The Score (Parker Novels)

by Richard Stark

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  “Sure.”

  The car pulled away, and Parker started walking again, first checking the guy, who had slowed down but was still less than half a block back by now. Parker walked at the same speed as before, and the guy gradually fell back to his normal distance.

  There wouldn't be a better neighborhood. One car in five minutes, and that guy here only because he was lost. A diner that's closed by ten o'clock at night. No residences of any kind, no twenty-four-hour plants.

  In the next block, there were two long warehouses with a loading space between them in near-darkness. Parker passed it without looking in, went down to the corner, turned right, waited a second, and came right back around again.

  This time the guy covered it better. He slowed a bit, but that was all.

  Parker walked faster than before, timing it. It would work out fine. They'd pass each other right opposite the loading area.

  As they passed, Parker on the outside, Parker turned on his left foot and drove a right hand across the side of the guy's jaw. It turned him, threw him off balance, and sent him flailing forward into the loading area to wind up in the shadows there on his hands and knees.

  Parker went in after him, to ask him questions and be sure he was getting the right answers. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.

  But it wouldn't work that way. There was a clicking sound, and the guy came up with a knife. He didn't waste any time, just lunged.

  Parker had no weapons on him but his hands. They were big hands, to go with the rest of him. He moved to the left to limit the guy's knife-arc, pretended a left-hand grab for the knife, and stepped in fast, bringing the edge of his hand in under the guy's jaw.

  There wouldn't be any more air going through that throat. The knife fell, and then the guy fell.

  Parker had moved as a result of training. Counterattack should be at least as strong as attack. If someone wants to hit you, you hit him. If someone wants to rough you up, you rough him up. If someone wants to kill you, you kill him.

  But now, belatedly, he wished he'd pulled that swipe a little. He couldn't get any answers now. The clown shouldn't have reached for a knife.

  Parker went through his pockets. Cigarettes, matches, comb, small package of Kleenex, inhaler, unopened box of contraceptives, key chain with three keys on it including one to a General Motors car, nail clipper, wallet. The wallet contained seven dollars in bills, two photos of girls, an unemployment insurance check, and a driver's license. The check and license were both made out to Edward Owen, and the driver's license gave Owen an address in Jersey City.

  He hadn't been law, but Parker already knew that. What he'd been, he still didn't know. He put the wallet in his own pocket; maybe Paulus would know. Then he left and walked down to the next intersection and looked at the street signs. There was a streetlight there; under it Parker opened his city map and found out where he was and how to get where he was going.

  It was six blocks before he saw anybody at all.

  2

  Paulus opened the door, looking wary, and then smiled a greeting when he saw it was Parker. “Come on in,” he said, holding the door wide. “We been waiting for you.” He was short, slender, balding, forty. He was wearing a thin brown suit and a thin brown tie, and he looked like a timid accountant.

  Parker stepped into the apartment, took the door away from Paulus and shut it. “The deal's off,” he said.

  They were standing in a little empty foyer with a spaceship light fixture up above and an Oriental rug below. Paulus blinked rapidly and said, “What? What? What do you mean?”

  “Somebody was following me.”

  Paulus switched to relief again, the way he'd done when he'd seen it was Parker at the door. “Oh,” he said, throwing it away. “That doesn't mean anything.”

  “It doesn't mean anything?”

  “I know all about it, Parker.” Paulus patted at his arm, trying to get him moving. “Come on in, we're all here, Edgars will explain it to you.”

  Parker didn't move. “You explain, Paulus,” he said.

  Paulus looked troubled, unhappy. “I think it would be better if Edgars told you the situ—”

  “I think it would be better if you did,” Parker told him. “He's dead.”

  Paulus now was just blank. “What? Who?”

  “Edward Owen. The guy who was tailing me.”

  “You killed him? For Christ's sake, why?” Paulus' tone was intense, but his volume had dropped, as though he didn't want any chance of somebody else in the apartment hearing him.

  Parker answered him at normal volume. “He was tailing me. I stopped him to find out why, and he pulled a knife.”

  Paulus shook his head. “I don't know, Parker,” he said. “That's a hell of a thing. I don't know what to tell you.”

  “Tell me how come you knew I was going to be tailed. Tell me why I was being tailed. And tell me whose idea it was to tail me.”

  “It was Edgars',” Paulus said, still very soft-voiced. “Owen was his man.”

  Parker glanced at the entranceway that led deeper into the apartment. “Who the hell is Edgars anyway? I don't remember the name.”

  “You don't know him, he's never worked an operation like this before.”

  “Then what's he doing here?”

  “He set this one up.”

  “Oh Christ.” Parker shook his head. “The deal's no good,” he said. “I can see that already. See you around, Paulus.” He reached for the doorknob.

  “Wait a second, wait a second.” Paulus was getting agitated, but his voice wasn't rising. “Let me explain, will you?”

  “You don't have to. This moron Edgars is an amateur, but he's the one setting this job up. He doesn't know me, so he doesn't trust me, so he puts a tail on me to see if I come straight here or do I go see somebody else first because maybe I'm planning a cross.”

  “You can't blame him, Parker, he—”

  “I don't blame him. I don't work with him, either.”

  A heavy type in a brown suit with a beer can in his hand came through the entranceway, scowling. “What's the holdup here?” He looked at Paulus, and then at Parker. He had heavy black brows, and they were down in a V now to show he was irritated.

  Paulus was now really fidgeting. “Edgars,” he said, “this is Parker. There's been a—something's come up—there was a misunderstanding.”

  “What kind of a misunderstanding?” He was trying to act dangerous, but instead he was acting like a ward politician.

  Parker waited to see how Paulus would handle it, but Paulus couldn't handle it at all. All he could do was fidget and look around and clear his throat. So Parker said, “You put a man to tail me.”

  Edgars shrugged. “So what? I want to know who I do business with, that's all.”

  “He pulled a knife when I called him.”

  Edgars scowled. “He did? That was stupid; I don't condone that. I'll have a talk with him.”

  “Not right away you won't.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Tell him, Paulus.”

  Edgars turned his head and scowled at Paulus, waiting. Paulus fidgeted and cleared his throat, and finally he said, “He's dead, that's what he means.”

  “Dead! You killed him?”

  Parker shrugged, and it was Paulus who answered: “He didn't have any choice, Edgars. Your man pulled a knife on him. He didn't know the situation.”

  “I don't like that,” said Edgars. “I don't like that at all.”

  Parker took the dead man's wallet out and held it out to Edgars. “I took this off him.”

  Edgars took the wallet and frowned at it. “I don't understand this,” he said.

  Parker nodded. “I know. See you, Paulus.” He reached for the doorknob again.

  Edgars said, “Hold on there. Where the hell are you going?”

  “I'm out,” Parker told him. He pulled the door open.

  “Wait.” Edgars waved his hands
a little. “Will you wait a goddam minute?”

  “For what?”

  Edgars grimaced, looked again at the wallet he was holding and then at Paulus. Paulus just looked uncomfortable. Edgars said, “Paulus, tell the others well be in in a minute.”

  “Sure thing.” Paulus went, happy to be off the hook.

  Parker was still standing in the doorway, half in and half out. Edgars said to him, “Wait one minute while we talk, all right?”

  Parker shrugged. He'd come this far, he could stick around a little longer. He came back in and shut the door.

  Edgars looked around the empty foyer and said, “I wish there was some place we could sit down.”

  “It doesn't matter.”

  “All right, I guess not.” Edgars looked at the wallet again with distaste and stuck it into a side pocket of his suit coat. Then he gnawed his lower lip and glanced at the entranceway leading into the apartment. Looking off that way, he said, “Maybe Paulus told you, this is the first time I've been involved in something like this.”

  “He told me. He didn't have to, but he did.”

  Edgars managed a sour grin and looked out at Parker from under his eyebrows. “Sticks out all over, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You and Paulus and the others,” Edgars said, “you all know each other, know what to expect from each other. I don't know any of you at all. When I'm around you, my back itches.”

  Parker nodded. “Sure.”

  “You boys aren't exactly saints.”

  “So why get involved?”

  “A quarter of a million dollars, for one thing. And personal reasons.”

  “Paulus is in with you,” Parker told him. “And the others. You don't need me.”

  “They tell me you're the best. They tell me you can keep an operation together better than anybody, and you can get the best men to work with you.”

  “So why should I work with you?”

  Edgars nodded. “That's a fair question,” he said. He reached inside his coat and took out a cigar in an aluminum tube. While he opened it, he said, “I've made mistakes already, I can see that. Putting Owen on you. Maybe getting Paulus. I don't know what else.” He motioned with his head, saying, “There's three men in there knew I was putting Owen on you, knew I'd put Owen on each of them when they showed up. They didn't act happy about it, but they didn't stop me. I need somebody to stop me making mistakes.”

  Parker shook his head. “That's not my kind of work.”

  “Wait a minute, now, don't get me wrong. I don't want to run this deal, for Christ's sake.”

  “You give a good imitation.”

  “I've been setting it up, that's all. I've been trying to get a group of professionals together to work with me on this, without getting a fast shuffle for me out of it.”

  “Sure,” said Parker. “You had a problem, I see that.”

  “So what else could I do?”

  “Stay all the way out, or come all the way in. Half and half doesn't do it.”

  “How can I come all the way in until I know what I'm getting myself into?”

  “Then stay out.”

  Edgars shook his head stubbornly. “There's too much at stake.”

  “Not my problem.”

  Edgars gnawed his lip. He had the cigar unwrapped now but hadn't lit it. He rolled it back and forth between his fingers. After a minute, he shrugged heavy shoulders and said, “All right. All the way in. I'll give you the setup and then I'll do whatever you say.”

  Parker considered. “Paulus is in there,” he said, “and Wycza. Who's the third?”

  “Grofield.”

  “All right. They're all all right. This is a five-man operation?”

  “Oh no. These are just the department heads.”

  Parker stared at him. “The what?”

  “It'll take probably twenty-five or thirty men,” Edgars told him.

  Parker looked at him as though he were crazy. “You don't have anything at all,” he told him. “Twenty-five or thirty men? If a job takes more than four or five men, it's no job. You can put that down as a rule.”

  “This is a special case.”

  “Sure it is. Good-bye, Edgars.”

  “Will you God damn it stop leaving?”

  Parker didn't like to do a lot of superfluous talking, but he took the time now to tick off the points for Edgars: “You got an operation needs an army, and the more men in a job the more chance it'll go sour. You got an operation set up by an amateur, for personal reasons. Amateurs get their ideas from the movies, which means flashy and impractical, and personal reasons are no good in a job because they get in the way of clear thinking. Forget it, Edgars.”

  “God damn it, Parker, you're the man I've been waiting for.” Edgars was smiling happily now. He said, “I know this is a good solid deal, but I want a professional to tell me so, and you're it. All you have to do is hear me out. When I'm done, if you don't think it's workable, then I'll give up the whole idea and I'll pay your fare back where you came from. Fair enough?”

  Parker studied him. “Aren't you afraid I'll tell you it's no good, and then go do it on my own?”

  “No, I'm not.”

  “Why not? I'm no saint.”

  “No, but you're a good businessman.”

  “What gives you that idea? You don't know anything about me at all.”

  “I've got a hunch, that's all. Will you listen to the deal?”

  Parker thought about it. He didn't see any way an operation requiring twenty-five or thirty men could be workable, and he didn't see any way an operation Edgars was connected with could be workable, but he was here already so he might as well listen. He nodded. “All right.”

  “Fine. Come on in. You want a beer?”

  “All right.”

  “I'll get it.’ They crossed the living room, a square sparsely furnished room lit by pole lamps, and Edgars pointed at a door just off the hallway. “They're in there. I'll be right in.”

  They separated at the hallway, Edgars going for the beer, Parker going into the room with the others. It was a long narrow room with another spaceship ceiling light. The walls were tan, with lighter squares where paintings had once hung, and there was a wall-to-wall green carpet on the floor. Paulus and Grofield and Wycza were sitting around a dining-room table. There was a slide projector on the table and a screen set up at the far end of the room.

  Paulus gave him a nervous smile. Wycza, a huge bald man who did professional wrestling when times were bad, waved a beer can in greeting. Grofield, an intense, lean, handsome man who sometimes acted in summer stock theaters, said, “Hail, Parker. Long time no see.”

  “How are you, Grofield?”

  Paulus said, “Are you in, Parker?”

  “I don't know yet.”

  Grofield said, “Herr Edgars is a mysterious type. Did he tell you what the job is?”

  “Not yet.”

  Edgars came in, then, with a double handful of beer cans, and Grofield said, “ ‘All fools in a circle.’ ”

  Edgars laughed. “I hope not, Grofield,” he said, and passed the beer around. Then he checked his slide projector, turned it on, and said, “Paulus, would you get the light, please?” He was full of confidence again.

  Paulus got up and switched off the light. The projector was beaming a harsh white light at the screen, and it reflected back to give the five men pale faces and vague outlines.

  There was a clicking, and the blank face of the screen was replaced by a black-and-white map. Edgars' voice said, “There it is. Copper Canyon, North Dakota.”

  Parker looked at the map, trying to make sense out of it, but it was just geometric confusion. He lit a cigarette, and waited.

  Edgars moved around the table to the front of the room. He had a pointer with him now, like a geography teacher. “This wavy line,” he said, and the pointer ran along a U-shaped irregular line that edged the town on three sides, “is the cliffs. The city is built inside a box canyon, with vertical cliffs on thre
e sides, too steep and too tall to be passable. The only way in or out of town is here”—the pointer tapped—“at the open side of the canyon. State highway 22A comes in here, and this here is a spur line of the Dakota and Western Railway. The one road and the railway line are the only means of entry to the town.”