The Hunter: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels)

by Richard Stark

  So why keep her around? If it was conscience money, it was stupid. And it couldn't be anything else.

  So he made his decision. If she wants more dough, I drop her. To Haskell he said, “Did he tell you what it was?”

  “He said some guy had come around looking for you. Killed some broad and then came around wanting you.”

  “Some guy?” Ryan? No, he was dead. They were all dead. One of the South Americans? How the hell could they have found out who was in on the hijack? Somebody from the Outfit selling the guns? There was no way for them to connect him with the deal either. “What did this guy look like?”

  “He didn't tell me. He just said some guy came around talking mean and wanting you.”

  “Talking mean. The hell with that.”

  “I thought you ought to know about it, Mal, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, yeah, you done right. Listen, I want to talk to that son of a bitch.”

  “Stegman?”

  “Who else? Set up a meeting.”

  “At your place?”

  “Go to hell, sweetie. I'll meet him at Landau's, by the bridge. In back.”

  “Landau's, by the bridge.”

  “At nine o'clock.”

  “Tonight?”

  “When the hell else, idiot?”

  “I'am not sure I can get in touch with him, Mal, that's the only thing.”

  “Get in touch with him, sweetie. Do it. That lousy cab company of his is working now.”

  “Okay, Mal, I'll try.”

  “Don't try, sweetie. Do.”

  Mal slammed the phone onto the hook and surged out of the chair. Who was it? Who the hell was it?

  He strode across the living room, throwing off his dressing gown as he went. Beneath it, his chunky body was nude, heavy and fat-rolled, with an even sunlamp tan.

  He threw on his clothing, muttering to himself, remembering names and faces, trying to figure out who it had been. Killed a broad and came looking for Mal. Killed a broad and came looking—

  Killed Lynn.

  His suit and shoes on, he came out to the living room again, staggering slightly, as the realization hit him. Killed Lynn. It had to be, it was the only broad connecting him to Stegman. Killed Lynn.

  Oh, sweet Jesus Christ in Heaven!

  The doorbell rang.

  He stood frozen, staring at the door. The bell rang again and he bellowed, “Who is it? What do you want?”

  Her answer came faint through the door. “It's me, honey. It's Pearl.”

  He pulled open the door and she came in, her mouth open, ready with excuses.

  “It's Parker,” he said, and hit her twice in the stomach. She fell retching to the floor, and he stepped on her back on the way out.

  2

  By day, the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge lies on the windows of Landau's Bar and Grill. By night, there are too many shadows to pick out the source of any one.

  Mal parked his Outfit car two blocks away and walked through the Dutch slum to Landau's. The regulars hunched at the bar watched him in the back mirror as he walked down the length of the place, and they disliked him because he wore a suit and tie. But they knew better than to turn around, to speak or gesture or notice him in any way. They knew, vaguely, that Landau's was different from the other bars in the neighborhood, that it led some sort of double life. Suits and ties congregated in the back room every once in a while, and it was best to leave them alone.

  Stegman was already there, and nervous. He got up from the small room's one table when Mal came in, and said, “Jesus, am I glad to see you! This place is a hole.”

  Mal shut the door. “What did he look like?”

  “What? Big. A mean-looking bastard, Mal. He braced me without a gun or a knife or anything. He said if he had to he'd kill me with his hands, and I swear to Christ I believed him.”

  “It's Parker,” said Mal to himself.

  “He had big hands, Mal.” Stegman held up his own hands, claw-curved. “The veins stuck out all over them.”

  “The son of a bitch,” said Mal.

  “I tell you, I wouldn't want him after me.”

  “Shut up!” Mal glared, his hands closing into fists. “What am I, a nobody? I got friends.”

  “Sure you have, Mal.”

  “Am I supposed to be afraid of the son of a bitch? He couldn't get near me.”

  Stegman licked his lips. “I thought you'd want to know about it, Mal.”

  “All I have to do is point,” said Mal. “I pick up the phone and I say his name, and he's a dead man. And this time he stays dead.”

  “Sure. I thought you'd want to know so you could take care of it.”

  Mal crossed suddenly to the table, scraping the chair out and plumping down into it. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me what he said. What did he say about me?”

  Stegman sat across the table, his hands palm down on the table top. They trembled slightly anyway. “He said you could stop paying off the girl, she was dead. She was in the morgue. He said he was looking for you. That's all.”

  “Not who he was? Not why?”

  “Nothing. Just what I said.”

  “And he told you if you saw me you should let him know.”

  Stegman shook his head. “No, he didn't. He just let it go.”

  The bartender pushed open the door, stuck his head in. “You gents want anything?”

  “A beer,” said Stegman.

  “Nothing,” said Mal. “Peace and quiet.”

  The bartender waited, looking at Stegman. “Beer or no beer?”

  Stegman shrugged, awkwardly. “No beer,” he said. “Later maybe.”

  “We'll let you know,” said Mal.

  The bartender went away, and Stegman said, “That's all there was, Mal. I told you everything.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing. What could I tell him? I didn't know where you were, what could I tell him?”

  “What about the money?”

  Stegman nodded quickly. “Yeah, I told him about that. About the checking account. He wanted to know about that, how I got the money.”

  Mal gnawed on his lower lip, looking across the room. “Could he trace me through that? The statements go to you. The bank wouldn't tell him nothing.”

  “That's what I figured,” said Stegman eagerly. “It wouldn't hurt to tell him the truth. What could he do?”

  “I don't know. He used to be dead, and now he isn't. I don't know what he could do. What else did you tell him?”

  “Nothing, Mal.” Stegman spread his hands. “What could I tell him? I didn't know anything else.”

  “Then why didn't he kill you?”

  Stegman blinked. “He must of believed me.”

  “You gave him something else. To save your own stinking skin, you gave him something else. A name, maybe—somebody who knows where to find me.”

  “I swear to Christ, Mal—”

  “Haskell's name, maybe. Didn't you?”

  “On my mother, Mal—”

  “Up your mother. Did you or didn't you?” Mal waved a hand, keeping Stegman from answering. “Wait a minute. Don't cover yourself for nothing. I'm not down on you, I know the way that bastard comes on. If you told him about Haskell, I want Haskell to be ready for him, that's all—you got nothing to worry about.”

  “I didn't tell him about Haskell,” said Stegman. “I didn't give him any names at all, I swear it.”

  “What, then? You told him I was for sure in New York.”

  The denial hung on Stegman's lips, then fell back into his throat. He nodded. “I had to give him something, Mal,” he said. “He kept flexing those goddam hands of his.”

  “All right. All right.” Mal nodded, his whole torso moving. “That was good, Art, don't worry about it. That means he'll stick around town. That wasn't bad.”

  “I just had to give him something, that's all, so he wouldn't think I was holding out on him.”

  “That's all right. Just so you don't hold out on me eith
er. Where did he say to contact him?”

  “He didn't, Mal. Jesus, I'm not lying. I wasn't even going to give you the word at all, only we been friends—”

  “Bushwah. You were afraid he'd get to me, and I'd find out.”

  “Mal, we been friends.”

  “Where are you supposed to call? If you run into me, you're supposed to call him.”

  Stegman's head shook back and forth. “He didn't even suggest it, Mal. He didn't even suggest it.”

  Mal pondered, chewing his lower lip, thinking it over. Finally he said, “Okay. That's the way he'd work. He wouldn't trust you either.”

  “You can trust me, Mal. For Christ's sake—”

  “Yeah, I know—we're friends.”

  “We been friends for years, Mal.”

  “You had him. And you let him go.” Mal nodded. “All right, Art. Now find him again.”

  Stegman raised his hands. “What? How do I do that? I don't know nothing about him.”

  “I don't care how you do it, just do it.”

  “I wouldn't know how to start, Mal. For Christ's sake, give me a break.”

  “I'm giving you a break, you bastard. I'm giving you a chance to make up for doing it wrong the first time.”

  “Mal, there just isn't any way—”

  Mal leaned forward over the table. “Sweetie,” he said, “there's got to be a way. You hear me? I got friends, and that means there's got to be a way. Unless maybe you want to drive all your cabs yourself.”

  Stegman opened his mouth to argue some more, but then he closed it again and looked down at the table. “I'll try, Mal,” he said. “I don't know how the hell I'll do it, but I'll try.”

  “Good boy.” Mal leaned back, smiling. “There's one of him. I got the whole Outfit on my side. What can he do?”

  “Sure, Mal.”

  “Get us a couple beers, Artie.”

  Stegman got hurriedly to his feet. “Right away, Mal. Never mind, I'll spring.”

  Mal hadn't reached for his wallet at all.

  3

  Mal walked down the third-floor hall of the Outfit hotel, and knocked at the door of suite 312. He waited, and when the blond girl in the red bra and the pink toreador pants opened the door, he said, “I want to talk to Phil. Tell him Mal Resnick.”

  “Okay.” She closed the door again, leaving him in the hall. He lit a cigarette and then, remembering Phil's asthma, he looked around for a place to put it out again. The floor was deep-pile carpeted, and the nearest sand urn was way down by the elevators. Mal hurried down and stubbed out the cigarette. He was halfway back when the door opened again, and the blonde stepped out to look for him. He waved and trotted, feeling like a fool.

  She watched him deadpan, and turned away when he got to the door. He followed her inside, panting slightly, and over her shoulder she said, “Close the door.”

  “Sure.”

  “Phil says to sit down out here. He'll be along in a minute.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  She went away, deeper into the suite, not looking back at him, and Mal settled in the white sofa, grateful for the chance to catch his breath.

  He looked around at the living room, which was nearly twice as big as his own and even more opulently furnished. Phil had four rooms, and they were all like this. Phil was way up in the chain of command, the highest man Mal could go to directly. Some day, he told himself, he'd have four rooms like this, and a blonde like that piece in the red bra. That was good stuff.

  He wouldn't have any more bags like that Pearl. Nothing but good stuff, filling red bras, with tight butts in pink toreador pants, and flat bellies with that little bump at the lower part of the abdomen. That was the kind of thing he wanted, and that was the kind of thing he was due for. He was watching his step, he was doing his job, and he was proving his mettle. They had him slated for big things, and he knew it.

  Phil kept him waiting ten minutes. When he finally came out, he wore nothing but a pair of gray slacks. A lipstick smudge was clearly outlined against the skin of his chest, just under the left nipple. Mal looked at him, and knew that Phil kept him waiting while he tore off a piece. With that blonde. Mal kept his face blank. He could wait.

  The day was coming when they'd wait for him in his living room while he tore off a piece with something like that. He had it already, underlings, guys who waited when he said to wait, and he had broads. But he was going to have better.

  What could Parker do against him? He was set, he was on the escalator, he was riding up. What could that one-man son of a bitch do?

  Phil said, “How ya doing, Mal?” and turned his back to go over to the bar and make himself a drink. Coming back, he said, “You want something? The fixings are there.”

  “Thanks, Phil.”

  Mal made himself a quick drink, good Scotch and an ice cube and a splash of Vichy. He came back and Phil was stretched out on the sofa, so he took the leather chair instead.

  Phil sipped at his drink. “You look nervous, Mal. Something wrong with the operation?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. Smooth as silk, Phil. I keep everything smooth as silk, you know that.”

  “Sure. You're a good manager type, Mal.”

  Mal grinned. “Thanks. What I wanted, I was wondering if you could set me up an appointment with Mr. Fairfax.”

  “Justin?” Phil raised an eyebrow, then shook his head. “Sorry, buddy,” he said. “Justin is down in Florida right now.”

  “Mr. Carter, then.”

  “Mr. Carter,” repeated Phil. “Nothing but the best, huh, Mal? Sure it isn't something I could handle?”

  This was tricky. Phil could help him; Phil could hurt him—in the job, in the career. Mal grinned awkwardly, saying, “This isn't really Outfit business, Phil. Not directly. It's something personal. But I'd need to talk to Mr. Fairfax or Mr. Carter.”

  Phil considered, swirling the ice cubes in his glass. Then he said, “I'll see what I can do for you, Mal. I don't promise anything, you understand that, but I'll see what I can do.”

  “I'd appreciate it, Phil, I really would.”

  “Now,” said Phil, “I'll have to know what it's all about. You know that. I can't go to Fred Carter and say, ‘This fella Mal Resnick—he's one of the boys—he wants to see you,’ and not know what it's all about. You know that. He'll say, ‘Phil, what does this boy want?’ You see what I mean?”

  Mal chewed on his lower lip. “It's this way,” he said. “There's this guy, he's got it in for me.”

  “An Outfit boy?”

  “No, no—outside the Outfit.”

  Phil nodded. “Okay.”

  “Anyway, I thought he was dead. But all of a sudden, he's around, he's looking for me.”

  “And what is it you want, Mal? You can't handle this guy yourself?”

  “Sure I can. But I don't know where he is. He's somewhere in town, and I don't know where. Now, he's poking his nose in, he's asking questions, he's stirring things up. I want to find this guy, you see what I mean? Before he rocks the boat.”

  “You want us to help you find him, is that it? And then you'll take care of him yourself.”

  “Sure. That's it. I fight my own battles, Phil. But I need help finding the bastard.”

  “What is this guy? You say he ain't Outfit.”

  “He's a heister, a hijacker. An independent.”

  “He's got a string with him?”

  Mal didn't know for sure, one way or the other. Figuring Parker, probably not. He'd want to take care of this by himself. “No string. He's a loner.”

  Phil finished his drink, taking his time, and then got to his feet. “All right, buddy,” he said. “I'll talk to Mr. Carter. You stick close to your room. Okay?”

  Mal stood, gulping the rest of his Scotch and Vichy. “Will do,” he said. “Thanks a lot, Phil.”

  “Any time, buddy.” Phil smiled and patted his shoulder. “Any time you've got a problem, pal, you come talk it over with me. Right?”