The Man With the Getaway Face by Richard Stark Read Free Book Online Page B

stood in the middle of the brown rug. He looked at Stubbs for a while, and then he made a disgusted sound. "All right. Now what?"
    "I don't know what you mean," Stubbs said. His face was still screwed up, and his hand was still up protecting his ear. "I'm willing to go."
    "That's it," Parker said. "Go where?"
    "I got two more suspects."
    Parker nodded. "That's what I thought." He went over to the sofa and sat down and lit a cigarette. "All right, tell me 'about it."
    "The Doc only did three jobs in the last year," Stubbs said. "We figured it has to be one of them three, or the guy wouldn't have waited so long, If was a guy from two years ago, see, and he was going to go for the Doc, he'd of done it already."
    "You and May," said Parker. "You worked that out?"
    "May, mostly," Stubbs answered. "I figured, I got to get the guy. There's nobody else to do it, because the Doc was a Red."
    Parker glanced at Handy, and shook his head. Handy shrugged. From listening, he was beginning to understand.
    "And if May doesn't hear from you, she blows the whistle, is that it?"
    "Yeah."
    "On who?"
    "The last three. She wouldn't be able to know which one it was, which one got me. So she'd blow the whistle on the last three."
    "Including me," said Parker.
    "But you didn't do it," said Stubbs, frowning. He'd missed something somewhere. "You're out of it, you didn't do it."
    "What if number two did it?" Parker asked. "And instead of you getting him, he gets you. Then May blows the whistle on me. Right?"
    Stubbs hadn't thought of that. He frowned heavily, scrubbing his hand over his face. Then he brightened a little. "Don't you worry. He won't get me. I'll get him."
    Handy laughed. He tossed Stubbs's gun in the air and caught it. "The way you got Parker?"
    Stubbs looked at him, not understanding, and Parker explained. "He knew me by the name of Anson," he said to Handy.
    "Oh."
    Parker said, "Listen, Stubbs. What if you phone May and tell her I'm in the clear?"
    Stubbs shook his head. "We talked about that. How it could be faked, maybe. She's got to see me in person."
    "God damn it," Parker said, "I don't have time for this crap."
    Handy shrugged. "You'll have to go back to Nebraska with him."
    "I don't have time," said Parker angrily. "The job's set up for two weeks from now. We've got to set up the cars, the routes, we've got to chart the state troopers, we've got to buy guns--" He mashed his cigarette out and got to his feet.
    "There's too much to do. Stubbs, when's the deadline?"
    Stubbs blinked at him. "What?"
    "The deadline, the deadline. When does May blow the whistle if she doesn't hear from you?"
    "Oh. A month from now. From yesterday. Four weeks from yesterday."
    Parker paced back and forth, looking down at the carpet. "Two days," he said. "Even if we fly out. One day out and one day back. Two days for Alma to fast-talk Skimm, two days with nothing getting done."
    "We could hold the job off for a week."
    Parker shook his head. "It's sour enough already. I want to get it over with. Another week for Alma to think up some more cute ideas? Another week for that damn cop to see me driving by?"
    "What cop?"
    Parker shrugged. He didn't feel like talking about it. "A cop paid attention to me on route 9."
    "Near the diner?"
    "South of it." He turned and studied Stubbs. "The easiest thing," he said, "would be to bump you and drop you in a pool by one of the refineries. Then two weeks from now I go cut May."
    Stubbs doggedly shook his head. "She's got her common-law husband with her," he said. "And his brother. They figure something might happen like that."
    "What if you just let him go?"
    "Look at him," Parker said. "He's punchy. He goes up against the guy who killed that doctor, he's dead. Then I'm dead."
    "I can take care of myself," Stubbs said.
    'Sure," Parker answered.
    'So what do you want to do?" Handy asked.
    'There's too much to watch. I'm ready to pull out of this damn thing, there's too much to watch."
    "I could use the cash," Handy said.