The Seventh

by Richard Stark

  Parker walked up to the front of the cage. He had the Beretta in his right hand, but at the last second he changed his mind. He went back and picked up the gun the amateur had thrown away; it was a Smith & Wesson .32 revolver. Parker frowned at it. The last one like this he'd seen, Pete Rudd was carrying it. Was this Rudd's pistol? Was that how the amateur knew to come to Vimorama?

  But he wasn't particularly interested in the answer, because it made no difference anymore. He turned back to the man in the cage.

  “Don't shoot at me, please. She did deserve that; you knew her, you must have known she deserved it, and I never meant to cause you any trouble, it all just happened one thing after the other, all I wanted to do was give her what she—”

  Parker used one bullet from Pete Rudd's gun.

  He pulled open the gates and went in and rolled the amateur over on his back and went through his pockets.

  Left trouser pocket, sixty-three twenties. Right trouser pocket, thirty-nine twenties and twenty-five tens. Left hip pocket, fifty-two tens and ten fifties. Right hip pocket, forty-seven twenties and nine tens and eight fifties. Right shirt pocket, forty-two twenties and four hundreds. Nothing in the left shirt pocket; that must have been where the eight hundred eighty bucks had come from.

  Still more. Left jacket pocket, fifty twenties and nine fifties. Right jacket pocket, fifty-three twenties and seven fifties. Inside jacket pocket, ninety-five twenties and three hundreds.

  The amateur had bulged with cash, bloated with cash, overflowed with cash.

  Left raincoat pocket, ninety-three twenties and seventeen tens. Right raincoat pocket, eighty twenties and fifteen fifties.

  All together, seven hundreds and forty-nine fifties and six hundred two twenties and one hundred eleven tens, including the money left on the stairs.

  Sixteen thousand three hundred dollars.

  Parker got to his feet and looked at the bills in stacks on the elevator floor. Sixteen thousand three hundred dollars. He laughed out loud.

  It was his seventh.