Fairfax had regained some of his composure. “I don’t know what you hope to gain,” he said. “You’ll keep annoying us, and we’ll keep hunting you. The end is inevitable.”
“Wrong. You aren’t hunting me, I’m hunting you. Right now, I’m hunting Bronson.”
“You won’t get at him as readily as you got at me.”
“Let me worry about that. This is the second time I’ve met up with you, Fairfax, and you can live through it this time too, if you cooperate.”
“Whatever you want, it’s beyond my power to give it to you.”
“No, it isn’t. I want two things. I want to know where Bronson is now and where he’ll be for the next week or two. And I want to know who in the Outfit is slated to take over if anything happens to Bronson.”
Fairfax’s smile was shaky. “It would be worth my life to tell you either of those things.”
“You won’t have any life left if you don’t. I got your body guards out of the way so you could tell me without anybody knowing. I’m making it easy on you.”
“I’m sorry. This time you’ll just have to kill me.” His voice had a quaver in it, but he met Parker’s eyes and he kept his hand away from his moustache.
Parker considered. Then he said, “All right, we’ll make it easier than that. You know who’s next in line after Bronson. I want to get in touch with you.”
“Why?”
“You listen, and you’ll find out. What’s his name?”
Fairfax thought it over. His hand came up stealthily and lingered at his moustache. He said, finally, as though to himself, “You want to make a deal. All right, there’s no harm in that. It’s Walter Karns.”
“Can you call him now?”
“I imagine he’s at his place in Los Angeles.”
“Phone him.”
Fairfax got on the phone. Karns wasn’t at the first two places he tried. Fairfax finally got in touch with him in Seattle, and said, “Hold on a second.” He hadn’t identified himself.
Parker took the phone. “Karns?”
“Yes?” It was a rich voice, a brandy-and-cigar voice. “Who is it?”
“I’m Parker. Ever hear of me?”
“Parker? The Parker who’s been causing all that trouble in the East?”
“That’s the one.”
“Well, well, well. To what do I owe the honour?”
“If anything happens to Bronson, you’re in, right?”
“What? Well, now, you’re going a little fast there, aren’t you?”
“I’m going after Bronson. Maybe I can make a deal with him, so we’ll both be satisfied.”
“I really doubt that, you know.”
“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. If I don’t, you’re next in line. What I want to know is should I spend any time talking to Bronson?”
“Well, well! So that’s it!”
“Do I try to make a deal with Bronson?”
“He’ll never do it, you know.”
“You got any other reasons why I shouldn’t try?”
“Hold on. Let me think about this.”
Parker held on. After a minute, Karns said, “I think we could probably work something out, Parker.”
“You people go your way, I go mine. You don’t annoy me, I don’t annoy you.”
“That certainly sounds reasonable.”
“Yeah. Give me a guarantee.”
“A guarantee? Well, now. Yes, I see your position, of course, but a guarantee. I’m not sure I know what guarantee I could give you.”
“Right now, the Outfit is out to get me. If you take over, what happens?”
“After this conversation? If I take over, as you say, as a result of any activity on your part, I assure you I’ll be grateful. The organization would no longer bother you in anyway. As to what guaranteeI could give you”
“Never mind. I’ll give you a guarantee. I’ll get Bronson. I got Carter you remember him?”
“From New York? Yes, I remember that clearly.”
“And I had my hands on Fairfax once. And, now, I’ll get Bronson. That means, if I have to, I can find you, too.”
“You seem to have found me already. Who was that on the phone before you?”
“That’s not part of the deal. I just want you to understand the situation.”
“I think I understand, Parker. Believe me, if you succeed in ending the career of Arthur Bronson, you will have my undying respect and admiration. I would no more cross you thereafter than I would shake hands with a scorpion.
Parker motioned for Fairfax to come close. Into the phone, he said, “Say it plain and simple. If I get Bronson, what?”
He held the phone out towards Fairfax. They both heard the faint voice say, “If you get Arthur Bronson, Mr Parker, the organization will never bother you again.”
Parker brought the phone back to his mouth and said, “That’s good. Goodbye, Mr Karns.”
“Goodbye, Mr Parker. And, good hunting!”
Parker hung up. He turned to Fairfax. “Well?”
Fairfax stroked his moustache. “I’ve always admired Karns,” he said. “And I never did like Bronson. You’ll find him in Buffalo. He’s staying at his wife’s house until you’re found. 798 Delaware, facing the park.”
“All right, Fairfax. Now listen. What happens if you warn Bronson?”
“I won’t, you can rely on that.”
“But what happens if you do? You have to let him know you told me where to find him. He wouldn’t take any excuse at all for that.”
“I’m not going to warn him.”
“What about those bodyguards of yours? Can you keep them quiet about tonight?”
“They work for me, not for Bronson.”
“All right.” Parker went to the hall door and opened it. “Goodbye, Fairfax.”
“Goodbye.”
Parker boarded the elevator and rode down. He walked out on to Fifth Avenue. Central Park was in front of him and the Olds was illegally parked around the corner. He plucked the green ticket from under the windshield wiper, ripped it in two, and dropped the pieces in the gutter. Then he got behind the wheel, First to Scranton to pick up Handy McKay, if Handy felt like coming, and then on to Buffalo.
PART THREE
1
ROLLING SLOW AND silent beside the park in the late-morning sunlight, the two black Cadillacs formed a convoy that moved at measured pace along the blacktop street. Dappled sunlight filtered through the park-side trees reflecting semaphoric highlights from the polished chrome. Alone in the rear seat of the second Cadillac, Arthur Bronson chewed sourly on his cigar and glowered out in distaste at the beautiful day. The late November air was crisp, clean, and cold, the late November sunlight bright and shimmering. A few scarlet leaves still clung to some of the trees along the park’s edge relieving the stark blackness of their trunks and branches.
A hell of a place to be in November! he thought, thinking of Las Vegas. He glanced ahead, saw his wife’s house and repeated the thought: A hell of a place to be in November. A hell of a place to be anytime.
It was a big stone monstrosity of a house facing the park. Twenty-one rooms, tall narrow windows, three stories, four staircases, impossible to heat. Putting in decent wiring and plumbing had cost a fortune. Buying statues to fill the niches and paintings for the walls had cost another fortune. And then rugs. And half the furniture on the Eastern Seaboard. For what? For a house he inhabited not more than three months out of the year unless something unusual came up.
But Willa had wanted it. She was a Buffalo girl, from the cracked-sidewalk section back of Civic Centre, and owning one of these stone piles by the park had been her driving ambition for as long as she could remember. And what Willa wanted, whatever she truly wanted, Arthur Bronson went out and got for her.