The Green Eagle Score
by
Richard Stark
1967
Contents
Title Page
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Part Two
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Part Three
1
Part Four
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Part One
1
Parker looked in at the beach and there was a guy in a black suit standing there, surrounded by all the bodies in bathing-suits. He was standing near Parker’s gear, not facing anywhere in particular, and he looked like a rip in the picture. The hotel loomed up behind him, white and windowed, the Puerto Rican sun beat down, the sea foamed white on the beach, and he stood there like a homesick mortician.
Parker knew him. His name was Fusco.
Parker rolled over and called to Claire, a wave away, “I’m going in.”
“Why?” But then she looked toward the beach, and didn’t need an answer. She paddled over near Parker and said, “My God, he’s inconspicuous. Who is he?”
“Business, maybe. You can stick around down here.” He knew she wouldn’t want to hear about business.
“I’ll work on my tan,” she said. “Will you come back?”
“Yes. Don’t get too much sun.”
He let the long waves glide him in toward the beach, and when he waded out onto the sand Fusco was gone. He walked up to his chaise longue, toweled himself dry, slipped into his sandals, draped the towel around his shoulders, and crossed the sand to the rear entrance of the hotel. He was a big man, blocky, with a big frame and an efficient graceless way of moving.
It took him a second to adjust to the darkness inside the door. He stood on the carpet until he could see, then walked down the long corridor to the hotel lobby. As he crossed the lobby Fusco got up from one of the black leather chairs and strolled obliquely across Parker’s route and into the cocktail lounge. Parker went on to the elevator, rode up to seven and went down the hall to his room. The air conditioning was on and the room was as cold as a piece of tile. Parker called room service, ordered tonic and ice, and got dressed. Then he stood at the window, looking down at the tourists walking along Ashford Avenue, until the knock sounded at his door.
It was the tonic and ice. He signed for it, got a glass from the bathroom and the gin from the dresser, and made himself a drink.
The glass was half-empty before Fusco arrived. Parker opened to his knock and Fusco came in saying, “Christ, it gets hot down here.”
“That’s what it’s for.” Parker shut the door. “Make yourself a drink.”
“What’s that, gin? I can’t touch it.” Fusco shook his head and patted his stomach. “It’s a funny thing,” he said. “Since I got out I can’t touch the hard stuff, it makes me double right up.”
There was nothing to say to that. Parker went over to the chair by the window and sat down.
Fusco said, “Maybe some ice water. Okay?”
“Go ahead.”
Fusco was medium height and very thin. His face was lined as though he worried a lot. Parker hadn’t seen him in ten years, but he didn’t seem to have aged at all. Having been inside had affected his stomach, and maybe was making him act so hesitant, but it hadn’t been bad for his appearance.
Parker waited while Fusco built himself a glass of ice water, and then he said, “You could of tried looking like a tourist.”
Fusco frowned like a man worried about constipation, his forehead laddering, and said, “Christ, Parker, not me. I put them Bermuda shorts on, hang a camera around my neck, I look like a pickpocket headed for Aqueduct. I got to stay who I am.”
Parker shrugged. “Anyway, you’re here.”
“I got the address from Handy.”
That was unnecessary to have said; Handy McKay was the only one Parker had given the address to. Parker had some of his drink and waited.
Fusco said. “I don’t like letters through the mails, you know? And telephone calls when it’s a complicated thing like this. So I figured I’d come down myself, personally, tell you about it.”
Parker sat there and waited to be told.
Fusco looked worried again. “Handy said you were looking for work. I wouldn’t of come down otherwise.”
Fusco had to have some kind of reassurance, or he’d never get to the point. Parker said, “I’m available.”
Fusco flashed a brief nervous smile of relief. “That’s good,” he said. “I’m glad.” But then he didn’t say anything more.
Parker prodded a little, saying, “You’ve got something on?”
“Right. You remember that wife I had? Ellen?”
Parker vaguely remembered hearing that Fusco had married, but it had been only five or six years ago, long since Parker’s last meeting with him. But it was simpler to nod and say, “Yeah, I remember.”
“I don’t know if you ever met her—”
“I didn’t.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Anyway, she divorced me when I got sent up. A little over three years ago. You know I got a daughter?”
Parker shook his head, not giving a damn. “I didn’t know that,” he said.
“Three years old,” Fusco said. “Four in July.”
Afraid Fusco was going to come out with baby pictures in a minute, Parker said, “What’s this got to do with the job?”
“I’m getting to it,” Fusco promised. “Ellen, now, after she divorced me she went back home to Monequois, that’s a little town in upstate New York, near the border. You know, the Canada border.”
Parker nodded, holding his impatience in check. The only thing to do with these run-off-at-the-mouth people was wait them out, they’d get it all said sooner or later. Try to rush them and they’d just get derailed and leave out half the things you should know.
“She lived with her folks for a while,” Fusco said, “but I guess they gave her a bad time. About me, or something. So she went off on her own and got a job at a bar outside of town there. See, there’s this Air Force base there, it’s huge, and across the road from the gate there’s all these bars, you know?”
Parker nodded.
Fusco said, “After a while she started shacking up with one of the guys from the base. Stan Devers, his name is. What the hell, I don’t blame her. She’s divorced in the first place, and I’m in stir, so why not?”
Where was all this leading? Parker couldn’t see a job anywhere in the story yet, and it was spreading out wider and wider all the time, getting more and more soap opera. Parker said, “What’s the point of all this?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Fusco said. “You got to understand the background, is all.”
Parker shrugged. “All right, Let’s hear the background.”
“The main thing,” Fusco said, “is this guy Stan Devers. He’s just a kid, you know, maybe twenty-three, twenty-four. Younger than Ellen, you know? But he’s okay. When I first got out, and went up to see Ellen and the kid, and there’s all these uniforms and things in the closet, I got mad, you know? Naturally. Also I was a little short, I didn’t have nothing stashed away when I took the rap. So I tried to lean a little on this Devers kid, and he was a real surprise. He’s a sharp kid, he knows his way around. He’s never been in on anything like our stuff, you know, but he’s cool.”