Parker 01 - The Hunter Read Online Free PDF

the Chrysler, Willy," he called into the back room. "I'm going down to the beach. Be gone twenty minutes."
    "Twenty minutes. Okay." Willy came to the door and looked at Parker. "I'm on my own time startin' six o'clock," he said.
    Parker turned his back and walked out the shack after Stegman. Stegman pointed at a black nine-passenger Chrysler limousine. "We'll take that. We can't talk in the office. No privacy. Those guys don't know nothin' about this stuff."
    They got into the limousine, and Stegman drove it out around the shack to the street. Looking out the rear window, Parker saw the cop standing in the shack doorway, frowning.
    Stegman drove up to the corner of Rockaway Parkway and turned left. "You can start talking any time," he said.
    Parker pointed at the two-way radio under the dashboard. "If you're not back in twenty minutes, Sparks calls you, is that it?"
    "And if I don't answer," Stegman answered, "he calls every other car I've got. How come you know about Sidney?"
    "I was with the girl. Lynn Parker."
    Stegman glanced at him, then back at the traffic. "You know a lot. How come I don't recognize you?"
    "I just got in town. Watch your driving, there's a lot of kids."
    "I know how to drive."
    "Maybe we better wait till we get to this beach."
    Stegman shrugged.
    They drove nine blocks down Rockaway Parkway, then through an underpass under the Belt Parkway and around a circle to a broad cobblestone pier sticking out into Jamaica Bay. There were a couple of Parks Department -- type buildings out at the far end of the pier. The rest was parking lot, with a few small skinny trees, the whole surrounded by a railed concrete walk and benches.
    Stegman stopped in the parking lot, which was almost empty. "The Bay's polluted," he said. "There's no swimming here. Kids come here at night and neck, that's all." He shifted in the seat, facing Parker, and said, "Now what's this about Sidney? He wouldn't dare run off with the dough."
    "He didn't." Parker took the envelope out of his pocket and dropped it on top of the dashboard. "I took it away from him."
    Stegman's hand reached toward the radio switch. "What the hell is this? What are you up to?"
    "Touch that switch and I'll break your arm."
    Stegman's hand stopped.
    Parker nodded. "I'm looking for Mal Resnick," he said. "You're going to tell me where he is."
    "No. Even if I knew, the answer would still be no."
    "You'll tell me. I want to tell him he doesn't have to pay her off any more."
    "Why not?"
    "She's dead. So is your fat pansy. You can be dead, too, if you want."
    Stegman licked his lips. He turned his head and nodded at the small stone buildings out at the end of the pier. "There's people there," he said. "All I got to do is holler."
    "You'd never get it out. Take a deep breath and you're dead. Open your mouth wide and you're dead."
    Stegman looked back at him. "I don't see no gun," he said. "I don't see no weapon."
    Parker held up his hands. "You see two of them," he said. "They're all I need."
    "You're out of your mind. It's broad daylight. We're in the front seat of a car. People see us scuffling -- "
    "There wouldn't be any scuffle, Stegman. I'd touch you once, and you'd be dead. Look at me. You know this isn't a bluff."
    Stegman met his eye, and Parker waited. Stegman blinked, and looked down at the radio. Parker said, "You don't have that long. He won't be calling for ten minutes. You'll be dead in five if you don't tell me where Mal is."
    "I don't know where he is. That's the truth. I believe you -- you're crazy enough to try it -- but that's still the truth. I don't know where he is."
    "You got that dough from him."
    "There's a checking account in the bank near my office. On Rockaway Parkway. There's a hundred bucks in it to keep it alive. Every month Mal deposits eleven hundred. Then I write a check and take it out. I keep the hundred for myself and send the grand to the girl. A different messenger every month, the way he wanted it."
    Parker gnawed on his