The Outfit (2 page)

"Yes."

"Take off," Parker told him.

Stern stepped away from the wall, and stopped. His eyes swivelled up in their sockets and he fell over on his face, loose and limp.

Parker shook his head, irritated. He said to Bett, "Wait here." He pulled a pair of pants on, grabbed Stern under the shoulders, and dragged him to the door. He pulled the door open and looked outside. It was a quarter to four in the morning, and the hall was empty. Parker dragged Stern down to the hall and opened the door to the interior fire stairs. He pulled Stern through and shut the door again. A dim bulb faintly illuminated each metal landing up and down the stair well.

Parker propped Stern up in the corner and checked his pulse. He was still alive, but not by much. When he'd fallen he'd hit the bruised place on his temple. It was bleeding a little bit again.

"Die some place else," Parker told him. He pinched him, and jabbed him in the ribs, then snapped his finger sharply against the underpart of Stern's nose. Stern came out of it groggily. His eyes were unfocused, and if Parker had asked him his name he wouldn't have known the answer. Or what the date was, or what city he was in, or where he'd been born. But he could understand simple orders, and he could make his body move.

Keeping his voice low, Parker said, "Get on your feet."

Stern tried, but he couldn't do it alone. Parker helped him get upright. When he was up he could stay up, one hand pressed against the wall. His head was down, chin sunk in his chest, but his eyes were half-opened. He could still hear.

Parker said, "When I go out this door, go down those steps there. Do you hear me? When I go out this door, go down those steps there."

Stern nodded minutely.

Satisfied, Parker stepped back and opened the door. He stood in the doorway and watched Stern take the first step towards the descending metal stairs. He turned away, closed the door behind him, and walked back down the hall. Behind him, he could hear the muffled thumping as Stern fell.

He went back to the door and it was empty. He frowned, looked around, and saw the .32 was gone but the .25 was still there. He stood looking at the place where the .32 had been and wondered what she wanted from him that would require blackmail.

But he didn't have time to waste on her now. When she came back he'd decide what to do.

He locked the door and dressed hurriedly. The .25 with the silencer made an awkward, bulky package inside his coat.

No air-conditioners here. The windows were open, and breathing sounds of sleepers mingled in the middle of the
U
, punctuated by the flat clatter of chips from the yellow window at the back.

Parker came silently through the opening in the latticework and stopped to take the awkward .25 from under his coat. The .32 would have been better. He cursed Bett, and moved again, close to the stucco wall, passing the open window from which came the sounds of breathing.

The door marked 12 was just to the left of the lighted window. Parker passed it and crouched to peer over the window sill. Inside there was a tiny box of a living room with a wide archway to an equally tiny box of a dining room. The dining room was dominated by a long table, around which sat six men, playing seven-card stud. A chandelier over the table threw glaring light on the players and the cards.

And one of the six could have been Menner. All were stocky, fortyish, sour-looking, with the pale complexions of permanent Florida residents. They spoke only to announce their bets, not calling one another by name.

Parker considered. He had to get inside. The window was no good; too much light spilled on to it, and two of the players sat facing it. He straightened, moved to the side, and cautiously tried the door. As he'd expected, it was locked. So he'd have to take a chance on the back. He moved away from the building, retraced his steps around the
U
to the latticework, then stepped out to the sidewalk.

Rampon Boulevard was deserted. It was lined on both sides with stucco
U's
, all of them resembling Floral Court. Parker turned left and walked down to the corner, counting courts. Floral was fourth from the corner. Parker went down the side street and turned at the driveway which ran behind the courts and was separated from them by rows of garages. The darkness back there was almost complete; with only a sliver of moon in the sky.

He went between two garages and came to the rear of Floral Court. By daylight, the pink stucco was crumbling and fading, the rear doors were grimed with age, the little patch of ground between court and garage was weedpocked dirt. By night, the area was a black emptiness.

No light from number 12 leaked out to the back. Parker had to go by sound; he could hear the faint clicking of the chips. He found the rear door and the rear window; both were locked. But the wood of the doorframe was rotten; Parker leaned his weight against the door and felt it give. If he didn't have to worry about noise he could go through the door in two seconds.

He had a pocketknife. He took it out, opened it, and forced the blade between door and frame till he found the lock. Then he pulled on the knob, pulling the door away from the frame, gouging the knife into the soft wood around the lock bolt. The wood made small cracking sounds, but it gave. He forced the blade under it and the bolt was free. Parker pushed gently, and the door opened. He stepped through and pushed the door closed behind him.

He was in a miniature kitchen. An open door on the right led to the bedroom, which he could barely see. Ahead, a yellow crack outlined a swing door that led to a short hallway. Through the crack, he could see that the hallway was flanked by the bathroom on one side and a second bedroom on the other. The dining room was straight ahead.

Parker pushed the swing door open slowly, till he could peer through at the dining room. Only one of the players was in sight, the one at the head of the table. He was concentrating his full attention on the cards. Parker slipped through the doorway, getting the .25 into his hand again, and strode quickly to the dining room. He stood in the entrance and said, "Freeze."

Six faces spun to gape at him. He let them see the gun, and said, "Face front. Look at your cards. Quick!"

They did as they were told. One of them, looking down at his cards, said, "You're making a mistake, fella. You don't want to knock over this game."

Parker said, "Menner, collect the wallets."

One of the six looked up. So that was Menner. He stared at Parker, and suddenly recognition struck him and left him ashen-faced. He sat gaping.

"Fast, Menner," Parker prodded him.

One of the others muttered. "How come he knows you, Jake?"

"Shut up. I'm waiting, Menner."

Menner held his hands out in front of his face and shook them, as though clearing away cobwebs. "Stern," he said. "Stern."

"You'll see him in a few minutes. Collect the wallets. The rest of you, keep your hands on the table, your eyes on the cards. Menner, you reach into their pockets for the wallets. You don't want to bring out anything but wallets."

The man who'd spoken before said, "Do like he says, Jake. We'll take care of him later. We don't want any trouble here."

Menner obediently got to his feet. He went around the table, reaching into the other players' pockets, bringing out the wallets. Parker told him, "Put them in your coat pockets. Your own wallet, too. And the bills from the table."

"Listen," said Menner. His voice was shaky. "Listen, you don't under -"

"Shut up."

Menner had all the wallets in his coat pockets. He looked baggier than before, and forlorn, like a half-deflated balloon. He stood waiting for Parker to tell him what to do next.

Parker said, "Tell them why I'm here."

"Listen, honest to Christ, it ain't the way -"

"Tell them why I'm here."

The player who did all the talking said, "Do what he says, Jake. I'd like to hear it myself."

"They – they sent down this gun from New York, for this guy here, this Parker. They said I was to – I was to finger the job. That's all it was, I swear to Christ."

"The rest of it," said Parker.

"That's all! What else, for Christ's sake?"

"You fingered me in the first place. That's why the gun came down."

The player said, "That's between you and Jake, buddy. Don't take it out on us."

"It's all the same Outfit. Give me your coat, Menner."

"For Christ's sake, Parker, I-"

"Give me your coat."

Stuttering, Menner took the coat off. Parker reached out for it, waiting for Menner to try flipping it in his face, but Menner was cowed. He handed it over without causing trouble, and stepped back to take his medicine.

Because it was such a light, untrustworthy gun, Parker pulled the trigger three times. He turned and went out the back way, clearing the back door before Menner hit the carpet or the other five could get out of their chairs.

FRANK, The Outfit thinks it has a greevance on me. It doesn't. But it keeps sending its punks around to make trouble. I told their headman I'd give them money trouble if they didn't quit, and they didn't quit. You told me one time about a lay you worked out for that gambling place outside Boston, and you'd do me a favour if you knocked it off in the next couple weeks. I'm writing some of the other boys, too, so you can be sure they'll be too busy to go looking for you special. I don't want a cut and I can't come in on the job because I'll be busy making trouble myself. You can always get in touch with me care of Joe Sheer out in Omaha. Maybe we'll work together again some day. PARKER

It took three drafts to get it down the way he wanted it. He read the final version through, decided it was all right, and nodded to himself. Only one thing bothered him. He went over to the telephone, dialled the operator, and asked her to spell "grievance" for him, because he wasn't sure he had it right. She checked with someone else, gave him the correct spelling, and he copied the letter over again.

He then went on to the other letters. They were easier, because he just copied the first one word for word, except for the particular job he wanted each man to do. In some cases there was no particular job, so he wrote instead: "Maybe you know some Outfit operation that would be an easy lay, and if you do you can do me a favour and knock it off in the next couple weeks."

He completed six letters, and then looked out the window and saw it was daytime. The dry fountain looked like a remnant from a lost civilization. It was not quite seven o'clock, and he was back in 12 Floral Court, again. If the other poker players were anxious to get their money and wallets back they might be able to check back through Menner's friends or other people in the Outfit and find out where Parker was supposed to be staying, so it would be a good idea to stay away from the hotel for a while. But none of them would be in any hurry to come back to Floral Court. There was a body in the bedroom closet.

Parker had run as far as the back yard; then he had turned to the left and run a distance of three courts. Behind him, he'd heard the poker players emerge. One of them had a flashlight, and all of them boiled out past the garages. He waited, and after a while they came back and went into the apartment. He kept waiting until he heard three cars start up out front on Rampon Boulevard. Then he went back in. The lights were off, the place was empty, and Menner was in the bedroom closet. The poker players would be running around establishing alibis.

In the sideboard in the dining room he found stationery and envelopes. He pulled the shade down in the living room, sat at the dining-room table, and started writing letters. After six of them, he went over to the window, pulled the shade away, looked out at the decaying fountain, and decided he'd waited long enough. He went back to the table and wrote one more letter:

BETT, You took the gun, You want something from me and then you'll give me the gun back. I don't have time now to fool with you. I got to take care of the problem that put that Stern on my back. I'll get in touch with you within a month. If you don't hear from me, turn the gun over to the law. I guess there's skin scrapings from Stern on it or something to tie me in with what happened to Stern, and it'll keep. PARKER

He looked at it, then crossed out "Parker", and wrote in its place "Chuck". He put the note in an envelope, wrote her name on the outside, and tucked the envelope in his pocket. The other six letters went into the same pocket. He got the .25, stripped the silencer off it, and went to the bedroom closet. He pulled Menner out on to the bedroom floor, wiped his own prints from the gun, and closed Menner's hand around it. It might not hold up as suicide – the angle was probably wrong, and Menner had two too many bullets in him – but it should help to slow the law down. And the gun, if it could be traced at all, couldn't be traced past Stern to Parker.

Out back, he threw the silencer into a garbage can. Then he walked around to Rampon Boulevard and caught a cab. "Hotel Maharajah."

There was no one he recognized in the lobby. He left the note for Bett at the desk and went up to his room. It was empty. As far as he could tell, no one had been in it. He packed his suitcase, stuffing the six wallets into it, with the identity cards and driver's licences, but without the seventeen hundred dollars they'd once contained, and went downstairs to check out. This time, he was going to settle things with the Outfit once and for all. This time, he was going straight to Bronson.