The Hunter p-1

by Richard Stark

  But it wasn’t really that hard to figure out. He could follow Branson’s reasoning with no trouble at all. There was this mosquito, this Parker, causing trouble and disruptions. He wants forty-five thousand dollars. All right, give him the forty-five thousand dollars.

  Try to get him when the delivery is made, but if you don’t get him the hell with it, he’s got forty-five thousand dollars. So then he won’t cause any more trouble and disruptions. And the organization has all the time and all the facilities to get him later on. He won’t be bothering the organization any more, and the organization can take care of him at its leisure. Forty-five thousand isn’t so much, when you consider the benefits.

  So. That was Branson’s side. His own side was simple, too; he had eighteen years of a pattern, and the pattern had been ripped apart. One job, the island job, had gone wrong and ripped the pattern apart. Now they were both dead, Lynn and Mal, the two who had done it to him. And he had made the job right again by getting his share back. He couldn’t go back to the pattern while that one job was still wrong.

  Now he could go back. He had money to last him two or three years of the old life, and a plastic surgery. He’d have to go out to Omaha, to Joe Sheer, and find out the name of that doctor that had done the job on him. That was when Joe had retired, three years ago. He’d had his face changed because you never knew when you’d run into somebody who saw your face on a job ten years ago and still remembered.

  With a new face, with forty-five thousand dollars, the organization could look forever and never find him. He’d have to be a little more careful than before about the people he worked with on jobs, but that was no problem. He liked to pick and choose his jobs and his partners anyway.

  A job had soured and now it was straight again. It was as simple as that.

  He roused himself, putting out his cigarette, and picked up the suitcase from the floor. He carefully packed the bundles of money back into it, closed it, slid it under his bed. Then he picked up the phone and asked for American Airlines, and made a reservation on the 3:26 p.m. plane for Omaha.

  After that he left a call for noon, took a leisurely shower, and opened the pint of vodka he’d bought on the way back. He could drink it now; he was finished and he could relax. In Omaha, maybe Joe could set him up with a woman. If not, it could wait till Miami.

  He woke to the jangling of the telephone, telling him it was noon, the first day of the new-old pattern. The hotel wasn’t as good as he was used to, but it didn’t matter. He was on his way back, starting now.

  He took another shower, and dressed, and packed. He left the room carrying the two suitcases, his own and the one full of money. He rode down in the elevator and started across the lobby, and the desk clerk pointed him out to two men in rumpled suits.

  They came toward him, and he hesitated, not believing they’d dare try anything here. And how could they find him here anyway? They couldn’t. But he was unarmed, the Luger thrown away last night on Flatbush Avenue.

  The two men came over, and one reached to his hip pocket, and Parker tensed, ready to throw the suitcase with the clothing in it. But all that came out of the pocket was a wallet. It flipped open, showing the badge pinned to the leather. The owner of the wallet said, “Mr. Edward Johnson?”

  What is this? What is this? “Yes,” he said, because the desk clerk had pointed him out. “What is it?”

  “We want to talk to you.” The plainclothesman looked around at the lobby. “In private,” he said. “We’ll go to the manager’s office.”

  “What is it? What’s it all about?”

  “There are some questions. If you’ll come with us?”

  One of them had his left arm, gently. It was only to the manager’s office, so he didn’t fight it. He didn’t try to guess what it was all about. He went along, ready, waiting to find out the score before making any kind of move.

  The three employees behind the desk watched out of the corners of their eyes as the detectives took him through a door marked Private into a small empty office. The door to the next room, the manager’s office, was open, and the manager peered at them from his desk.

  One of the detectives went over and said through the door, “We won’t be long, sir. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “That’s perfectly all right,” the manager said. He seemed embarrassed.

  The detective smiled and closed the door. Then he turned the smile off again and said, “Sit down, Mr. Johnson.”

  Parker sat down on the corner of the sofa nearest the door, ready, waiting for them to tell him what it was all about.

  The silent one stood by the door. The other one pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards, facing Parker, his forearms folded on the chair back, his bent knees jutting out at the sides.

  “Two days ago,” he said, “you were in a grocery store on West 104th Street between Central Park West and Manhattan Avenue. You spent some time in the back room of the store, talking with Manuel Delgardo, the proprietor. When two patrolmen entered the store, you stated that you were having a soft drink with Mr. Delgardo in the back of the store, and that you were there looking for Mr. Delgardo’s son, Jimmy. You stated that you and Jimmy Delgardo once worked for the same trucking company in Buffalo. You also brought up the subject of narcotics, although neither of the patrolmen had given any indication that they were thinking of narcotics or suspected you of having anything to do with junk. Is this all substantially correct, as you remember it?”

  “Yes,” said Parker. Don’t explain, don’t justify, don’t argue. Wait till you find out the score.

  The detective nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Now, you also stated that you were recently laid off from a General Electric Company plant on Long Island. Is that correct?”

  “That’s what I said,” Parker answered.

  The detective caught it. “But is it correct?”

  So they’d checked that part. Change stories. “No,” said Parker.

  The detective nodded again. “That’s right, we checked you out. The California address you gave the hotel is also incorrect, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to explain those lies?”

  “You’ve got to give a cop a background,” said Parker. “You tell him you’re just drifting, he pulls you in on general principles. You give him some kind of background, he leaves you alone. Same with the hotel. I put down no permanent address, then I get a lot of static from the hotel.”

  “I see.” The detective nodded once more. “Then the truth is that you’re a drifter, that you don’t really have any background or address or job or anything else, is that it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And where did you get the money to afford this hotel?”

  “I won it in a crap game.”

  “Where?”

  Parker shook his head.

  The detective reddened. “Don’t shake your head at me, punk! There wasn’t any crap game!”

  Parker waited, ready. There wasn’t any reason to do anything yet. Maybe later he’d have to pay this one back for the bad name.

  The detective controlled himself. “All right,” he said. “Get on your feet. Turn around. Touch the wall over the sofa, palms of your hands.”

  The other detective came over from the door and emptied his pockets. Then they let him sit down again.

  The first one looked at his driver’s license. He looked at it more closely than anyone had before, and frowned. He turned it over, and studied different parts of it, and then he licked the ball of his thumb and rubbed it against the state seal. He looked up at his partner and grinned. “A phony,” he said. “Not even a good one. Here, look.”

  The other detective looked at the license and chuckled over it too, then handed it back. The first cop offered it to Parker, saying, “Want it back, Mr. Johnson?”

  “No, thanks,” said Parker. “You spoiled it.”

  “I’m sorry about that. What trucking firm in Buffalo did you and Jimmy Delgardo work for
together?”

  Parker grabbed a name out of the air. “Lester Brothers.”

  The detective took a notebook out of his pocket, opened it, read something, and shook his head. “Wrong.”

  Parker said, “Do you mind telling me what it’s all about?”

  “I don’t mind at all,” said the detective. “Because then you’ll tell me what it’s all about. A man interested in narcotics, like you.”

  “Wrong,” Parker said.

  “Jimmy Delgardo,” said the detective, “was picked up at the Canadian border this morning at five o’clock coming down from Montreal. He was trying to enter the United States with a carload of liquor and marijuana.” He smiled from his corner of the web. “Now, Mr. Johnson,” he said, “you tell me what it’s all about. You tell me what your right name is and what you do for a living and what connection you have with that carload Jimmy Delgardo was driving into this country.”

  Parker clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back on the sofa. He started to cross one leg over the other, but instead rammed his heel into the detective’s face, just above the nose. Detective and chair clattered over backward, and Parker surged out of the sofa, coming in low on the other one, who was pawing at his hip for his gun. Parker butted him in the stomach and brought his head up sharply, the crown cracking into the detective’s chin. His fist came up after, catching him in the throat.

  Parker stepped back, yanking the detective by the tie. The detective stumbled, falling away from the door, and Parker grabbed the suitcase full of money, pulled open the door, and ran.

  As he hit the revolving door, there were shouts behind him. The glass of the door starred, higher than his head, and something tugged at the shoulder of his coat.

  He got through to the street, and there was a cab waiting at the hackstand outside the hotel, waiting for a fare. He pulled open the door, tossed the suitcase in and dove in after it. “Grand Central!” he shouted. “A fin if I make my train!”

  There wasn’t time now to get to Idlewild. The alarm would be out first.

  “We’re off!” cried the driver. They jolted away from the curb, squealed around the corner as the light was turning red, and weaved erratically through the traffic. Parker reached up with his left hand to touch his right shoulder. The coat was ripped there, by the seam, but the bullet hadn’t touched him.

  He reached out and patted the suitcase, and it was the wrong

  one. He looked at it, and turned his head to look out the back window. The detectives had the suitcase with the forty-five thousand. He had the suitcase with the socks and the shirts.

  The cabby said, “What time’s your train?”

  “It just left,” said Parker.

  “Jeez,” said the cabby. “You didn’t leave yourself no time at all.”

  “I was kidding. There’s still time.” Parker smiled, showing his teeth, thinking, What do I do now? Go to the Mayor of the City of New York? Tell him the city owes me forty-five Gs?

  When the cab stopped, he gave the driver a ten. He dragged the suitcase along into Grand Central Station. The clock over the rotunda said 12:53. He walked along the gates, looking at the times of departure until he came to one that said 12:58.

  One of the places it was going was Albany. He went through the gate and down along the concrete platform. He said to the conductor standing by the entrance to the first passenger car, “I didn’t have time to buy a ticket. I’ll get it on the train.”

  “Wait here.”

  He stood there, watching back to where the cops would come if they came, and five minutes occurred one by one. Then the conductor let him board the train and asked where he wanted a ticket for.

  He said, “Albany,” and the conductor wrote interminably on ticket and papers, accepted his money and allowed him to go sit down.

  The car was nearly empty.

  He dropped into the first seat he came to, the wrong suitcase next to him, and thought about Omaha and Joe Sheer and the plastic surgeon. He’d need dough for the plastic surgeon. He had less than two thousand. He could cool at Joe Sheer’s for a while, and then he’d have to make a grab.

  Maybe a syndicate operation? One more bite from the mosquito before the face-change? It was the syndicate’s fault that he didn’t have the forty-five thousand. They did a sloppy smuggling job, and Parker got hit by a bum peg, and now the forty-five thousand was baffling the boys in the narcotics squad.

  Yeah, a syndicate grab. He liked the idea.

  He got off the train at Albany and went out to the airport and bought a ticket to Omaha.

  Chapter 5

  Parker and the other three men came out of the elevator and walked slowly down the hall to the left. Two women were walking toward them, with furs over their shoulders and purses hanging from their forearms. As they went by, they were talking about hair rinses. They went on to the elevators and punched the down button.

  Parker said softly, “Wait’ll they go.”

  The four of them ambled along, past the door they wanted. It said st. LOUIS SALES, INC. on it. The city was right, but the rest was wrong. About half of the comeback money from the St. Louis bookies came through here.

  They reached the end of the hall and stood by the office door there, a typewriter company’s representative, until the two women got on an elevator. Then the three men took Huckleberry Hound masks from inside their coats and put them on. Parker didn’t bother; his share of this job was going for a new face anyway.

  They went back down the hall, moving faster now, toward the door marked st. Louis sales, inc. The man named Wiss took a chisel from his pocket and held it by the blade end, like a club. He was the only one Parker hadn’t known before; Joe Sheer had recommended him. The other two, Elkins and Wymerpaugh, Parker had worked with in the past.

  They stopped, flanking the door, two on either side. Parker and Elkins had guns in their hands now. Wiss hit the door glass with the chisel handle and it shattered inward, making a racket. Before the echoes had died down, he’d thrown ti^p chisel into the room, to give them something else to think about inside, and reached through the opening to the doorknob. He pushed, and Parker and Elkins crowded in, guns first.

  The three men in the small office froze. The one by the adding machine just sat there, fingers poised over the keys, staring. The one who’d been standing by the airshaft window was stopped with one hand up under his arm, the gun half-drawn from its holster. The one who’d been sitting at the other desk kept his hand in the drawer he’d opened when the glass broke.

  Parker said, “Hands up and empty.”

  Wiss, pulling his gun, ran across the room and jerked open the door to the inner office, but it was empty. He turned back, saying, “The wheel’s away!”

  “Lunch,” said Parker. “Let’s get out before he comes back.”

  Wymerpaugh, standing by the doorway and watching down the hall toward the elevators, handed the briefcase to Elkins. Elkins went over to the guy at the adding machine and said, “Up.”

  With his hands still in the air, the adding machine man got to his feet and backed away from the desk.^Elkins pulled open the typewriter well and stuffed the stacks of bills hidden in it into the briefcase. Then he gave the briefcase back to Wymerpaugh, took the other briefcase from Parker, and went through to the inside office. Wiss followed him, dragging more tools from his pockets.

  The guy by the airshaft window said, “You guys are crazy. That’s Outfit money.”

  Parker smiled thinly. “Was it?”

  From the inner office there came small sounds, as Wiss and Elkins worked on the safe. Wymerpaugh closed the door and bent to peer down the hall through the hole in the glass.

  Elkins and Wiss came back. Wiss was stuffing tools into his pockets and Elkins was carrying a bulging briefcase. Parker said to the guy by the airshaft window, “You know who Bronson is?”

  The guy shrugged. “I’ve heard of a guy by that name. Back east.”

  “That’s him. Tell him it was Parker. Tell him the mosqui
to decided he wanted interest on the loan. You got that?”

  “It don’t matter to me.”

  Elkins gave Parker back the briefcase, then went around and collected all the guns that had been in the office and threw them down the airshaft. Then he said, “Sit tight a few minutes, girls.”

  The four of them went out and down the hall toward the elevators. Wiss and Elkins and Wymerpaugh pulled off their Huckleberry Hound masks. They went past the elevators and through the door marked stairwell. They went up two flights and out into the hall there and down to the lawyer’s office: herbert lansing, attorney-at-law. Elkins unlocked the door, and they went inside.

  That was the beautiful part, this office. Parker had worked it out. Somewhere in an office building this size, he’d figured, there’s got to be at least one one-man office where the boss takes an occasional vacation. All they had to do was know what was going on in the building, and wait.

  When Herbert Lansing took his vacation, Elkins found out about it from the elevator boy, who was lately his drinking buddy. One trip by Elkins and Wiss, in workclothes, to dummy up a key, and they were ready.

  They went inside, and Elkins broke out the bottle of blended whiskey he’d stashed here when they’d made the key. They passed the bottle around, then unloaded the briefcases on the lawyer’s desk and made the divvy. Parker’s third — it was his case — came to just over twenty-three thousand.

  He stowed it back in his briefcase, took another swig from the bottle, and sat back grinning. It all worked out fine. He was back in the groove again.

  Wymerpaugh broke out a deck of cards and they played poker till four-thirty. By then Parker had closer to twenty-seven thousand. The four of them cleaned the office up, locked the door, and separated, each going to different floors.

  Parker took a cab out to the Lambert — St. Louis airport and caught a six-o-five plane for Omaha. A new face now, and the old pattern. He looked out the window and smiled. Miami should be fine this time of year. Or maybe he’d go on down to the Keys.