May finished first, because the other two were lipreaders. She looked over at Parker. “How do I know this isn’t a phony?”
“Is that his real name there, down on the bottom? C. Frederick Wallerbaugh?”
“So what?”
“All you told me was ‘Wallerbaugh.’ Not the first and middle names, or how he signed himself.”
“That’s right, May,” Lennie said. It was a surprise to hear him talk. Parker looked at him and tried to decide if Lennie was still wearing the same undershirt he’d had on last Saturday. The corduroy pants were the same.
“All right,” said May. She wanted to be difficult, and there was always a way. “How come he wrote this?”
“I’d shot him, and he wanted me to get him a doctor.”
“You forced him. So maybe it’s a pack of lies.”
“What for?” Like the last time, Parker was having trouble keeping hold of his temper. But he didn’t want to get too impatient, because then he’d kill these three morons, and that would be their brand of stupidity.
“So we’d think it wasn’t you killed Dr. Adler and Stubbs.”
“Why did I kill Dr. Adler and Stubbs?”
“So they wouldn’t tell nobody about your new face.”
“Then why didn’t I kill you three the last time I was here?”
“That’s right, May,” Lennie said. Parker looked at him, surprised again. Maybe Lennie was the one with a mind in his head.
“All he’s trying to do is fast-talk us again,” May said.
“But why would he kill the doctor and Stubbs, and then not try to kill us? Why should he try to fast-talk us?” Lennie asked.
May shook her head, truculently. “I just don’t trust this man.”
“I don’t think I should trust you either,” Parker said. “I trusted the doctor because he had a brain, and because a friend of mine vouched for him. But you three are morons.”
“Hold on there.” The Peacemaker had been dangling from the end of Blue’s arm, but now he managed to bring the barrel up and aim it at Parker.
“Now, wait, Blue,” Lennie said. “If this man’s trying to be fair to us, we ought to try to be fair to him.” His face was screwed up with concentration, the way Stubbs had done sometimes when he was thinking hard. “You got to admit he makes sense. All he’s been doing is trying to prove to us he didn’t kill the doctor, when it would have been easier for him to kill the three of us. If he’d killed the doctor that’s just exactly what he would have done. And besides, May, you said he wouldn’t come back and that would prove he was the killer. But he did come back after all.”
May thought that one over, not liking it because it cleared Parker and she didn’t like Parker. Finally she shrugged, reluctantly. “I suppose that’s right.”
But Parker wanted to be sure. “Wells killed your doctor. You got that straight now?”
“I suppose so,” May said. She was frowning hard now, and she looked at Lennie as though for help.
“We got to be fair with this man, May. He went to a lot of trouble to prove himself.”
May shook her head. “You better give me that gun back, Blue.”
Parker studied them, frowning, and then grimaced in disgust. “You already blew the whistle!”
May had the gun again, holding it in her two-handed grip, aiming it shakily at him. “Now, you stay right there.”
“You couldn’t wait,” Parker said. “You had to be damn fools.”
It was Lennie who answered, apologetically. “We figured you for a phony,” he said. “We got to talking it over, and May thought — we all thought you were just out to kill Stubbs, that you’d sold us a bill of goods. May said — we all figured you wouldn’t be coming back. So I went down into town, and talked with a guy I know. He works for the bookie’s wire service, and he made a couple phone calls, and then I talked to another man on the telephone—”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, named Lowry, something like that. And I gave him your description.”
“You acted so goddamn tough,” May cried.
“Not tough enough. I should have burned you, all three of you. I should have known I couldn’t trust you.”
Lennie, still apologizing, said, “It wouldn’t of been fair not to tell you. After all the trouble you went through. We did wrong, but it wouldn’t of been fair not to tell you.”
Parker considered. The thing was shot now. The syndicate didn’t have a picture of him, and a description always fit thousands of men, but they did know about the new face. They knew now not to look for Parker the way he used to be. He felt like taking the Peacemaker away from May and using it on the three of them, but it wouldn’t do any good.
So what now? He could go find himself another plastic surgeon, run the whole thing again, but the hell with it. You could never be sure, never be absolutely sure. Doing it this way, running away and trying to hide from the syndicate, that had been wrong from the beginning. He had his own life to live, his own pattern, his own plans and pace. What good was it to change all that? He might just as well let the syndicate kill him.
What he had to do was make sure the syndicate was convinced they should forget him. He had to make them hurt, he had to bring them down to where they’d be willing to throw in the towel. Then he could go on about his business without worrying about new names or new faces or new ways of life.
The three of them were watching him, warily. Finally Lennie said, “What do you figure to do now?”
“With you people? Forget you.”
“We’re sorry, Mr. Anson,” Lennie said. “Honest to God.”
There was no sense talking to them. They were idiots, but they’d done all the damage they could do. Parker started through them, out of the room, but Blue said, “You forgot your bag.”
Parker paused and looked back at the overnight bag. “Oh, yeah.” He went back to it. “Stubbs told me one time, if anybody tried to kill the doctor to protect their new face, Stubbs would take the new face away from them. Stubbs got killed, so I did it for him.”
He picked up the overnight bag and set it on the desk. There was a zipper around three sides, and Parker unzipped it all the way around. The flap fell open, and May and the two men looked at the new face Dr. Adler had given to Charles F. Wells.
They were still staring at the head when Parker walked through them and down the hall and out to the car. He paused beside the car to light a cigarette, then climbed in behind the wheel and drove back out to the road. He’d give the car back to the rental people. And after that—?
After that, Miami. The syndicate trouble had to be settled, but it could wait. Parker had to unwind for a while, for a few weeks anyway. Then we’ll see.