Parker 09 The Split (2 page)

Parker walked across the blacktop past the gas pumps on their little concrete island. The pumps were bathed in light, spilling on Parker as he went by with his arms swinging from his shoulders like lethal weights. He was big and shaggy in the white light, with flat square shoulders and long muscle-roped arms. His hands looked like they'd been moulded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. He wore no hat; his dry brown hair fluttered on his skull, blown about by a cold November wind. He wore a dark gray suit and a black topcoat. His hands held pistols in the topcoat pockets.

The gas-station office was lit up just as much as the pumps. Inside, a chubby guy in a blue jumper was asleep at a metal desk. Parker walked on by the office and down into the darker area, down to the long shed like building that took up the rest of the block. The entrance was a small door inset in a large corrugated sliding garage door; Parker pushed it open and stepped over the strip across the bottom.

It was past midnight by now, so the interior was more than half full of cabs gleaming yellow and red under the bare bulbs spaced along the ceilings. In the daytime this place would be as empty as an airplane hangar.

Over to the right a wooden shed with glass windows all around had been built into a corner. A guy in a mackinaw lay stretched out asleep on a bench outside this shed, and inside, through the windows, Parker could see two guys working at desks. They wore white shirts, but they'd loosened their ties and unbuttoned their shirt collars.

Two

Parker walked across the concrete floor and pushed the shed door open and went in. One of the white-collar workers looked up and said, 'Not here, buddy. You want to go outside and around to the front. The gas-station office is over there.'

Parker kept his hands out of his topcoat pockets. He said, 'I don't want the gas-station office.'

The worker shook his head. 'You don't want us either, pal. You got a problem, talk to the day workers.'

'I'm looking for one of your drivers.'

The other worker looked up, interested. The first one said, 'Which one?'

'Dan Kifka.'

The worker frowned, arid looked at his partner. 'Kifka? You know any Kifka?'

The other one nodded. 'Yeah. He works part-time, nightshift. He ain't been around for a month or more.'

Parker said, 'He's supposed to be working tonight.'

The second worker shrugged and said, 'I'll check it for you, but I'm pretty sure he ain't around.' He got to his feet and went over to a table with small filing cabinets on it.

Parker waited, frowning. Kifka should be working tonight. And he should have been working last night and the night before. That was the cover, that kept him clean so he could stay out in the open.

If he wasn't working tonight, maybe it was because he was busy someplace else. Busy with swords, maybe.

The worker shut the file drawer and shook his head. 'No, he ain't on tonight. It's been a month since he's been around here. Over a month.'

'That's bad news,' Parker said. He turned and went out.

There were no cabs running in this part of town -- no reason for them. All the cabs here were parked inside garages. Parker started walking toward downtown.

He went two blocks, and then behind him a ways a voice called out, 'Hey!' It had that odd strained sound a voice has when somebody tries to shout quietly.

Parker turned and saw a bulky man coming down the sidewalk toward him. He moved past a streetlight as Parker watched, and it was the guy in the mackinaw, the one that had been asleep on the bench back in the cab garage. Parker put his right hand in his topcoat pocket, and stepped back into darker shadow in the lee of a tenement stoop.

They had this block to themselves. The windows of all the tenements on both sides were marked with the white X of urban renewal; they stood nearly empty, waiting for the wreckers. Within them the cockroaches crawled and the rats cluttered, but the humans were away, infesting some other neighborhood. Outside, the street was empty of cars, either moving or parked. Except for the man in the mackinaw, nothing living moved on the sidewalk.

The man in the mackinaw hurried the last half block separating them, and then abruptly slowed and came forward more warily, head craned forward like a periscope, turning slowly from side to side. In a shrill whisper he called, 'Where are you? Where'd you get to?'

'Here.'

He stopped. 'What are you doing? come on out of there.'

Parker said, 'You want to talk, talk.'

'You was asking about Dan Kifka.'

'So?'

He hesitated, didn't seem to know how to go on. 'Why don't you come out where I can see you?' He sounded plaintive.

Parker told him, 'Say what you've got to say.'

'You a friend of Kifka's?'

'In a way.'

'He was supposed to be in tonight. Three nights in a row he was supposed to be in and he didn't show up.'

'So I heard.'

'They didn't tell you everything, back to the office. He keeps calling in sick. Every day he calls in sick and says be sure and leave him a slot for tomorrow, he'll be in for sure.'

That didn't make any sense yet. Parker ignored it, and said, 'What's your interest?'

'He owes me thirty-seven dollars for over a year now.' The aggrieved tone wasn't faked; Parker relaxed a little.

Still, he said, 'Why follow me?'

'I figured maybe you know where he is, maybe he owes you money, too, or something like that, and we can go see him together.'

'You don't know where he lives?'

He hesitated again, and sculled his feet on the sidewalk, and finally said, 'No, I don't.' This time he was obviously lying. The truth probably was he was afraid of Kifka, wouldn't dare brace Kifka alone in Kifka's apartment. That's why he'd been hanging around in the garage where there'd be other people there to help him in case Kifka got mad. And now he figured to ride along on Parker's coat-tails, but he was making a mistake.

Parker stepped out onto the sidewalk. 'Forget it,' he said.

'We can go see him together.' He was pleading now. 'Two heads are better than one,' he said.

'Not always.' Parker turned away and walked on. Ahead, far down the street, the world was more brightly lit. There he could find a cab to take him to Kifka's place.

The clown in the mackinaw wouldn't give up. He came padding along saying, 'You're going to see him anyway, what difference does it make to you? I won't get in your way; I just want to get my thirty-seven bucks.'

Parker stopped and turned around and said, 'Walk someplace else.'

'You don't have to be so goddam tough about it.' He spoke with the whine of the natural loser, but he wouldn't give ground. He just stood there, unable to force himself on Parker and unwilling to go away and forget it.

Parker had no patience for this kind of clown. He took his hands out of his topcoat pockets, empty, and balled them into fists. He took a step toward the clown, but he skittered away like an underfed mongrel. Parker said, 'Don't follow me.'

The clown said, 'It's a free country. I can walk where I want.' He was at least forty years old, but he talked like a kid in a schoolyard.

Parker felt the pistols weighing heavy in his pockets, but that was no good. That answer was always too simple, too easy, and left the worst kind of trail. It was a temptation to be resisted.

Instead, he said to the clown, 'I don't want you around.' He let it go at that, and turned away, and walked on toward downtown.

The clown kept trailing along about a block behind.

Another three blocks and Parker was beginning to come into a more active section. He saw a cruising cab with its dome light lit, and stepped off the sidewalk to motion at it. The cab made a U-turn and stopped in front of him. He got into the back seat and gave Kifka's home address. The cabby pushed flag and accelerator down at the same time.

Looking out the rear window, Parker saw the clown standing there two blocks back, standing on the curb with his hands in his mackinaw pockets, his shoulders hunched as he gazed after the cab. He just stood there.

Three

The blonde that opened the door had put on the first piece of clothing she'd come across, a gray sweatshirt with a picture of Bach on it. With one hand she was pulling it down in front, which meant she probably wasn't wearing pants either; it was obvious she wasn't wearing a bra.

Parker told her, 'I want to see Dan.'

'He's taking a nap,' she said. She was about nineteen or twenty, looked like a college girl. Cheerleader type. Except she looked like a cheerleader who'd been on a binge, hair tousled, lace puffy, eyes heavy-lidded, expression lethargic and sated.

Parker pushed the door the rest of the way open and went on into the apartment. 'He'll want to see me,' he said. 'When he knows I'm here he'll want to wake up.'

She couldn't give him her full attention, both because she was still half asleep and because she was having trouble keeping the sweatshirt on as much of her as she wanted. What with her breasts pushing outward and her hand pulling downward, Bach didn't look much like his old self at all.

She said, 'You shouldn't push your way into places like that. I told you, Dan's taking a nap. He needs his rest.'

'I'm sure he does.'

'That isn't what I meant,' she said. 'I mean he's sick. He's got a virus.'

'Fine.' Parker had been here only once before, and then only in this living room, never deeper in the apartment. Now he looked around, saw two doors either of which could lead to the bedroom, and pointed at them, saying, 'Which one?'

'I don't want you to wake him,' she said, trying to sound like a private nurse. It might have come off better if she hadn't been out of uniform.

'I'm in a hurry,' Parker told her. He took a pistol out of his right topcoat pocket, just to have it handy, because Kifka might be the one he was after.

She looked at it and her eyes went wide and she said, 'What are you going to do to him?'

'Nothing. Where is he?'

'Please - Mister ...'

Parker shook his head. 'I'm not going to do anything to him.' He shut the hall door and walked over to the nearest of the two doors and opened it and looked in at a kitchen. He closed it again and went over to the other one and opened it, and this was the bedroom.

Kifka was there, sprawled across the bed like a dead horse. He was a big, blond hunky, built like an out-of-condition wrestler. He was apparently sleeping nude, with a wrinkled sheet hall twisted around his body. From the look of him and the bed, he thrashed a lot in his sleep. If the blonde had been sharing the same bed with him, it had to be true love.

The bed was an old-fashioned double, with brass headboard and footboard like cell windows. Parker went over to the foot of the bed, seeing the clothing scattered all around the room like used snakeskins on a hot rock, and rapped the gun barrel against the brass footboard. The sound rang out in the room with surprising volume.

Kifka snorted and shifted around some on the bed. But he didn't wake up.

Then the girl, from the doorway, cried out, 'Look out, Dan, he's got a gun!'

Kifka dove off the bed, lunging for a pile of clothing on the chair.

Parker said, 'Dan! Hold it!'

Kifka was a tumbler. He landed on a shoulder, rolled, reversed, and came up on his feet. He was as naked as a piece of granite, with a red, sleepy, baffled face. He said, 'What goes on? What the hell goes on?' From the sound of his voice, his head was stuffed with virus from ear to ear.

Parker told him, 'We've got to talk, Dan.'

'Parker?' Kifka frowned heavily and scrubbed his face with meaty palms. 'This goddam virus won't get the hell out of here,' he said.

The girl said, 'Get back in bed, Dan, you'll make it worse. Get back in bed.'

'Yeah. That's right.'

Parker waited while Kifka got himself back in bed and pulled the sheet up again, and then he turned to the girl and said, 'Why'd you let him go out tonight, if he's so sick?'

She looked indignant. 'Out! I wouldn't let him go out!'

Kifka was arranging the pillows so he could sit up against them. He stopped and looked at Parker and said, 'What's up, Parker? I haven't been out of this bed in three days.'

Parker believed it. Kifka wasn't faking sickness, and the girl wasn't faking her answers. He said, 'How about your friend makes us some coffee?'

'Tea,' Kifka said. 'She's got me on tea. You want some?'

Parker shrugged. He didn't care what he drank, just so the girl would leave the room awhile to go get it.

Kifka said, 'Janey, be a good girl? Tea all around.'

She had come in a few steps from the doorways, and was standing there still holding the sweatshirt in place. She looked more awake now, but also more confused. She said, 'He walked in here with a gun, Dan. He's still got it in his hand.'

'That's okay, honey, take my word for it. Parker's a friend of mine.'

Parker put the gun away in his pocket and showed the girl his empty hand. She said, 'What do you take in tea, sugar or lemon?'

He didn't know, so he said, 'Neither.'

She nodded, turned around, and went out. Because she was pulling the sweatshirt down so hard in front, it was riding very high in back, revealing a bottom as tender as a wheat field.

Kifka laughed, and coughed, and laughed. 'Ain't that the loveliest ass?' he said. 'The first time I seen that, in stretch pants, I knew I wanted some. How's the broad you're shacked up with?'

'Dead.'

'What?'

Parker went over and shut the bedroom door and leaned his back against it, so the girl wouldn't come in unexpectedly. 'I went out tonight for the first time,' he said, 'to get beer and cigarettes. When I came back, she was dead and the cash was gone.'

'The hell you say!'

There were crossed swords on the wall. Somebody took one down and stuck it right on through her.'

'The hell with her,' said Kifka, making an angry dismissing gesture. 'What's this about the cash?' He was sitting bolt upright in the bed now.

'Gone,' Parker told him. The guy killed her, took the cash, hid out somewhere nearby, waited till he saw me going back in, and called the cops.'