He walked back to 27 and hitched a ride to Homestead. From there he took a cab back to the hotel.
Chapter 3
THE CAR rental agency was as good as its advertising. Parker got off the plane in Lincoln at three-thirty on Saturday morning and the Chevrolet was there waiting for him. He signed the papers, showed the driver’s licence he’d bought in New Jersey, and drove off.
He was in a hurry, but it was too late at night. He was in a hurry because it was now nearly a week since Stubbs had escaped from the farmhouse, but it was too late at night because he was tired and he wasn’t sure what sort of reception he’d get at the sanitarium. Stubbs had said something about the cook having her common-law husband with her. So Parker drove the rented Chevvy into town where he got a hotel room and slept till ten o’clock. He had a hurried breakfast and then drove out to the sanitarium.
It had only been three weeks since the death of Dr Alder, but already the place looked as though it had been abandoned for years. Parker drove up past the neglected lawns to the front door and stopped the Chevvy where the sign marked “Visitors’ Parking”.
This was going to be a delicate situation, and the best thing would be to come in openly, as though there was nothing to hide.
He got out of .the car and walked up to the front door, which opened just before he got to it. A broad- shouldered heavy-browed man in corduroy pants and a flannel shin stood in the doorway glowering at him. “What you want?”
“I want to talk to–-” He couldn’t remember the cook’s name. “I want to talk to the cook.”
“You mean May?”
“That’s it.”
“Hold it a second.” But he didn’t go anywhere, just stood in the doorway staring distrustfully at Parker. “What you want to talk to her about?”
“About Stubbs,” Parker said, “and why I didn’t kill him.”
He frowned massively at that, and took a step back from the doorway, but held on to the door. “Who are you supposed to be?”
Parker said, “Let me talk to May.”
From deeper inside the building, a woman’s voice called, “Who is it, Lennie?”
Lennie turned to shout, “Hold on a goddam minute!” Then he looked at Parker again. “What’s the name?”
“Let me talk to May. She’ll recognize me.”
But then May was at the door, staring out at him. “That’s one of them!” she shouted. “That’s Anson, the last one!”
“He said something about Stubbs.”
“Don’t let him get away!” May shouted.
“Yuh.” Lennie came out across the threshold, his arms reaching out, and Parker hit him under the ribs. He made a dull sound and bent forward, and Parker said over his shoulder, “Tell him to back up.”
But May was ignoring him. She was turned away from the door, screaming, “Hey, Blue! Hey, Blue!”
Lennie was getting his wind back. In a minute, he’d try again, and maybe by then he’d have Blue to help him. Parker didn’t like the way it was starting out, but the thing to do now was to simplify the situation as much as possible, and the first way to simplify it would be to remove Lennie. So Parker chopped him in the Adam’s apple and clipped him on the temple, and then kneed his face as he was going down. And then Blue came through the door.
Blue was a yapping terrier of a man, short and wiry and ferocious, with a sandy moustache to match his sandy hair. He came in holding his arms like a man who’d taken a correspondence course in judo, so Parker stuck out his right hand for Blue to play games with. And while Blue was grabbing the arm and getting set for an over-the- shoulder toss Parker hit him with a left to the kidney and a left to the ear and a knee to the groin. Blue folded, letting go of Parker’s arm, and Parker used the right on his jaw.
Blue and Lennie were both out now and Parker looked around to see May racing down the hall deeper into the building. Knowing she was headed for a gun, Parker took off after her. He caught her just as she was going into Dr Adler’s office. He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and slapped her openhanded across the face. The slap shocked her, but it was the spin that threw her off balance. She sat down on the floor, heavily, and Parker stood over her and showed her his fists. “Do you listen, or do I beat your head in?”
“Blue!” she wailed.
“They’re out of it. Both of them.”
But May wouldn’t give up. She came off the floor trying to kick him in the groin, and he grabbed her ankle and dumped her again. Then he knelt on her chest and slapped her till she stopped waving her arms around. “Now,” he said. “You ready to listen now?”
“Get off me.”
She sounded calm, so he got off her. She sat up, slowly, as if checking for broken bones. “When Blue wakes up,” she said, “he’ll murder you.”
“If he tries, I’ll put him to sleep again.”
She looked up at him then, and finally it seemed to dawn on her that he could do exactly what he said. She rubbed her chest where he’d knelt on her. “What do you want here, anyway?”
“Tell Blue and Lennie to leave us alone while we talk.”
She thought it over, and then nodded.
