Richard Stark - The Hunter

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.

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.”