The Seventh

by Richard Stark

  Parker went around to the right, where there was a narrow space between garage and house. When he'd first driven by, he'd thought the garage was attached, but not quite. The roof overhang from both sides nearly met in the middle overhead, and a side door in the garage wall faced a side door in the house wall, but the two were separate buildings.

  Parker moved down this cramped alley to the side door, and a minute later the door was opened by Dougherty.

  Four steps led up to a closed door. Going to the left instead, a flight of stairs led down to the basement. Dougherty, standing up on the steps in front of the closed door in order to leave room for Parker to come inside, motioned toward the basement and said, “We can talk down there.”

  Parker went first. Dougherty shut the side door and went down after him.

  The basement had been half converted to a game room or family room or some such thing. Vertical wood paneling covered the walls and formed a partition separating this part of the basement from the part with the utilities in it. Nothing had been done to make a ceiling yet, but over in a corner a few squares of vinyl flooring had been put in place over the original cement. For furniture, there was a pingpong table, plus a bulging sagging scratchy-looking sofa and a card table and some folding chairs.

  Dougherty said, “The sofa's too uncomfortable. Let's sit at the card table. Take off your coat, why don't you?”

  “I won't be staying long.”

  Dougherty shrugged and said, “Well, sit down a minute anyway.”

  They sat across from one another at the card table. Parker sat leaning back, his hands at rest in his lap. Dougherty leaned forward with his elbows on the table.

  Dougherty said, “My wife tells me you have information for me. On the Canaday case.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You wouldn't be here to give yourself up, would you?”

  “Not me.”

  “I didn't think so. But you are the man found at the scene of the crime.”

  “Probably.”

  “And you're here to tell me you didn't kill Miss Canaday, I should concentrate on others of her friends.”

  Parker shrugged. “I don't care what you do,” he said. “I want a list from you, that's all.”

  “You want from me?”

  “Boyfriends, all kinds. Anybody still living around town. Did she have an address book?”

  Dougherty took his elbows off the table. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You want to ask me questions?”

  “That's right.”

  Dougherty shook his head. “You don't look the type,” he said. “You look too smart for that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “You're going to go do it yourself, am I right? You're going to find your girlfriend's murderer and bring him to justice all by yourself.”

  “Not me.”

  “No? What, then? I already know you didn't kill her, if that's what's worrying you. You'd been living with her a couple of weeks, neighbors identified you. You didn't make the phone call, the timing is wrong. You wouldn't have had to kick the door in if Miss Canaday was still alive. I imagine you'd be interesting to me in a number of other ways, because otherwise you wouldn't have run off like that, and I'd like to know what all those guns were doing in that closet, but I'm not sold on you for murder. You wouldn't be connected with the robbery out at the stadium, would you?”

  “I'm not connected with anything. If you already count me out, who do you count in?”

  Dougherty smiled and said, “I don't see a reason in the world to tell you anything. What's your name, by the way?”

  “Joe,” Parker lied.

  “All right, Joe. I'm engaged in a murder investigation. In order to keep my pigeon from flying away, I've let the newspapers concentrate on the search for you. But I'm not searching for you, the robbery detail is. They figure you were probably in on the robbery at the stadium, or at least you know the people who were. The guns in the closet connect you definitely.”

  Parker said, monotoned, not trying to convince Dougherty but just getting it said so it could be done with and out of the way, “I had nothing to do with the robbery. I went in and saw her there killed, and when the cop opened the closet door I saw all the guns in there, and I figured I'd be the fall guy so I ran.”

  Dougherty nodded. “That's bound to be your story, sure. But I'm not the one to tell it to. You want someone from robbery detail.”

  “I want Ellie's boyfriends.”

  Dougherty shook his head. “You've got to be kidding. You've got to have some other reason to come in here.”

  Parker said, “You're at a dead end on the killing. Robbery detail is at a dead end on the heist. Give me a couple answers, toss me in the middle of it, maybe I stir things up.”

  “You muddy the waters, you mean.”

  Parker cocked his head. “You want to go up and tell your wife anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like don't leave the house. Don't take the kids anywhere. You weren't dumb enough to have her phone the precinct, were you?”

  “No, I wasn't. You haven't killed anybody yet, and you've got no reason to kill me. I'm in no hurry to arrest you for anything, because I'm working on a murder case and you connect somewhere else entirely. My wife and kids are going next door for a visit.”

  “Bad.”

  Dougherty said, “Don't pressure me. I won't pressure you and you don't pressure me. Why are you still in town?”

  “I want names,” Parker said.

  “You won't get them from me. Could it be the actual killer knows something? Something about the robbery, maybe. You can't afford to have him talk to the police; he might try to trade information for a lesser charge.”

  “I'll give him to you,” Parker said. “Alive and talking.”

  “You don't make any sense at all,” Dougherty told him. “Why do you want him, if not to kill him? What makes you think I'll give you any information?”

  “You're too exposed, Dougherty. You know my arguments.”

  Dougherty glanced at the ceiling. “You mean my family? I don't believe it, it's too strong a reaction. You can't want information that bad.”

  “I do. My friends and I do.”

  “You touch me, or my family, and the force won't rest until you're found.”

  “You mean they'll start looking? They're just kidding around up till now?”

  Dougherty gnawed his lower lip. “There's no point involving them in this,” he said. “We should be able to work this out between us, just the two of us. Leave my family out of it, leave your friends out of it, leave the force out of it.”

  “Then what?”

  “If I give you names, you've got to know I'll have those people put under immediate surveillance. If you show up to ask questions, you'll be grabbed.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  Dougherty chewed and chewed on his lower lip. He didn't seem worried, just thoughtful. “I haven't got this figured yet,” he said. “I believe you, you think this is important. Important to you, I mean. I believe you, you'll do whatever you have to do to get what you want. What I don't understand is why you want it, or why it should be so necessary.”

  Parker shrugged. “Never mind me. The point is, what do you get out of it?”

  “If I give you names, they won't do you any good. You can't get near any of the people I mention without being arrested. If I don't give you the names, you'll probably cause me trouble of one sort of another just to let me know you don't make idle threats, but all that can do is put even more heat on you. I don't see where you stand to gain.”

  Parker said, “Where do you stand to gain?”

  Dougherty seemed to consider. “If I bring you in,” he said slowly, as though talking to himself, “and it turns out you are connected with the robbery, it might even mean promotion for me, to second grade. If I let you go, knowing nothing about you but the license plate of the Buick, which surely won't do me any good, it won't hel
p to announce to my boss I had you and lost you.”

  Parker said, “Don't figure you've got the choice.”

  Dougherty smiled thinly. “You have at least two guns on you, handguns of one kind or another, in your overcoat pockets. I have my pistol in a hip holster tucked into my back pocket. I'm the fastest draw on the force with the pistol in that position.”

  “You don't want to take the chance,” Parker told him. “Not here.”

  “That's true. Not if I don't have to.” Dougherty spread his hands. “You haven't come here to cause me trouble, that's obvious. You have a request, that's all, and it's up to me to say yes or no. What if I offer you a trade?”

  “What kind of trade?”

  “Why do you want him?”

  Parker considered. After a minute he said, “He has something I own, something he took with him. I want it back. When I find him, I'll take it back and then give him to you.”

  “What if it's the other way around? I find him, and give you back what he took.”

  “It wouldn't work that way.”

  “What is it he has?”

  Parker shook his head. “It's something of mine.”

  Dougherty gestured, pushing the question aside. “All right, forget that. I want to know what happened at Ellen Canaday's place last night, what your part of it was, detail by detail. I won't ask you about anything not directly connected with the killing. You give me my answers, and then I give you your answers. Fair enough?”

  “Why not?”

  “Fine. You were the one broke the door down, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Why didn't you have a key?”

  “I wasn't going to be staying there that long.”

  “Did you hear a scream, any noise at all? Is that what made you break; the door down?”

  “No. I didn't hear anything.”

  “Then why break it down?”

  “I'd been gone ten minutes. Ellie was okay when I left. It figured something was wrong when I came back and rang the bell and she didn't let me in.”

  “Had you been arguing, fighting at all?”

  “No, we'd been screwing.”

  Dougherty seemed a little troubled by the word, but he rode on by it, saying, “Had she said anything about being frightened of anybody? Anybody at all?”

  “No, or I wouldn't be here talking to you.”

  Dougherty smiled. “Of course. Sorry. You say you were gone ten minutes. Was she nude when you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “In what room?”

  “The bedroom, same as when I came back.”

  “In bed?”

  “Sitting up.”

  “Was she planning on getting dressed?”

  Parker shrugged. “Maybe a robe or something. She was going to fry some eggs.”

  “She was planning to leave the bedroom.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you lock the door when you left?”

  “It's a spring lock, locks automatically. I shut it all the way.”

  “You're sure of that.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. How long were you back in the apartment before the two police officers arrived?”

  “Just a minute or two. I just walked into the bedroom, saw her there, looked around, and there they were.”

  “You told them you'd made the anonymous phone call. Why?”

  “They figured me for the killer. I wanted to give them a choice.”

  “But how did you know there was a phone call?”

  “I didn't. But two cops walk in, somebody probably called. And if they got the tip some other way, that could still throw them off balance, give them the idea I'd already notified headquarters for them.”

  “Why did you wait and talk awhile? Why not run for it right away? Did you have to wait for them both to be distracted or something?”

  Parker said, “I already told you that. When I saw the guns, I knew there was trouble. The guns in the closet.”

  “You didn't know about them.”

  “No.”

  “All right, never mind that. Who introduced you to Ellen Canaday?”

  “A guy with an alibi.”

  “You're sure?”

  “I'm sure.”

  “I'd like to check him off my list.”

  Parker shook his head. “No soap.”

  Dougherty considered, then shrugged and smiled. “Well, that's all right. You've got nothing to offer me? Nothing I forgot to ask?”

  “You're doing fine,” Parker told him.

  “I'm not so sure. Okay, come on along upstairs.”

  Parker let Dougherty lead the way. Upstairs had the feeling of a house normally full and unexpectedly empty. The rooms seemed to hum with emptiness.

  They went through a tiny bright white kitchen with Dougherty's dinner cold on a white plate on the red formica top of a kitchen table with tubular chrome legs. Then through a dining room filled to the brim by a maple table and chairs, and through a little square of leftover space where the stairs went up to the second floor, and on into the magazine-littered living room.

  There was a closet near the front door, and Dougherty opened it and took out a baggy suitcoat that matched the baggy trousers he was wearing. From its inside pocket he removed a black notebook and handed it to Parker. “First page,” he said.

  Parker opened the notebook. On the first page front and back, were nine male names. Five of the names included addresses. Next to three of the names were little checks. Dan Kifka's name wasn't there at all.

  Dougherty said, “You need paper? Pencil?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come along.”

  Dougherty led the way back to the dining room, while Parker, following him, riffled quickly through the rest of the black notebook and found all the pages blank.

  There was a glass-doored secretary standing crammed into a corner of the dining room. Dougherty got a pencil and sheet of yellow paper from this and put them on the maple table.

  Parker stood to transcribe the names and addresses. The room was too small and jumbled for him to want to pull one of the chairs away from the table and sit down. When he was finished transferring all the names and addresses and check marks to the paper he said, “What do the marks mean?”

  “Those are the ones I've talked to.”

  Parker looked at him. “Talked to? Or cleared?”

  Dougherty smiled gently. “You keep your secrets, Joe, I'll keep mine.”

  Parker shrugged. “It doesn't matter.”

  Dougherty said, “That's all you want, right?”

  “Right.”

  They walked to the front door, Dougherty saying, “I wonder what my boss'll say about this.”

  “He'll say you should have taken me.”

  Dougherty shook his head. “Not me. The robbery detail will catch you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, they'll catch you. They're very good.” Dougherty opened the front door. “See you around,” he said.

  “Good-bye,” Parker said.

  5

  Daylight was fast fading when Parker came out on the roof. He looked around, saw no one, and moved off to his left. He stepped over a low wall defining where two buildings met, and kept moving.

  He'd come up onto the roofs at the eastern end of the block, and the building he wanted was about halfway down. He passed clotheslines, passed a pigeon cote, passed a rumpled, frayed, faded blanket left behind by someone in a hurry. When he'd counted buildings and knew he was at the one he wanted, he moved to the rear and over the side and down the fire escape.

  There was no light in the apartment at all, and both windows opening onto the fire escape were locked. Parker took a roll of Scotch tape from his pocket, ran some pieces of tape back and forth across one of the windows near the inside lock, and then took a gun from his overcoat and used the butt of it to tap the taped window gently until it cracked several times. It was reasonably quiet this way and didn't take too long. When he peeled some of the tap
e off again, pieces of glass came off with it, leaving a hole large enough for him to get his hand through and unlock the window.

  He doubted there was a plant in the apartment at all, but just to be on the safe side he opened the window with slow caution and climbed in the same way. He could assume there was a police guard outside the apartment door, in the hallway out there, but other than that he should have the place to himself.

  He did. The bedroom looked strange with one of the swords missing from the wall and with the messed-up bed, but the body was gone and so were the guns from the closet. The rest of the apartment was unchanged.

  Parker went through it quickly but thoroughly. He wanted names. Male, female, it didn't matter. What he wanted to know was Ellie Canaday's life. It was someone from that life who'd come in here and ended that life, and taken the money; that was his mistake.

  There were a couple of telephone numbers jotted down on the cover of the phone book, without any names or other identification. Parker wrote them down without expecting much from them.

  On various papers here and there in the apartment Parker found four of the names he'd already gotten from Detective Dougherty, but no new names, and no female names at all.

  Sometimes it was a bad thing to be devoid of small talk. If he'd had meaningless little conversations with her the last few weeks he might have learned something he could use now. But Parker couldn't stand meaningless conversations, couldn't think of anything to say or any reason to say it.

  The only time he talked about the weather, for instance, was when it had something to do with a job he was on.

  All right, the apartment was useless. Still, he'd had to check it out before going back to Dan.

  He went out the apartment the same way he'd gone in and started up the fire escape again. He went half a flight, and an automatic boomed above him, a metallic sting went pinging and ricocheting around him, slicing off the metal parts of the fire escape.

  He flattened himself against the wall, dragging the pistol out of his left topcoat pocket, and above him again the automatic boomed and the slug went whining and whizzing on down the fire escape.

  The first shot is for time. Not even bothering to look up, Parker raised his hand up over his head and fired upward, generally in the direction from which the shots had come. With the echoes of that shot still sounding around him, he ducked away again, back down the fire escape.