THE SCORE
(aka Killtown)
By
Richard Stark
A book in the Parker series
Copyright Š 1964 Richard Stark
PART ONE
1
When the bellboy left, Parker went over to the house phone and made his call. He gave the operator downstairs the number he wanted, and waited while the phone clicked and ticked and snicked in his ear. He was feeling impatient, and he was about to go downstairs and put in the call from a pay phone when all the clicking finally quit and a ringing sound started instead.
Parker counted the rings, just as Paulus was doing at the other end, and while he waited and counted he looked around at the room. It was just a hotel room, the same as any. Because it was in Jersey City, it might be a little grimier than most, that’s all.
On the eighth ring, the nosy operator came on, saying, “Your party doesn’t seem to be answering, sir.”
“He moves slow,” Parker told her. “Let it ring.”
“Yes, sir.”
He tensed and relaxed his shoulder muscles, hunching and relaxing, hunching and relaxing. He’d flown up, and being in a plane always made his shoulders stiff. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Sixteen. Where the hell was he?
The ringing stopped, just before seventeen, and a voice said, “Hello?” The voice sounded wary. Paulus had always been a damn fool.
“Hello,” said Parker. “I’m here.”
“Oh. You made good time.”
There was nothing to say to that. Parker waited.
Paulus cleared his throat, and said, “Come on over.”
“Now?”
“Sure. We’re all here. You got the address?”
If he said no, Paulus would sure as hell give it to him over the phone. Wary one second, bigmouthed the next. He said, “I’ve got it.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll want to change first. I just got in.”
“Any time.”
Parker hung up, shook his head, and lit a cigarette. Paulus would die in jail; it had to happen. He was a good organizer, a good tactician, but he moved through the world like a movie spy, screaming for some cop to look at him twice.
Parker unpacked his suitcase, stripped, took a shower, put on fresh clothes, and left the hotel. Downstairs, he bought a city map at the tobacco counter and sat in one of the leatherette chairs to find his route. Cabdrivers keep a log, so he didn’t want to take a cab.
He found Fourth Street, found the block the address should be on, and traced it out from where he was. It was maybe twelve blocks at the most, so he could walk it. If it had been farther away, he would have walked a couple of blocks and then taken a cab to within a few blocks of the address. This way was even better.
He tucked the map in his inside jacket pocket, left the lobby, and started walking. He walked four blocks. Halfway down the fifth block he realized he’d made a wrong turn. He turned around and started back. A guy who’d just come around the corner looked startled, hesitated, made his face blank, and came on. They passed each other, the guy looking straight ahead. Parker had seen that face before, in the hotel lobby.
Fine. Well, it was nice to know before getting into the operation too deep. Paulus had been overdue for years, and this was the time.
Except the guy hadn’t looked like law. He was undersized. Most police departments have a height requirement, to boost their self-confidence. And he’d been dressed like a bum, in work pants and brown leather jacket, and wore on his face the gray, pinched look of the loser. He didn’t look like law at all.
Parker hesitated at the corner, not looking back. The simplest thing would be to go to the hotel, pack, check out, go to Newark Airport, call Paulus from a pay phone there to warn him, and take the next plane to Miami. If the guy had looked even a little bit like law, that’s what Parker would have done. But this way, it was a problem. Before he could know what to do, he’d have to find out what the guy was.
He turned right and started walking again. He’d heard the sound of a train whistle a while ago, one of those diesel blasts, from over in this direction.
The neighborhood went from rundown to nonexistent. Warehouse sheds of brick, boarded-up storefronts, empty lots with paths angled across them. A diner, closed for the night though it was only a little after ten.
Turning corners, Parker had a chance to glance back without being obvious about it. The guy was keeping not quite a block away, walking with his hands in his pockets, trying to look like somebody strolling along with no place in particular to go.
Ahead, a car was coming this way, slowly, the first one in five minutes. It slowed when it reached Parker, and Parker frowned at it, trying to figure. None of this made any sense. He took a quick look back. The guy was still maintaining his block distance, so he and the car had no connection.
Then Parker saw the occupants of the car and relaxed. A guy in his twenties driving, girl of the same age beside him, two little girls standing up on the back seat, looking out the rear window. The car stopped, and the driver stuck his head out the window to say, “Excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to the Holland Tunnel?”
Parker shook his head. “Sorry. I’m a stranger here myself.”
“Well, can you tell me how to get the hell out of here?” He waved his arms to include the whole neighborhood and looked a little desperate.
Parker thought of the city map in his pocket, but he’d need that later, and he didn’t want to waste a lot of time with these people. He pointed the way he’d come, saying, “I think if you go that way you’ll come to some place where there’s people.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Sure.”
The car pulled away, and Parker started walking again, first checking the guy, who had slowed down but was still less than half a block back by now. Parker walked at the same speed as before, and the guy gradually fell back to his normal distance.
There wouldn’t be a better neighborhood. One car in five minutes, and that guy here only because he was lost. A diner that’s closed by ten o’clock at night. No residences of any kind, no twenty-four-hour plants.
In the next block, there were two long warehouse sheds with a loading space between them in near-darkness. Parker passed it without looking in, went down to the corner, turned right, waited a second, and came right back around again.
This time the guy covered it better. He slowed a bit, but that was all.
Parker walked faster than before, timing it. It would work out fine. They’d pass each other right opposite the loading area.
As they passed, Parker on the outside, Parker turned on his left foot and drove a right hand across the side of the guy’s jaw. It turned him, threw him off balance, and sent him flailing forward into the loading area to wind up in the shadows there on his hands and knees.
Parker went in after him, to ask him questions and be sure he was getting the right answers. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.
But it wouldn’t work that way. There was a clicking sound, and the guy came up with a knife. He didn’t waste any time, just lunged.
Parker had no weapons on him but his hands. They were big hands, to go with the rest of him. He moved to the left to limit the guy’s knife-arc, pretended a left-hand grab for the knife, and stepped in fast, bringing the edge of his hand in under the guy’s jaw.
There wouldn’t be any more air going through that throat. The knife fell, and then the guy fell.
Parker had moved as a result of training. Counter-attack should be at least as strong as attack. If someone wants to hit you, you hit him. If someone wants to rough you up, you rough him up. If someone wants to kill you, you kill him.
But now, belatedly, he wished he’d pulled that swipe a little. He couldn’t get any answers now. The clown shouldn’t have reached for a knife.
Parker went through his pockets. Cigarettes, matches, comb, small package of Kleenex, inhaler, unopened box of contraceptives, key chain with three keys on it including one to a General Motors car, nail clipper, wallet. The wallet contained seven dollars in bills, two photos of girls, an unemployment insurance check, and a driver’s license. The check and license were both made out to Edward Owen, and the driver’s license gave Owen an address in Jersey City.