Deadly Edge: A Parker Novel (9 page)

And the house torn apart. Besides what they’d done to Keegan, they’d ripped the house open from top to bottom, looking for something. The fact that no rooms at all were left unstripped suggested they hadn’t found what they were looking for.

In the kitchen, there’d been dishes in the sink and on the table to show where two men had eaten two meals, a dinner and a breakfast. So they’d been out of here already by the time Handy had called Parker today at noon.

Parker made a fast surface scan of the house, and then left. He’d worn rubber gloves inside, except when he’d stripped one off so he could feel the coldness of Keegan’s chest, and now he stood beside the Dodge and peeled the gloves off, put them in his pocket, and held his hands out in the air a minute, flexing the fingers, letting the skin get dry and cool. He frowned toward the house, thinking. Berridge dead; Keegan tortured and dead, his house searched. Keegan trying to locate Parker, just before the torturing started. Somebody wanted something, and the connecting link was Berridge.

Why kill Berridge back in the hideout? After killing him, why not stick around?

Because four men would be showing up, and these were only two. Better to wait till the four split up, and go after them one at a time. Follow one home, start with him, locate the others through him.

All three others? Or just Parker? And how were they traveling? Could they be on the East Coast already?

Parker got into the Dodge and headed back toward Minneapolis. After fifteen miles he saw the light of a phone booth outside a closed gas station in a silent empty dark town. The phone booth, three streetlights, a yellow blinker at the only intersection, that was the extent of the illumination in the town. Parker rolled to a stop beside the phone booth, cut the Dodge’s lights, left the motor running, and got out. He had a pocket full of change, which he took out while walking to the phone booth and put on the metal tray in there. He left the door open, so the interior light stayed off, only the light on top continuing to shine. When the blinker signal at the intersection was on, there was enough light to dial by; when it was off, he paused for a second with his finger waiting in front of the dial.

An operator came on to tell him how much, and he put the coins in during the phases of yellow light. Then there was a long silence punctuated by clicks, one ring sound, and Claire’s voice: “Hello?”

“It’s me. How are things?”

“Fine. How are you?”

“No visitors?”

“Nobody at all. Will you be back soon?”

“My friend died of a lingering illness. Very painful illness.”

A little silence, and then a small voice: “Oh.”

Only so much could be said on a telephone. “You
ought to take a day or two off. Go to New York, do some shopping.”

“I don’t want to leave my house,” she said.

“This is serious!”

“So am I. Tomorrow I’ll buy a dog.”

“I’m talking about tonight.”

“I’ll be all right. I went out and got a rifle.”

Parker frowned at the phone. He wanted to tell her a house with all those windows, all those exterior doors, couldn’t be defended, not with a rifle, not with a dog. Not against two men who nail a man to a wall and burn him with cigarettes. But you couldn’t say things to a telephone that you wouldn’t be willing to say to a district attorney, so he tried to get his meaning into his voice instead of his words: “I think you ought to go away.”

“I know what you think,” she said, and then tried to soften it, saying, “I know you’re worried about me. But you just don’t know what this house means to me. I
can’t
go away from it, not after I just got into it. I won’t be
driven
away from it.”

There was a little silence then while he thought, until she said, “Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

He was thinking about going back, waiting for them to show up. His instinct was against it; when the opposition is coming at you, the best place to be is on their back trail, coming up behind them. But how could he leave Claire in the house alone?

The decision was hers. He had to handle it the way he knew was right, no matter what. He said, “What you do right now, you pack everything there that’s mine and get it out. Stow it all in one of the empty houses around
there. But do it now, don’t wait till morning.”

“You don’t have that much here.”

“So it won’t take long. If anybody comes looking for me, you don’t fight them. Understand me? You don’t fight them.”

“What do I do instead?”

“Tell them you just run a message service, you only see me two or three times a year, when I give you some money for taking care of my messages. What you tell them, any time a message comes for me you call the Wilmington Hotel in New York and leave it for me in the name of Edward Latham. You got that?”

“Yes. But what—?”

“Give me the names back.”

“Is it important?”

“Yes. Those are the names to use.”

“Wilmington Hotel. Edward—I’m sorry.”

“Latham. Edward Latham.”

She repeated the name. “Is that all?”

“Don’t antagonize them. They’re very mean people.”

“I know how to be a little mouse,” she said.

“That’s good. I’ll get back there as soon as I can.”

“I know you will.”

“Clean my stuff out of there right away.”

“I will.”

He broke the connection, put in a dime, dialed 2125551212, got the Wilmington Hotel’s phone number from New York City Information, dialed it, pumped more change in the box, and got the desk clerk.

“I want to make a reservation for three days starting Thursday.”

“Name, sir?”

“Latham. Edward Latham.”

“Home address?”

“Newcastle Business Machines, Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

“That’s a single, sir?”

“Yes.”

“For three nights.”

“Yes.”

“We will hold the reservation until three P.M. on Thursday.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Thank you for calling the Wilmington, sir.”

Parker broke the connection again and dialed a number in Chicago. It rang six times, and then a heavy male voice came on, saying, “I hope to hell this isn’t a wrong number. You know what time it is?”

“I’m looking for a fellow named Briley. He and I just did some musical work together.”

“You the guy called the day before yesterday?”

“No. That was Keegan.”

“He called at a better time of day, my friend, but I’ll tell you just what I told him. Our friend is partying in Detroit. No fixed abode.”

“No contact? You’re supposed to be his contact.” As Handy was Parker’s.

“I know what I’m supposed to be. You know a girl in Detroit named Evelyn?”

“No.”

“Evelyn Keane. You’ll find her.” There was a click.

Parker hung up, and a tractor trailer roared by, down-shifting as it went through the little town. It was the only traffic that had passed here since Parker had stopped
the car. He stood in the phone-booth doorway now, and watched the truck taillights recede, the red lights outlining the trailer body. He frowned at the departing lights, thinking.

He had no way to get to Morris. No matter what means of transportation Keegan’s killers were using, it made sense for them to work in a straight line, which would mean Detroit before the East Coast, starting from Minnesota. So there should be safe time for Claire in that. Maybe.

Parker went over and got into the Dodge and drove it back to the slot he’d stolen it from in the Minneapolis airport parking lot.

5

There were no girls in the booths at this time of day, and no customers at the bar. When Parker walked in, the only person present was the bartender, writing on a sheet of paper beside the open cash register. Parker went over and sat down on a stool, and the bartender looked sideways at him and said, “I can’t serve you a drink this early. Against the law.”

“I don’t want a drink. I want a girl named Evelyn Keane.”

“Mrs. Keane? She isn’t one of the girls here.”

“I don’t want her for that. I want her because she knows how I can get in touch with a friend of mine.”

The bartender tapped the eraser of his pencil against his front teeth. “I don’t know her personally,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I may have heard the name. I could ask around.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll just make a couple phone calls. I can sell you a soda.”

“I don’t need one.”

“Up to you. It just makes me nervous to have a John at the bar with no glass in front of him. I’ll be right back.”

Parker read the bottle labels on the back bar for three minutes, and then the bartender came back with a folded piece of paper. “I was told this was the place you ought to go.”

“Thanks.” Parker reached for his wallet.

“On the house,” the bartender said. “Come back when you can buy me a drink.”

“Right.”

Parker went out and got a cab and took it to the address he’d been given, a brick apartment building constructed between the wars in a neighborhood that hadn’t gotten better. There was no name in the slot next to the button for 5-F. Parker pushed it, waited to identify himself, and didn’t have to; the buzzer sounded right away, unlocking the door.

There was no elevator, and 5-F was on the top floor. He went up, hearing nothing from the top of the stairwell, and walked along the carpeted corridor to the apartment door. Light bulbs imitating candle flames were in wall sconces imitating candles, but only three of them were lit, leaving the hall in semi-darkness.

Parker rang the bell, and the man who opened the door had a gun in his hand. “Come in,” he said.

Parker held his hands out from his body, and went in.

There were four of them in the living room, but only one counted: the middle-aged fat man sitting on the
sofa, rolling a cigar in his fingers. The other three, including the one who’d opened the door, were just hoods, extensions of the fat man’s will.

The fat man said, “Search him.”

Parker said, “I have an automatic under my left arm and a knife under my collar in back.”

The fat man frowned at him, and said nothing, while one of the hoods frisked him. He came up with the automatic and the knife, and put them on the console television set. Then he shook his head at the fat man, and stepped back out of the way.

The fat man said, “What you got a knife down your back for?”

“In case somebody tells me to put my hands up.”

“You can draw and throw from back there?”

“Sometimes.”

“That’s nice. What you want with Mrs. Keane?” He had a very slight accent, which made him sound thick-tongued.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine. I was told she knew where he was.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“His name is Briley.”

The fat man looked at his hoods, then back at Parker. “Briley? Who the hell is Briley?”

“Somebody I know, that I’m looking for. Another friend of his said I should ask Mrs. Keane.”

“Another friend. What other friend?”

“A man named Armwood, in Chicago.”

“Armwood?” The fat man was beginning to get angry, because he didn’t understand what was going on and he felt frustrated. “What the hell are all these names? Briley. Armwood. Who are
you?”

“Tom Lynch.” That was the name on the documents in his wallet.

“Tom Lynch. Okay, Tom Lynch, she’s right in there.” He nodded his head toward a closed door.

Parker went over and opened the door and she was lying on the bed in there. There were no lights on and the shade was drawn, but the window faced east and morning sunlight radiated through the shade, making an amber light. There was no question she was dead.

Parker shut the door again and turned to look at the fat man. “I see.”

“Last night somebody did that. This morning you come looking.”

“Did they nail her to the wall?”

The fat man frowned. “How do you mean, nail her to the wall?”

“With nails.”

“You mean for real? Like crucify? Why would anybody do a thing like that?”

“They got to another friend of mine two days ago. They nailed him to the wall.”

The fat man looked thoughtful, and then said, “You connected with one of the families back East?”

“No, I’m on my own.”

“But you got friends.”

“Some.”

“And enemies. And they’re killing your friends.”

“Yes.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know. I’m behind them, and I’m trying to catch up.”

The fat man chewed the end of his cigar. It wasn’t lit, but the end he was chewing gave off an odor. He took
it from his mouth at last, gestured toward the closed door with it, and said, “Mrs. Keane was a very important lady. You know what she did?”

“I think she ran girls.”

“She ran a
lot
of girls. She was very damn good. A woman is always better than a man at that, but it’s tough to find a woman with business brains. They’d rather marry a man and steer him like a car.” He made steering motions over his stomach. He had a fat man’s way of sitting, feet widespread and flat on the floor.

Parker waited. The fat man hadn’t said anything yet that he should reply to, so he just stood there and waited.

The fat man brooded at the closed door, thinking about his organizational problems. Then he said, “They’re after you too, huh?”

“I think so. I can’t be sure till I find them.”

“But you don’t know who they are, or how come they’re after you. You know how many?”

“Two, I think.”

“You can handle them yourself?”

“I think so.”

The fat man nodded his head at the three hoods. “You want me to loan you a boy?”

“I’m better off on my own.”

“This thing ought to be punished. They left me one hell of a headache. I figured to start my own people out.”

“They wouldn’t know where to go or what to look for.”

“That’s where you could help them,” the fat man said.

“I’m better off by myself.”

The fat man pursed his lips. “Look,” he said. “If Mrs. Keane knew this friend of yours, Briley, it means she supplied him girls. So what I can do now, I can put some people to work on the phone, check out all her girls, find out who got sent to a guy named Briley. Then I can tell you where he is. Or on the other hand, I can send people of my own and the hell with you.”