The Jugger - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Richard Stark (ч. 2)

'Good,' Parker said, and hit him twice.

He buried him in the cellar in the hole the kid had dug himself.

TWO

PARKER went out the back way. He knew Younger had men on stake-out, to see he didn't try to clear out of town, but he didn't figure Younger's troops to be any brighter than their leader. He'd long since marked the grey Plymouth parked down the block that was used by the man watching the front of the house, and the green Dodge parked beside the road across the fields would be the guy watching the back. If there'd been a third station he'd have found it by now, so all he had to do was go between the Plymouth and the Dodge.

He went the back yard route, keeping close to the houses, and went a block and a half before coming out on to the street. Then he walked directly downtown.

He got into the hotel the same way he'd come out the first time; the fire escape around back. He remembered Tiftus' room number and knew the woman Rhonda would be in the room next door.

She opened the door right away when he knocked. 'It's you,' she said. 'It's about time.'

He stepped in and shut the door. She was wearing black stretch pants and a pink sweater and she was completely made up. He said, 'Where were you going?'

'Nowhere. You told me to come here and stay put, I come here and stay put. I was beginning to think you forgot me.'

She was being cute. She must figure he was here for sex. He said, 'We both want out of this town, right?'

She nodded, and then shrugged her shoulders. 'It ain't the sort of place I'm used to, let's put it that way.'

'We can't go until the law gets whoever did for Tiftus, right?'

'That's me, baby,' she said. 'Not you. You're in the clear, remember? Your buddy cop give you an alibi.'

'It's straight,' he said. 'I wouldn't kill Tiftus, I got no reason. Killing him just loused things.'

'Boy, I'll say. And let me tell you something, I liked that guy. He was little, and he had a kind of a funny name, but I liked him. He appreciated me, that's why.'

'Sure.'

'He told me some things about you,' she said. 'What he told me, it didn't seem like you'd be the guy killed him. I mean, even if you were going to, you know? You'd have more sense than do it right in your own room like that.'

'Fine.' He had to let her ramble a minute; if he tried to hurry her, she'd just get her back up.

She said, 'So I don't see why you got to stick around. I got to, because that cop, that Regan, he told me to. But you're in the clear.'

'Not all the way,' he said. 'Not till Regan's satisfied.'

'Listen,' she said, 'who's in charge around here, anyway? Is it Regan, or is it your buddy, the fat one?'

'Younger's in charge, but Regan's the cop.'

'Well, that's just dandy. Are they ever gonna get the guy that did it?'

'No.'

She hadn't expected that answer. She shook her head and said, 'What? Why the hell not?'

'Because I got him,' Parker told her. 'It's a long story, you don't want to hear it.'

'Are you kidding? Sure I want to hear it.'

'You don't.'

She looked at his face, and for a second or two she was going to argue, and then she changed her mind. 'Okay, I don't,' she said. 'So what's the point?'

'The point is, we've got to give Regan somebody else.'

'Like who, for instance?'

'Anybody. Somebody not here any more.'

'And he's supposed to swallow it?'

'Younger is, and he will. It's got to be just a good enough story so Younger can get away with accepting it and closing the case. Once Younger calls the case solved, there's nothing Regan can do any more. He's only in like on an advisory capacity, till they find out who did it.'

Doubtfully she said, 'All right, if you say so. How do we tell this story?'

'It depends. What did you tell Regan so far?'

'Hah. Which time? He wouldn't trust me across the street, that Regan. First I tell him one thing, then I tell him. something else.'

Impatience was getting to Parker. Younger might take it into his head to drop by Joe's house any time, and Parker didn't want Younger upset. He wanted Younger thinking he had everything under control.

He said, 'Just tell me what you told him.'

She shrugged and waved her arms and said, 'The first time, I told him the truth. The second time, I told him I made a mistake.' She walked across the room and got herself a cigarette from the dresser.

'Get me one, too,' he said. This was going to take a while.

She smoked a filter brand. She gave him one and he ripped the filter off it before he took a light from the match she held up for him. She looked at him with brown eyes, steadily, while he lit his cigarette. She still thought he was there for sex.

He wasn't. Maybe later, when this was all cleared up. He still had one woman waiting for him in Miami, but he'd been getting tired of her anyway. Later on he'd make up his mind, not now.

He sat down in the leatherette chair and said, 'Tell me what you told him the first time. Detail by detail. Tell me like I'm him and you're doing it just like you did.'

'I don't see the point, but why not?' She sat down in the other chair, crossed her legs, and looked up at the ceiling. 'Dear Inspector Regan,' she said, 'it all began when I was five years-'

'I don't have time for that, Rhonda.'

Something in his voice drained the cuteness out of her. 'All right,' she said, flat. 'This is what I told him. Adolph and I come here on vacation, just passing through. Adolph saw you in the lobby when we came in, and said he knew you and he was going to go say hello. I don't know what went on between you, but you beat him up and threatened to kill him. That's it.'

'What about bringing him back to his room? What about running into you there?'

She shook her head. 'No. I didn't say anything about that, I just did it straight and simple. You beat him up and he came back to the room afterwards and told me you were the one did it.'

'You told Regan that? That Tiftus came back to the room afterwards and told you I beat him up?'

'Yes.'

'How did you say Tiftus said it? Did you say he used my name, or said it was the guy he'd seen in the lobby that beat him up, or what?'

Details seemed to bother her. She was getting irritated, and now she shrugged her shoulders, blew cigarette smoke, and said, 'How do I know? I didn't give the cop a play by play.'

'All right, listen. This is what you told Regan: You and Tiftus came here, saw a guy in the lobby that Tiftus said he knew, Tiftus went away to see the guy and came back and said the guy beat him up. Right?'

She nodded. 'Just what I said.'

'All right. So what did you tell him the second time?'

'That you weren't the guy. When I first saw you in that office there, I figured you'd done it, and I did like that guy whether you believe it or not, so that's why I fingered you like I did. But then I got to thinking, and you come up with the alibi and the buddy-buddy with the cop, so when I saw Regan again I told him I made a mistake, you weren't the guy after all.'

'You told him I wasn't the guy Tiftus saw in the lobby.'

'Right.'

Parker thought it over. He'd already told Regan that Tiftus had gone to see him that morning, and that he'd seen Tiftus on the street a while later. He had to include that, plus what the woman had already told Regan, and make it all work out to a story that pointed off in some brand new direction.

While he thought, she just sat there in the other chair, smoked her cigarette, and watched him. She seemed a little puzzled, and hesitated.

After a while he said, 'All right, we got a new story to tell Regan. We don't change the old story, we just add to it. You and Tiftus got here, saw a guy in the lobby, Tiftus said he knew him, went away, came back, and said the guy beat him up and threatened to kill him. When you saw me you thought I was the guy, but you were wrong. The guy was tall and built like me, but younger, and he had blond hair. And what you remember is, Tiftus told you his name. When he saw the guy in the lobby he said, "Why, there's Jimmy Chambers." You got that? He said, "Why, there's Jimmy Chambers."'

She nodded. 'Why, there's Jimmy Chambers,' she said. 'But I don't get the point.'

'Don't worry about it. I'll get something else going on Jimmy Chambers from the other side, through Younger.

'But who is this Jimmy Chambers? Is that just a name you made up?'

'No. It's a guy with a record, Regan won't have any trouble finding out there's a real Jimmy Chambers, and Jimmy Chambers did know Tiftus, so everything's going to check.'

She said, 'He wasn't really in town, was he?'

'No. Now, after-'

She said, 'I can't do that.'

'You can't do what?'

'I can't get this fella Chambers in trouble. Why don't we just make up some name, it'd be the same.'

'No, it wouldn't. Chambers is a name Regan can check. And Chambers got killed in an explosion a few months ago and nobody official knows about it, so don't worry about getting him in trouble.'

'Is that the truth?'

'Happened on a job we were both on. I don't sic the law on my own kind.'

'All right,' she said. 'When do you want me to do this?'

'Tomorrow morning.'

'They're burying him tomorrow morning.'

He had to think for a second, and then he realized she meant Tiftus. He said, 'Then Regan will be with you at the funeral. Tell him then.'

'It just occurs to me, like that?'

'No. You remembered it tonight, and you weren't going to say anything because you didn't think Regan trusted you. But you want to see your man avenged, so you're going to tell him anyway.'

'I hope he'll believe me,' she said.

'Don't worry about it.'

'Sure.' But then she brightened and said, 'I can do a real scene, a whole graveside bit. Cry and carry on and throw myself on the coffin, the whole thing. I never done anything like that before.'

He said, 'Don't overdo it, that's all.'

'Don't you worry about me,' she told him. 'You may not have realized it, but I am by profession an actress.'

'Good.' He got to his feet in a hurry to be gone.

She said, 'You got to go already? Stick around awhile.'

'Some other time.'

She gave him an actress smile. 'You want a rain cheque?'

'Yeah.'

THREE

IT was nearly midnight before Younger called back. Parker had been sitting in the dark in the living-room of Joe's house, waiting. He'd come back from seeing Rhonda a little before ten, and called police headquarters to leave a message for Younger to call him. Then two hours went by, and Parker just sat and waited, not thinking about anything in particular, not planning, not being impatient or irritable. It worked that way with him sometimes, when he knew where he stood and how the play should go from there on; he could sit alone in the dark and wait, as silent and patient as a stone.

Until finally the phone rang and it was Younger. The first thing he said was, 'You found it?'

'No. I want to talk to you.'

'What about?'

'The money, and something else. Come on over here.'

'It's late, Willis.'

'We've got to get this done tonight. You're going to Tiftus' funeral tomorrow?'

'Regan wants me to go. Him, too, he's coming along.'

'Good, come over here now, it won't take long.'

Younger grumbled, but after a while he said he'd be right there. Parker hung up and got to his feet and went around the house turning on lights. He knew other people thought it strange when he sat in the dark, and he didn't want Younger geechy about anything. He made himself a cup of coffee and went back to the living-room to wait, and ten minutes later the doorbell rang.

When Parker opened the door, Younger came in complaining. 'You know it's after midnight? This better be worth it.'

'Sit down, Younger, this won't take long.'

They both sat down in the living-room, and Parker said, 'I want you to think about something. You're looking for the guy killed Tiftus. But Regan's looking for him, too. What if Regan comes up with him first?'

'I take him right away from him. I'm still in charge, Willis, I already told you that.'

Parker shook his head. 'No. You take him away after Regan tells you he's got him. Is Regan going to tell you right away?'

'He sure as hell better.' Younger was insulted at the idea.

'Why?' Parker asked him. 'What if he holds the guy an hour, six hours, questions him a little, and doesn't say anything to you till he's done with the guy. What do you do about it?'

'I could put in a complaint against him, God damn it!'

'What would that mean to Regan? What would it mean to his bosses? Some hick little town police chief teed off because Regan didn't hold his hand and keep calling him on the phone.'

It was true, and Younger had to know it. He tried to bluster, but it didn't work. He said, finally, 'What's the point? What difference does it make?'

'If Regan gets him first,' Parker told him, 'Regan will make him spill. You know he will. He thinks there's something going between you and me anyway, He's suspicious. He won't turn the guy over to you until he finds out what's going on, and then it's too late, the whole thing's out in the open, and we don't stand a chance to get the money.'

Younger took out a cigar and fooled with it in his hands but didn't unwrap or open it. He said, 'So what can we do?'

'Get the case closed. Turn up a killer, so it gets Regan out of the picture.'

'How do we do that? You mean frame somebody? We couldn't get away with it, not even me, I couldn't get away with it.'

'We don't have to have a body,' Parker told him, 'just a name. What you got to do, you got to go straight down to headquarters and send off a teletype request to Washington, you want any information on a man named Jimmy Chambers, known to be an associate of a man named Adolph Tiftus.'

'Jimmy Chambers? What the hell for?'

'Shut up and listen to me.' Younger looked insulted again, but he didn't say any more, and Parker went right on, not noticing any looks Younger gave him. 'Today, this afternoon, I told you something I'd been holding back. I told you something Tiftus said to me when I saw him in the street before he got killed. Remember my story with Regan I saw Tiftus twice, the first time when he came to my hotel room and a little while later on the street.'

Younger nodded. 'I remember.'

'All right. What he said to me when I met him on the street, I saw he'd been in a fight and he said to me, "Jimmy Chambers roughed me up." I said to him, "I didn't know he was in town," and he said, "I guess he came here for the funeral." That's all. You got it?'

Younger repeated the dialogue, and said, 'What's the point? Who the hell is this Chambers?'

'You'll get the answer tomorrow from Washington.'

'Then what happens?'

'Then you decide Chambers killed Tiftus, and you thank Regan for helping, and you send him home.'

'Just on your say-so?'

'No. There'll be more evidence, don't worry about it.'

'What evidence?'

'Wait for it. You want to be able to act surprised when you get it. The important thing is, you send that request out tonight, as quick as you can get downtown, and you tell Regan about it first thing tomorrow morning. You got that? The first thing you see Regan tomorrow morning, you tell him about Chambers. It's important you do it right away.'

'All right, all right. Is that all?'

'Yeah. Then, with Regan out of the way, we can look for the money and the killer ourselves.'

'Yeah,' said Younger, 'what about the money? I'm getting closer to the killer all the time, I found the shovel and everything, but what about you? You're just sitting here.'

'I've gone through this place,' Parker' told him. 'Tomorrow afternoon, after Regan's out of the case, I think we better go down to Omaha, take a look at Joe's apartment there.'

'I've already been through that apartment, Willis. If the money was there, I would have found it.'

Parker shook his head. 'I want to look at the place myself. You want me to go alone?'

'Not on your life,' Younger told him.

Parker shrugged. 'Then we'll go together. We'll go in your car, that'll be best. Pick me up here around three o'clock.'

'You think Regan will be out of the case by then?'

'Why not? You put a rush on the request to Washington, You get an answer tomorrow morning, Regan is out by noon.'

'If he's out,' Younger said, 'I'll come by. If he isn't I won't. That's the best I can say.'

'That's good enough. Get downtown now and send that request off. You can tell Regan you sent it off this afternoon.'

'Sure, I already got that.'

Parker let him out, waited five minutes, and then went out the back door and down behind the houses again. He was going to need a gun tomorrow, and now was the time to get it.

Downtown was silent and deserted. Electric clocks were aglow deep within the stores along the main street, a few red neon signs here and there were left on all night, and the railroad station and hotel made a little island of light in the middle of it all, but there was no traffic on the street, there were no pedestrians on the sidewalks.

Parker found a sporting-goods store on a side street, half a block from the main drag. A rear window was butter under his hands, and he prowled through the fourth-rate stock, mostly rifles and scopes, and finally picked out a pistol for himself, a snub-nose Iver Johnson Trailsman.22. He grabbed a box of ammunition and went back out the window again, adjusting things behind himself to cut down the chances of the theft being noticed right away.

He went back to Joe's house, sat at the kitchen table, and took the gun apart. After he cleaned the oil off it he put it back together again and loaded it. He slept with it under his pillow.

FOUR

IT was Regan at the door. Parker said, 'Come in.'

Regan looked curious and displeased. He nodded, stepped into the house, and said, 'I wanted to talk to you.'

'Sure.' Parker shut the door. 'Official business?'

Regan made a disgusted mouth. 'Unofficial,' he said. 'I'm not connected with the Tiftus killing any more.'

'I didn't know that. Come in and sit down.'

Regan moved on into the living-room, but he didn't sit down. He was wearing a cheap topcoat, and his hands were in the pockets. With his grey crewcut and eyeglasses and hard mouth and the topcoat he didn't look like a college teacher any more, he looked like what he was; a hard, smart cop, smelling something wrong and not wanting to let go.

Parker stayed on his feet, too. He said, 'You found out who killed Tiftus?'

Regan said, 'You'd know more about that than I would.' He glanced around the room. 'I wish I'd met Joseph Shardin,' he said. 'He's the key to this whole thing.'

Parker said, 'Why would I know about it?'

'You were the one solved it,' Regan told him. He was being sarcastic, but quietly, not pushing it. 'You gave us the clue we needed.'

'You mean about Jimmy Chambers?'

'That's who.'

'He did it, then, huh?'

'It looks that way. Abner's convinced.'

'But you're not.'

Regan shook his head. 'No, Willis, I'm not. It doesn't make any difference; I'm not in charge.'

'You want to ask me something,' Parker told him, 'go right ahead. I mean to co-operate.'

'Why?'

'Because I don't want you down on Charles Willis.'

Regan frowned studying him. 'I even think that's the truth,' he said. 'And I don't get it. Why'd you wait so long to tell about Chambers?'

'At first, I figured he couldn't of done it. Then, nobody else turned up that might of, so it had to be him. I figured to begin with if I told about him, you and Younger would grab him and not look anywhere else, because he's served time. But if he really did do the job, I won't want to cover for him. Did you get him yet?'

Regan shook his head. 'He doesn't seem to be around town any more.'

'Well, that figures, if he did it.'

'Everything figures,' Regan said. 'A little late, but it all figures. All the different stories that didn't connect so good before, all of a sudden they all go together like magnets. There's some link-up between you and Abner and the Samuels woman, and I can't find it.'

'I didn't know either of those two before this all happened,' Parker said.

'I believe that, too,' Regan told him. 'That's why I can't figure it out.' He walked around the living-room, looking at the furniture. 'Shardin's the key,' he said, more to himself than Parker. 'He dies, and three old friends come to the funeral, a businessman from Miami and two ex-cons. One of the ex-cons kills the other, and the businessman is all of a sudden buddy-buddy with the local captain of police. And with the girl-friend of the murdered man, let's not forget that. First she identifies him as the guy who killed her man, and then she changes her story, and then she changes it again to this Chambers right around the same time the businessman comes up with Chambers. That's a funny thing, isn't it, Willis? I never heard a word about this man Chambers until this morning, and then I hear it from everywhere.'

'I told Younger yesterday. What about the woman, what did she say?'

Regan gave a sour smile. 'That's right, you weren't there, you wouldn't know. This morning she remembered, Tiftus told her the name of the man who beat him up, and it was Chambers.'

'That's what he told me, too.'

Regan looked at Parker, and then some more at the room. 'I'd like to know how Shardin died,' he said.

'I heard it was a heart attack.'

'I heard the same thing. All right, Willis, I just wanted to know why you took so long to tell us about Chambers, and you had an answer right on tap.'

'It's the truth.'

'I'm sure of it.' Regan shrugged, and turned towards the door. 'It's not my worry any more,' he said. 'Chambers'll be found sooner or later,' and maybe some more will come out at the trial. I can't wait.'

'Fine,' said Parker.

Regan walked across the living-room to the foyer. 'It's been interesting knowing you, Willis,' he said.

There was nothing to say to that. Parker held the door open. Regan paused in the doorway and said, 'I suppose you'll be leaving town now,'

'Probably.'

'Well. Good-bye, Willis.'

'Good-bye.'

FIVE

YOUNGER arrived at three o'clock on the button. Parker didn't wait for him to get out of his Ford and come ring the bell; as soon as he saw Younger pull to a stop at the kerb he picked up his suitcase and walked out of the house.

When he opened the car door Younger said, 'How come the suitcase?'

'We may have to stay over. We're getting a late start.'

'You should have told me, I'd've packed a bag of my own.'

Parker didn't want that. He said, 'You can borrow from me. No problem.' He tossed the suitcase on to the back seat and slid in beside Younger in front. He pulled the door shut and said, 'Let's get out of here.'

'Right.'

Parker nodded at the Plymouth parked down the block. 'You want to wake your boy on the way by?'

'What?'

'He's been asleep most of the time the last couple of days. He must have found something steady for the nights.'

Younger frowned and said, 'How long did you know about him?'

'From the time he parked there.'

'Son of a bitch.' Younger yanked at the steering wheel, started the Ford away from the kerb, and they did a tight U-turn and rode away from the house and the Plymouth both. Younger said, 'If you know about him, and if he was always asleep, how come you stuck around?'

'The money,' Parker told him. It was an answer Younger could understand.

Younger did. He turned and gave Parker a fat grin. 'You want it as bad as I do,' he said. 'As bad as I do.'

'Sure.'

'I know it.' Younger faced front again, watching the traffic. He was pleased with himself. He said, 'Everything went fine with Regan. That was good, when the Samuels woman started talking about Chambers, too. You worked that real well.'

'She did it right, huh?'

'Listen, I almost believed her myself. A regular actress. The only thing, what happens when Chambers is picked up?'

'He won't be,' Parker told him.

'You sound sure of it.'

'I am.'

They didn't do any more talking for a while. Younger took them on a route that didn't go through downtown and that was good. There was less chance of anyone noticing the two of them together in the car. Not that it made that much difference.

After a while, out on the three-lane road that led to Omaha, Younger started again, saying, 'You're from Miami, huh?'

'I live there sometimes.'

'That's what I'm gonna do. Once I get my hands on that money, I'm clearing out of here. What do you think, Miami? Or would I do better out of the country, maybe go to the Riviera, or Acapulco?'

'One place is like another,' Parker told him, but he knew Younger wouldn't be able to understand it.

He didn't. 'Not with half a million dollars,' he said.

'A quarter of a million,' Parker reminded him.

Younger reacted like a kid caught playing hooky; guilty smile and all. That's right,' he said. 'That's right, you're right, Willis. I meant to say quarter of a million, that's what I meant.'

'Sure.'

'You can trust me.'

'No. I can't trust you, you know that. And you can't trust me. You don't trust me, that's why you had the guys in the Plymouth and the Dodge.

'You knew about them both?'

'We don't trust each other,' Parker told him. 'We can't, there's too much money in it. And that isn't any good. Watching each other all the time, we'll never get anywhere. The guy that killed Tiftus is still around some place, remember.'

'I'm getting close to him, Willis.'

'That isn't the point.'

Younger nodded, facing straight ahead as he drove.

'I know that. You're right, we got to be able to trust each other.'

'That's what I say.'

'But how?' Younger turned his head and glanced at Parker, and then faced front again. 'I'll tell you the truth, Willis, you could swear on a stack of Bibles the sun was shining and I'd have to go out and look for myself. There's no way on earth you could make me trust you.'

'There's one way.'

'I let you get something on me, so if I double-cross you it backfires.'

'How?'

Younger squinted at the road, trying to figure it out. 'I don't get what you mean,' he said.

Parker told him, 'I write a note. I say, "I killed Adolph Tiftus." I sign my name to it. It's all in my handwriting, so you've got me cold. I give you the note, and you give it to a lawyer or a friend or somebody for safekeeping. You tell him, If anything happens to you they should give the note to the law. That way, you're safe. I don't dare touch you.'

Younger nodded. 'That makes sense,' he said. 'That isn't a bad idea at all. I could trust you after that.'

'Sure.'

'We'll do it, then,' he said. 'As soon as we get back to town.'

'We can do it in Omaha, at Joe's apartment. The sooner we do it, the better for both of us.'

Younger shrugged. 'Okay, fine. I don't care. Only thing, what about me giving you an alibi?'

'I'll cover it in the note. Say I told you it was earlier than it was, and you didn't have a watch on you, something like that. The whole thing'll be worked out in the note.'

'Good. That's a good idea.'

'For you, too,' Parker told him.

Younger looked startled. He glanced at Parker, and away. 'What do you mean, me, too?'

'You write a note, too.'

'What? That I killed Tiftus? It wouldn't make any sense.'

'No, that you killed Joseph Shardin.'

Younger now looked scared. 'I didn't kill him! What the hell are you talking about, Willis, I didn't kill him!'

'I didn't kill Tiftus,' Parker reminded him. 'That isn't the point. The point is to have something on you, like you'll have on me.'

'But it don't make any sense. How's it gonna look?'

Parker said, 'You write, "I killed Joseph Shardin. I was trying to extort money from him, and I didn't mean to kill him." And you sign your name. No, wait a second. Besides that, you write, "Doctor Rayborn knows all about it." Because he does, doesn't he?'

Younger glowered at the road. 'If that bastard's been opening his mouth-'

'He didn't have to. I haven't seen him since he fixed up my face.'

'I don't like it,' Younger said. 'I didn't kill the old man, why should I say I did?'

Parker told him, 'You'll have my note about killing Tiftus, I'll have your note about killing Joe. That way, we're safe from each other.'

Younger gnawed on his lower lip, and shook his head back and forth. 'I don't like it,' he said. 'I just don't like it.'

Parker sat back in the seat and watched the flat countryside roll by. Flat farmland, not a tree in sight. You could see white farmhouses miles away across the flat fields.

Sitting at the wheel, driving down the straight road, Younger chewed his lip and tried to get used to having only a quarter of a million dollars. That was the problem, and Parker knew it. Younger had been counting on the whole pie, and now he was having to shift his thinking, having to gear down to half a pie.

Half a pie in the sky.

With the outskirts of Omaha lumping up ahead of them, Younger finally nodded. 'All right,' he said. 'It's the best way.'

Parker knew what he meant. He meant he wasn't that sure anyway that he could get Parker before Parker got him.

'You're right,' Parker told him.

SIX

PARKER'S note read:

I killed Adolph Tiftus. He came in my room and we argued and I hit him with the ashtray. Then I went to Joe Shardin's house and saw Captain Younger and told him it was half an hour earlier than it was. I scared Rhonda Samuels into making up the story about Jim Chambers.

Charles Willis

Younger read it and said, 'Fine. That covers the whole thing.'

They were sitting at the kitchen table in Joe Sheer's Omaha apartment. Parker had found pen and paper and had written his note first, to keep Younger from getting suspicious. Now he pushed the pen and the pad of paper across the desk and said, 'Your turn.'

'Sure,' said Younger, but he kept holding Parker's note, and there was a thoughtful look in his eye.

Parker told him, 'Forget it. You still need me. You need me to find the dough, and you need me to help you when you find the guy that killed Tiftus.'

'I didn't have any plans,' Younger said. He put the note down, took the pen, and started to write. Parker watched him and waited.

This was a quiet neighbourhood Joe had picked. There wasn't a sound coming in the kitchen window, not a sound anywhere but the ballpoint pen sliding over the paper as Younger wrote his suicide note.

When it was done, Parker took it and read it:

I killed Joseph Shardin. I didn't mean to, I was trying to extort money from him and it was an accident. Dr. Rayborn knows all about it, he helped me cover it up. He had to, because I had something on him.

Capt. Abner L. Younger

Younger said, 'How is it?'

'Fine,' said Parker, and took the.22 pistol out of his pocket. 'Keep you palms flat on the table,' he said.

Younger's eyes got bigger. He said, 'What are you gonna do?'

Parker reached out for the note he'd written, crumpled it, and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he got to his feet. 'You don't move,' he said. 'You don't make a single move.'

'You found it,' Younger said. His voice was bitter and disgusted. 'You found it. It was in the house there all the time.'

'I didn't find a dollar,' Parker told him. 'Joe told you the truth, there wasn't any half million.'

'You're lying.'

Parker shook his head. 'No more,' he said. 'There's no more reason to lie.'

Younger raised his eyes and looked at Parker's face and saw what Parker meant. He said, 'You can't do this. You can't get away with it.'

Carefully, so he wouldn't wrinkle it, Parker picked up Younger's note and put it up on top of the refrigerator, where it would be out of Younger's reach.

Younger said, 'If there isn't any money, you don't have to kill me.'

'I can't trust you,' Parker told him. 'I can't ever trust you. If I let you live, you'll always think the half million's around somewhere; you'll think I've got it.'

'No. No, I won't, I'll-'

'We'll talk about it,' Parker promised. 'But first I want your gun. I don't want you armed while we talk about it.'

'We can talk about it,' Younger said nodding. 'You're right, we can talk about it. There's always some other way to do things, you don't have to-'

'Your gun,' Parker said. 'Reach in under your coat and take it out and put it on the table. When you take it out, just use your thumb and first finger and just hold it by the butt. And move slow and careful.'

'Sure thing, Willis. I won't try anything.' Younger was sweating now, scared and eager, trying to find some reason to think he might be alive fifteen minutes from now. He took his pistol out the way Parker had told him, and put it down on the table.

It was a.32, a Smith & Wesson Model 30. Parker took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and picked Younger's pistol up in his right hand. He held the.22 now in his left.

Younger's hands were still pressed palm down on the formica table-top, but they were trembling anyway. He watched Parker, and he kept smiling. He was smiling with nerves, and with some stupid idea that a smile would show Parker he was really an all-right guy after all, and with fear. He said, 'I believe you, Willis. There isn't any money. I believe you.'

'Too late,' Parker told him. He walked around the table and stuck the.32 up close against Younger's chest, at an angle the way it would be if Younger were holding the gun himself in his right hand. Younger's mouth opened, and his hands started to come up from the table to protect himself, and Parker pulled the trigger.

After that, it took less than five minutes to get everything arranged. He closed Younger's hand around the.32, he put the note back down on the table and wiped it with the cloth where he'd handled one corner, and he removed his prints from the few things he'd touched in the room. From then on, anything he touched he held with the handkerchief. He went through the apartment the way he'd gone through Joe's house, making sure there was nothing in here to lead to him or anyone else Joe knew from the old days. He got the envelope from Younger's pocket with the list of Joe's jobs and the names, and he burned it in an ashtray along with the note he'd written about killing Tiftus. He flushed the ashes down the toilet.

When he was done, everything was satisfactory. This should answer Regan's questions. Regan had wanted to know about Joseph Shardin, so here it was. Younger had been extorting the old man, and accidentally killed him. Three of Shardin's old friends had come to town for the funeral, one of them had killed the second, and the third didn't have anything to do with it. The third had maybe suspected what Younger had done to the old man, but he hadn't been able to prove anything so he hadn't said anything. When the investigation into the killing of Tiftus was done, this third man left. Younger, feeling remorse, went into Omaha to the old man's apartment there – proving he'd had the run of the old man's life and goods – and there he wrote a suicide note and killed himself.

Fine. The only thing left to do was to get Rhonda Samuels out of town. If she were left there she might get sore and start blowing whistles.

Parker took one last look around and saw that everything was done here. He left the apartment.

SEVEN

PARKER went into one of the phone booths in the row and copied down the number. Then he walked across the terminal to the Western Union office on the other side. A loud metallic voice was calling out train departures.

In the Western Union office, Parker took a blank and made out a telegram to Rhonda Samuels, Sagamore Hotel, Sagamore, Nebraska. He gave her the number of the phone in the booth across the way and wrote: 'Call me six o'clock from pay phone.' He handed this across the desk to the woman, who said, 'You forgot to sign it, sir.'

'No name,' Parker told her. 'They'll know who it's from.'

'It has to have a name,' she said.

He leaned towards her, making the effort to be patient and friendly, and winked. 'It's a kind of gag,' he said.

'Oh.' She smiled. 'Very well.'

He paid for the telegram, and then went out and across the terminal to the restaurant. He had a meal that was too late to he called lunch, too early to be called dinner. He sat a while over his second cup of coffee, and then went out and wandered around the terminal awhile. At ten minutes to six he went and sat on the little stool in the phone booth.

She didn't call till five after the hour. Parker picked the receiver up on the first ring, and put it to his ear, but he didn't say anything. There was silence a few seconds, and then a voice said, hesitantly, 'Hello?'

He recognized her. He said, 'Yeah, it's me.'

'Oh,' she said. 'There you are.'

'You ready to leave that town?'

'No kidding.'

'Buy two tickets on the train to Omaha. Be sure you buy two.'

'And you'll reimburse me, won't you?'

'Don't worry about it. Take the next train down here. One leaves here at six-twenty, it gets here quarter to seven.'

'I'm not even packed yet.'

'So pack. Remember, buy two tickets.'

'I remember.'

He hung up, and left the phone booth, and waited. At twenty to seven he got his suitcase from the locker where he'd stashed it, and at quarter to she came up the ramp from the tracks and he fell in beside her.

She said, 'Don't tell me, let me guess. We came in together, right?'

'Right.'

'Together all the way, right?'

'Right.'

'So now what? Miami?'

'Tomorrow.'

'What about tonight?'

'I got us a hotel room.'

'Another hotel room,' she said.

'This one's different,' he said. He took her arm.

EIGHT

THERE were things Parker couldn't know, things that made the whole structure break apart.

The suicide note. It was a fine suicide note, except it wasn't accurate. When the law went to Dr. Rayborn, he denied everything for a while, and when he finally did break down he said that what he'd helped Younger cover up was a suicide, not a murder. Joseph Shardin had hanged himself, Rayborn said, and he wouldn't change the story.

Regan was running the investigation this time, the whole thing was his, and he wasn't about to let go. It took time, but he got a court order to have Joseph Shardin dug up, and when an autopsy was done the finding was that Shardin had committed suicide after all, but that he had, at some recent time prior to the suicide, been severely tortured.

If the Shardin murder wasn't a murder, but was a suicide, then the Younger suicide wasn't a suicide, but was a murder.

And there were other things. A shovel in Younger's office, just an ordinary shovel. But what was it doing there? Regan took to prowling around the Shardin house, and after a while he noticed where a part of the cellar had been dug up and filled in again, and when he had it dug up again there was a body in there, and it turned out to be the teenager from next door, a nineteen-year-old boy who'd supposedly left a note and gone away on a trip a few days before.

It began to seem to Regan that Charles Willis was the key to the whole thing. But Willis was gone, and so was the Samuels woman. Still, Regan wanted to talk to them.

There were fingerprints in the hotel room Willis had occupied his first night that matched up with fingerprints in the Shardin house, where Willis had lived the rest of his stay in town. It took a while to get the fingerprints and match them up, but when Regan had two good ones he sent them off to Washington to see what he could find out about Charles Willis.

Everything would have worked fine if Younger really had killed Joe Sheer, but he hadn't, and from that it just kept rolling and rolling, and finished with an answer from Washington, saying the man called Charles Willis was really Ronald Casper, wanted in California for jail-break and murder. Mug shots followed, but Parker had had plastic surgery done on his face since he'd served time as Ronald Casper, so when the mug shots didn't look like Charles Willis it slowed everybody down a little.

But not for long. Regan knew something was wrong somewhere along the line, but he didn't yet know what. He sent out another request; would the FBI office in Miami take a look for Charles Willis there? The address he'd given had probably been phoney, of course, but just to be on the safe side somebody ought to check it.

Another surprise; the address wasn't phoney after all.

NINE

PARKER was waiting for the elevator when the manager came over and said, 'Could I see you a minute? In my office.'

'What's up?'

'It should be private.'

Parker looked at him. The manager's name was Freedman, J. A. Freedman. Parker had spent a month or two of each of the last ten years at this hotel, and by now he knew J. A. Freedman pretty well.

Freedman touched Parker's arm and said, softly, 'It's important. Really.'

'All right.'

Freedman led the way to his office. He was short and barrel-shaped and walked as though he'd do better if he rolled instead. His face was made of Silly Putty, plus hornrimmed glasses.

In his office, he motioned Parker to sit down and then said, 'Frankly, Mr. Willis, this is somewhat embarrassing. I don't quite know how to go about it.'

'What's the problem?'

'Apparently,' Freedman said, making vague gestures as though he wanted to minimize what he was saying, 'apparently, you're in some sort of trouble. It's none of my business, tax trouble, I suppose, business trouble of some kind. It could happen to any of us, to me, to anybody.'

It was almost two weeks since he'd come back from Sagamore. The woman he'd left down here had been gone by the time he'd come back, so he'd been keeping Rhonda around since then. As soon as Freedman said trouble, Parker knew it had to do with Sagamore, something had broken there. He said, 'Why do you say I'm in trouble?'

'Two Federal agents came here looking for you.'

It was Sagamore. He said, 'What did they say?'

'Nothing, Mr. Willis. Only that they were looking for you.'

'What did you say?'

Freedman spread his hands. 'I have to co-operate. You're a businessman yourself, you understand the problem.'

'Sure.'

'I told them your room number, but that I didn't believe you were in. They said they'd wait in your room. I sent them up with a bellboy to let them in, and I've been watching for you ever since. Half an hour, I suppose. The least I can do is warn you. There are two of them, so I imagine they hope to catch you off-guard, get you to say more than you should. I thought you should know, in case you want to contact your attorney, make any preparations.'

They already had Rhonda. She'd hold out five minutes when she found out they were Federal. Parker said, 'Thanks. I appreciate this.'

'Not at all. Our positions could easily be reversed.' Freedman smiled sadly. 'Government doesn't understand business,' he said.

Parker got to his feet. 'Things I'd better do first,' he said.

'Of course, of course. I hope this trouble won't – inconvenience you too badly.'

'Maybe it won't. Thanks again.'

'Any time.'

Parker went back out to the lobby. Did they have another man down here? Did they have pictures of him? He didn't cross the lobby, but went the other way, through the bar and out of the door on the other side and diagonally across to the hack stand. He didn't wait for the boy in the purple uniform to open the door for him, but did it himself and crowded into the back seat. 'Cocoanut Grove,' he said. 'Bayshore Drive.' The first address that came into his head, to get him away from here.

Riding away from the hotel, he wondered what had gone wrong. Well, it didn't matter. It had gone sour, that's all. The Charles Willis name was useless now, the whole cover shot.

It meant about sixty thousand to him, too, stashed away in bank accounts and hotel safes under the Willis name. He didn't dare go after any of that now. He had about a hundred on him, and that was it, that was all he had to get started on.

In Cocoanut Grove he left the cab and stole a car, a white Rambler station wagon. He pointed it north and started driving, leaving behind everything, the name he'd built up and the money he'd stashed, and the whole pattern of life he'd developed.

Already he was thinking about what to do next. He'd have to set up a new cover, but that would take a while; building it bit by bit and paper by paper till it had the texture of reality. In the meantime he had to find a place to hole up, and he had to find a score he could connect with. He was going to need cash and soon, and a lot of it.

It would work itself out. He drove north.

THE END

About Richard Stark

Richard Stark is one of the pre-eminent authors – and inventors – of noir crime fiction. Stark's recent Parker novels Comeback and Backflash were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. His first novel, The Hunter, became the classic 1967 movie Point Blank. Thirty years later The Hunter was adapted again by Hollywood, in the hit Mel Gibson movie Payback. Richard Stark is also, at times, mystery Grand Master Donald E. Westlake.

THE PARKER SERIES:

Point Blank (1962) aka The Hunter

The Mourner (1963)

The Outfit (1963)

The Steel Hit (1963) aka The Man with the Getaway Face

The Score (1964) aka Killtown

The Black Ice Score (1965)

The Jugger (1965)

The Handle (1966) aka Run Lethal

The Seventh (1966) aka The Split

The Green Eagle Score (1967)

The Rare Coin Score (1967)