any way. They knew, vaguely, that Landau’s was different from the other bars in the neighborhood, that it led some sort of double life. Suits and ties congregated in the back room every once in a while, and it was best to leave them alone.
Stegman was already there, and nervous. He got up from the small room’s one table when Mal came in, and said, “Jesus, am I glad to see you! This place is a hole.”
Mal shut the door. “What did he look like?”
“What? Big. A mean-looking bastard, Mal. He braced me without a gun or a knife or anything. He said if he had to he’d kill me with his hands, and I swear to Christ I believed him.”
“It’s Parker,” said Mal to himself.
“He had big hands, Mal.” Stegman held up his own hands, claw-curved. “The veins stuck out all over them.”
“The son of a bitch,” said Mal.
“I tell you, I wouldn’t want him after me.”
“Shut up!” Mal glared, his hands closing into fists. “What am I, a nobody? I got friends.”
“Sure you have, Mal.”
“Am I supposed to be afraid of the son of a bitch? He couldn’t get near me.”
Stegman licked his lips. “I thought you’d want to know about it, Mal.”
“All I have to do is point,” said Mal. “I pick up the phone and I say his name, and he’s a dead man. And this time he stays dead.”
“Sure. I thought you’d want to know so you could take care of it.”
Mal crossed suddenly to the table, scraping the chair out and plumping down into it. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me what he said. What did he say about me?”
Stegman sat across the table, his hands palm down on the table top. They trembled slightly anyway. “He said you could stop paying off the girl, she was dead. She was in the morgue. He said he was looking for you. That’s all.”
“Not who he was? Not why?”
“Nothing. Just what I said.”
“And he told you if you saw me you should let him know.”
Stegman shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He just let it go.”
The bartender pushed open the door, stuck his head in. “You gents want anything?”
“A beer,” said Stegman.
“Nothing,” said Mal. “Peace and quiet.”
The bartender waited, looking at Stegman. “Beer or no beer?”
Stegman shrugged, awkwardly. “No beer,” he said. “Later maybe.”
“We’ll let you know,” said Mal.
The bartender went away, and Stegman said, “That’s all there was, Mal. I told you everything.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. What could 1 tell him? 1 didn’t know where you were, what could I tell him?”
“What about the money?”
Stegman nodded quickly. “Yeah, I told him about that. About the checking account. He wanted to know about that, how I got the money.”
Mal gnawed on his lower lip, looking across the room. “Could he trace me through that? The statements go to you. The bank wouldn’t tell him nothing.”
“That’s what I figured,” said Stegman eagerly. “It wouldn’t hurt to tell him the truth. What could he do?”
“I don’t know. He used to be dead, and now he isn’t. I don’t know what he could do. What else did you tell him?”
“Nothing, Mal.” Stegman spread his hands. “What could 1 tell him? I didn’t know anything else.”
“Then why didn’t he kill you?”
Stegman blinked. “He must of believed me.”
“You gave him something else. To save your own stinking skin, you gave him something else. A name, maybe — somebody who knows where to find me.”
“I swear to Christ, Mal — “
“Haskell’s name, maybe. Didn’t you?”
“On my mother, Mal — “
“Up your mother. Did you or didn’t you?” Mal waved a hand, keeping Stegman from answering. “Wait a minute. Don’t cover yourself for nothing. I’m not down on you, I know the way that bastard comes on. If you told him about Haskell, I want Haskell to be ready for him, that’s all — you got nothing to worry about.”
