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

  “I know. I caught him in the shoulder. You can call a doctor after I leave here.”

  Fairfax, looking stunned, led the way. The brothers followed, carrying the wounded man, and Parker came last. They went into the bedroom and the twins put the wounded man down on the bed. Fairfax pursed his lips at that, but didn't say anything.

  Parker said, “Guns on the floor. Move very slow and easy, and one at a time. You first.”

  They did as they were told. Then Parker had them stand a few feet back from the wall, leaning on their hands, bodies off balance. He frisked them, finding nothing more on them. He relieved the wounded man of his gun, picked up the three guns in his left hand by their trigger guards, and motioned Fairfax to precede him out of the bedroom. Parker locked the door behind him. He and Fairfax went back to the living room.

  Fairfax had regained some of his composure. “I don't know what you hope to gain,” he said. “You'll keep annoying us, and we'll keep hunting you. The end is inevitable.”

  “Wrong. You aren't hunting me, I'm hunting you. Right now, I'm hunting Bronson.”

  “You won't get at him as readily as you got at me.”

  “Let me worry about that. This is the second time I've met up with you, Fairfax, and you can live through it this time too, if you cooperate.”

  “Whatever you want, it's beyond my power to give it to you.”

  “No, it isn't. I want two things. I want to know where Bronson is now and where he'll be for the next week or two. And I want to know who in the Outfit is slated to take over if anything happens to Bronson.”

  Fairfax's smile was shaky. “It would be worth my life to tell you either of those things.”

  “You won't have any life left if you don't. I got your bodyguards out of the way so you could tell me without anybody knowing. I'm making it easy on you.”

  “I'm sorry. This time you'll just have to kill me.” His voice had a quaver in it, but he met Parker's eyes and he kept his hand away from his moustache.

  Parker considered. Then he said, “All right, we'll make it easier than that. You know who's next in line after Bronson. I want to get in touch with him.”

  “Why?”

  “You listen, and you'll find out. What's his name?”

  Fairfax thought it over. His hand came up stealthily and lingered at his moustache. He said, finally, as though to himself, “You want to make a deal. All right, there's no harm in that. It's Walter Karns.”

  “Can you call him now?”

  “I imagine he's at his place in Los Angeles.”

  “Phone him.”

  Fairfax got on the phone. Karns wasn't at the first two places he tried. Fairfax finally got in touch with him in Seattle, and said, “Hold on a second.” He hadn't identified himself.

  Parker took the phone. “Karns?”

  “Yes?” It was a rich voice, a brandy-and-cigar voice. “Who is it?”

  “I'm Parker. Ever hear of me?”

  “Parker? The Parker who's been causing all that trouble in the East?”

  “That's the one.”

  “Well, well, well. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “If anything happens to Bronson, you're in, right?”

  “What? Well, now, you're going a little fast there, aren't you?”

  “I'm going after Bronson. Maybe I can make a deal with him, so we'll both be satisfied.”

  “I really doubt that, you know.”

  “Maybe I can, maybe I can't. If I don't, you're next in line. What I want to know is should I spend any time talking to Bronson?”

  “Well, well! So that's it!”

  “Do I try to make a deal with Bronson?”

  “He'll never do it, you know.”

  “You got any other reasons why I shouldn't try?”

  “Hold on. Let me think about this.”

  Parker held on. After a minute, Karns said, “I think we could probably work something out, Parker.”

  “You people go your way, I go mine. You don't annoy me, I don't annoy you.”

  “That certainly sounds reasonable.”

  “Yeah. Give me a guarantee.”

  “A guarantee? Well, now. Yes, I see your position, of course, but—a guarantee. I'm not sure I know what guarantee I could give you.”

  “Right now, the Outfit is out to get me. If you take over, what happens?”

  “After this conversation? If I take over, as you say, as a result of any activity on your part, I assure you I'll be grateful. The organization would no longer bother you in any way. As to what guarantee I could give you—”

  “Never mind. I'll give you a guarantee. I'll get Bronson. I got Carter—you remember him?”

  “From New York? Yes, I remember that clearly.”

  “And I had my hands on Fairfax once. And, now, I'll get Bronson. That means, if I have to, I can find you, too.”

  “You seem to have found me already. Who was that on the phone before you?”

  “That's not part of the deal. I just want you to understand the situation.”

  “I think I understand, Parker. Believe me, if you succeed in ending the career of Arthur Bronson, you will have my undying respect and admiration. I would no more cross you thereafter than I would shake hands with a scorpion.”

  Parker motioned for Fairfax to come close. Into the phone, he said, “Say it plain and simple. If I get Bronson, what?”

  He held the phone out toward Fairfax. They both heard the faint voice say, “If you get Arthur Bronson, Mr. Parker, the organization will never bother you again.”

  Parker brought the phone back to his mouth and said, “That's good. Good-by, Mr. Karns.”

  “Good-by, Mr. Parker. And, good hunting!”

  Parker hung up. He turned to Fairfax. “Well?”

  Fairfax stroked his moustache. “I've always admired Karns,” he said. “And I never did like Bronson. You'll find him in Buffalo. He's staying at his wife's house until you're found. 798 Delaware, facing the park.”

  “All right, Fairfax. Now listen. What happens if you warn Bronson?”

  “I won't, you can rely on that.”

  “But what happens if you do? You have to let him know you told me where to find him. He wouldn't take any excuse at all for that.”

  “I'm not going to warn him.”

  “What about those bodyguards of yours? Can you keep them quiet about tonight?”

  “They work for me, not for Bronson.”

  “All right.” Parker went to the hall door and opened it. “Good-by, Fairfax.”

  “Good-by.”

  Parker boarded the elevator and rode down. He walked out onto Fifth Avenue. Central Park was in front of him and the Olds was illegally parked around the corner. He plucked the green ticket from under the windshield wiper, ripped it in two, and dropped the pieces in the gutter. Then he got behind the wheel. First to Scranton to pick up Handy McKay, if Handy felt like coming, and then on to Buffalo.

  THREE

  1

  Rolling slow and silent beside the park in the late-morning sunlight, the two black Cadillacs formed a convoy that moved at measured pace along the black-top street. Dappled sunlight filtered through the parkside trees reflecting semaphoric highlights from the polished chrome. Alone in the rear seat of the second Cadillac, Arthur Bronson chewed sourly on his cigar and glowered out in distaste at the beautiful day. The late November air was crisp, clean, and cold, the late November sunlight bright and shimmering. A few scarlet leaves still clung to some of the trees along the park's edge relieving the stark blackness of their trunks and branches.

  A hell of a place to be in November! he thought, thinking of Las Vegas. He glanced ahead, saw his wife's house and repeated the thought: A hell of a place to be in November. A hell of a place to be anytime.

  It was a big stone monstrosity of a house facing the park. Twenty-one rooms, tall narrow windows, three stories, four staircases, impossible to heat. Putting in decent wiring and plumbing had cost a fortune. Buying statues to fill the niche
s and paintings for the walls had cost another fortune. And then rugs. And half the furniture on the Eastern Seaboard. For what? For a house he inhabited not more than three months out of the year unless something unusual came up.

  But Willa had wanted it. She was a Buffalo girl, from the cracked-sidewalk section back of Civic Center, and owning one of these stone piles by the park had been her driving ambition for as long as she could remember. And what Willa wanted, whatever she truly wanted, Arthur Bronson went out and got for her.

  He was fifty-six, born in Baltimore seven years before World War I and thirteen years before Prohibition. He'd been driving a rum-runner's truck at fourteen, in charge of collection in the northeast area of Washington at twenty, one of the four most powerful men in the Baltimore-Washington area liquor syndicate at twenty-seven when Prohibition ended. He was the most powerful man in that area at thirty-two, member of the national committee from the mid-East states at thirty-nine. He had become chairman of the committee at forty-seven and had held that post for the past nine years.

  His cover was impeccable. He was senior partner in a Buffalo firm of investment counselors, with a junior partner who handled all the legitimate business. He was a member of Kenmore, a suburb. He belonged to a country club and a businessmen's fraternal organization; he was a member in good standing of the church three blocks from his Buffalo home, and his income tax returns would never send him to jail. At fifty-six, he was of medium height, about twenty pounds overweight, and his black hair was flecked distinguishedly with gray. His face was broad and somewhat puffy, but he still retained traces of his earlier dark good looks. He gave the impression of being a solid citizen, a hard businessman, possibly a difficult employer, but absolutely respectable.

  Willa, too, was respectable. In 1930, when he'd married her, she'd been a mediocre singer with a fair jazz band, but she took to rich respectability as though she'd known no other life. She was now fifty-two, a plump and soft-spoken matron, a doting grandmother who was constantly phoning her married daughter in San Jose, to find out how her two grandsons were getting on. The pile of stones facing the park was her home twelve months out of the year. Her husband might be away for months at a time—New York, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Naples—but this pile of stones was Willa's home, and she stayed in it.

  It was not her husband's home, and he avoided it as much as possible. He didn't like the place, it was too big, too solemn, too empty, too drafty, too far removed from life. He preferred hotel suites with terraces overlooking a pool or the sea. He preferred chrome and red leather. When it came to that, he preferred a good, stacked, intelligent, hundred-dollar whore on a white leather sofa to the plump grandmother in the pile of stones in Buffalo, but, at the same time, it was the good whore who got the hundred dollars and the plump grandmother who got the hundred-thousand-dollar house.

  The lead Cadillac crawled on past the driveway and stopped. There were four men in the car, and they looked out the windows intently in all directions, watching the traffic and pedestrians. The second Cadillac with the armed colored chauffeur at the wheel and Bronson alone in the back seat turned in the driveway like a sleek tank. Only after it had gone in past the hedge did the other Cadillac go on down the street and around the corner. To the undiscerning eye, there was no particular connection between the two Cadillacs.

  The black-top drive looped past the front of the house, then curved round to the garage at the side. The chauffeur stopped at the front door and hopped out to open the door for Bronson. Bronson climbed out and the chauffeur asked, “You want the car any more today?”

  “No.” It was said angrily. Where the hell was there to go? He'd just come from the funeral of a local businessman, the owner of a chain of supermarkets. Funerals. Big, dark, stone houses. Cold weather. All because of one madman named Parker. He went up the steps and into the house, and the chauffeur took the Cadillac around to the garage. Another driveway came in from behind the garage, and the second Cadillac came in that way. The two of them were put away and the five men went into the house through one of the back doors.

  Bronson, passing through the main hall, found his wife in the small room behind the drawing room watching television. He stood in the doorway, feeling grumpy, but not wanting to take it out on Willa. It wasn't her fault. He said, “Hello.”

  “Oh, hello!” She got to her feet, a plump, pleasant-looking woman with timid mannerisms, and went over to turn the television off.

  “Let it go,” he said. “What's on?”

  “It's just a movie. I think there might be a football game on one of the other channels.” She wasn't used to having her husband home. She was grateful for his presence, but at the same time she knew he wasn't here of his own free will. What the problem that had forced him home was she didn't know—he never talked about his business with her—but she knew it had to be something serious. Every once in a while during the year he would stop in for a few days, just long enough to put in token appearances at his office downtown and at a few business luncheons or civic meetings, then he would be off again. But this time was different. This time, he was obviously angry and upset, as though it hadn't been his original plan to come at this time. And he had brought all those bodyguards with him, a thing he'd never done before. So she knew he was here against his will and she worried about it, wondering what she could do to make his stay less difficult. “I'll see if I can find that football game.”

  “No, never mind. You watch your movie.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I'm sure. I'm sure.”

  She wilted at the tone, immediately looking sheepish. “I'm sorry, Arthur.”

  “Oh, for Christ's sake! I'm not mad at you.”

  “I know, Arthur. I—”

  One of the bodyguards appeared in the doorway. “Phone, Mr. Bronson.”

  “All right.” He was grateful for the interruption. He left the room and hurried upstairs.

  Could this be it? Had they run Parker down? Could he now get the hell away from this mausoleum?

  At the head of the stairs on the second floor, a hall as wide as many of the rooms stretched away to his left, lawned with Persian and lined with candelabras. He walked down this hall, the carpet muffling his tread, and entered the third room on the right—his office.

  The office was dominated by a desk the size of a sports car, carefully wrought of hand-carved Honduras mahogany. Books he had bought—not to read, but because they were in sets with bindings of which the decorator had approved—lined the shelves on three walls. Two tall narrow windows faced the tree-lined street and the park beyond.

  Bronson sat at the desk and reached out for the telephone, hoping it was the good news he'd been waiting for. He checked the movement at the last second, wanting to prolong the suspense, and made the caller wait while he unwrapped and lit a cigar. The cigar in his left hand, he reached out for the phone again.

  But it wasn't good news. It was bad news, very bad news. Someone had just knocked off the Club Cockatoo.

  2

  The neon sign which hung out by the road was green. It said:

  CLUB

  C

  O

  C

  K

  A

  T

  O

  O

  DANCING

  Town was five miles away to the east, along the two-lane black-top road, moving gradually down the decline into the valley where the city was situated. From that direction came an orange Volkswagen. The driver was alone in the car, a bulky canvas-covered bundle lay on the back seat. It putted by the Club Cockatoo, with the characteristic cough of the VW. A mile and a half further along there was an Esso station, closed for the night. The VW putted in there and stopped. The lights were shut off. The low, small silhouette of the car could hardly be seen in the dark—couldn't be seen at all unless you knew it was there. The driver, a short thin man named Rico, got out and walked back down the road toward the Club Cockatoo.

  It was a Saturday night, so the parking lot wa
s crowded. Rico walked through the ranks of cars to the line parked facing the side of the building. There was a door on the side, near the rear, and Rico headed for that. The car nearest that side door was a white Ford Thunderbird. Rico tried the door on the driver's side, found it locked, and shrugged in irritation. Then he tried the next car, a dark green Continental. The door was unlocked. He stood next to it, waiting.

  After a minute, a black Buick, two years old and stolen that afternoon, turned into the parking lot. The driver was alone in the Buick. He was tall and slender, about forty, with a pock-marked face. His name was Terry. He nodded when he saw Rico.

  Rico looked at the Buick, then got behind the wheel of the Continental. He bent and fiddled under the dashboard for a minute. Then the engine started, and he backed the Continental out of its place. He headed it around several lanes toward another parking space. The Buick nosed forward and slid into the vacant spot. Rico fiddled under the dashboard on the Continental again, and the engine stopped. He got out and walked over to the Buick. Terry got out and they both walked around to the front and entered the club. They wore dark suits and ties, and took their hats off as they stepped through the entrance.