The kid rubbed his eyes with a trembling hand, and licked his dry lips. 'I didn't mean to do any of it,' he said. 'Hit you, or that other man, or any of it. I just wanted the money.'
'Why'd you go to my hotel room?'
'I wanted to know who you were. I forgot to look in your wallet when I knocked you out, and I was afraid to come back, because maybe you weren't still unconscious. I figured I had to know who you were, because of you searching the house and all. I didn't know, maybe you were with the FBI or something.'
'How'd you find my room?'
'I was following Captain Younger, and he was following you. Before that, before I hit you.'
'So you went in and Tiftus caught you there.'
'He came in the window. I hid, behind the dresser, but he saw me. He started to holler and run, and I was scared, and I hit him with the ashtray. I didn't know that could kill him, honest. I just wanted to knock him out, I didn't know it could kill him.'
All along Tiftus had thought Parker knew more about Joe's goods than he did. The inside track, he'd said one time; Parker had known Joe well and so had the inside track. Tiftus must have thought there might be a letter from' Joe or something like that, something to give Parker that inside track, and he'd gone looking for it.
The kid was shivering, like he'd just been doused with cold water. He said, 'You won't tell the police, will you? Will you?'
The kid was trouble. He knew everything, he'd heard everything that Joe had told Younger. And he'd be grabbed; sooner or later he'd be grabbed. He'd done one moronic thing after another, even to giving Younger the shovel and burlap bag. Sooner or later Younger or Regan, more likely Regan, would get to the kid, and the kid would do nothing but talk. He'd talk three days straight, and not repeat himself once.
Parker shook his head. Another item to cover. He said, 'There's nobody home at your place?'
'No. My mother's out-'
'All right. You got to clear out of town for a while. I'll give you some money.'
'You will?' The kid lit up with hope.
'Write a note, so your mother doesn't get the law looking for you.'
'Oh. Sure. That's easy.'
'We'll do that first.'
Parker took him to the kitchen and found pencil and paper, and the kid wrote the note. Parker read it. It would do. He said, 'Move fast. Go next door, pack a few things, not much. Then come back here.'
'Yes, sir.'
The ten minutes the kid was gone were bad. Parker paced back and forth, back and forth. Too many things could go wrong.
But the kid came back, carrying a small satchel. 'I'm packed,' he said. 'I left the note on the dining- room table.'
'Good,' Parker said, and hit him twice.
He buried him in the cellar in the hole the kid had dug himself.
TWO
PARKER went out the back way. He knew Younger had men on stake-out, to see he didn't try to clear out of town, but he didn't figure Younger's troops to be any brighter than their leader. He'd long since marked the grey Plymouth parked down the block that was used by the man watching the front of the house, and the green Dodge parked beside the road across the fields would be the guy watching the back. If there'd been a third station he'd have found it by now, so all he had to do was go between the Plymouth and the Dodge.
He went the back yard route, keeping close to the houses, and went a block and a half before coming out on to the street. Then he walked directly downtown.
He got into the hotel the same way he'd come out the first time; the fire escape around back. He remembered Tiftus' room number and knew the woman Rhonda would be in the room next door.
She opened the door right away when he knocked. 'It's you,' she said. 'It's about time.'
He stepped in and shut the door. She was wearing black stretch pants and a pink sweater and she was completely made up. He said, 'Where were you going?'
'Nowhere. You told me to come here and stay put, I come here and stay put. I was beginning to think you forgot me.'
She was being cute. She must figure he was here for sex. He said, 'We both want out of this town, right?'
She nodded, and then shrugged her shoulders. 'It ain't the sort of place I'm used to, let's put it that way.'
'We can't go until the law gets whoever did for Tiftus, right?'
'That's me, baby,' she said. 'Not you. You're in the clear, remember? Your buddy cop give you an alibi.'
'It's straight,' he said. 'I wouldn't kill Tiftus, I got no reason. Killing him just loused
