The Hunter: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels) Read online

  Mr. Carter smiled thinly. “I think Resnick lied to me.”

  “Why? What did he say?”

  “He said he shot you, took your proceeds from a payroll robbery, and ran off with your wife.”

  “One part's a lie. My wife was the one who shot me.”

  “Oh? That way I can see it.” Mr. Carter spread his hands palm down on the blotter, to either side of the empty gun. “There's something you want from me?”

  “Mal gave you people eighty thousand dollars.”

  “Paid us. It was a debt.”

  “Forty-five thousand of it was mine. I want it back.”

  Mr. Carter's faint smile disappeared. He blinked, looked again at his man on the floor and said, “You can't be serious.”

  “It's my money.”

  “The organization was owed a certain sum,” Mr. Carter said. “The organization was paid. Any debt Resnick owed you has died with him, so far as the organization is concerned. We don't undertake to settle our employees' personal debts.”

  Parker said, “You people have forty-five thousand dollars of my money. You'll give it to me.”

  Mr. Carter shook his head. “The request would never be approved. The organization would certainly decline to—”

  Parker interrupted. “The funnies call it the syndicate. The goons and hustlers call it the Outfit. You call it the organization. I hope you people have fun with your words. But I don't care if you call yourselves the Red Cross, you owe me forty-five thousand dollars and you'll pay me back whether you like it or not.”

  Mr. Carter's cold smile came back to his lips. “Do you realize, my friend, just what you're trying to fight? Do you have any idea just how many employees are on our organization payroll, coast to coast? Just how many affiliate organizations in how many towns? How many officials we control at local and state level all across the country?”

  Parker shrugged. “You're as big as the Post Office. So you've got the assets, you can pay me back my money with no trouble at all.”

  Mr. Carter shook his head. “I'm trying to tell you for your own good,” he said, “uh—I've forgotten your name. Resnick told me but I'm sorry, it slipped my mind.”

  “Parker. It won't again.”

  The smile strengthened for just a second. “No, I don't suppose it will. All right, Parker, allow me to give you the facts of life. The organization is not unreasonable. It pays its debts, works within acceptable business ethics, and does its best to run at a profit. Except for the fact that it works outside the law, it conforms as closely as possible to the corporate concept. In other words, if you had come to me with a legitimate corporate debt, you would have no trouble. But you are asking us to reimburse you for a personal debt contracted by a former employee. No corporation in the world would agree to that, Parker, and I'm sure our organization wouldn't either.”

  “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, “I 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.”

  “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 and 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.” Mr. 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.

  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. He 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 there.

  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 any-body 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 you know what I'm talking about?”

  “Bank robbers,” said Fairfax.

  “Banks, payrolls, armored cars, jewelers, anyplace 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 hand. Fairfax listened again, then extended the phone to Parker. “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.”