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

  “Maybe,” said Parker.

  A six-year-old Pontiac station wagon with Chemy at the wheel and his brother beside him appeared from behind the garage and went off down the rutted road. Parker sat and smoked, waiting. The woman tried to start a conversation with him once or twice, but he didn't encourage her, so she quit. The dog got up again after a while, went down off the porch, and loped away around the house. A while later Parker got to his feet, went into the house, and walked through rooms of sagging furniture to the kitchen, where he got himself a drink of water. He didn't see the boy. The woman followed him in, and stood in the kitchen doorway, smiling hesitantly at him, but not saying anything. When he started out of the kitchen, she murmured, “We got time.”

  He shook his head, and went back out on the porch. She stayed inside the house.

  He waited three hours, and the sun was turning red way off near the western horizon when Chemy and Kent came back. Kent was driving the Pontiac this time, and Chemy was following him in a four-year-old blue Oldsmobile with Alabama plates. Kent took the Pontiac around behind the garage, and Chemy stopped the Oldsmobile in front of the house. He got out and patted the hood and said, “Well? What do you think?”

  Chemy grinned, shrugging his shoulders. “I don't know yet. I figure maybe. The car's hot in Florida, and the plates are hot in Alabama, but the plates are off a LaSalle, so you got nothing to worry about.”

  “LaSalle? There's still some of them around?”

  “Give me three days around here, Parker, I'll find you a Marmon.”

  “I don't want a Marmon.”

  “Sure not. I'll check this out for you. She run good coming in.”

  Kent had come around from behind the garage, and was now opening one set of doors in front. Chemy got back into the Oldsmobile and drove it into the garage, next to the Volkswagen. Parker walked over after him, went inside, and Kent followed, closing the doors.

  The two brothers spent half an hour checking the car, mostly in silence. Every once in a while, Kent would say, “Look at this,” and Chemy would bend close and peer, and then say, “It's okay.” A few times it wasn't okay, and the two would work to make it okay.

  Finally Chemy said, “She's better than I thought. A southern car all the way, Parker, got none of your northern corrosion.”

  “I thought it was from Florida. What about salt corrosion?”

  “Stolen from Florida. She used to have Tennessee plates on her.”

  “What about papers?”

  “Right here. Just fill in whatever name you like.”

  Parker had a driver's license in his wallet, from one of the poker players who'd been with Menner. It had the name Maurice Kebbler on it, so that was the name he wrote on the registration. Then he said, “Wait a minute,” and went out to the suitcase still lying on the ground in front of the house. He picked it up and carried it back to the garage. The woman with orange hair was on the porch again, standing there, watching Parker with no expression on her face.

  Parker went into the garage and opened the suitcase on the workbench. There was an envelope in the side pocket of the suitcase, and he took it out and slid seven hundred-dollar bills from it and put them on the bench. Then he put the envelope back in the pocket and closed the suitcase.

  Chemy watched the whole operation, and nodded. “Good enough,” he said. “Kent, open them doors.”

  Kent opened the doors, and the woman with orange hair was standing there. Her face was flushed now, and she looked upset. She said, “Kent, that bastard raped me.”

  Kent just stared at her. Chemy frowned at her and said, “Don't be foolish.”

  “Godamit, I say he raped me!”

  Kent turned, looking shaken. “Parker. What the hell is this?”

  Parker shrugged.

  Chemy said to the woman, “Come off it, will you?”

  Kent shook his head, looking goggle-eyed at his brother. “Why would she say it, Chemy? If he didn't do nothing, why would she say he did?”

  “Ask Parker if you want. Don't ask me.”

  Parker said, “She made me the offer and I turned her down.”

  Kent looked ashen. “You're a lying son a bitch!” he shouted. He reached out, got a wrench in his hand, and started across the garage toward Parker.

  The woman turned her head and screamed. “Judge! Here, you, Judge!” And whistled shrilly through the gaps between her teeth.

  “Leave the dog out of this!” shouted Chemy.

  “Don't do anything stupid, Kent,” Parker said.

  “I'll break your head open, you son of a bitch.” Kent was as white as the inside of a potato, and he shuffled slowly forward, the wrench held out from his body in his right hand.

  Parker turned his head, saying, “Chemy, you want me to kill your brother?”

  “No, I don't think so.”

  “Then call him off.”

  “I couldn't do that, Parker. I'm sorry, but I couldn't do that.”

  Parker frowned. “Chemy, do you believe that bag?”

  “That ain't for me to say, Parker; I ain't the husband. I'm just the brother-in-law.”

  “Then you'll keep out, won't you?”

  “Unless my brother gets hurt.”

  Kent said, “I won't be the one gets hurt.” He dashed in suddenly, face contorted, arm looping up and over with the wrench.

  Parker ran inside the descending curve, butting Kent in the face with the top of his head, kneeing him, chopping upward with the right side of his hand against the soft under-part of Kent's upper arm. Kent cried out as his arm went dead and the wrench fell to the floor. Parker stepped back and hit him twice, and Kent followed the wrench down and didn't move.

  The woman was screaming for the dog again. Chemy wasn't saying anything at all now, but was leaning against the side of the Oldsmobile and looking on with an expression of regret on his face.

  Parker turned and strode swiftly to the side door. He grabbed up the shotgun and turned with it as the dog, lean and fast and silent, came loping on a long curve into the garage. The woman was screaming “Sic 'im,” and Chemy was shouting for the dog to come back. But the woman's voice was louder and the dog kept coming. Parker had the shotgun by the barrels and he swung it like a baseball bat. The dog leaped into the swing. The wooden stock cracked against the side of its head and sent it tumbling away to the side, to crash into a pile of junk and lay still.

  Parker turned the shotgun around and said, “My best move is to finish the three of you.”

  “I'm neutral, Parker,” Chemy said.

  “No, you're not. That bag wants to see your brother get killed, Chemy. She sent him after me hoping I'd do it.”

  The woman stared at him, openmouthed.

  “Shut up,” said Chemy. “Parker never touched you.”

  Parker said, “Can you convince your brother?”

  “Sure I can. Why should I?”

  “I don't leave loose ends behind me.”

  Chemy thought it over, gazing down at his brother, unconscious on the floor. Finally, he said, “I guess I see what you mean. All right, I'll convince him.”

  “How?”

  Chemy grinned bleakly. “She offered it to me, too, once or twice.”

  “Lies!”

  They both ignored her. Parker said, “I'll wake him up.”

  “No. You take off. It'd be better if we was alone when I told him. He'd be able to take it better.”

  “You are going to tell him?”

  “I swear it, Parker.”

  “All right.” Parker put the shotgun down.

  Chemy asked, “You want to give this bitch a ride into town? I figure she ought to be outa here before Kent gets the word.”

  “She can walk.”

  “I guess she can at that.” He turned and looked at the woman. “Get started,” he said. “If Kent wants to kill you, I won't do nothing to stop him.”

  “You took the offer, you bastard!” she screamed at him.

  Chemy turned his back on her, saying to
Parker, “You might as well take off now. Sorry we had all this fuss.”

  “I'll be seeing you.”

  Parker stowed his suitcase on the back seat of the car. The woman, after hesitating a minute, had gone away from the garage, headed for the house. Parker backed the Oldsmobile out into the late sunlight, turned it around, saw the flash of orange hair in the living room window, and drove away down the rutted road, easing the car slowly and carefully across the bumps and potholes. When he got to the black-top road, he headed north. The Olds responded well. The upholstery was in rotten shape, the floor mats were chewed to pieces, and the paint job was all scratched up, but the engine purred nicely and the Olds leaped forward when he pressed the accelerator. He lit a cigarette, shifted position till he was comfortable, and headed north out of Georgia.

  2

  The operator wanted ninety-five cents. Parker dropped the coins in; then the phone went dead for a while. A little rubber-bladed fan was whirring up near the top of the booth but not doing much good. Parker shoved the door open a little, and the fan stopped. He adjusted the door again until it was open a crack and the fan still worked. The phone started clicking with the sounds of falling relays, then stopped, and a repeated ringing took over.

  The phone was answered on the fourth ring by a male voice.

  Parker said, “I'm trying to get Arnie LaPointe.”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Parker. I want you to give Handy McKay a message from me.”

  “I'm not sure I'll see him.”

  “If you do.”

  “Sure, if I do.”

  “If he's got nothing on, I'd like to meet him at Madge's in Scranton next Thursday.”

  “Who should he ask for?”

  “Me. Parker.”

  “What time Thursday?”

  “Next Thursday. Not this Thursday.”

  “I got that. What time?”

  “Nine o'clock.”

  “Morning or night?”

  “For Christ's sake. Night.”

  “If I see him, I'll tell him.”

  “Thanks.”

  He hung up, and the coins clattered deeper into the box. He left the booth and went out of the drugstore. He was on the outskirts of Indianapolis, far enough away from the center of the city for the drugstore to have a parking lot. The blue Olds was there, nosed against the stucco side of the building.

  Parker had had the Olds four days now, and it worked fine. He slid behind the wheel and pulled out of the lot. He was farther north now and, though the sun was bright, the air was cold. He headed east, through Speedway out to Clermont, and between Clermont and Brownsburg he turned off on a small road where a faded sign announced, “Tourist Accommodations.” The land was flat, but heavily forested, and he was practically on top of the house before he saw it. He pulled around to the side and parked.

  It was a big house painted white some years ago. Bay windows protruded from its sides with no pattern, like growths. The porch was broad with narrow rococo pillars. Four rocking chairs stood empty on the porch. A second-floor curtain flicked and was still.

  Parker got out of the Olds and walked around to the front and up on the porch. A small, bald man in white shirt and gray pants with dark-blue suspenders appeared at the screen door and squinted out at him. He had a pair of wire-framed spectacles pushed up on his forehead, but he didn't bother to lower them, just squinted.

  The plastic surgery Parker had had done seemed like a good idea at the time, but it made for complications. Nobody knew him anymore. He stood outside the screen door and said, “I'm looking for a room.”

  “Sorry,” said the bald man. “We're all full up right now.”

  Parker looked up. There was a light over the door in a complicated fixture supposed to look like a lantern. He said, “I see you got that fixed.”

  “I did what?”

  “The last time I was here,” Parker told him, “Eddie Hill got drunk and took off after that girl of his and shot that light all to hell. Remember?”

  Now the bald man did lower his glasses to his nose, and peered through them at Parker's face. “I don't remember you,” he said.

  “One time when Skimm was here,” Parker said, “he buried a wad of dough out back some place. If you haven't looked for it, you can now. He's dead.”

  “You know who you sound like?”

  “Parker.”

  “Be damned if you don't.”

  A new voice, from inside the house, said, “Invite the gentleman in, Begley.”

  Begley pushed open the screen door. “Maybe you ought to come inside.”

  Parker went in and saw a man in the entrance to the parlor. He was holding a gun, but not aiming it anywhere in particular at the moment.

  “Hi, Jacko,” said Parker.

  Jacko was chewing gum. He said, “You got the advantage on me, friend. I don't seem to recollect your name.”

  “Parker.”

  “Crap.”

  Begley had been leaning close, squinting up at Parker's face, and he now said, “No, now—wait a minute, Jacko. I be damned if it ain't Parker! He's had one of them face jobs, that's all.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jacko frowned, chewing his gum. “Okay, who worked that Fort Wayne payroll job with you, back in '49?”

  “You did.”

  “Sure. Just the two of us?”

  “Bobby Gonzales drove. Joe Sheer worked the safe. The inside man was named Fahey or something like that. He tried to run out with the boodle and you took him up to Lake Michigan and threw him in.”

  “Where'd we hide out after the job?”

  “In a trailer camp outside Goshen. It isn't there any more.” Parker turned to Begley. “Let's go sit down. I want to talk. You too, Jacko.”

  “I'm not satisfied yet,” said Jacko.

  “Then go to hell.”

  Jacko laughed. “Maybe you're Ronald Reagan with the FBI. How do I know?”

  “You're scared of guns, Jacko, so you got no cartridge under the hammer. You'll have to pull that trigger twice before you get any action, and I can move faster than that. Put it away, or I'll take it away from you.”

  Begley laughed then, and said, “Nobody but Parker can irritate people so quick.”

  Jacko put the pistol inside his jacket, looking angry. “One of these days, Parker,” he said, “I've got to check you out. Nobody's as mean as you talk.”

  “Maybe not.” Parker went on past him into the parlor, where there was a sofa and three rocking chairs. He picked one of them, sat down, and said, “I want to talk anyway.”

  The other two came in and sat down. Begley said, “You want a room now?”

  “No. Two weeks from now.”

  “You got something lined up?” Jacko asked him. “You want a hand, maybe?”

  “No. I want to tell you a story.” He told them quickly about his trouble with the syndicate. Jacko sat impassive, chewing his gum. Begley listened, fascinated, blinking behind his spectacles.

  “So I'm going to settle this thing with the Outfit once and for all,” Parker finished. “That's why I'll need a room in a couple weeks.”

  “Why tell me?” asked Jacko.

  “It's a chance for you. It's a chance for all the boys. The Outfit is full of cash, all untraceable, and they can't call in the law if they get taken. We've always left them alone, and they've always left us alone. Now they're making trouble for me. If you hit them, they'll blame me.” He turned to Begley. “I want you to spread the word, anybody else drops in. Now's the time to hit the syndicate.”

  “For you?” demanded Jacko. “Why should I do anything for you, Parker?”

  “Not for me. I don't want a cut or anything else. I'm just spreading the word. You know of any syndicate operation that would be an easy take?”

  Jacko laughed. “Half a dozen,” he said. “They pay the law and they figure that's all they got to do.”

  “So here's your chance, that's all.”

  “But it helps you, too, Parker.”

  “S
o what?”

  Jacko shrugged. “I'll think it over.”

  Begley said, “I'll spread the word, Parker. You can count on me.”

  “Good.”