“Mal gave you money that didn’t belong to him. It belonged to me. You know that now, so you can give it back.”
“In the first place,” said Mr. Carter, “ personally couldn’t give it back. That would have to be the result of a top-level decision. In the second place, I can’t tell you right now that I’m so certain what that decision would be that I’m not even going to pass the request on.”p>
“It’s not a request,” Parker said. Without waiting for a comment on that, he went on. “What’s your job in this organization, anyway — this corporation of yours? What are you, a vice president or something?”
“You might call me a regional manager. With another gentleman — “
“Fairfax.”
Mr. Carter nodded, smiling. “Resnick told you quite a bit before he died, didn’t he? Yes, Mr. Fairfax. He and I manage the New York interests of the organization.”
“All right, then who runs the whole thing? You said you knew what the decision would be. Who’d make the decision?”
“A committee would — “
“One man, Carter. You go up high enough, you always come to one man.”
“Not exactly. Not in this case. Three men. Any one of them, actually — “
“Are any of them in New York?”
“One. But if you’re asking me to call — “
“I’m not asking you to call.” Parker heard movement behind him. He got to his feet. The silent man was coming back to consciousness, doing a push-up off the floor, getting his knees beneath him. Parker heel-kicked him in the head, and he subsided. He turned back to Mr. Carter. “I’m not asking you to call,” he repeated. “I’m telling you to call.”
“What will you do if I refuse?”
“Kill you, and wait for Fairfax to come back to town.”
Mr. Carter made a tent of his fingers ^d studied it. His lips pursed and relaxed, pursed and relaxed. He looked up from under his brows at Parker and said, “I believe you. And if I call, and this gentleman refuses, as I know he will?”
“I don’t know,” Parker told him. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
Mr. Carter thought about it some more. Finally he said, “Very well. You’re not going to get anywhere, but I’ll call.” He reached for the phone and dialed. Parker watched, remembering the number. Mr. Carter waited a moment, then said, “Fred Carter to talk to your boss, sweetheart.” He paused, then frowned with annoyance and said, “Tell him Fred Carter.” Another pause and, with more irritation, he said, “Bronson. I want to talk to Bronson.”
Parker smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back.
There was a longer wait before Bronson came on the line, and then Mr. Carter said, “Fred Carter here. I’m sorry to call you about this, but there’s a problem. And your secretary made me say your name. No, I didn’t want to — there’s someone else here. That’s essentially the problem.”
Parker sat listening as Mr. Carter outlined the situation. He smiled again when Mr. Carter said the money had come from a payroll robbery in Des Moines. After that, he just sat and listened.
When the story was done, there was a pause and Mr. Carter said, “I explained all that to him. He insisted I call or he’d kill me. He’s already killed his ex-wife and this man Resnick, and God knows how many others.”
“Nine,” said Parker, though he didn’t know if that was right or not.
There was more talk. Finally Mr. Carter said, “All right. Hold on.” He cupped the mouthpiece. “He wants to call one of the other two, in Florida. Then he’ll call us back.”
Parker shook his head. “The second you hang up, he’ll send an army. We do it in one phone call.”
Mr. Carter relayed the information, then said to Parker, “He says in that case the answer is no.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“He wants to talk to you.” Mt. Carter handed over the receiver.
Parker said, “How much is this guy Carter worth to you?”
The voice in his ear was harsh and angry. “What do you mean?”
“Either I get paid, or Carter is dead.”
“I don’t like to be threatened.”
“No one does. If you say no, I’ll kill Mr. Carter, and then I’ll come after you. We’ll let your buddy in Florida decide. And if he says no, I’ll kill you and go after him.”
“You can’t buck the organization, you damn fool!”
“Yes or no.”
Parker waited, looking at nothing, hearing only the sound of breathing on the line. At last the angry voice said: “You’ll regret it. You’ll never get away from us.”
“Yes or no.”
“No.”
“Hold on a minute.”
Parker put the phone down and started around the desk. Mr. Carter blinked at him, then dove for the middle desk drawer. He got it open, but Parker’s hand was first on the gun.
Mr. Carter lunged up from the chair, trying to wrestle the gun away from him, and Parker shoved it hard into his belly, to muffle the sound. He pulled the trigger, and Mr. Carter slid down him, half-falling back into the chair and then rolling out of it, hitting his head on the desk as he fell the rest of the way to the floor.
Parker put the gun down and picked up the phone. “All right,” he said. “He’s dead. I’ve got your name and phone number. In five minutes I’ll have your address. In twenty-four hours I’ll have you in my hands. Yes or no?”
“In twenty-four hours you’ll be dead! No lone man can buck the organization.”
“I’ll be seeing you,” Parker said.
Chapter 2
When Justin Fairfax walked into his parkside Fifth Avenue apartment, he had two bodyguards with him, but they were both carrying luggage. When Parker met them in the living room he already had Mr. Carter’s gun in his hand. “Don’t put the luggage down,” he said.
Fairfax was angry anyway. His Florida vacation had been cut short by what was obviously a lot of nonsense. He glowered at Parker and demanded, “Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?” The bodyguards stood flat-footed, holding the luggage. They weren’t paid to be foolhardy.
Parker said, “I’m the reason you’re back in New York. Stand over there by the sofa. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“You’re Parker?”
“Stand over there by the sofa.”
Fairfax backed cautiously to the sofa, watching Parker’s face. He was looking at a man who had challenged the organization. 1 le wanted to know what such a man would look like.
To the bodyguards, Parker said, “Turn around. Hold on to that luggage.”
They turned. Being professionals, they knew what was coming. Knowing what was coming, they tensed themselves, hunching their heads low on their necks, tightening their shoulders.
Parker turned the gun around, held it by the barrel, and looped his arm over twice. The bodyguards dropped, the luggage thumping on the rug. Fairfax reached up and touched his mustache as though to reassure himself it was*thece.
He was a tall and stately man, graying at the temples, with a clipped pepper-and-salt mustache. An aging movie star perhaps, or an idealized casino owner. He was perhaps fifty-five or a little over and clearly spent a lot of his time being pummeled by the machinery in a gymnasium.
Parker turned the gun around again and motioned with it at the bodyguards. “Drag them into the bedroom.”
Fairfax touched his mustache again, considering, and then said: “This isn’t going to do you any good, Parker.”
“I think it will. Do you want a bullet in the knee?”
“No.”
“Then drag them into the bedroom.”
The bodyguards were heavy. By the time he had dragged both of them to the nearest bedroom, Fairfax was puffing, looking more his age. There wasn’t any key in the lock of the bedroom door so Parker asked for it. Fairfax said, “There’s only the one key. It’s in the closet door there.”
“Get it. And disconnect the phone. Pull out the wires.”
“I don’t have
to. It plugs in.” He unplugged the phone and showed Parker the jack. “I don’t have extensions. I have outlets for the phone in all the rooms.”
“Bring the phone with you.”
He knew already that the fire escape was outside the window of the other bedroom. He had Fairfax lock the door, and then the two of them went back to the living room. Parker told him to sit down and he did so, saying, “I don’t understand what you’re doing here. I thought you were going after Bronson.”
“I’m not stupid. Is that a phone outlet there?”
“Yes.”
“Plug the phone in. Call Bronson. Tell him he owes me forty-five thousand dollars. Either he pays me, or he won’t have anybody left to manage the New York end.”
“I can’t call him. He left town.”
Parker grinned. “He’s a brave man. Make it a long-distance call.”
“It won’t do any good, Parker. He let Carter die and he’ll let me die too.”
“With Carter, he thought I was bluffing.”
“It didn’t make any difference to him.” Fairfax touched his mustache again. “I don’t know the full details of the case,” he said. “I don’t know if you should get your money or not. All I know is, Bronson said no. He won’t change, not for anything. He never does.”
“This time he will.” Parker sat down, facing the other man. “When you call him, I want you to tell him something for me. I’ve worked my particular line for the last eighteen years. In that time I’ve worked with about a hundred different men. Among them, they’ve worked with just about every professional in the business. You know the business I mean.”
“All I know about you,” said Fairfax, his mouth hidden by the fingers against his mustache, “is that you were involved in a payroll robbery in Des Moines.”
“That’s the business I mean.” Parker shifted the gun to the other hand. “There’s you people with your organization, and there’s us. We don’t have any organization, but we’re professionals. We know each other. We stick with each other. Do yo* know what I’m talking about?”
“Bank robbers,” said Fairfax.
“Banks, payrolls, armored cars, jewelers, adf yplace that’s worth the risk.” Parker leaned forward. “But we don’t hit casinos,” he said. “We don’t hit layoff bookies or narcotic caches. We don’t hit the syndicate. You’re sitting there wide open — you can’t squeal to the law, but we don’t hit you.”
“There’s a good reason for that,” said Fairfax. “We’d get you if you tried it.”
Parker shook his head. “You’d never find us. We aren’t organized, we’re just a guy here and a guy there that know each other. You’re organized, so you’re easy to find.”
“In other words,” said Fairfax, “if we don’t give you the forty-five thousand dollars, you’ll steal it — is that it?”
“No. I don’t do things like that. I just keep chopping off heads. But I also write letters, to those hundred men I told you about. I tell them the syndicate hit me for forty-five Gs; do me a favor and hit them back once when you’ve got the chance. Maybe half of them will say the hell with it. The other half are like me; they’ve got the job all cased. A lot of us are like that. You organized people are so wide open. We walk into a syndicate place and we look around, and just automatically we think it over — we think about it like a job. We don’t do anything about it because you people are on the same side as us, but we think about it. I’ve walked around for years with three syndicate grabs all mapped out in my head, but I’ve never done anything about it. The same with a lot of the people I know. So all of a sudden they’ve got the green light, they’ve got an excuse. They’ll grab for it.”
“And split with you?”
“Hell, no. I’ll get my money from you people, personally. They’ll keep it for themselves. And they’ll cost you a hell of a lot more than forty-five thousand dollars.”
Fairfax rubbed his mustache with the tips of his fingers. “I don’t know if that’s a bluff or not,” he said. “I don’t know your kind. But if they’re anything like the people I do know, it’s a bluff. The people I know worry about their own skins, not about mine.
Parker grinned again. “I’m not saying they’d do it for me,” he said. “Not because it was me. Because they’ve got a syndicate grab in their heads, and all they need is an excuse.” He switched the gun back to his right hand. “Take your fingers down from your face.”
Fairfax dropped his hand into his lap, quickly, as though touching his mustache was a habit he was trying to stop. He cleared his throat and said, “Maybe you know what you’re talking about, I couldn’t say.”
“You can say it to Bronson.” Parker motioned to the phone. “Call him now. Tell him what I told you. If he says no, you’re dead and it costs him money. He’ll still have to pay me sooner or later anyway.”
“I’ll call him,” said Fairfax. “But it won’t do any good.”
Parker sat listening as Fairfax put in a call to Bronson at the Ravenwing Hotel, Las Vegas. It took a while because Bronson was out of his room and had to be paged, but finally he came on the phone and Fairfax gave him the setup, including Parker’s threat. “I don’t know if he’s bluffing or not. He says they wouldn’t do it out of friendship to him, but because they’ve wanted to hit some of our places for years anyway.”
After that there was a pause, and Fairfax studied Parker as he listened. Then he said, “No, I don’t think so. He’s hard, that’s all. Hard and determined and don’t give a damn.”
Parker shifted the gun to his other llnnd. Fairfax listened again, then extended the phone to Park;r. “He wants to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Terms.”
“Stand over there by the window.”
Fairfax set the receiver on the table, got to his feet, and walked over to the window. From deeper in the apartment, a hammering began. Fairfax grimaced and said, “I’m replacing those two.”
“It was your fault,” Parker said. “Don’t make your bodyguards carry your suitcases.” He crossed over to the sofa, sat down where Fairfax had been sitting, and put the phone to his ear. “All right, what is it?”
“You’re an annoyance, Parker,” said Bronson’s heavy angry voice. “You’re an irritation, like a mosquito. All right. Forty-five thousand dollars is chickenfeed. It’s a small account, for small punks with small minds. To get rid of the mosquito, all right — I’ll swat you with forty-five thousand dollars. But let me tell you something, Parker.”
“Tell me, then,” said Parker.
“You’re a marked man. You’ll get your petty payoff, and after that you’re dead whether you know it or not. I’m not going to send anybody out after you especially. I wouldn’t spend the time or the money. I’m just going to spread the word around. A cheap penny-ante heister named Parker, I’m going to say. If you happen to see him, make him dead. That’s all, just if you happen to see him. Do you get what I’m talking about, Parker?”
“Sure,” said Parker. “Carter told me all about it. You’re as big as the Post Office. You’re coast to coast. I should look you up in the yellow pages.”
“You can’t go anywhere, Parker. Not anywhere. The organization will find you.”
“The organization doesn’t have three men in it from coast to coast who could make me dead. Send your Mal Resnicks after me, Bronson. Send your Carters and your Fairfaxes. Send their bodyguards. You’ll have to hire a lot of new people, Bronson.”
“All right, bush leaguer,” said Bronson angrily. “Keep talking big. Just tell me where to make the drop on your crummy forty-five thousand.”
“There’s a section of Brooklyn,” Parker said. “Canarsie. There’s a BMT subway to it. Two men, carrying the cash in a briefcase, should hit there at two o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll be on the platform. No bill over a hundred, none under a ten. If it’s stuff you printed yourself, you better send two expendable men. If you send more than two, the mosquito will drain your blood.”
“Tal
k big, Parker,” said Bronson. “What’s the name of this subway stop?”
“It’s the end of the line.”
“For you too, Parker.” Bronson hung up.
Parker put the phone back on its hook and got to his feet. The pounding still echoed dully from the bedroom. Fairfax was touching his mustache with the tips of his fingers. When Parker stood up, he seemed to suddenly notice he was doing it because his hand jerked down to his side and he looked embarrassed^
Parker said, “You’re lucky, Fairfax. Your boss gave in easier than I figured. And that’s a pity. I would have enjoyed finishing you.” Then he smiled. “Maybe he’ll cross me. Maybe he’ll try for an ambush. Then I’ll be able to come back.”
Fairfax touched his mustache. “I’m going %> fire those two,” he said.
Parker shook his head. “It won’t do any good.”
Chapter 3
Momentum kept him rolling. He wasn’t sure himself any more how much was a tough front to impress the organization and how much was himself. He knew he was hard, he knew that he worried less about emotion than other people. But he’d never enjoyed the idea of a killing. And now he wasn’t sure himself whether he’d just been putting a scare into Fairfax or if he’d really meant it.
It was momentum, that was all. Eighteen years in one business, doing one or two clean fast simple operations a year, living relaxed and easy in the resort hotels the rest of the time with a woman he liked, and then all of a sudden it all got twisted around. The woman was gone, the pattern was gone, the relaxation was gone, the clean swiftness was gone.
He spent months as a vag in a prison farm; he spent over a month coming across the country like an O. Henry tramp; he devoted time and effort and thought on an operation that wasn’t clean or fast or simple and that didn’t net him a dime — the finding and killing of Mal Resnick. And more killing, and bucking the syndicate more for the mean hell of it than anything else, as though for eighteen years he’d been storing up all the meanness, all the viciousness, and now it had to come rushing out.
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