This was going to be a delicate situation, and the best thing would be to come in openly, as though there was nothing to hide.
He got out of .the car and walked up to the front door, which opened just before he got to it. A broad-shouldered heavy-browed man in corduroy pants and a flannel shin stood in the doorway glowering at him. “What you want?”
“I want to talk to–-” He couldn’t remember the cook’s name. “I want to talk to the cook.”
“You mean May?”
“That’s it.”
“Hold it a second.” But he didn’t go anywhere, just stood in the doorway staring distrustfully at Parker. “What you want to talk to her about?”
“About Stubbs,” Parker said, “and why I didn’t kill him.”
He frowned massively at that, and took a step back from the doorway, but held on to the door. “Who are you supposed to be?”
Parker said, “Let me talk to May.”
From deeper inside the building, a woman’s voice called, “Who is it, Lennie?”
Lennie turned to shout, “Hold on a goddam minute!” Then he looked at Parker again. “What’s the name?”
“Let me talk to May. She’ll recognize me.”
But then May was at the door, staring out at him. “That’s one of them!” she shouted. “That’s Anson, the last one!”
“He said something about Stubbs.”
“Don’t let him get away!” May shouted.
“Yuh.” Lennie came out across the threshold, his arms reaching out, and Parker hit him under the ribs. He made a dull sound and bent forward, and Parker said over his shoulder, “Tell him to back up.”
But May was ignoring him. She was turned away from the door, screaming, “Hey, Blue! Hey, Blue!”
Lennie was getting his wind back. In a minute, he’d try again, and maybe by then he’d have Blue to help him. Parker didn’t like the way it was starting out, but the thing to do now was to simplify the situation as much as possible, and the first way to simplify it would be to remove Lennie. So Parker chopped him in the Adam’s apple and clipped him on the temple, and then kneed his face as he was going down. And then Blue came through the door.
Blue was a yapping terrier of a man, short and wiry and ferocious, with a sandy moustache to match his sandy hair. He came in holding his arms like a man who’d taken a correspondence course in judo, so Parker stuck out his right hand for Blue to play games with. And while Blue was grabbing the arm and getting set for an over-the-shoulder toss Parker hit him with a left to the kidney and a left to the ear and a knee to the groin. Blue folded, letting go of Parker’s arm, and Parker used the right on his jaw.
Blue and Lennie were both out now and Parker looked around to see May racing down the hall deeper into the building. Knowing she was headed for a gun, Parker took off after her. He caught her just as she was going into Dr Adler’s office. He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and slapped her openhanded across the face. The slap shocked her, but it was the spin that threw her off balance. She sat down on the floor, heavily, and Parker stood over her and showed her his fists. “Do you listen, or do I beat your head in?”
“Blue!” she wailed.
“They’re out of it. Both of them.”
But May wouldn’t give up. She came off the floor trying to kick him in the groin, and he grabbed her ankle and dumped her again. Then he knelt on her chest and slapped her till she stopped waving her arms around. “Now,” he said. “You ready to listen now?”
“Get off me.”
She sounded calm, so he got off her. She sat up, slowly, as if checking for broken bones. “When Blue wakes up,” she said, “he’ll murder you.”
“If he tries, I’ll put him to sleep again.”
She looked up at him then, and finally it seemed to dawn on her that he could do exactly what he said. She rubbed her chest where he’d knelt on her. “What do you want here, anyway?”
“Tell Blue and Lennie to leave us alone while we talk.”
She thought it over, and then nodded.
He helped her to her feet, and she walked back down the hall towards the front door. Parker stood by the doctor’s office, watching her. When she got to the entrance-way, Blue and Lennie were both getting up, unsteadily. She talked to them, and they glared at him past her shoulder. After a while, they both nodded reluctantly, and then all three came back down the hall.
“You talk to all of us,” May said.
Parker shrugged. He turned his back and walked into the doctor’s office. He hitched one buttock on to the corner of the desk and looked at them, all three of them standing just inside the doorway. “You want to sit down?”
“Get to it,” May said. She was the spokesman for the trio, and the brains.
“Ail right. Stubbs braced me about three weeks ago, with an elephant gun.”
Lennie interrupted. “Where’d he get one of those?”
“The automatic,” Parker said patiently. “I took it away from him and heard his story. I had proof I was in New Jersey the Saturday the doctor was killed. Stubbs heard me out, and he was satisfied. But then he wanted to go after the other two. He said there was three he was looking for.”
The woman nodded. The other two just watched.
“I didn’t let him go. Stubbs is willing, but he’s stupid. He braced me and a friend of mine, and we took the gun away from him with no trouble. If he went up against the guy who killed your doctor, he’s dead.”
“That’s up to Stubbs,” said May.
Parker shook his head. “It’s up to me. Stubbs told me you were set to blow the whistle on three people if he didn’t get back in time. So the killer gets Stubbs, and then you people get me.”
“Don’t you worry about Stubbs,” May said. “He’s good with his fists, and he’s good with a gun.”
“But he’s bad with his mind. That’s the part that bothers me.”
“It’s probably all over now anyway,” she said. “He’s had three weeks.”
Parker shook his head. “I put him on ice for two weeks. I was going to bring him back here, let him clear me with you. But he got away Monday, just before I was done with the job I was on.”.
“Wait a second,” said May. “Back up there a second. Are you telling me you kidnapped Stubbs?”
“I put him on ice. There was a job I was on, and I couldn’t spare the time away from it, so I was keeping him till the job was over. But he got away a day early.”
“Why, you son of a bitch,” May said. “You stand there as cool as you damn please and tell me the way you treated Stubbs?”
Parker shrugged, irritated. That part was over, there was no need to harp on it. “I’ve got a new face to protect. I didn’t kill your doctor, and I’ve got no stake in finding the guy who did. There was no reason to let you and Stubbs louse up a job I was working on.”
Lennie said, softly, “Blue and I could take him, May, if we was to come at him together.”
“No,” May said. “He hasn’t got to what he wants yet.”
She was brighter than Stubbs anyway. Parker said to her, “I want to know who he’s going after now. Number two and number three. I want to catch up with him before he gets himself killed, and bring him back here so I’m in the clear.”
“Are you out of your mind?” She put her hands on her hips and leaned towards him, her face outraged. “Are you stark staring crazy? You say you proved to Stubbs you didn’t kill Dr Adler, let’s see you prove it to me.”
“I can’t, without Stubbs.”
“Why not? How’d you prove it to him?”
Parker shook his head. It was taking too long, and not getting anywhere. “I was in a diner that Saturday,” he said. “I had Stubbs check with a waitress who knew me there.”
“So I’ll call her now. Long distance.”
“She’s dead.”
May nodded, as though he’d just proved a point for her. “That’s real convenient, isn’t it?”
“I want to know where Stubbs is,” Parker said. “The reason I gave you is the truth. What other reason would make sense?”