this new pattern, collecting on debts. Mal owed him, Lynn owed him, the syndicate owed him, Stegman owed him. He was owed; he collected. It was a new pattern, but it would be good to run at last to the end of it and get back to the old one again.

He’d have to find another Lynn. There were plenty of them, around the resort-hotel swimming pools. And this time he’d know to watch her a little closer, and not to fall in love.

It was after midnight. If Stegman didn’t show pretty soon, he’d have to wait till after the payoff. Stegman was in there now with his poker cronies. Parker had watched them troop in, had seen the light go on in back, and now they were playing poker. But the game had to end sometime.

Parker had walked a block to a luncheonette around ten o’clock for a hamburger and coffee, and when he’d come back the light was still on back there, the players’ cars were still parked on Farragut Avenue: the game was still in progress.

Parker lit another cigarette and walked around the tree. There were trees on both sides of the street out here, and private homes, one or two families. It was like a town somewhere, or the residential part of a medium-sized city. It wasn’t like New York at all.

Parker walked around the tree and looked down the block into the darkness where the teenaged couple had walked halt an hour ago. They’d gone up onto a porch and a glider had squeaked for a while, and now it was quiet. They couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see them.

Everybody had a pattern. They had a pattern too, a quiet simple pattern, but it would change. He had a pattern, a messy complicated pattern, but it would change. Soon, now.

The door of the shack opened and the poker players came out. Parker strolled down the block, away from the shack, looking over his shoulder. Stegman stood in the doorway a minute, talking to two of them, and then went back into the shack. The rear room lights stayed on. The poker players got into their cars and drove away.

A cab pulled up, and the driver went into the shack, and then came right back out again and into his car and drove off. There was a radio operator in the front room, Stegman in the back room, and that was all.

Parker walked across the street. He went around to the back and looked through the window. Stegman sat at the table, dealing out poker hands, making imaginary bets. He must have lost tonight.

Parker went around front again. The radio operator sat at his board, reading a paperback book. Parker went in and showed the radio operator his gun, and said, “Be very quiet now.”

It was a different operator from last time.

“We don’t have any dough here,” the radioman said. “It isn’t kept here.”

“Just be quiet,” Parker told him. He went over to the other door and opened it. “Come on out, Stegman.”

Stegman jumped, the cards falling out of his hands. “Oh my

God,” he said. “Oh my God.” ^

“You’ll see Him soon,” Parker said. “Come on out here.” He motioned with the gun.

Stegman came out, trembling, unsteady on his feet. Lies quivered on his lips, but he didn’t tell any of them.

Parker stood behind him. “We’re going for a ride,” he said. “We’ll take the same car as last time.” He prodded Stegman in the small of the back with the gun.

They went out to the car. Stegman slid behind the wheel, and looked at the radio under the dashboard, licking his lips. Parker said, “Do you think he’s calling the cops? Or maybe the other drivers. Turn it on, let’s hear what he’s saying.”

Stegman switched the radio on. His fingers were damp with sweat: he had trouble turning the knob. Only static came from the radio, so the operator must have been on the phone instead, calling the police.

“We’ll go that way,” said Parker, pointing with the gun toward Rockaway Parkway.

Stegman started the car. He stalled it right away because his foot was nervous on the clutch. The second time, he got it moving. They bumped over the sidewalk to the street and drove across Rockaway Parkway into the darkness on the other side.

Parker said, “Make the first left.”

Stegman made the left, onto East 96th Street, a side street off a side street, somnolent and dark, and Parker said, “Pull over to the curb. Turn the engine off.”

Stegman did as he was told. Parker put the gun in his lap and rabbit-punched Stegman in the Adam’s apple. Stegman gasped, his head ducking forward, chin tucked against his chest, and he gurgled when he tried to breathe.

“You told me no more favors,” Parker reminded him. “You should have meant it.” He grabbed Stegman by the hair and rammed his face into the steering wheel. Then he rabbit-punched again, the side of his hand slicing up, jolting into the underpart of Stegman’s nose, snapping his head back. Hard enough, that meant blinding pain. A little harder, it meant death. This wasn’t quite hard enough to kill.

Stegman moaned, spittle bubbling at the corners of his mouth. Parker was suddenly disgusted. He didn’t want any more of this, only to get it over. He picked up the gun by the barrel, swung four times, and Stegman was dead.

Parker wiped the gun butt on Stegman’s coat and got out of the car. He tucked the gun in under his belt and walked the rest of the way down the block to Glenwood Road and up to Rockaway Parkway and across the street to the subway entrance.

This was a strange stretch of subway, neither subway nor el. The tracks rode at ground level, with the station platform like a commuter-town railroad depot, except that the tracks came only as far as this platform, one set on either side, and then stopped. End of the line.

Off to the right were the yards, lined with strings of grimy subway cars. Beyond were new row houses, brick, two stories high, where the cab drivers lived, and farther away a bulky city project, seven stories high, where the elevator operators lived. The land was flat out here, all flat.

Two trains flanked the platform now, their doors open. A lit sign under the platform’s shed roof said next train, with an arrow pointing to the left. A heavy man in a corduroy jacket sat on the platform bench, reading the News, with a lunch bucket beside him.

Parker went over and sat next to the man. He picked up the lunch bucket and snapped it open and looked at the Luger nestled inside. The man dropped his News and reached for the bucket.

Parker shook his head, put the bucket on the bench on the side away from the Outfit man, and said, “You better get on your train before it pulls out.”

The man looked back toward the turnstiles and the change booth and the rest rooms, then shrugged and got to his feet. He folded his paper and put it under his arm and stepped onto the train.

Parker stood and walked down the platform, carrying the lunch bucket. The rest rooms were in a little separate clapboard shack on the platform, beyond the end of the tracks. There was an anteroom with a radiator, for waiting in wintertime, and the two green doors.

Parker went on into the men’s room. Two cowboys in flannel shirts and khaki pants stood there, doing nothing. Their shirt-tails hung outside their pants.

Parker opened the lunch bucket and took the Luger out and showed it to them. “Take off your shirts,” he said. “Don’t reach under them.”

One started to do it, but the other one blinked and smiled and said, “What’s going on?”

Parker waited, ignoring the opening. The one who had started on the top button hesitated, looking at his partner. The partner’s smile flickered and he said, “I don’t know what you want, buddy. What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Parker told him. “Take off your shirt.”

“But I don’t want to take off my shirt.”

“I’ll pull the trigger when the train starts,” Parker told him. “If you want noise before that, jump me.”

The hesitant one said, “The hell with it. Do like he says, Artie. What’s the percentages?”

Artie considered, and shrugged, and started unbuttoning his shirt. They took off their shirts and stood holding them in their hands. They each had two small revolvers tucked into their trousers, in under their belts.

Parker said, “Turn around.” They did so, and he reached around them, taking the guns away, putting them in the sink. Then he said, “Your train’s going to leave in a minute. Better hurry.”

They put their shirts back on wordlessly and left the room. Parker dropped the four guns in a water closet and went back outside. He walked along the train that was to leave next and saw the two cowboys with the man in the corduroy jacket. The three were sitting hunched together, talking. They looked up and watched him go by.

Down at the other end of the platform was the dispatcher’s building, tall and narrow. Beside it was a Coke machine, and a man in a business suit carrying a briefcase and holding a bottle of Coke. He’d been there when Parker had put his token in the turnstile, and he was still there. Parker hadn’t yet seen him drink any of the Coke. He was looking out toward the trains in the yards.

Parker walked the length of the platform and stopped by the Coke machine. He said, “You got change of a quarter?”

“Of course,” said the man. He put his bottle of warm Coke on top of the machine, switched the briefcase to his other hand, and reached into his trouser pocket.

Parker opened the lunch bucket and tooft the Luger out. His back was to the platform. He said, “Show me what’s in your briefcase.”

“Of course,” the man said again. He seemed unsurprised. He released the two straps and turned the flap back. He started to reach inside, and Parker shook his head. The man smiled and pulled the briefcase lips apart instead. There was a long-barreled .25 target pistol inside.

“Close it up again,” Parker said. The man did so. “Put it down beside the machine, and go get on your train.”

He watched as the man walked down the platform and got on the same car as the other three. A few minutes later, the conductor and the engineer clattered down the metal outside staircase from the second floor of the dispatcher’s building and boarded the train.

The doors slid shut and the train pulled out. The lit sign switched, showing that the train on the other side was now next.

Half an hour later, at twenty past one, five more of them arrived, wearing flashy suits and carrying musical instrument cases. They got off their train and stood around laughing and talking loudly, and Parker waited for ten minutes by the Coke machine, wanting to be sure. When they still had made no move to leave, he was sure.

He went over and introduced himself and said, “You better hurry if you want to make your gig. Or you can make your play instead, right now.”

The other four looked at the one with the trombone case. That one looked at the train beside him, with the people on it, and the woman in the distant change booth, and the dispatcher’s building. Their car wasn’t outside yet, so they didn’t make their play.

At quarter to two, a woman got off a train and left an overnight bag on the platform bench. Parker caught up with her and gave her the bag back. She looked frightened when he handed it to her and hurried away toward the street.

When she left, Parker went into the phone booth on the platform and called Fairfax’s apartment. Fairfax answered, and Parker recognized the voice. He said, “I just got rid of the woman with the overnight bag. I haven’t killed any of these jokers yet, but the next one I will. And if the money doesn’t show, I’ll come back for you.”

Fairfax said, “Just a moment.” The line hummed for a little, and then Fairfax came back on. “It’ll be a little late.”

“That’s all right,” said Parker.

There weren’t any more of them. At twenty to three, a train pulled in and two men got off it together, one carrying a suitcase. They came over to Parker, sitting on the bench, and put the suitcase down on the bench beside him. They started away again, without a word, but Parker said, “Wait.”

They turned around and he motioned at the suitcase. “Open it.”

They looked at each other and licked their lips. They didn’t know if it was bugged or not. Finally, one of them opened the two catches and lifted the top. There was nothing inside but money.

They sighed with relief, and Parker said, “Fine.4Close it again.” They did so, and walked away down the platform and through the exit and out to the street.

There were three ways away from here. There was the subway. There was the bus that came in at the end of the platform by the turnstiles, free transfer from and to the subway. There was the exit and the walk to the street. They would be ready for him whichever way he went.

He walked down by the Coke machine and set the suitcase down. He transferred the Luger from the lunch bucket to his side pants pocket and the target pistol from the briefcase to under his belt by the right hip pocket. He still had Mr. Carter’s pistol, and this he held in his left hand.

He picked up the suitcase again, walked to the outer end of the platform and down the steps past the sign saying TRANSIT EMPLOYEES ONLY. There was a wooden strip raised over the third rail.

Parker stepped carefully over this and over the track and toward the yards. It was dark out here and no one paid any attention to him.

He moved carefully across the yard, stepping high over each third rail, not wanting even to touch the wooden cover, and finally got past them all to a wide grass-grown gravel driveway. There was more light here, along the driveway, and he walked carefully, keeping to the darkest side. Glenwood Road was ahead, with cars parked along it and the row of houses stretching away down the cross streets. He couldn’t see if there was anyone in the cars.

The driveway went through an opening in the fence around the yard. Parker paused at the fence, watched, listened, then stepped through and turned left, away from Rockaway Parkway and the subway entrance. The suitcase was heavy in his right hand, the pistol comforting in his left, held close against his side.

He crossed the street, because three colored boys were walking in his direction on this side, wearing raincoats and porkpie hats and singing in falsetto. He went on down two blocks and turned right where the project began, and tossed Mr. Carter’s gun into a litter basket. Whoever fished it out in this neighborhood, it would be a long while before it got to the law.

He transferred the suitcase to his left hand, and walked along with his right hand close to the Luger in his pants pocket. A car squealed around the corner behind him, headed his way.

There was a bulldozed field to his right, where the row houses hadn’t been put in yet. He ducked across that, pulling the Luger out of his pocket, and somebody in the car fired too early. He dropped to the ground, and the car raced on, screaming around the far corner and away.

He got to his feet and strode deeper across the field. A high wooden wall separated the field from the backyards of row houses facing on the next street. He crouched down by the wall, the Luger in his hand, and waited.

The same car came around the block again, moving more slowly now, and stopped opposite him. He was in pitch blackness against the wall and couldn’t be seen. After a minute, the back door of the car opened and two men got out. They strolled across the field to where he had dropped, wandered around in a small circle, and strolled back.

They stood by the car, and after a minute two more cars came down the street and parked. Men got out of them, and they had a conference. Then two of the cars took off agaiif, going down to the corner, at Flatlands Avenue, both moving slowly. One turned right, and the other turned left.

The third car stayed where it was. Thr南 men got out of it and strolled across the street to the project and disappeared in the darkness among the buildings. The driver stayed in the car, his cigarette glowing faintly from time to time, and watched the field.

Parker moved along the fence back to Glen wood Road, leaving the suitcase behind. The Luger was in his right hand, the target pistol in his left. He kept his hands close to his body as he moved. When he got to Glenwood Road, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and started to whistle.

He walked along, still whistling, and turned at the corner and walked down the block toward the car. The driver watched him in the rearview mirror, but he wasn’t carrying a suitcase, and he was whistling.

The car window was open. When Parker reached it, he turned and set both gun barrels on the sill, pointing at the driver, and murmured, “One word.”

The driver froze, both hands clenched on the wheel.

Parker said, “Slide over and get out on this side.” He stepped back, and the driver obeyed. “Now walk out across the field there.”

The two of them walked back to where he’d left the suitcase. He reversed the Luger and swung it, and the driver went down.

He left the target pistol with him, picked up the suitcase, and hurried back to the car.

He slid in, started the engine, and roared away. As he was turning the corner, a man came running out from one of the project buildings half a block back.

He parked the car off Flatbush Avenue near Grand Arrny Plaza and took a cab into Manhattan.

Chapter 4

On the bed were sixteen hundred slips of green paper, banded in stacks of fifty. There were twenty stacks marked ten, ten stacks marked fifty, two stacks marked one hundred. The numbers on all the slips of paper added up to forty-five thousand.

Parker sat on the chair beside the bed and looked at the money. The suitcase, empty now, lay on the floor at his feet. He had counted the money and it was all there, and now he sat and looked at it and wondered how he had happened to get it.

But it wasn’t really that hard to figure out. He could follow Branson’s reasoning with no trouble at all. There was this mosquito, this Parker, causing trouble and disruptions. He wants forty-five thousand dollars. All right, give him the forty-five thousand dollars.

Try to get him when the delivery is made, but if you don’t get him the hell with it, he’s got forty-five thousand dollars. So then he won’t cause any more trouble and disruptions. And the organization has all the time and all the facilities to get him later on. He won’t be bothering the organization any more, and the organization can take care of him at its leisure. Forty-five thousand isn’t so much, when you consider the benefits.

So. That was Branson’s side. His own side was simple, too; he had eighteen years of a pattern, and the pattern had been ripped apart. One job, the island job, had gone wrong and ripped the pattern apart. Now they were both dead, Lynn and Mal, the two who had done it to him. And he had made the job right again by getting his share back. He couldn’t go back to the pattern while that one job was still wrong.

Now he could go back. He had money to last him two or three years of the old life, and a plastic surgery. He’d have to go out to Omaha, to Joe Sheer, and find out the name of that doctor that had done the job on him. That was when Joe had retired, three years ago. He’d had his face changed because you never knew when you’d run into somebody who saw your face on a job ten years ago and still remembered.

With a new face, with forty-five thousand dollars, the organization could look forever and never find him. He’d have to be a little more careful than before about the people he worked with on jobs, but that was no problem. He liked to pick and choose his jobs and his partners anyway.

A job had soured and now it was straight again. It was as simple as that.

He roused himself, putting out his cigarette, and picked up the suitcase from the floor. He carefully packed the bundles of money back into it, closed it, slid it under his bed. Then he picked up the phone and asked for American Airlines, and made a reservation on the 3:26 p.m. plane for Omaha.

After that he left a call for noon, took a leisurely shower, and opened the pint of vodka he’d bought on the way back. He could drink it now; he was finished and he could relax. In Omaha, maybe Joe could set him up with a woman. If not, it could wait till Miami.

He woke to the jangling of the telephone, telling him it was noon, the first day of the new-old pattern. The hotel wasn’t as good as he was used to, but it didn’t matter. He was on his way back, starting now.

He took another shower, and dressed, and packed. He left the room carrying the two suitcases, his own and the one full of money. He rode down in the elevator and started across the lobby, and the desk clerk pointed him out to two men in rumpled suits.

They came toward him, and he hesitated, not believing they’d dare try anything here. And how could they find him here anyway? They couldn’t. But he was unarmed, the Luger thrown away last night on Flatbush Avenue.

The two men came over, and one reached to his hip pocket, and Parker tensed, ready to throw the suitcase with the clothing in it. But all that came out of the pocket was a wallet. It flipped open, showing the badge pinned to the leather. The owner of the wallet said, “Mr. Edward Johnson?”

What is this? What is this? “Yes,” he said, because the desk clerk had pointed him out. “What is it?”

“We want to talk to you.” The plainclothesman looked around at the lobby. “In private,” he said. “We’ll go to the manager’s office.”

“What is it? What’s it all about?”

“There are some questions. If you’ll come with us?”

One of them had his left arm, gently. It was only to the manager’s office, so he didn’t fight it. He didn’t try to guess what it was all about. He went along, ready, waiting to find out the score before making any kind of move.

The three employees behind the desk watched out of the corners of their eyes as the detectives took him through a door marked Private into a small empty office. The door to the next room, the manager’s office, was open, and the manager peered at them from his desk.

One of the detectives went over and said through the door, “We won’t be long, sir. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” the manager said. He seemed embarrassed.

The detective smiled and closed the door. Then he turned the smile off again and said, “Sit down, Mr. Johnson.”

Parker sat down on the corner of the sofa nearest the door, ready, waiting for them to tell him what it was all about.

The silent one stood by the door. The other one pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards, facing Parker, his forearms folded on the chair back, his bent knees jutting out at the sides.

“Two days ago,” he said, “you were in a grocery store on West 104th Street between Central Park West and Manhattan Avenue. You spent some time in the back room of the store, talking with Manuel Delgardo, the proprietor. When two patrolmen entered the store, you stated that you were having a soft drink with Mr. Delgardo in the back of the store, and that you were there looking for Mr. Delgardo’s son, Jimmy. You stated that you and Jimmy Delgardo once worked for the same trucking company in Buffalo. You also brought up the subject of narcotics, although neither of the patrolmen had given any indication that they were thinking of narcotics or suspected you of having anything to do with junk. Is this all substantially correct, as you remember it?”

“Yes,” said Parker. Don’t explain, don’t justify, don’t argue. Wait till you find out the score.

The detective nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Now, you also stated that you were recently laid off from a General Electric Company plant on Long Island. Is that correct?”

“That’s what I said,” Parker answered.

The detective caught it. “But is it correct?”

So they’d checked that part. Change stories. “No,” said Parker.

The detective nodded again. “That’s right, we checked you out. The California address you gave the hotel is also incorrect, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to explain those lies?”

“You’ve got to give a cop a background,” said Parker. “You tell him you’re just drifting, he pulls you in on general principles. You give him some kind of background, he leaves you alone. Same with the hotel. I put down no permanent address, then I get a lot of static from the hotel.”

“I see.” The detective nodded once more. “Then the truth is that you’re a drifter, that you don’t really have any background or address or job or anything else, is that it?”

“That’s right.”

“And where did you get the money to afford this hotel?”

“I won it in a crap game.”

“Where?”

Parker shook his head.

The detective reddened. “Don’t shake your head at me, punk! There wasn’t any crap game!”

Parker waited, ready. There wasn’t any reason to do anything yet. Maybe later he’d have to pay this one back for the bad name.

The detective controlled himself. “All right,” he said. “Get on your feet. Turn around. Touch the wall over the sofa, palms of your hands.”

The other detective came over from the door and emptied his pockets. Then they let him sit down again.

The first one looked at his driver’s license. He looked at it more closely than anyone had before, and frowned. He turned it over, and studied different parts of it, and then he licked the ball of his thumb and rubbed it against the state seal. He looked up at his partner and grinned. “A phony,” he said. “Not even a good one. Here, look.”

The other detective looked at the license and chuckled over it too, then handed it back. The first cop offered it to Parker, saying, “Want it back, Mr. Johnson?”

“No, thanks,” said Parker. “You spoiled it.”

“I’m sorry about that. What trucking firm in Buffalo did you and Jimmy Delgardo work for together?”

Parker grabbed a name out of the air. “Lester Brothers.”

The detective took a notebook out of his pocket, opened it, read something, and shook his head. “Wrong.”

Parker said, “Do you mind telling me what it’s all about?”

“I don’t mind at all,” said the detective. “Because then you’ll tell me what it’s all about. A man interested in narcotics, like you.”

“Wrong,” Parker said.

“Jimmy Delgardo,” said the detective, “was picked up at the Canadian border this morning at five o’clock coming down from Montreal. He was trying to enter the United States with a carload of liquor and marijuana.” He smiled from his corner of the web. “Now, Mr. Johnson,” he said, “you tell me what it’s all about. You tell me what your right name is and what you do for a living and what connection you have with that carload Jimmy Delgardo was driving into this country.”

Parker clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back on the sofa. He started to cross one leg over the other, but instead rammed his heel into the detective’s face, just above the nose. Detective and chair clattered over backward, and Parker surged out of the sofa, coming in low on the other one, who was pawing at his hip for his gun. Parker butted him in the stomach and brought his head up sharply, the crown cracking into the detective’s chin. His fist came up after, catching him in the throat.

Parker stepped back, yanking the detective by the tie. The detective stumbled, falling away from the door, and Parker grabbed the suitcase full of money, pulled open the door, and ran.

As he hit the revolving door, there were shouts behind him. The glass of the door starred, higher than his head, and something tugged at the shoulder of his coat.

He got through to the street, and there was a cab waiting at the hackstand outside the hotel, waiting for a fare. He pulled open the door, tossed the suitcase in and dove in after it. “Grand Central!” he shouted. “A fin if I make my train!”

There wasn’t time now to get to Idlewild. The alarm would be out first.

“We’re off!” cried the driver. They jolted away from the curb, squealed around the corner as the light was turning red, and weaved erratically through the traffic. Parker reached up with his left hand to touch his right shoulder. The coat was ripped there, by the seam, but the bullet hadn’t touched him.

He reached out and patted the suitcase, and it was the wrong

one. He looked at it, and turned his head to look out the back window. The detectives had the suitcase with the forty-five thousand. He had the suitcase with the socks and the shirts.

The cabby said, “What time’s your train?”

“It just left,” said Parker.

“Jeez,” said the cabby. “You didn’t leave yourself no time at all.”

“I was kidding. There’s still time.” Parker smiled, showing his teeth, thinking, What do I do now? Go to the Mayor of the City of New York? Tell him the city owes me forty-five Gs?

When the cab stopped, he gave the driver a ten. He dragged the suitcase along into Grand Central Station. The clock over the rotunda said 12:53. He walked along the gates, looking at the times of departure until he came to one that said 12:58.

One of the places it was going was Albany. He went through the gate and down along the concrete platform. He said to the conductor standing by the entrance to the first passenger car, “I didn’t have time to buy a ticket. I’ll get it on the train.”

“Wait here.”

He stood there, watching back to where the cops would come if they came, and five minutes occurred one by one. Then the conductor let him board the train and asked where he wanted a ticket for.

He said, “Albany,” and the conductor wrote interminably on ticket and papers, accepted his money and allowed him to go sit down.

The car was nearly empty.

He dropped into the first seat he came to, the wrong suitcase next to him, and thought about Omaha and Joe Sheer and the plastic surgeon. He’d need dough for the plastic surgeon. He had less than two thousand. He could cool at Joe Sheer’s for a while, and then he’d have to make a grab.

Maybe a syndicate operation? One more bite from the mosquito before the face-change? It was the syndicate’s fault that he didn’t have the forty-five thousand. They did a sloppy smuggling job, and Parker got hit by a bum peg, and now the forty-five thousand was baffling the boys in the narcotics squad.

Yeah, a syndicate grab. He liked the idea.

He got off the train at Albany and went out to the airport and bought a ticket to Omaha.

Chapter 5

Parker and the other three men came out of the elevator and walked slowly down the hall to the left. Two women were walking toward them, with furs over their shoulders and purses hanging from their forearms. As they went by, they were talking about hair rinses. They went on to the elevators and punched the down button.

Parker said softly, “Wait’ll they go.”

The four of them ambled along, past the door they wanted. It said st. LOUIS SALES, INC. on it. The city was right, but the rest was wrong. About half of the comeback money from the St. Louis bookies came through here.

They reached the end of the hall and stood by the office door there, a typewriter company’s representative, until the two women got on an elevator. Then the three men took Huckleberry Hound masks from inside their coats and put them on. Parker didn’t bother; his share of this job was going for a new face anyway.

They went back down the hall, moving faster now, toward the door marked st. Louis sales, inc. The man named Wiss took a chisel from his pocket and held it by the blade end, like a club. He was the only one Parker hadn’t known before; Joe Sheer had recommended him. The other two, Elkins and Wymerpaugh, Parker had worked with in the past.

They stopped, flanking the door, two on either side. Parker and Elkins had guns in their hands now. Wiss hit the door glass with the chisel handle and it shattered inward, making a racket. Before the echoes had died down, he’d thrown ti^p chisel into the room, to give them something else to think about inside, and reached through the opening to the doorknob. He pushed, and Parker and Elkins crowded in, guns first.

The three men in the small office froze. The one by the adding machine just sat there, fingers poised over the keys, staring. The one who’d been standing by the airshaft window was stopped with one hand up under his arm, the gun half-drawn from its holster. The one who’d been sitting at the other desk kept his hand in the drawer he’d opened when the glass broke.

Parker said, “Hands up and empty.”

Wiss, pulling his gun, ran across the room and jerked open the door to the inner office, but it was empty. He turned back, saying, “The wheel’s away!”

“Lunch,” said Parker. “Let’s get out before he comes back.”

Wymerpaugh, standing by the doorway and watching down the hall toward the elevators, handed the briefcase to Elkins. Elkins went over to the guy at the adding machine and said, “Up.”

With his hands still in the air, the adding machine man got to his feet and backed away from the desk.^Elkins pulled open the typewriter well and stuffed the stacks of bills hidden in it into the briefcase. Then he gave the briefcase back to Wymerpaugh, took the other briefcase from Parker, and went through to the inside office. Wiss followed him, dragging more tools from his pockets.

The guy by the airshaft window said, “You guys are crazy. That’s Outfit money.”

Parker smiled thinly. “Was it?”

From the inner office there came small sounds, as Wiss and Elkins worked on the safe. Wymerpaugh closed the door and bent to peer down the hall through the hole in the glass.

Elkins and Wiss came back. Wiss was stuffing tools into his pockets and Elkins was carrying a bulging briefcase. Parker said to the guy by the airshaft window, “You know who Bronson is?”

The guy shrugged. “I’ve heard of a guy by that name. Back east.”

“That’s him. Tell him it was Parker. Tell him the mosquito decided he wanted interest on the loan. You got that?”

“It don’t matter to me.”

Elkins gave Parker back the briefcase, then went around and collected all the guns that had been in the office and threw them down the airshaft. Then he said, “Sit tight a few minutes, girls.”

The four of them went out and down the hall toward the elevators. Wiss and Elkins and Wymerpaugh pulled off their Huckleberry Hound masks. They went past the elevators and through the door marked stairwell. They went up two flights and out into the hall there and down to the lawyer’s office: herbert lansing, attorney-at-law. Elkins unlocked the door, and they went inside.

That was the beautiful part, this office. Parker had worked it out. Somewhere in an office building this size, he’d figured, there’s got to be at least one one-man office where the boss takes an occasional vacation. All they had to do was know what was going on in the building, and wait.

When Herbert Lansing took his vacation, Elkins found out about it from the elevator boy, who was lately his drinking buddy. One trip by Elkins and Wiss, in workclothes, to dummy up a key, and they were ready.

They went inside, and Elkins broke out the bottle of blended whiskey he’d stashed here when they’d made the key. They passed the bottle around, then unloaded the briefcases on the lawyer’s desk and made the divvy. Parker’s third — it was his case — came to just over twenty-three thousand.

He stowed it back in his briefcase, took another swig from the bottle, and sat back grinning. It all worked out fine. He was back in the groove again.

Wymerpaugh broke out a deck of cards and they played poker till four-thirty. By then Parker had closer to twenty-seven thousand. The four of them cleaned the office up, locked the door, and separated, each going to different floors.

Parker took a cab out to the Lambert — St. Louis airport and caught a six-o-five plane for Omaha. A new face now, and the old pattern. He looked out the window and smiled. Miami should be fine this time of year. Or maybe he’d go on down to the Keys.

THE END

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