Richard Stark - The Hunter

The butterball blinked like a metronome. His chin quivered. Fat tears squiggled down his cheeks. “I don’t know,” he pleaded. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“The guy who gave you the envelope.”

“Oh, I must not!”

“Oh, you must,” Parker mimicked. He put his right foot on the butterball’s crossed, tied ankles, and gradually added weight. “You sure as hell must.”

“Help!” sobbed the butterball. “Help! Help!”

Parker kicked him in the stomach. “Wrong words,” he said. “Don’t do that again.” He waited till the butterball had air in his lungs again. “Give me his name.”

“Please — they’ll kill me.”

“ I’ll kill you. Worry about me.”

The butterball closed his eyes, and his whole face sagged in an expression of complete and comic despair. Parker waited, and at last the butterball said, without opening his eyes, “Mr. Stegman. Mr. Arthur Stegman.”

“Where do I find him?”

“In — in Brooklyn. The Rockaway Car Rental. Farragut Road near Rockaway Parkway.”

“Fine. You should have saved yourself some trouble.”

“They’ll kill me,” he sobbed. “They’ll kill me.”

Parker went down on one knee, untied the twine around the butterball’s ankles, straightened up and said, “Get to your feet.”

He couldn’t do it by himself; Parker had to help him.

The butterball stood weaving, breathing like a bellows. Parker turned him around, shoved him across the living room into the bedroom, tripped him up and sent him crashing to the floor. He tied his ankles again, then went out and locked the bedroom door behind him.

He gathered up the envelope full of money, slipped it into his jacket pocket, and left the apartment.

The subway line ended at Rockaway Parkway and Glenwood Road, in Canarsie. Parker asked directions of the old woman in the change booth. Farragut Road was one block to the right.

The Rockaway Car Rental was a small shack on a lot between two private houses. The lot was sandy and weed scraggled, with three elderly white-painted Checker cabs parked on it. The shack was small, of white clapboard, with a plate-glass window in front.

Inside, there was a railing around the guy at the two-way radio. A bedraggled sofa was along the other wall, and a closed door led to the room in back.

Parker leaned on the chest-high railing and said, “I’m looking for Arthur Stegman.”

The radioman put down his Daily News and said, “He ain’t here right now. Maybe I can help you.”

“You can’t. Where do I find him?”

“I’m not sure. If you’d leave your—”

“Take a guess.”

“What?”

“About where he is. Take a guess.”

The radioman frowned. “Now hold on a second, buddy. You want to—”

“Is he home?”

The radioman gnawed his cheek a few seconds, then said, “Why don’t you go ask him?”

He picked up his News again.

“I’ll be glad to,” said Parker. “Where’s he live?”

“We don’t give that information out,” said the radioman. He swiveled around in his chair and studied the News.

Parker tapped a thumbnail on the top of the railing. “You’re making a mistake, employee,” he said. “Sidney run off.”

The radioman looked up and frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“To you, maybe, nothing. To Stegman, plenty.”

The radioman frowned harder, thinking it over. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said. “If Art wanted to see you, he’d of told you where to find him.”

“Right here,” Parker said.

“For that, all you need is a phone book. No sale.” He went back to his News again.

Parker shook his head angrily, and strode toward the door at the back of the room. Behind him, the radioman jumped up, shouting something, but Parker ignored him. He pushed open the door and walked in.

Six men were sitting around a round table, playing seven-card stud. They looked up, and Parker said, “I’m looking for Stegman.”

A florid-faced guy with his hat jammed far back on his head said, “Who the hell invited you?”

The one in the police uniform said, “Get lost.”

The radioman came in then, and said to the florid-faced guy, “He just won’t take no for an answer.” He reached for Parker. “Come on, bum. Enough is enough.”

Parker knocked away the reaching hand, and brought up his knee. The radioman grunted and rested his brow on Parker’s shoulder. Parker sidestepped, ignoring the radioman, who sagged in a half-crouch against the wall. “I’m still looking for Stegman.”

The one in the police uniform threw down his cards and got to his feet. “That looks to me like assault,” he said.

The florid-faced guy said, “Willy will sign the complaint, Ben. Don’t you worry.”

Another of the players, a tall hard-faced man in a white shirt and no tie, said, “This bird looks to me like the kind resists arrest. What do you think, Ben?”

“Maybe you ought to help me, Sal,” the cop said.

Parker shook his head. “You don’t want to play around. I got a message for Stegman.”

“Hold it,” said the florid-faced guy. Ben and Sal stopped where they were. “What’s the message?”

“You Stegman?”

“I’ll tell him when I see him.”

“Yeah. You’re Stegman, all right. I come to tell you Sidney’s run off.”

Stegman sat forward in his chair. “What?”

“You heard me. He run off with the thousand. He never even went to see the girl.”

“You’re crazy. Sidney wouldn’t dare do—” He stopped, looked quickly at the other players, and got to his feet. “Deal me out. Come on, you, we’ll talk outside.”

“What about this assault?” the cop, Ben, said.

Stegman made an angry gesture. “The hell with that. Go on back to the game.”

“What if Willy wants to sign a complaint?”

“He don’t. Do you, Willy?”

Willy, upright now, but still ashen faced, said, “No. All I want’s a return bout.”

Stegman shook his head. “On your own time, Willy,” he said. “Come on, you.”

Parker followed him to the front office, where Stegman went behind the railing and took one of the keys from the rack on the wall. “I’m taking the Chrysler, Willy,” he called into the back room. “I’m going down to the beach. Be gone twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes. Okay.” Willy came to the door and looked at Parker. “I’m on my own time startin’ six o’clock,” he said.

Parker turned his back and walked out the shack after Stegman. Stegman pointed at a black nine-passenger Chrysler limousine. “We’ll take that. We can’t talk in the office. No privacy. Those guys don’t know nothin’ about this stuff.”

They got into the limousine, and Stegman drove it out around the shack to the street. Looking out the rear window, Parker saw the cop standing in the shack doorway, frowning.

Stegman drove up to the corner of Rockaway Parkway and turned left. “You can start talking any time,” he said.

Parker pointed at the two-way radio under the dashboard. “If you’re not back in twenty minutes, Sparks calls you, is that it?”

“And if I don’t answer,” Stegman answered, “he calls every other car I’ve got. How come you know about Sidney?”

“I was with the girl. Lynn Parker.”

Stegman glanced at him, then back at the traffic. “You know a lot. How come I don’t recognize you?”

“I just got in town. Watch your driving, there’s a lot of kids.”

“I know how to drive.”

“Maybe we better wait till we get to this beach.”

Stegman shrugged.

They drove nine blocks down Rockaway Parkway, then through an underpass under the Belt Parkway and around a circle to a broad cobblestone pier sticking out into Jamaica Bay. There were a couple of Parks Department-type buildings out at the far end of the pier. The rest was parking lot, with a few small skinny trees, the whole surrounded by a railed concrete walk and benches.