This part of Brooklyn was a tight gridwork of two-storey row houses with Kings Highway gouging a broad black top diagonal down through it. The highway was flanked with diners, bars, small warehouses, and used-car lots. At the corner where The Three Kings stood, two right-angled grid streets intersected, with Kings Highway cutting through the intersection at a forty-five degree angle, leaving a big open space of blacktop in the centre which was fed from six directions and capped by a swaying traffic light. The street lights were all too far away to light the middle, which was open, bare, and black.
Eleven o’clock. Tuesday night. Darkness surrounded the intersection everywhere except for the pool of light in front of The Three Kings. Up and down Kings Highway were far glimpses of other neon oases, but the grid tree-lined streets were all shut up and dark.
Parker left the Olds in a slot with plenty of room in front, so he could take off without backing and filling, and walked to the intersection. November was ending, and Brooklyn was cold with the wet bronchial cold of the harbour. Parker’s breath misted around him as he walked. He was wearing a topcoat, but no hat, and he walked with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. In one of his suit pockets was the gun he’d picked up the day before in Wilmington, a short-barrelled S & W .38 Special.
He was now ten days from Florida. Forty-seven letters had been written; twelve men had been talked to personally. Four of the twelve had said they’d been looking for an excuse like this to hit the syndicate for years. Five more had said they’d think it over, and three had copped out for one reason or another. Say a third would move out of the fifty-nine twenty jobs! Within a month, or less, the Outfit would be hit twenty times, maybe more, all over the country.
Starting tonight.
Light washed down on Parker as he pushed open the door and went into the club. Inside, amber light feebly silhouetted the furnishings and customers. Two bartenders were blobs of white behind the dark wooden bar, but tonight one of them was unnecessary. Four women and three men were spaced along the bar, and the booths on the other side of the room were all empty. In back, twenty tables or so were arranged in a semicircle around a small platform, and on the platform Ronnie Randall, twenty years older than his picture and very tired, noodled at the piano. Three of the tables back were occupied, served by a sour waitress in black dress and white apron.
Two of the women at the bar turned to look at Parker, but he ignored them and walked farther down where a batch of stools were empty. He didn’t sit down, but stood leaning against the bar. One of the bartenders came down and asked him what he’d have.
“Menner of Miami Beach sent me up to see Jim,” he said.
“Who?”
“Jim St Clair.”
“No, no, the other one.”
“Menner.”
The bartender shook his head. He was a burly man gone to fat. He said, “I don’t know that name.”
Parker shrugged.
The bartender studied him a minute and then said, “I’ll see. What’ll you have?”
“Budweiser.”
“Check.” He turned and called to the other barkeep, “Bud, here. I’ll be right back.”
He walked away, with the busy walk of a bartender bent forward slightly and working his arms as though he were shoving a beer keg along in front of him. His apron hung almost to his ankles, and it whipped around his feet as he walked. He went down to the end of the bar, raised the flap, went through, and turned right through a door next to the door marked “Pointers”. Farther back, there was a door marked “Setters”. Both doors had metal dog silhouettes nailed on them.
The other bartender strolled down with the bottle and glass, took Parker’s dollar, and brought back a fifty-cent piece. Parker put the coin in his pocket and drank some beer.
The first bartender came back after a while, leaned on the bar in front of Parker, and said, “Okay. Right through there where I went.”
“Good.”
Parker walked back, pushed open the door, and found himself in a short bright hallway with plaster cream-coloured walls. At the end, where the hall made an Lto the left, there was a door facing him marked “Office”. He walked over to it, looked to the left, and saw a gleaming kitchen with an undershirted Negro sweating at the clipper. Parker pushed open the office door and went in.
It was a small, cramped room with grey walls. A deck was shoved against one wall, a filing cabinet against another, and there was a water cooler in the corner, leaving a small circle of black linoleum floor space free in the middle of the room. A short, fat, red-faced man looked up from the desk on which there was open ledgers, and asked, “Well? Hah?” He waved his hands, both covered with ink.
“Menner sent me to see you,” Parker told him. He started to close the door, but the bartender had come along behind him and was standing there.
The red-faced man was saying, “Menner? Hah? Menner? Menner’s dead?”
Parker nodded. “I know. But Cresetti said you didn’t know him, so I should use Menner’s name.”
“Cresetti? Hah? Who?”
“He took over from Menner.”
“And he sent you up here? Why? What the hell do I have to do with this Cresetti? What’s this Cresetti to me?”
“You sent Menner that guy Stern,” Parker reminded him. The bartender was just standing there behind him, leaning against the doorframe.
“Sure, Stern,” said the red-faced man. “Sure, I sent him. He screwed up, huh? That bastard Parker killed him how do you like that?”
Parker shrugged. “He killed Menner, too.” He wasn’t paying attention, he was trying to decide what to do about the bartender.
“Sure, he killed Menner. They tell me maybe he’ll come here.” The red-faced man squinted at him. “You think so? Nah, I don’t think so. What’s he got against me? Menner fingered him, yeah, and Stern tried to knock him off, yeah, but what did I do to the bastard? Nothing. I’m told send a gun to this Menner in Florida. I do it. I don’t know what this gun is supposed to do, I don’t have nothing to do with nothing. So I figure this bastard won’t bother with me. He’ll ignore me, right?”
“Maybe,” said Parker.
“Maybe you’re him,” said the red-faced man. “Hah! That’s a hot one, huh? Maybe you’re him! Maybe I oughta have Johnny frisk you.”
“I’ve got a gun on me.”
The man grinned and ducked his head, multiplying his chins. He was full of fun. “Heeled? Hah?”
“Stern’s gun,” Parker told him. “I’m bringing it back. A .25 with a silencer. Johnny can reach in my right-hand pocket and he’ll find it there.” Parker waited for Johnny to come up behind him, close enough.
But the red-faced man waved his hands. “Nah, why? We enemies? We animals in a jungle? Just take off the coat, that’s all. It’s hot in here, who needs a coat? Gimme I’ll hang it up.”
Parker shrugged. He took off his coat, handed it towards St Clair, and dropped it on the floor just before St Clair got it. Grunting, St Clair automatically stooped for it, and Parker kicked him in the face. His hand went inside his suit jacket as he turned, and when it came out it had the stubby .38 in it. Johnny was one step into the room, but he stopped when he saw the gun.
“Back to the door, Johnny,” Parker told him. “Lean against the wall like before. Fold your arms. That’s a good boy, Johnny.”
Johnny stood there the way he was told. His face was expressionless. St Clair was lying on the floor. Parker tugged on a drawer of the filing cabinet and found it locked. He’d been a little worried when he’d seen no safe in the room, but now he felt better. St Clair kept his cash in a locked filing-cabinet. He felt real sure of himself, St Clair.