He hadn’t been law, but Parker already knew that. What he’d been, he still didn’t know. He put the wallet in his own pocket; maybe Paulus would know. Then he left and walked down to the next intersection and looked at the street signs. There was a streetlight there; under it Parker opened his city map and found out where he was and how to get where he was going.
It was six blocks before he saw anybody at all.
2
Paulus opened the door, looking wary, and then smiled a greeting when he saw it was Parker. “Come on in,” he said, holding the door wide. “We been waiting for you.” He was short, slender, balding, forty. He was wearing a thin brown suit and a thin brown tie, and he looked like a timid accountant.
Parker stepped into the apartment, took the door away from Paulus and shut it. “The deal’s queered,” he said.
They were standing in a little empty foyer with a spaceship light fixture up above and an oriental rug below. Paulus blinked rapidly and said, “What? What? What do you mean?”
“Somebody was following me.”
Paulus switched to relief again, the way he’d done when he’d seen it was Parker at the door. “Oh,” he said, throwing it away. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It doesn’t mean anything?”
“I know all about it, Parker.” Paulus patted at his arm, trying to get him moving. “Come on in, we’re all here, Edgars will explain it to you.”
Parker didn’t move. “Youexplain, Paulus,” he said.
Paulus looked troubled, unhappy. “I think it would be better if Edgars told you the situ”
“I think it would be better if youdid,” Parker told him. “He’s dead.”
Paulus now was just blank. “What? Who?”
“Edward Owen. The guy who was tailing me.”
“You killedhim? For Christ’s sake, why?” Paulus’s tone was intense, but his volume had dropped, as though he didn’t want any chance of somebody else in the apartment hearing him.
Parker answered him at normal volume. “He was tailing me. I stopped him to find out why, and he pulled a knife.”
Paulus shook his head. “I don’t know, Parker,” he said. “That’s a hell of a thing. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Tell me how come you knew I was going to be tailed. Tell me why I was being tailed. And tell me whose idea it was to tail me.”
“It was Edgars’s,” Paulus said, still very soft-voiced. “Owen was his man.”
Parker glanced at the entranceway that led deeper into the apartment. “Who the hell is Edgars anyway? I don’t remember the name.”
“You don’t know him, he’s never worked an operation like this before.”
“Then what’s he doing here?”
“He set this one up.”
“Oh, Christ.” Parker shook his head. “The deal’s no good,” he said. “I can see that already. See you around, Paulus.” He reached for the doorknob.
“Wait a second, wait a second.” Paulus was getting agitated, but his voice wasn’t rising. “Let me explain, will you?”
“You don’t have to. This moron Edgars is an amateur, but he’s the one setting this job up. He doesn’t know me, so he doesn’t trust me, so he puts a tail on me to see if I come straight here or do I go see somebody else first because maybe I’m planning a cross.”
“You can’t blame him, Parker, he”
“I don’t blame him. I don’t work with him, either.”
A heavy type in a brown suit with a beer can in his hand came through the entranceway, scowling. “What’s the holdup here?” He looked at Paulus, and then at Parker. He had heavy black brows, and they were down in a V now to show he was irritated.
Paulus was now really fidgeting. “Edgars,” he said, “this is Parker. There’s been a something’s come up there was a misunderstanding.”
“What kind of a misunderstanding?” He was trying to act dangerous, but instead he was acting like a ward politician.
Parker waited to see how Paulus would handle it, but Paulus couldn’t handle it at all. All he could do was fidget and look around and clear his throat. So Parker said, “You put a man to tail me.”
Edgars shrugged. “So what? I want to know who I do business with, that’s all.”
“He pulled a knife when I called him.”
Edgars scowled. “He did? That was stupid; I don’t condone that. I’ll have a talk with him.”
“Not right away you won’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Tell him, Paulus.”
Edgars turned his head and scowled at Paulus, waiting. Paulus fidgeted and cleared his throat, and finally he said, “He’s dead, that’s what he means.”
“Dead! You killed him?”
Parker shrugged, and it was Paulus who answered: “He didn’t have any choice, Edgars. Your man pulled a knife on him. He didn’t know the situation.”
“I don’t like that,” said Edgars. “I don’t like that at all.”
Parker took the dead man’s wallet out and held it out to Edgars. “I took this off him.”
Edgars took the wallet and frowned at it. “I don’t understand this,” he said.
Parker nodded. “I know. See you, Paulus.” He reached for the doorknobs again.
Edgars said, “Hold on there. Where the hell are you going?”
“I’m out,” Parker told him. He pulled the door open.
“Wait.” Edgars waved his hands a little. “Will you wait a goddam minute?”
“For what?”
Edgars grimaced, looked again at the wallet he was holding and then at Paulus. Paulus just looked uncomfortable. Edgars said, “Paulus, tell the others we’ll be in in a minute.”
“Sure thing.” Paulus went, happy to be off the hook.
Parker was still standing in the doorway, half in and half out. Edgars said to him, “Wait one minute while we talk, all right?”
Parker shrugged. He’d come this far, he could stick around a little longer. He came back in and shut the door.
Edgars looked around the empty foyer and said, “I wish there was some place we could sit down.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“All right, I guess not.” Edgars looked at the wallet again with distaste and stuck it into a side pocket of his suitcoat. Then he gnawed his lower lip and glanced at the entranceway leading into the apartment. Looking off that way, he said, “Maybe Paulus told you, this is the first time I’ve been involved in something like this.”
“He told me. He didn’t have to, but he did.”
Edgars managed a sour grin and looked out at Parker from under his eyebrows. “Sticks out all over, huh?”
“Yes.”
“You and Paulus and the others,” Edgars said, “You all know each other, know what to expect from each other. I don’t know any of you at all. When I’m around you, my back itches.”
Parker nodded. “Sure.”
“You boys aren’t exactly saints.”
“So why get involved?”
“A quarter of a million dollars, for one thing. And personal reasons.”
“Paulus is in with you,” Parker told him. “And the others. You don’t need me.”
“They tell me you’re the best. They tell me you can keep an operation together better than anybody, and you can get the best men to work with you.”
“So why should I work with you?”
Edgars nodded. “That’s a fair question,” he said. He reached inside his coat and took out a cigar in an aluminium tube. While he opened it, he said, “I’ve made mistakes already, I can see that. Putting Owen on you. Maybe getting Paulus. I don’t know what else.” He motioned with his head, saying, “There’s three men in there knew I was putting Owen on you, knew I’d put Owen on each of them when they showed up. They didn’t act happy about it, but they didn’t stop me. I need somebody to stop me making mistakes.”