Richard Stark - The Hunter

He got to his feet and strode deeper across the field. A high wooden wall separated the field from the backyards of row houses facing on the next street. He crouched down by the wall, the Luger in his hand, and waited.

The same car came around the block again, moving more slowly now, and stopped opposite him. He was in pitch blackness against the wall and couldn’t be seen. After a minute, the back door of the car opened and two men got out. They strolled across the field to where he had dropped, wandered around in a small circle, and strolled back.

They stood by the car, and after a minute two more cars came down the street and parked. Men got out of them, and they had a conference. Then two of the cars took off again, going down to the corner, at Flatlands Avenue, both moving slowly. One turned right, and the other turned left.

The third car stayed where it was. Three men got out of it and strolled across the street to the project and disappeared in the darkness among the buildings. The driver stayed in the car, his cigarette glowing faintly from time to time, and watched the field.

Parker moved along the fence back to Glenwood Road, leaving the suitcase behind. The Luger was in his right hand, the target pistol in his left. He kept his hands close to his body as he moved. When he got to Glenwood Road, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and started to whistle.

He walked along, still whistling, and turned at the corner and walked down the block toward the car. The driver watched him in the rearview mirror, but he wasn’t carrying a suitcase, and he was whistling.

The car window was open. When Parker reached it, he turned and set both gun barrels on the sill, pointing at the driver, and murmured, “One word.”

The driver froze, both hands clenched on the wheel.

Parker said, “Slide over and get out on this side.” He stepped back, and the driver obeyed. “Now walk out across the field there.”

The two of them walked back to where he’d left the suitcase. He reversed the Luger and swung it, and the driver went down. He left the target pistol with him, picked up the suitcase, and hurried back to the car.

He slid in, started the engine, and roared away. As he was turning the corner, a man came running out from one of the project buildings half a block back.

He parked the car off Flatbush Avenue near Grand Army Plaza and took a cab into Manhattan.

On the bed were sixteen hundred slips of green paper, banded in stacks of fifty. There were twenty stacks marked ten , ten stacks marked fifty , two stacks marked one hundred. The numbers on all the slips of paper added up to forty-five thousand.

Parker sat on the chair beside the bed and looked at the money. The suitcase, empty now, lay on the floor at his feet. He had counted the money and it was all there, and now he sat and looked at it and wondered how he had happened to get it.

But it wasn’t really that hard to figure out. He could follow Bronson’s reasoning with no trouble at all. There was this mosquito, this Parker, causing trouble and disruptions. He wants forty-five thousand dollars. All right, give him the forty-five thousand dollars.

Try to get him when the delivery is made, but if you don’t get him the hell with it, he’s got forty-five thousand dollars. So then he won’t cause any more trouble and disruptions. And the organization has all the time and all the facilities to get him later on. He won’t be bothering the organization any more, and the organization can take care of him at its leisure. Forty-five thousand isn’t so much, when you consider the benefits.

So. That was Bronson’s side. His own side was simple, too; he had eighteen years of a pattern, and the pattern had been ripped apart. One job, the island job, had gone wrong and ripped the pattern apart. Now they were both dead, Lynn and Mal, the two who had done it to him. And he had made the job right again by getting his share back. He couldn’t go back to the pattern while that one job was still wrong.

Now he could go back. He had money to last him two or three years of the old life, and a plastic surgery. He’d have to go out to Omaha, to Joe Sheer, and find out the name of that doctor that had done the job on him. That was when Joe had retired, three years ago. He’d had his face changed because you never knew when you’d run into somebody who saw your face on a job ten years ago and still remembered.

With a new face, with forty-five thousand dollars, the organization could look forever and never find him. He’d have to be a little more careful than before about the people he worked with on jobs, but that was no problem. He liked to pick and choose his jobs and his partners anyway.

A job had soured and now it was straight again. It was as simple as that.

He roused himself, putting out his cigarette, and picked up the suitcase from the floor. He carefully packed the bundles of money back into it, closed it, slid it under his bed. Then he picked up the phone and asked for American Airlines, and made a reservation on the 3:26 P.M. plane for Omaha.

After that he left a call for noon, took a leisurely shower, and opened the pint of vodka he’d bought on the way back. He could drink it now; he was finished and he could relax. In Omaha, maybe Joe could set him up with a woman. If not, it could wait till Miami.

He woke to the jangling of the telephone, telling him it was noon, the first day of the new-old pattern. The hotel wasn’t as good as he was used to, but it didn’t matter. He was on his way back, starting now.

He took another shower, and dressed, and packed. He left the room carrying the two suitcases, his own and the one full of money. He rode down in the elevator and started across the lobby, and the desk clerk pointed him out to two men in rumpled suits.

They came toward him, and he hesitated, not believing they’d dare try anything here. And how could they find him here anyway? They couldn’t. But he was unarmed, the Luger thrown away last night on Flatbush Avenue.

The two men came over, and one reached to his hip pocket, and Parker tensed, ready to throw the suitcase with the clothing in it. But all that came out of the pocket was a wallet. It flipped open, showing the badge pinned to the leather. The owner of the wallet said, “Mr. Edward Johnson?”

What is this? What is this? “Yes,” he said, because the desk clerk had pointed him out. “What is it?”

“We want to talk to you.” The plainclothesman looked around at the lobby. “In private,” he said. “We’ll go to the manager’s office.”

“What is it? What’s it all about?”

“There are some questions. If you’ll come with us?”

One of them had his left arm, gently. It was only to the manager’s office, so he didn’t fight it. He didn’t try to guess what it was all about. He went along, ready, waiting to find out the score before making any kind of move.

The three employees behind the desk watched out of the corners of their eyes as the detectives took him through a door marked Private into a small empty office. The door to the next room, the manager’s office, was open, and the manager peered at them from his desk.

One of the detectives went over and said through the door, “We won’t be long, sir. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” the manager said. He seemed embarrassed.

The detective smiled and closed the door. Then he turned the smile off again and said, “Sit down, Mr. Johnson.”

Parker sat down on the corner of the sofa nearest the door, ready, waiting for them to tell him what it was all about.

The silent one stood by the door. The other one pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards, facing Parker, his forearms folded on the chair back, his bent knees jutting out at the sides.