The Hunter: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels)

by Richard Stark

  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.

  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 the 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 mosquito 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.