“What if you just let him go?”
“Look at him,” Parker said. “He’s punchy. He goes up against the guy who killed that doctor, he’s dead. Then I’m dead.”
“I can take care of myself,” Stubbs said.
“Sure,” Parker answered.
“So what do you want to do?” Handy asked.
“There’s too much to watch. I’m ready to pull out of this damn thing, there’s too much to watch.”
“I could use the cash,” Handy said. “This is my last job, you know.”
“Yeah. That’s the thing, I need it too.” Parker looked at Stubbs and shook his head. “I’ve got to hold onto this beetle for two weeks. I’ve got to put him on ice.”
Handy considered that. “What about the farm?”
“What farm?”
“Outside Old Bridge. Where we’re supposed to meet after the job. You been out there yet?”
“Not yet.”
“We could stash him there, maybe.”
Parker thought about it. So many things to watch. The job, Alma, the state trooper, and now Stubbs. But he didn’t have anything else on the fire. “That’s a bad way to work it. To hang around the hideout before the job.”
“Do you figure we’re going there after it?”
“That’s right. I forgot about Alma.” Parker shrugged. “All right. We’ll put him on ice out there.”
Handy stood up, and waved the automatic at Stubbs. “Come along.”
Stubbs said, “Listen, what are you trying to pull?”
“Look,” Parker said. “Look at him, he wants to argue.”
Handy turned to Stubbs. “How’s your kneecaps? In good shape?”
Stubbs caught the message. He got to his feet and shut up. They took him downstairs and back to the Ford. They drove over to 9 and headed south, Parker driving, with Stubbs beside him and Handy in the back seat.
On the way Parker asked, “How’d you get to me?”
“That letter you got,” Stubbs said. “I looked up that Lasker fella in Cincinnati, and he left a forwarding address. I went there and hung around till I saw you.”
“He left a forwarding address,” repeated Parker. He shook his head and kept driving. He didn’t know if this was Handy’s last job, but he knew it was Skimm’s.
Two
1
Parker left the car off Hudson Boulevard in Jersey City and walked two blocks to the office building. There were two elevators, but only one of them was working. An ancient angular Negro with a loose vacant smile operated it. Its metal sides were painted green, and there were grease smears on the doors.
Parker got out on the third floor and turned left. A sign on the fourth door down read: “Eastern Agency Confidential Investigations.” He pushed the door open and went into a small green reception room. On one wall was a certificate stating that James Lawson was a licensed private investigator.
A bleached blonde, looking secondhand, sat at the gray metal desk, talking on the phone. When Parker came in she said, “Hold on, Marge.” She pressed the telephone to her hard breast and looked at Parker.
“Doctor Hall to see Lawson,” Parker said.
“One moment, please.” She told Marge to hold on again, and got up and went to the door of the inner office. She had stripper’s hips, big and thick and wrapped in a tight black skirt. She went through into the inner office, and in a minute she came back. “Go right on in, Doctor.”
“Thanks,” said Parker.
She went back to her desk and her phone call, and Parker went through to the inner office and closed the door.
James Lawson was small and balding. He looked like the kind of man who was worried about being out of condition, who kept promising himself he’d start going to a gym but never went. He looked across his wooden desk at Parker. “I don’t think I know you.”
Lawson wasn’t a man to trust with the new face. “Parker sent me. Him and Handy McKay.”
“So you can name-drop,” said Lawson. “Doctor-Hall, and Parker, and Handy McKay. Parker’s dead.”
“No, he ain’t. Him and Handy and Pete Skimm and me are working on a job. You want to call Skimm?”
Lawson shook his head. “I don’t call anybody,” he said. “Where’d you get the Dr. Hall from?”
“Parker. He said I should call myself Doctor Hall, and then you’d know what was what.”
“How come he didn’t come himself?”
“He can’t show himself in the East. He ran into trouble with the Outfit.”
Lawson nodded. “I heard something about that, too. But I also heard he was dead.”
“He wasn’t, the last time I talked to him.”
Lawson chewed on a knuckle. “You look okay,” he said, “and you sound okay. But I don’t know you.”
“Do you think I’m law? If I was law, I wouldn’t play games. I could take your license away without half trying. I wouldn’t have to fool around with you.”
“Take my license away for what?”
“For the time you gave Parker the three Magnums and the Positive.”
Lawson started. “You know about that?”
“Parker told me. So let’s quit fooling around.”
“Maybe I better call Skimm,” said Lawson. He was suddenly very nervous.
Parker gave him the number, and then sat down in the client’s chair during the phone call. Skimm was home, and Parker had already told him the right answers. Lawson talked with him briefly, and then hung up.
“You ready to deal?”
“Sure.” Lawson grinned, his lips wet. “But I ought to know who I’m dealing with,” he said.
“Flynn. Joe Flynn.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of you.”
“I’ve always worked out around the Coast before this.”
“And where’s this job? Here in Jersey?”
Parker shook his head. “Youngstown, Ohio,” he said. “You’ll read about it in the papers.”
Lawson was a man you could trust, so long as you never told him anything.
Lawson opened a drawer and took out a pencil and notepad. “What do you need?”
“Three guns. Medium size — .32’s or .38’s.”
Lawson nodded. “I’ll look around. Anything else?”
“Two trucks. Semis.”
“Tractor-trailers?” Lawson frowned, and tapped his pencil point against the notepad. “That’s a tricky one. There isn’t so much market in those big ones any more. That’ll probably cost you.”
Parker shrugged. “If it costs too much, we’ll steal our own.”
Lawson tapped the pencil faster against the notepad. “You’ve still got the registration to worry about. And the cover.”
“Don’t need them,” Parker said. “Just the trucks.”
“Stripped?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh. That isn’t so tough, then. I know one already, if it isn’t sold. Down in North Carolina. I’ll check on it for you.” He wrote on the notepad again. “Anything else?”
“Some place to get some work done on one side of the trucks.”
“Engine or body?”
“Body.”
Lawson nodded. “I think I know the place for you. Anything else?”
“No.” Parker got to his feet. “That’s all we need. You can leave messages with Skimm.”
Lawson ripped the top page from the notepad, stuffed it in his side pocket. “You ought to leave something with me. Sort of a drawing account.”
Parker took out his wallet, peeled off four fifties, and dropped them on Lawson’s desk.
Lawson picked them up and grinned. “You want a receipt? You know, for tax purposes?”
“No,” Parker said. “Leave the word with Skimm.”